by Bobby Adair
Mitch chuckled. “Don’t get motherly on me. It’s nothing.”
“I heard there’s something going around.” Austin weakly smiled.
Mitch pointed at the gas station Austin had spotted. “Slow but don’t stop. We’ll roll past and then come back if it looks safe.”
“Okay.”
“When we do stop, don’t turn off the engine. You’ll stay in the driver’s seat. Leave the truck in gear with a foot on the brake. Be ready to roll. Understand?”
Austin nodded.
“I’ll pump the gas. The pumps won’t work. No electricity. I’ve got a foot pump strapped on the roof with the cans.”
Austin scrutinized the houses and stores they passed. He slowed the truck down below fifteen kilometers per hour when they were in front of the gas station. “Someone inside?”
“Yeah.” Mitch scooted around in his seat to watch the gas station as they drove by.
Austin looked over the hood and took a hard look at the structures across the street.
“There’s a guy in there,” said Mitch with a bit of a chuckle. “I think it’s open.”
“You want to go back?”
Mitch drew the pistol from his holster, checked that he had a round chambered, and nodded.
Chapter 29
Austin reached over the seat and fished around for the AK-47 he’d stashed in the back when he moved to the driver’s seat.
Shaking his head, Mitch patted the pistol on Austin’s hip. “Use the pistol. You can’t fire that rifle and drive. Keep the rifle in front with you, though. Lean it there by your leg like I had mine when I was driving. If you tuck the magazine between the seat and console, it’ll hold there, and the barrel won’t get hung up with the gas pedal. Like I said, you can’t shoot while you drive, but if we have to jump out in a hurry and shoot, you don’t want your rifle in the back seat.”
“Gotcha. I can do a U-turn in that intersection up there.”
“Do it.”
Austin sped up to get to the intersection, looped through a wide turn, and rolled back down the street. He pulled into the gas station as a man looked at them through the glass.
Mitch put his elbow out the window but kept his pistol hidden inside the door.
Austin slowed. “Where do you want me to stop?”
“Over there.” Mitch pointed. “See those steel covers? We’ll have to access the underground tanks there.”
Austin maneuvered the truck between the useless pumps and the glass-walled front of the store, which could have been a roadside convenience store in any small Texas town.
The man from inside swung a door open and smiled. He called, “Good morning.”
Austin looked to Mitch for directions.
Mitch waved a palm at Austin.
Austin stopped the truck, and the man walked to within a few paces of Mitch’s window.
Mitch smiled cautiously as he looked around. “Good morning. Do you have any gasoline?”
“Yes,” he answered. “But no electricity.”
Mitch pointed vaguely at the truck’s roof. “I’ve got a pump. How much?”
The man stepped back and looked at the gas cans strapped onto the roof’s luggage rack. “Do you have dollars?”
“American money,” Mitch confirmed.
People still take cash? Good for us.
Austin looked around again, scrutinizing shadowy windows and open doors. He saw no one.
Mitch and the man—Abasi was his name or so it came out in the negotiation—arrived at a price. Abasi directed Austin to drive the truck to the place Mitch had indicated earlier.
Mitch got out, leaving his door open, and he went to work.
Abasi leaned against the door and it swung shut.
Mitch froze, took a quick look around, and told Abasi, “Open that back up, please.”
Abasi clicked the handle and pulled the door open. “I understand your worries.”
Mitch appraised Abasi again and then went back to work. He ran the pump hose from the ground tank into the truck’s gas tank and started pumping with his foot. His eyes, though, never stopped scanning.
“You’ll want to fill the gas cans as well?” Abasi asked.
Mitch nodded. “All of them.”
Abasi smiled.
He looked sincere—friendly—but Austin followed Mitch’s lead and kept a watch out anyway.
“Where are you going?” Abasi leaned farther into the cab of the truck.
Leaving one hand on the steering wheel, Austin put the other on the butt of the gun in his holster. “North.” Sitting as he was, he didn’t think he’d be able to pull the gun out without a struggle. At least he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
“The wildlife preserve?”
Austin nodded a lie to Abasi’s question and changed the subject. “Is this your place?”
“This gas station?” Abasi asked.
Of course. Austin didn’t say that.
“It is now.” Abasi’s face lost its smile.
Austin glanced through the glass walls on the front of the small building, wondering how to follow up on that answer.
“It was owned by a good friend of mine and his two brothers.”
Austin looked around again, making an effort through his growing curiosity not to get caught up in the conversation. “Ebola?”
“All three. Their wives. Their children. All of them.”
Austin looked at Abasi and saw a sadness behind the smile. “All of them?”
“Eleven children.” Abasi shook his head and looked down. “None survived.”
“It’s like that everywhere.” It was the best consolation Austin could think of. “Why are you here? Aren’t you worried you’ll catch it?”
Abasi’s big white teeth glowed through a wide grin. “I did.”
“You survived?” Austin was surprised. He caught himself again and looked around as Abasi went into a story about his fight with the illness. It took awhile, as Abasi seemed to spend a great deal of time on the oddest of details.
Mitch finished filling the tank and started working on the gas cans off the roof.
