60. Bronte
Bronte fell asleep spooning Janicea. The two of them were drunk and exhausted. The barrier between conscious and unconscious was paper thin, and she might have been asleep before he finished. It was something he’d laugh about if it was just another day, but he was sure that regular days were a thing of the past.
Bright sunlight lanced through the bedroom’s window, and he knew it must be at least nine in the morning. They’d survived another day. He sat up in the bed, and Janicea didn’t stir. The long, beautiful chocolate curves of her body were visible from her knees up. He planted a kiss on the smooth skin of her shoulder and pulled the light blanket up and over her body, then slid carefully out of the bed. He pulled on his boxer shorts and jeans, and picked up his shirt, socks, and shoes. He saw that there were two dressers in the room, and decided to see if men’s clothes were in either of them. The taller of the two dressers was filled with men’s clothes. He found clean socks in the top drawer, and a plain extra-large, t-shirt in the second drawer. With these in hand, he tossed his old shirt and socks into a trash can sitting beside the dresser and left the room. He checked on the kids and saw that they were curled up together on the couch, still asleep. He figured he should let them all sleep as long as they wanted.
He walked outside, closing the door carefully behind him. The shovel was still on the mound of dirt over Tracks’ grave. Dead bodies were still sprawled nearby. One of them was Ralls’. Bronte felt bad that he’d been too tired to bury him and Sinclair yesterday, but as someone once told him, You can only do what you can do.
“Guess I will bury you first, my friend, then our lady friend,” Bronte said. Throwing dirt in a friend’s face wasn’t something he ever imagined doing. He wished that he’d found a sheet or something, but it was too late now. The afterglow from making love to Janicea was fading fast in the humid heat. So was his will to do this.
He walked a few paces to the right of Tracks’ grave, and started to dig. Ten minutes in, he took off his shirt. Sweat poured off him in a steady stream. The going was a bit easier, although he was still sore from yesterday’s trials. He was a foot or two down when he heard Janicea say behind him softly, “I’ve got sheets to wrap them in, baby.”
He turned long enough to smile and say, “Thank you,” then he set back to work. About a half hour later, Janicea brought him some warm lemonade and a towel. She wiped the sweat from his face and chest.
“I think it’s deep enough,” he said to her.
She nodded. “Let me spread the sheet out and I’ll help you wrap him up.”
Ralls had died facedown with his arms pinned beneath his body. Rigor mortis had stiffened his body to the point that he didn’t sag when they lifted him. His face was also purple with settled blood, but at least they wouldn’t have to break anything to fit him into the hole. Bronte wasn’t about to wait for him to decompose before burying him. Rigor only left dead muscle tissue when rot set in. Thinking about this made him wonder what position Sinclair had been in when she died.
Just thinking about all the dead bodies scattered around the island, all needing to be either burned or buried, was daunting. Did he really feel like cleaning all that up, mostly by himself? Janicea wasn’t looking for a shovel, and he was too proud to ask her.
It was better to suck it up. Man up. At least she wasn’t ignoring his discomfort or leaving him alone to the job.
“How are the kids?” he asked.
“They found some comic books in a kid’s room,” Janicea answered. “When I left them, they were still reading.”
“Good that they have something to do. You better go check on them, and I’ll go take care of Sinclair.”
She nodded, handed him the towel, and said, “I love you.”
He looked into her eyes. “I love you, too, Janicea.”
61. Johnny
Johnny found a pallet jack near the end of the aisle and shoved the forks up and under the pallet with the hazardous waste symbol. He pushed the lever to engage the pump and elevate the pallet so he could pull it. It was a good jack, not like some of the pieces of junk he had to use at work. Once it was elevated, he began to pull it toward the front of the warehouse.
Gretchen appeared at his side and told him to pull it up front and outside where Huff could use the forklift.
Johnny nodded.
Gretchen made an exasperated noise. She led the way up front, and Johnny caught himself watching the sway of her hips as he followed behind her. The others, Marcel, Anna, and Ike trailed behind the pallet jack.
