He hadn’t looked away for more than a second when he heard the guns suddenly go off in a chorus of loud pops. He looked up in time to see two bodies drop to the dead grass.
One of them was Shoeshine.
“Shoe!” he shouted.
The biker who remained standing glanced over his shoulder at Shy, beady eyes framed in his green mask, then set off toward Shoeshine, raising the barrel of his rifle.
Shy lifted his cement chunk and ran at the man, heaving it with every ounce of strength he had left. The cement spun in the air several times before cracking the man right in the back, just as his rifle discharged. The shot burrowed into the earth as the man stumbled to his knees.
Shy fell, too, tripping over a fallen motorcycle.
He gathered himself as quickly as he could and looked up. The biker was already on his feet again, marching toward Shy now, aiming his rifle.
Shy scanned the grass around him frantically, looking for some other form of defense. But there was nothing. He looked up into the barrel of the rifle and froze. Eyes bugged. Fear slicing cold through his veins.
He didn’t want to die.
Not like this.
Not before he’d made it home to his family and given the ring in his pocket to Carmen.
The biker cocked the rifle, said: “You think the rules don’t apply just ’cause you’re a kid?” He was standing directly over Shy now, finger on the trigger, breathing loudly into his mask. “Huh? Answer me, boy!”
All Shy could do was shake his head no.
He glanced at Shoeshine, still on the ground behind him, cupping a hand over his upper thigh. Blood shining bright through his fingers. With his other hand he was reaching for the gun he’d just fired, but it was out of reach.
No one was going to save Shy this time.
The biker pushed down Shy’s hospital mask with the barrel of his rifle, and Shy squeezed his eyes tight and held his breath, waiting for the sound that would end his life.
But all he heard was the crackling of fire…
And the whir of distant helicopters…
After a few long seconds Shy slowly opened his eyes and looked up.
The man was standing there wide-eyed, like he’d just seen a ghost. Shy watched him lower his rifle until it slipped from his grip and fell to the grass.
At first Shy thought maybe he had been shot.
Maybe this was death. You didn’t even know it right away. But then he reached a hand up to his chest and found that he was still breathing.
The biker mumbled something through his mask and picked up his rifle and let off several rounds straight up into the sky, cursing in Spanish.
A sense of relief slowly came over Shy.
The man couldn’t kill a kid.
It was too much for his conscience.
“Get up!” the man shouted.
Shy got up.
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
“You been around anyone who was?”
Shy thought about Rodney and all the other sick people on the island. “No.”
The biker glanced at his men on the ground, unmoving, then barked at Shy: “You’re going to the Sony lots, you hear me? Ask for Gregory Martinez.”
Shy glanced at Shoeshine. Still lying there, holding his thigh. Watching.
“That’s where you’re gonna stay until this thing’s over,” the biker said. “Understand?”
Shy nodded, though he didn’t understand anything at all. Except that his life had been spared. Which was all that mattered right now.
The biker scooped up the duffel bag from behind the bush, carried it toward the one motorcycle still standing.
“There’s nothing in there!” Shy shouted.
He glanced at Shoeshine again, then lunged for the duffel. But the biker shoved him away easily and unzipped one of the pouches near the seat on his bike. Instead of stuffing the duffel inside the pouch, though, like Shy was expecting him to, he took a thick manila envelope out of the pouch and slipped it into the duffel. Then he zipped up both bags and tossed the duffel back to Shy.
Shy held it to his chest, watching the biker check the pulse of the man Shoeshine had just shot, then climb back on his bike and start the engine. He revved it a few times, staring down Shoeshine. “You were lucky this time.”
Shoeshine just sat there, staring back at him.
After a few uncomfortable seconds the biker turned to Shy and called out over the growl of his engine: “Who you asking for at the lots?”
Shy’s mind was a blank.
“Gregory Martinez,” the biker told him again. “You gonna remember that?”
Shy nodded.
“Once you’re inside, you stay there till it’s over.” He touched around the rip in his shoulder, staring at Shy, then kicked his bike into gear and darted away.
Shy waited until the motorcycle was completely out of view before hurrying to Shoeshine. He dragged the man as far away from the enflamed motor home as he could, asking: “You hurt bad?”
Shoeshine shook his head.
The blood on his arm wasn’t his. Shy could tell because there was no bullet hole. The blood seeping out of the man’s thigh wound, though, was pulsing through his fingers. “Tell me what to do,” Shy pleaded. He sounded like a scared little kid. Because that’s what he was. A boy. It’s why he was still alive. “Can you make it to a hospital?”
Shoeshine grabbed Shy by his face and pulled him down so that their eyes were only inches apart. “What’d I tell you to do?”
“Me?” Shy’s mind went blank again. “Lemme go, Shoe.”
“I said take the duffel and leave,” Shoeshine barked. “Don’t look back.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And here you are,” Shoeshine said, pushing Shy’s face away.
Shy retrieved the duffel bag and his backpack. He was still terrified from having a gun in his face. But now he was confused, too. He’d just saved Shoeshine’s life. That had to count for something. But all the man seemed to care about was the stupid vaccine.