“How bad did things get here?” Austin asked.
Abasi pointed to the north, deeper into town. “You see the smoke?”
Austin craned his neck to see back behind him. Two ragged columns of smoke rose into the sky.
“The dead,” said Abasi.
“A lot?” Austin asked.
“They were burning when Ebola came for me. They burned for the weeks I laid in my bed. They still burn. We can’t bury them. Not anymore. That was my job before, you know.”
“You buried the dead?” Austin asked.
Abasi nodded. “I caught it from a little boy who’d died too quickly.”
In Austin’s Western, rational view of the world, he knew there was no way Abasi could have known who’d passed to him the virions that had made him sick. Not with so many sick people around. It was a useless fact to know in retrospect, anyway. “I’m sorry.”
“He was the son of my friend.” Abasi looked at the gas station building. “The first of this family to go. Though most of the dead were being taken to the pyre by then, I buried another seven from the family before I fell too ill to stand.”
Austin nodded an acknowledgment and looked around. He was losing his suspicion that an ambush would come but wasn’t going to let his guard down. “Are there many in town like you, who lived through it?”
“Some.”
“How many?”
Abasi looked into the sky, and his face went through a range of expressions as he cataloged those whom he’d seen die and those he thought might be alive. “Seven.”
Austin was disheartened. “How many people used to live in Nanyuki?”
“Thirty thousand.”
“And only seven people survived.”
Abasi shook his head and looked at Austin through disbelieving eyes. “I do not know everyone in Nanyuki.” He chuckled. “Only seven people I know survived.”
“Others lived then?”
“Of course. I have seen them on the streets. Maybe they caught it. Maybe they are lucky and it passed them by.”
“A lot?” Austin asked, getting frustrated at trying to get a useful number out of Abasi. “Have you seen a lot of people?”
Abasi’s smile went away. “No.”
“Altogether, do you know how many people in Nanyuki are still alive?”
“Maybe two hundred? Maybe three hundred?”
Chapter 30
Larry sat the heavy box on the floor and sliced the tape while Millie stood over him and grinned through her stained teeth. He opened the flaps and smiled. “Books?”
“You said you don’t have enough.”
Larry took one out and looked at it. “These are new.”
“One of the bookstores in the neighborhood hasn’t had anybody in it.” Millie looked around as though her next thought might be floating in the warehouse’s metal supports. “Not for a month, I guess.”
Nodding, Larry rifled through the box. “All new. These are great. I can trade these.”
“For what?” Millie was back to business.
Larry looked up at Millie, suspicious. “Favors. People in here don’t have much else besides blood plasma and I’m already giving you that.”
“You could give me more.”
Larry frowned.
“One bag of plasma for every box I bring you.”
“Not on your life.” Larry stood up, put a hand to the scruff on his chin, and eyeballed the open box on the floor between him and Millie. “You bring me two boxes for a bag of plasma. That’s the best I’ll do.”
“Deal.” Millie’s face contorted into her happiest of smiles, but it looked like skin being stretched over a misfit skull. “The books don’t cost me anything.”
That made Larry angry. He hated the feeling of being cheated, and it showed on his face.
Millie came around the open box and put her hands on Larry’s shoulders, looking up into his eyes. “Don’t feel bad, honey. That blood doesn’t cost you anything either. We’re middlemen, you and I. I have access to plenty of what you want—books. You have access to plenty of what I want. That’s the way commerce works.”
Larry grunted and turned away from Millie. “Yeah. I know.” He felt cheated anyway. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He looked around to make sure he and Millie were alone in the warehouse. He had known before he looked, but his time on the Ebola farm had made him jumpy.
“You going to get that?” Millie asked.
Larry reached into his pocket and took out his phone. It was Jimmy calling. “I have to get this.” Larry pointed at Millie’s truck backed up to one of the open garage doors. “You should go. We’re done.”
Millie pinched Larry’s cheek in a way that irritated him every time. He shot Millie a harsh look as he raised the phone to his ear. He mouthed a silent, “Go,” and pointed again. He turned and walked toward stacks of boxes on the other side of the warehouse. “What?”
“Larry, my brotha’. How’s it shakin’?”
“I’m tired of doing this, Jimmy. I need to get out of this place. I need to get laid.”
“Focus. This is our business, man. We’re getting rich. This is our opportunity.”
“I’m not seeing any riches.” Larry’s words came out layered thick with accusation. He regretted them almost immediately but then congratulated himself. They needed to be said. “I’m in here. I’m stuck. I’m no better than the inmates they have locked up here. You never told me when I got this job in the camp I wouldn’t be able to leave. You never told me that, Jimmy. I hate this damn place.”
“Be cool. Be cool.” Jimmy paused. “You’ll be out next spring. That’s what the contract said. Don’t worry about the money. You know I’ll take care of you, right? You know that, don’t you?”
Larry didn’t know that. His distrust of Jimmy was growing by the day. He didn’t admit to himself that Millie’s continual undermining of his relationship with Jimmy was the reason.