Was he attracted to this woman? It was funny how you could have one without the other. She was attractive, but he didn’t like her. Johnny had always wanted both if he was going to commit to someone. He only ever got one or the other, but never both. It was a haunting revelation, one he tried not to dwell on for long. None of the women he met stayed interested in him for long. Once they figured out that he didn’t like to talk, well, that was a deal breaker. Maybe a deaf woman could love him.
It was funny how that had never occurred to him until now, when it was too late for anything really.
One of the front unloading bay doors was open when they reached the front of the warehouse. It was a good thing, because Johnny was sure the pallet wouldn’t have fit through the smaller door, even with it knocked off its hinges.
He dropped the pallet right at the edge on the doorway, pulled the lever to lower the jack, and pulled it free. Huff drove around and, with the forklift, lifted the whole pallet and backed up clear out of the loading bay.
Gretchen hopped up beside Huff on the forklift and he drove away.
There was silence for a moment, and then Ike asked, “What the fuck just happened?”
The forklift was moving at a good clip. Johnny was incredulous. What was going on? They wouldn’t leave like that. Would they?
“Johnny, are they leaving us?” Marcel asked.
Johnny met his eyes, thought about shrugging, but nodded instead. He was sure that was what they were doing.
“Should we run?” Anna asked. “We could still catch them.”
Johnny wasn’t running. He had a feeling that it was better to be away from these people. Something bad was going to happen.
“I’m running,” Ike said. “Those fuckers aren’t leaving me here.”
All the other people, except for Johnny, Anna, and Marcel, began to sprint back the way they came. The high school kid was actually whimpering in fear. Some tough guy. He even dropped his bat.
Johnny picked it up. It was made of good, solid wood. He wasn’t sure what kind of wood, but it sure seemed solid when he swung it into his palm.
“Should we follow them?” Marcel asked, looking at Johnny. Anna seemed unperturbed that he only asked Johnny, and she stood next to Marcel and looked his way.
“Yes,” Johnny said with a croak. It felt, and sounded like someone pulling a rusty nail out of rotted wood.
Marcel and Anna looked startled. Johnny started running after the quickly disappearing forklift. He was trying to hold back and rein in his fear. Tampa was scary, and these docks and warehouses weren’t a happy place.
He felt bad because he knew neither of his friends were going to be able to keep up with him, but they were trying. He’d have to hope that they didn’t get lost. He picked up the pace and soon caught up to Ike and the others. He kept the bat ready just in case, but it was unnecessary. The other people were ignoring him, and all seemed in terror of being left behind.
The boat was still there, as was the forklift. Huff, Gretchen, and a couple of other people were unloading the pallet into the motorized lifeboat.
The question kept repeating itself in Johnny’s mind: Why did they want to abandon everyone?
The question was clarified, if not answered, a moment later when Huff and Gretchen opened fire on people as they drew near the boat. Huff had an assault rifle. No one slowed, even when the two started shooting. Panic and fear of a worse fate drove all of them. Huff and Gretchen weren’
t the best shots, but people were going down. Some dropped, dead on the spot when shot, others fell screaming. Johnny kept pushing, and found himself running side by side with Ike. They were down to only twenty feet or so between them and the boat, and Huff was having trouble reloading. A wiry woman with long black hair crashed into Huff and went for him with her fingers, clawing at his face as he fell to his back with her on top. Gretchen turned and calmly shot the woman through the head while the other two people kept loading boxes into the boat. This all happened even as Johnny and Ike covered the last few steps, and then the two of them were there. Gretchen pushed past the two loaders and into the boat, while Huff struggled to his feet from beneath the dead woman. Ike swung once, twice, and then a third and fourth time. His bat spattered the two loaders’ blood everywhere as Johnny engaged Huff. Johnny’s first swing connected with the man’s rifle and knocked it out of his hands. Huff backed away, reaching down to his hip, where he had a holstered pistol. Johnny reversed his swing and, with a sickening crunch, connected with Huff’s forearm, then his head, and Huff was no longer in the way.
