by Sam Sisavath
Lara nodded. “I guess you’re right. It’s good to be reminded of that every now and then. Thanks.”
“Glad to do it.”
“Anyway,” Lara said, brightening up. “How much would it cost to book you for a fashion shoot?”
Bonnie laughed. “Since I know you, I’ll cut you in for a discount. Give me your cell and I’ll get my people to call your people and we’ll work something out.”
They talked for a bit longer, before Bonnie finally had to take the drinks out before the ice melted.
Lara walked through Hallway A by herself. Her joints ached and she had difficultly trying to keep her mind focused on one thing. By the time she reached her room, her body was already half asleep.
Seconds after lying down on the bed and closing her eyes, she didn’t even remember if she had closed the door behind her. She realized she didn’t really care either, and went to sleep, her last jumbled thoughts of Will.
CHAPTER 18
GABY
The warm morning sunlight on her face was somehow more soothing out here, beyond the safety of the island. She guessed it had something to do with the precarious nature of their situation. Out here, beyond the white beaches of Song Island or the purview of the Tower’s watchful eye, there were no guarantees.
Benny hobbled out of the Valero behind her. His face remained scratched up and bruised, but he had lost the pale, hollowed look of yesterday. She hoped she was equally improved, but had been too scared to actually glance at anything too shiny for fear of seeing the truth.
“Hey there, gimpy,” she said.
“Funny,” Benny smirked back. “Let’s see you break a leg and not gimp around.” He sat down and leaned back against the store, then opened a gym bag and took out a long Slim Jim stick. “Breakfast?”
“Whatcha got?”
Benny tossed her a bag of Jack Link’s turkey-flavored jerky. “Where’s Will?” he asked. “He wasn’t in the lounge when I woke up.”
“He’ll be back soon.”
Benny opened a bottle of water and poured it over his head, then dabbed his face with a rag from the store’s racks, wincing with every contact.
“Did they find us last night?” he asked.
“Will said they searched the gas station, but didn’t try to break down the door. I wouldn’t know. He didn’t wake me up last night.”
“He probably thought you needed the sleep.”
“We all needed the sleep. He was just being Will.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
She shrugged, but didn’t feel like explaining. Instead, she walked over and sat down next to him and dug out a bottle of water from her pack, then wet a towel with it to clean her face. Unlike Benny, she was more careful and managed to clean up most of her face without too much pain. She fought the urge to look at herself in the glass window behind her.
“What now?” Benny asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Will didn’t say?”
“No.”
Benny looked toward the highway. Gaby knew he was trying to locate the remains of the helicopter. She had done the same thing when she first emerged from the store earlier.
“I’m the only one left,” Benny said quietly. “Out of forty people. Mike, Tom, Amy… I’m the only one left. Crazy how it worked out. I wasn’t even supposed to be alive, you know.” He shook his head and looked as if he were on the verge of laughing. Or crying. “When it happened… I didn’t know what to do. I was lucky Mike and the others were there. They took me in and taught me how to fend for myself. And now… God, I’m the only one left, Gaby.”
“You’ll like the island,” she said. “White beaches. Nice breeze. More fish than you can eat.”
“And you.”
“We’ll see.”
“But you’re not against it?”
“We’ll see,” she said again.
*
Will came back a few minutes later. He wasn’t hobbling quite as much, even though she knew the strongest painkiller he took last night was some tramadol. Benny, who took the same pills this morning, wanted something stronger, but they couldn’t afford for him to fall asleep in the daytime. That, and neither she nor Will felt like carrying him more than they already had.
They headed west on foot along the I-10 feeder road, back in the direction of Mercy Hospital and, beyond that, Song Island. There was no point in chasing Kellerson or his collaborators. Not on foot, anyway. Even if they could find a ride, the Humvees were long gone, and it would be difficult—if not downright impossible—to locate them once they left the city, and there were no longer cars pushed to the sides of the road to track by. Kellerson had also proven that he wasn’t a total idiot. Leaving the man with the rocket launcher behind to ambush them was proof of that.
As much as she hated to abandon the chase—and the kids—Gaby didn’t have to look any farther than Will and Benny to know that they were in no position to keep going. Even so, the decision to head back made her feel empty and dirty, as if she were betraying not just those kids but herself as well.
“What about all the cars?” Benny asked after a while. “Shouldn’t we be looking for a car that’ll run?”
There were a lot of cars along the streets. Sedans, trucks, semitrailers, and a dozen others. Most of them still had keys stuck in the ignitions.
“Waste of time,” Will said. “Batteries don’t work after eleven months. Gas is another issue. Better to just look for something else, like a bicycle.”
“A bicycle?” Benny sighed. “I’m not sure I could even pedal on this leg.”
“Better than walking on that leg.”
“At this rate, it’ll take us most of the day to reach Mercy Hospital. Then what? Are we staying at the hospital? I’m not sure I want to go back there after what happened.”
“Less talk, more walk.”
“I’m just saying…”
“Say less, walk more.”
Benny sighed again.