“Shit doesn’t make any sense,” Shy said, keeping a few feet away from Shoeshine this time. He held up the duffel. “Why you willing to risk your life for this? You don’t even like people.”
“Doesn’t matter what I like or don’t like,” the man answered. Some of the anger seemed to drain from his face.
“For once in your life,” Shy said, “could you just give me a straight answer? Seriously, why do you care so much?”
Shoeshine shook his head, his eyes burrowing into Shy’s. “There are no answers, young fella. Let alone straight ones.” He took a breath and let it out slowly, his eyes still on Shy’s. “This is the path I’ve found myself on, that’s all. And I aim to see it through.”
17
Behind the Curtain
It took Shy a few seconds to figure out he could use the hood of the minivan beneath him as leverage to boost Shoeshine. He glanced down at the steep stretch of freeway rubble once more, then squatted, positioning his right shoulder underneath the man’s good leg. “Ready?”
Shoeshine gripped a thick metal stake protruding out of the concrete, and Shy came out of his crouch, lifting the man an inch at a time, up to the jagged ridge above them. It was their final hurdle in a long and torturous climb, though, and Shy had nothing left. His strength was tapped. And soon Shoeshine’s weight was coming back down on him.
“Shit, hang on.” Shy paused in an awkward squatting position, staring down at the van, wondering how the hell he got here. Just weeks ago he was living a normal life, in a normal city, surrounded by normal people. Now he was carrying a mysterious old black man on his back over a fallen freeway.
Through the cracked windshield he could see the top of a woman’s head. Long gray hair crusted with dried blood. He and Shoeshine had come across at least a dozen such corpses during the climb. Bodies twisted in the rubble. Bodies trapped in cars. Bodies flattened between massive chunks of concrete. All of them giving off the same
nauseating smell of decay. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take.
Shy took a deep breath and drove with his legs again, boosting Shoeshine back up near the lip of the ridge. This time the man was able to roll over the side, onto the flat, wide stretch they’d been working toward for more than an hour.
Shoeshine reached down for Shy’s hand.
Shy pushed off a warped guardrail, slowly pulling himself up. He managed to hook a leg onto the ridge and hoist himself over the edge, where he rolled onto his back and lay still for several seconds, pulling in deep breaths, the duffel bag safe by his side.
He closed his eyes, picturing the scene back at the motor home again. It still didn’t make any sense. Why had he and Shoeshine been spared? Was it simply that the man in the green gas mask had a conscience? That he took pity on them? Because Shy couldn’t come up with anything else.
He sat up, adjusting the hospital mask around his neck.
They were surrounded by dozens of empty cars, some with the driver’s-side doors left wide open. Shy looked out over the fallen city from above. A surreal sight of collapsed buildings, far as the eye could see. Cars flipped on their hoods or crushed by debris. Wide chasms where the earth had been ripped open at the seams. Entire neighborhoods torched by fire.
In the bright blue sky, two birds chased each other playfully, seemingly unaware of the destruction. Shy watched them, understanding that the life he’d once known was gone for good. All those mellow days at school. The pretty girls moving through the halls, sometimes stopping at his locker to flirt. All those never-ending Sunday hoop sessions at the Otay Mesa Y with his boys. And when he got back to his apartment, how he’d find his mom sitting at the kitchen table doing bills, her news program playing quietly on the radio behind her.
All that was in the past.
It didn’t exist anymore.
“You see it, don’t you, young fella?”
Shy turned to Shoeshine, surprised to find him sitting up with a slight grin on his face. The man had been in bad shape during the climb. He’d lost all his “old-man strength,” and his partially burned clothes were soaked with blood and sweat.
“See what?” Shy asked.
Shoeshine thrust his strangely untouched chin beard out toward the view. “Cities like this are built so that we can pretend to understand the logic of things. So we can pretend meaning and order and authority. But it’s all a fiction.”
Shy looked out over the city again, confused. Shoeshine rarely gave opinions, and when he did, they came out in riddles that made Shy feel ignorant, like he needed to read more books.
Shoeshine wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist and went on. “But sometimes we’re given a glimpse behind the curtain. Like now. Here is your inconsequence, she is telling us. Here is your eternal solitude.”
Shy nodded, thinking how this wasn’t the best time for some deep philosophical discussion about natural disasters. They still had to get back down the other side. And Shy was the one who’d have to do all the work.
“Let me ask you, though,” Shoeshine said. “What happens when the ground you stand on begins to shift?” He waved a hand at the view. “Who will open their eyes to it? Who is humble enough to look beyond his own flesh?”
Shy shook his head, starting to feel a little weirded out. Shoeshine sounded like he was high or something. And his eyes were locked on Shy’s with an intensity Shy had never experienced, like the man was searching for something important, something pure. And now that Shy thought about it, hadn’t Shoeshine always paid special attention to him?
But why?
He was just a regular kid.
Shy wished he could tell the man to quit wasting his time. But he didn’t know how to put it. And what if he was wrong? What if Shoeshine searched everyone he met in this same way?
Instead, Shy turned away, telling the man: “I don’t even know what you’re saying anymore.”