Voicing a harsh, hellish cry, Johnny boarded the lifeboat ahead of Ike, and he found Gretchen in the cabin trying to reload her gun. She looked up with panicked, glazed eyes, and backed away from him, her hands shaking too much to load the weapon.
Johnny’s rage knew no bounds. The leash was off.
“Wait!” Gretchen cried. She fell to her knees, eyes streaming, and let the gun drop.
The bat was heading straight for her, when Johnny checked himself and stopped. He stared at her, chest heaving, dragging in deep breaths, and shook his head while she fumbled for more bullets. With her eyes never leaving his face, Gretchen cupped two bullets in one hand and felt around for the fallen gun with the other.
Did she think he was paralyzed or something? That he’d stand there, let her reload, and then let her shoot him?
She flicked the cylinder open on her revolver and dumped the spent casings. They tinkled as they hit the floor, bouncing everywhere. He didn’t know what Ike was doing now, but he was aware that people were streaming onto the boat. People were picking up the boxes and trying to figure out what was in them and why this was so important. What could be so valuable that Gretchen and Huff would let them all die?
Johnny was pretty sure Huff wasn’t going to be able to explain. Gretchen…perhaps.
She fed the first bullet into the cylinder, and missed on the first try with the second bullet. Her eyes were still on his, almost as if she knew he would make the decision on whether she lived or died.
“What is your story?” Gretchen asked. “Why aren’t you shooting me?”
Johnny looked at her and smiled.
“Dumb fucker, I know you can talk,” she muttered. She lowered her head, but he thought he saw a little amused smile on her face, and that left him even more confused about women than before. He should be the one asking her those same questions, but without pen and paper, he wasn’t about to.
Gretchen snapped the cylinder closed, cocked the hammer, and with a dark-eyed, solemn look on her face, aimed the pistol right at his head.
He couldn’t remember ever hitting a woman, let alone killing one. It was too late to change or modify his behavior now. This was it.
Gretchen smiled faintly. “The stuff in the boxes isn’t a cure, but it is an immunization. It works most of the time. If we deliver this stuff, we’re supposed to be rescued. There’s a prepared bunker complex for just this sort of disaster. Everything we need is there.”
“But not for all of us, right?” he asked. His voice was so thick and stupid sounding that he wanted to cringe.
Gretchen didn’t blink an eye.
“Right,” she answered. “Plenty of the immunization shots, but not enough room for more than ten of us in the shelter.”
Johnny looked around. There were at least twenty-five people on the boat. Most were slumped over or sitting down; all looked exhausted.
From a distance, Johnny heard someone shout, “Our dead are getting back up! We have to get out of here!”
“I guess there’ll be more than they expected,” Johnny said.
Gretchen lowered the gun and sighed. “Yeah.”
Her eyes held something in them that he couldn’t figure out. She gave him a slow wink, and that left him even more confused.
“Talk to me whenever you need to,” she said.
He nodded slowly, kept his eyes cast downward, and smiled.
62. Clive
The front door opened inward when Clive tried the handle, revealing a short stretch of decorative tile flooring and a marquee stand. Everything else was in shadow.
“Is it really worth going in there just to get me some shoes?” Candace asked.
“You have to protect your feet, Candace. You might be miserable for days, even if we do find some shoes for you. I hope you didn’t hurt ‘em too much.”
“Some camper I am,” she said.
He put on a hand on her back and she didn’t shrink away. “We need to see if we can find any of the keys for the cars, too. I think I have enough bullets for whatever we run into.”
There were two corpses sitting on a couch in the waiting room across from the check in desk. To her credit, Candace didn’t flinch. Clive figured she’d seen enough death now to not overreact.
“Looks like a suicide,” she remarked.