Gaby gave him a disappointed look. She accepted that he was injured, but so was Will. She had seen Will pull a chunk of glass out of his right leg, for God’s sake, but he wasn’t being nearly as dramatic about it as Benny. She felt growing irritation and did her best to temper it. Telling herself that Benny was new to all of this helped a little bit, but it was difficult to reconcile this whiny Benny with the same one who had saved her yesterday on the rooftop.
They hadn’t gone more than five minutes when Will stopped in the middle of the road and snapped, “Cover!”
Gaby unslung her M4 and rushed behind a red Camaro, sliding up against the driver’s side door. She looked back and was horrified to see Benny standing out in the open, frozen in place.
“Benny!” she hissed.
He snapped out of it and hobbled over to her. “What’s going on?”
“Get down!”
She glanced over at Will, crouched behind a white pickup truck. He was peering over the hood at something up the road. She followed his gaze and saw a figure standing on the rooftop of an auto body shop. The figure had binoculars and was looking in their direction. It was a man, but he was too far for her to make out any details. Something that looked like a rifle was slung over his back.
She looked back at Will, who seemed to be considering his options. Then, finally, he made a decision and slung his rifle and looked back at her.
She surprised herself by knowing exactly what he was going to do, and nodded back at him.
“What’s going on?” Benny asked.
“I’m going to cover Will,” she said. “Stay down and don’t do anything, okay?”
“What’s he going to do?”
“Just stay down, Benny,” she said, putting just enough annoyance in her voice to get through to him.
Will stood up and walked out from behind the pickup truck. The figure on the rooftop watched him curiously, perhaps trying to guess Will’s intentions. The man hadn’t reached for his rifle yet, which she took to be a good sign.
>
Gaby kept her M4 at the ready anyway. She guessed her target was maybe 100 yards, give or take. Will and Danny could probably hit someone from that distance, but her best shot had come at just under eighty. She was at least somewhat comforted in the knowledge that if she couldn’t hit the guy, maybe he couldn’t hit her or Will, either. Of course, all that went out the window if the guy was a really good shot.
“Don’t shoot!” Will shouted.
His voice echoed up and down the feeder road. Birds perched on top of the highway’s concrete barriers burst into flight.
She watched the figure on the rooftop carefully, waiting for signs—any signs at all—of aggression. But the man hadn’t moved from his spot and hadn’t gone for his rifle. Maybe the guy understood what Will was doing. Or maybe he was a decoy, and there were other men hiding up the street, waiting for Will to get closer so they could take a shot—
She gripped her rifle tighter, her legs a bundle of energy, ready to spring up from behind the Camaro and start shooting.
Be ready. Be ready…
“I have two more people behind me!” Will shouted, stopping twenty yards up the street.
Why had he stopped? Had he spotted something?
She waited for him to look back at her, to give her some kind of signal. But he remained fixed on the man on the auto body rooftop.
“What—” Benny started to say beside her.
“Shhh!” she snapped before he could get another word out.
They waited for what seemed like hours, though it was probably only a few seconds, before the guy finally shouted back, “What do you want?”
“Just passing through!” Will shouted. “We’re trying to get home!”
“Where’s home?”
“South!”
“There’s not much down south!”
“There is if you know where to look! We’re just passing through! You don’t try to shoot us, and we won’t shoot you. Deal?”
The guy hesitated for a moment, then shouted back, “Deal!”
Will looked back at Gaby and nodded.
She relaxed her grip on the rifle and stood up. Benny struggled back up to his feet next to her, groaning like an old woman who had sat down for too long.
*
His name was Nate and he had short blond hair, though it was hard to tell the color since he had almost completely shaved it off, leaving behind just a small, ridiculous looking Mohawk in the center. He was armed with a gun belt and a bolt-action hunting rifle.
“We heard the helicopter coming from a distance,” Nate said. “You guys flew right over us. Then there was a loud boom, but by the time we came outside, we could only see fire and smoke. We thought about coming to help, but you know how it is. We didn’t want to get in the middle of whatever was going on between you and the other guys. We only checked it out this morning, when it was safer.”
“You went to the wreck?” Will asked.
“For supplies, yeah. We picked up some things, lots of pill bottles. Since it’s yours, we’ll give it back.”
“We have everything we need. You can keep them.”
Nate nodded gratefully. “You were in the Army?”
“Yeah. You?”
“I was in ROTC at Lafayette University.”
“Good. That means you haven’t been tainted by Officer Candidate School yet.”
Nate grinned. “That’s one way to put it.”
He finally looked over at her. Like Benny, she had kept quiet as Nate and Will talked. Now, facing his pale blue eyes, she was suddenly very self-conscious about her appearance. The gash in her forehead, not to mention the cuts and bruises along every inch of her face and neck. She wanted to shrink away and hide, but willed herself to stand perfectly still and stare back at him instead.
“I’m Nate,” he said, extending a hand to her.
“I heard,” Gaby said, shaking his hand. “This is Benny.”
“Hey,” Benny said, offering up a half-wave.