“Not in here, maybe,” Shoeshine said, tapping the side of Shy’s head. “But in here you do.” He jabbed a finger into Shy’s chest. “There are two kinds of people in this world, young fella. Those who can sit in the loneliness of existence and those who turn away. Long before that first wave hit our ship, I knew which you were. I’ve been watching all along, son.”
Shy shook his head, dismissing him. What did Shoeshine mean about sitting in loneliness? It didn’t even make sense. And why had he called Shy “son”? Nah, they were both just tired and hungry. That was all. And they were scared. Or maybe this was the kind of crap people always wanted to talk about after getting shot in the leg.
But soon Shy found himself picturing something. Back when he was floating alone in the middle of the ocean. Minutes after their cruise ship went down. He remembered the feeling of nausea he’d had staring out over the immensity of what he could see. Nothing but water and more water. And how it whispered to him as he floated there, lost. No idea what swam beneath his feet or how he might survive.
Maybe that was what Shoeshine meant.
The nausea.
How overwhelming the world could seem when you were thrust into the guts of it. How little power you realized human beings actually had compared with the earth.
“Come on,” Shy said, climbing to his feet and slinging the duffel over his shoulder. He held out his hand and helped the man up. “We gotta find someone who can help with that leg.”
Shoeshine shook his head. “Just get me some supplies. I can take care of it myself.”
Shy glanced down at the man’s blood-caked pant leg. “We’ll see,” he said, knowing Shoeshine needed an actual doctor.
Before they started toward the other side, Shy studied the view of the ruined city one last time, trying to see it like Shoeshine. As something more than what it was. A part of him genuinely wanted to be the person Shoeshine believed him to be. But all Shy saw was an endless stretch of unfathomable damage, same as before.
18
Reunion
It took even longer to climb down the other side of the collapsed freeway, but as Shy half carried Shoeshine through the first major intersection, he spotted the hospital. The pastor was telling the truth. Shy felt relieved. And he was anxious to link back up with Carmen and Marcus. This was the longest they’d been apart in over a month.
His first thought was to go directly to the hospital and look for a doctor. Shoeshine was in even worse shape now. He could barely keep his head up. And he no longer answered when Shy tried to get him talking. But then Shy noticed the psych ward across the street. And he remembered the pastor saying he was using it as a safe haven. Maybe someone inside would know what to do.
Shy struggled to get Shoeshine across the wide, vacant street and then sat him down against the side of the building. “You’re gonna be okay,” he said, trying to catch his breath. He cupped his hands against the glass doors and peered inside. The reception area was empty, and both doors were locked. He pounded the glass, calling Carmen’s name, then stood there waiting, his left hand wrapped tightly into the duffel bag straps.
They were on an industrial street, where the damage didn’t seem quite as bad. The psych ward had suffered only a few busted windows on the upper floors. The hospital across the street looked okay, too. Only the far right side had caved. Then Shy noticed all the red circles spray-painted on the outer walls of the first floor. There were sick people inside.
Shy pounded the glass again. “Carm, come on! It’s me!”
A few seconds later, he saw her through the glass, coming toward him. His chest swelled.
She paused to undo the lock, then flung open the door and hugged him. He was about to ask if everything was okay when Carmen pushed away and slapped him across the face. Hard.
Shy reached for his tingling cheek. “What the hell?”
“Don’t you ever bail on me like that again, pocho,” she said, waving a finger in his face. “I’m not playing.”
“Jesus,” Shy said.
“That’s pura miedra, and you
know it.”
“Fine,” he said. “But you don’t gotta slap me.”
“That’s the thing, I do.” Carmen pulled Shy toward her for another short, firm hug, before shoving him away again. “Or else your dumb ass won’t listen.”
“I had to help Shoe,” he said.
They both looked just as the man began sliding down the wall, onto his side. Shy reached out quickly and grabbed Shoeshine’s head before it cracked against the sidewalk.
Carmen covered her mouth. “What happened?”
Shy sat Shoeshine back up and held him there. “He got shot.”
“Shot?” Carmen kneeled down in front of the man, trying to balance his head straight against the wall. “Shoe, can you hear me?” She shook him by the shoulders, then gave him a little slap on the cheek.
Nothing.
“Why you keep slapping everyone?” Shy said.
“I’m trying to wake him up, asshole.”
“I’m saying, there’s better ways to approach shit.”
Shoeshine’s eyes had rolled back in his head. His hand had fallen away from his thigh, too, and through the rip in the blood-caked jeans, Shy could see the nasty bullet wound, the jagged flesh around it clotted with dark blood. He reached down quickly to cover it up, but he could tell by the look on Carmen’s face.
She’d already seen it.
19
A Scientific Prediction
After stashing the duffel, Shy paced back and forth in the crowded conference room, studying the group of random strangers hovering over Shoeshine. Some were from the other side. Do-gooders who’d crossed over to try to help Californians. The others were people the pastor had “rescued” after finding them wandering the streets without an established zone.
The pastor claimed they were treating Shoeshine’s wounds to prevent infection, before removing the bullet from his leg. But Shy didn’t feel very confident. Of the eight people spread out around Shoeshine, none were actual doctors. The closest was the large bearded man who claimed to have been a vet assistant back in Colorado.
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