Something made Clive go ahead and look. He told himself that he needed to make sure the two people were dead, but he knew it was simple: morbid curiosity. The woman’s head was in the man’s lap, and his right hand was in her hair. His head was slumped against the back of the couch. Both had gunshot wounds to the temple. A revolver was still clutched in the man’s left hand. Murder-suicide?
The next thought he had was hardly surprising. He substituted himself and Candace for the two on the couch. Suicide would save them both a lot of grief. He shrugged the thought away; giving up wasn’t his way, and probably wasn’t hers, either.
The question he asked next couldn’t be held back. “Think you could wear a dead woman’s shoes?”
There was silence, and he couldn’t bring himself to look up. While he waited for an answer, he undid the knots of the sneaker on the dead woman’s right foot. The shoes were almost new, still a bright white.
He heard Candace move around the couch to join him.
“I guess I have no choice,” she said.
He looked up at her at last and grinned. “Put on your big girl panties and deal with it.”
“Why would I want to do that? They might get stuck too far up my ass, and then I’d be too uptight like you.”
“Ouch,” he said, and added, “At least she was wearing socks.”
Candace stood next to him, very close, when she knelt down and pushed him aside. With a glare on her face, she removed the dead woman’s shoes.
“I’ve got this, Mister Man,” she said. “And no jokes about dead man shoes, either!” She sat down on her butt with both legs bent, exposing quite an expanse of flawless thigh as she slipped into the shoes and knotted the laces.
He wasn’t sure what he had done wrong, and he shook his head. “No worries, ma’am. I think we should—”
They heard the echo of shuffling feet, moaning, and both of them looked up.
“I don’t care about finding the keys,” she said. Her eyes were wide now.
“Me either. If you’re up to the walk, I think a town is close,” he said.
Candace led the way outside. Clive pulled the door closed behind him. Neither looked back as they jogged down the winding driveway to the highway about fifty feet below. Across the two-lane road, bathed in the mid-morning sunlight, a green sign read: Novak 4 miles.
Candace walked alongside him, not limping too much as they traversed the downward slope of yet another hill. The sneakers fit her fairly well. Woods grew up close on either side of the road, with most of the trunks only inches apart. There was nowhere to run or duck off the road quickly if they
needed to. The thought nagged at him.
“It’s like we’re in a tunnel, isn’t it?” Candace remarked, as if reading his thoughts. Some tree branches overhung the road, and that was where the occasional oak grew. The undergrowth beneath the oaks was sparse, and provided the only spots where it was possible to get off the road quickly.
The shade beneath the trees was deep enough to drop the temperature a few degrees also. Until now, the two of them had been trudging along the road in almost blindingly bright sunlight. Clive had been ready for a shower an hour or so ago.
“How are your feet holding up?” he asked.
She smiled ruefully up at him. “Just fine, thanks to you.” Clive thought that she did truly look grateful; she wasn’t acting.
“I think I hear an engine…” he said, cupping his hand to his ear. They stopped walking and listened.
“Coming fast from behind us, I think,” Candace replied.
Sure enough, one of the SUVs they’d left behind in the parking lot was slowing down.
As the vehicle got close, Clive saw the news channel logo on the hood and the doors. The last thing he needed right now was to deal with a newsman.
There was no nearby place to get off the road, but he pulled Candace to him, trying to get out of the way. The SUV was slowing down, but all Clive could think about was the woman who was almost leaning against his chest and groin.
The SUV slowed to a complete stop right next to them. The tinted window came down, and Clive almost snorted. It was that damn news anchor, Lance Mathers or something like that. Seeing a celebrity here with them at the end of the world felt strange. Of course, Speaker of the House Candace Fiore was almost as famous, so maybe he did need to get over it. He was slightly curious what the guy would say.
Mathers was smoking, and he wasn’t exactly his normal suave self. Disheveled didn’t really cover it, either. His hair was a mess. The front of his shirt beneath his suit coat looked stained, and he had a serious five o’clock shadow. The cigar dangling from his lips was more trailer park, Roger Miller’s King of the Road, than James Bond.
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