“It’s not any better out here than it is in there,” said Jimmy. “You gotta believe me. If it makes you feel any better, I’m not getting laid, either.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” Larry had no doubts Jimmy was lying, but he couldn’t imagine how anyone could get laid given all the new quarantine and personal space laws. “I’m just in a bad mood.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Jimmy’s voice took on a conspiratorial tone, “I’ll find some porn DVDs or something. You got a computer in there or anything?”
“No computers. No DVD players either. There’s nothing to do in here but work, eat, and sleep.” Larry looked over at the box of books Millie had left. He was nearly desperate enough to try reading for entertainment. Some of the detainees sure seemed to love it.
“That sucks. Tell you what, I’ll get you something. You got electricity, right?”
“Course.” That made Larry angry too. He’d told Jimmy every detail of his condition. Jimmy just didn’t care to remember because he was on the outside trying to find places to hide all of the money their enterprise was pulling in.
“Man, you’re really down. You need to cheer up.”
Larry was tired of listening to Jimmy’s bullshit. “What do you want?”
Jimmy waited a second before answering. “We need more.”
“Plasma?” Of course, that’s what Jimmy meant. Plasma was the only thing he ever wanted. More plasma was the only reason he ever called.
“I got orders comin’ out my ass. Man, there’s no limit to how much of this stuff we can sell.”
“We shoulda got our own Ebola survivors and locked ‘em up somewhere and made our own farm like we talked about back at the beginning.”
“I thought you said it was better to drain ‘em completely than to keep them around.”
Larry frowned. Did he say that? Or was that Jimmy’s idea? He couldn’t remember. He only knew that he hated being locked in the compound under the Colonel’s authority.
“Larry, listen to me. This won’t last much longer, maybe three months, maybe six.”
“What if it’s a year? What if it’s five?”
“Larry, calm down. You’re working yourself up over nothing. I know you don’t get the news in there.”
“I can’t get data on my cellphone. I barely got enough bars to talk to you.”
“What’s going on out here is that two-thirds of everybody on the whole damn planet is dead. Everybody who doesn’t have it is gonna get it. At least that’s what they’re saying. Lucky you and me planned ahead and got our immunity otherwise we’d be in a mass grave already. What I’m sayin’ is this can’t go on forever. Seriously, there’s no way it could. Pretty soon there won’t be a need for blood plasma. Everybody will have caught it and recovered or they’ll be dead.”
“What about us when that time comes?” Larry had been harboring a fear that Jimmy was going to run off with all the money. “Tell me exactly what is going to happen.”
“I don’t know what will happen. How can I know that?”
“You can know how I’m gonna get my half.”
Jimmy sighed. “Is that what has you worried? That I’m gonna screw you?”
Larry didn’t answer. The accusation, having been put into words, sounded too harsh after all he and Jimmy had been through together. “We’re not honest men.”
“Honest men?” Jimmy guffawed all the way up from his big belly. “Of course not. But you and me, Larry, we’ve been together on too many things to start distrusting now. This whole scheme only works if we both work it. You’ll get your share when it’s all said and done and we’ll both be rich and go to live in some dead guy’s house on the cliffs looking out over the Pacific and we’ll have enough money to watch sunsets and hire hookers for the rest of our lives. This is hard work now, but it pays off.”
“We’ve made that much money?” Larry asked. “Really?”
“Better than money. Gold. Diamonds. Silver
. The kind of money we have will never go down in value. And you’re not gonna believe this.”
“What?”
“I got some prepper guy to trade me a pallet of SPAM for enough plasma for him and his kids.”
Larry made a choking sound. “Why?”
“Diversification. I don’t know what’s gonna be valuable tomorrow. I’m getting a little of everything.”
“SPAM is the only kinda meat we ate growing up.”
“Learn to love it, buddy. SPAM is better than gold, and food is getting harder to come by. It’s gonna be a tough winter out here for a lot of people.”
“So it’s not just us?” Larry felt his anger running down. “I think the last meat I had was prairie dog and I’m not lying about that.”
“How ‘bout I send some SPAM your way? A couple dozen cans with the next load.”
“Yeah. Even SPAM might taste pretty good right now.”
Chapter 31
“Where are you guys?”
“In the mountains just south of Ethiopia, I’m pretty sure.” Austin looked at the scrubby little trees in the headlights on both sides of the dirt road up ahead. “I’m not sure. We could be in Ethiopia for all I know.”
“Should I talk to Mitch?” Olivia asked.
Austin took the phone away from his ear. “She wants to talk to you.”
Mitch shook his head. “Not on these roads.”
Austin put the phone back to his ear. “He’s driving.”
“He doesn’t know where you are?”
“No.” He looked at Mitch. “He’s just as lost as I am.”
“Don’t tell me that.”
“We’re lost,” said Mitch, loud enough to be heard over the phone.
Austin said, “We’re past Gumi, that little town by the border that—”
“I know where Gumi is,” Olivia told him. “How long ago?”
“The first time?”
Mitch laughed. “Ask her if there’s more than one Gumi?”
“There’s only one Gumi,” she told Austin.
“I know. It was a joke,” said Austin. “The thing is, all these little dirt roads look alike. The map isn’t helping much. Some of these roads end. They just end. Some come to dry riverbeds that are too rough to cross.”