“Hey,” Nate said, before looking back at her. “That’s a pretty wicked gash.”
“I ran into a door,” she said.
“Must have been a pretty big ass door.”
“It was oak.”
“Ouch.” Nate looked back at Will. “So what’s down south?”
“You know where Song Island is?” Will asked.
“Never heard of it. What’s so special about Song Island?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“What kind of transportation you have, and whether you’re useful to me or not.”
Nate didn’t look fazed. “The answer to those two questions depends on two things. One, what’s so special about this Song Island, and two, what are the chances you’ll take us with you?”
*
“Us” was Nate and five others. They were staying in the basement of a house half a block from the feeder road where they had met Nate. The house was just one of many in a neighborhood with fallen-down picket fences, overgrown lawns, weed-covered gardens, and dirt-strewn streets. Curtains covering broken windows blew in the breeze around them, with a museum of cars frozen along curbs and driveways.
All five of Nate’s people had come outside to meet them. Nate had called ahead on a radio, proving to be more tactically sound than Mike, who had been a former Army officer. Nate reminded her of Will; they were about the same height and build. Except for the silly Mohawk on top of Nate’s head, the two of them could almost pass for brothers.
They gathered in the driveway while Nate introduced everyone.
Kendra was a black woman in her thirties. She had a son, Dwayne, who looked all of twelve, though the kid was already as tall as his mom. Gaby guessed he was going to sprout like a beanstalk by the time he hit puberty in a few years. Like Nate, Dwayne was carrying a hunting rifle that looked almost as big as him. His mother looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept in a while.
The other two were a Hispanic couple, Stan and Liza. Stan looked at least twenty years older than Liza, who was about Lara’s age. Liza could only speak Spanish, so Stan translated everything for her.
The fifth member of Nate’s group was a teenage girl named Mary, who had possibly the largest eyes Gaby had ever seen on someone who wasn’t a cartoon character. Mary stood silently next to Nate, clinging to his arm with both hands.
“What’s your transportation look like?” Will asked.
“It’s not much to look at, but she’ll run,” Nate said.
He led them to a beat-up black Dodge Caravan parked nearby. He was right; it didn’t look like much at all. It was long, with four doors—two front doors and two rear ones that slid backward. The backseats could be folded down to accommodate more people.
“Gas?” Will asked.
“Stan topped her off three days ago when we settled down here,” Nate said.
“She’s not exactly a speed demon, but she’s comfortable,” Stan said. “Well, for six people, anyway. I don’t know about all of us. Might be a bit of a tight squeeze.”
“Are we leaving?” Mary asked anxiously.
“Maybe,” Nate said. “It depends on what they have to say. Apparently they have an island.”
“An island?” Dwayne said. “Seriously?”
They stayed outside in the sun as Will told them about Song Island.
“It sounds wonderful,” Mary said enthusiastically. “We’re going there, aren’t we, Nate?”
“I don’t know,” Nate said. “That depends on what Will decides.”
“There’s plenty of room on the island,” Will said. “All we need is a second vehicle.”
“It’ll be tight, but we could probably fit everyone into the minivan.”
“I don’t like having that many people in one vehicle. We need a second one, just in case. Battery’s still good?”
“Definitely. I turn on the engine at least once a day even if we’re not going anywhere, just to keep it running.”
“Spare gas?”
“Two extra cans
for emergencies.”
“Smart.”
“We weren’t always this smart, but we learned as we went.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a ham radio on you, would you?”
“No. You need one?”
“I need to contact Song Island. Let them know we’re coming back.”
“I know where you can get one. There’s a pawnshop about two blocks up the street. I saw a shelf full of them on the counter when I was window-scouting earlier yesterday.”
Will looked over at her. “Gaby, find a vehicle that we can use. A truck, preferably, while Nate takes me to go get the radio.”
“I should go instead,” she said. Then added quickly, “You could use the rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. Your leg’s killing you, and you barely slept last night because you didn’t wake me up like you promised. Besides, it’s a radio, Will. I can go get a damn radio.”
He sighed. “All right. Be careful.”
*
“Silver?” Nate said.
“Yeah, silver,” Gaby said.
“Didn’t know that.”
“No one does. We wouldn’t even know about it if not for Will and Danny.”
“Silver crosses, too?”
“Yeah.”
“That has to be some kind of a sign, right?”
“Will doesn’t believe in signs. He thinks it’s all coincidence.”
“I have to admit, I’m not religious either, but that was before these things crawled out of the pits of Hell and tried to eat me.”
Nate walked quietly beside her. Despite the fact that he wore thick combat boots just like her, he barely made any noise. He had a smooth walking motion that was not quite swagger, but came dangerously close. She also noticed the way he kept looking around them. It wasn’t paranoia, it was alertness of his surroundings. Will did that, too.
They had been walking for close to thirty minutes before they finally reached their destination. The strip mall didn’t look like much as they walked across its parking lot.
“So you were in the Army?” she asked.
“Sort of. I was still in ROTC in college. Reserve Officers’ Training Corp.”