His listened and looked with his ears. The wind was steady static so he searched beyond it for any subtle break in the monotony. Nothing. After what seemed a lifetime, he finished, screwed the cap back on the tank, tossed the container into the street and made for the door. Then he thought better of it. They might need to hold more gas in the future. Better to save it, just in case. He turned to retrieve it and then stopped dead.
“Shit!”
Zephyr sprinted for the trunk. The shotgun was stretched inside it alongside the box of bullets. He snapped both up, slammed the lid and then ran for the passenger side door.
“Jordan! Get out!” he yelled and yanked her door open.
She jumped from the car as though it were ablaze. “What? What’s the matter?”
“Someone’s coming,” he said and pointed to the long stretch of road behind them. Somewhere in the distance, a pair of dim headlights cut through the night, and they were heading right for them.
“We need to get off the road.” He directed her to the darkness adjacent the car. “There. Over there. Go, and I’ll catch up. I’m going to get our stuff.”
“No, come with me,” she pleaded.
He had intended to pillage the car of anything else they might need, but reconsidered. No time.
“OK, let’s go.”
The road disintegrated into shoulder, gravel crunching under their shoes, as they descended into a slope blanketed in long grass or weeds. Zephyr squinted hard but couldn’t see a damned thing. It was just too dark. Jordan gripped his hand and started to say something.
“Quiet, kid. Just a few more feet, then we’ll stop.”
He couldn’t shake the absurd notion that Ross had somehow tracked them all this way, and his hand tightened on the shotgun. If it was the old man, if he’d followed them this far… It’s not him, you freakin’ idiot. He’s at home, drunk, probably still goading you on his stupid walkie-talkie. But if it was him, Ross wouldn’t know that he had Jordan, and he wanted to keep it that way. They descended deeper into the grassy blackness before Zephyr halted them.
“OK,” he breathed. “I want you to move about ten feet to your left and lie down.” He gripped her shoulders and held her front and center, her face close to his. “Jordan. Whatever happens, you do not say a word. Not. A. Word. Do you understand?”
Nothing.
Louder now. “Do you understand?” There was no time for this. If she didn’t answer, he’d shake it out of her.
“Y-yes.”
“Good. Get moving.” And he nudged her in the general direction. Then he crawled two yards up the hillside, hidden in the brush, where he watched the headlights draw nearer.
He didn’t blink. His hand molested the shotgun as he felt for the safety and unlocked it. He hoped it was unlocked, anyway. If it’s Ross, stay hidden — take a cheap shot if you have to, man, he told himself. And if it doesn’t fire, grab Jordan and run. You run down the mountain.
The car was close now. It slowed to a crawl and its headlights shone on Zephyr’s own mistreated vehicle, casting shadows beyond it. The engine sputtered and then hummed. The newcomer finally drew alongside their car and stopped, the brakes squeaking in defiance of the action. The boy watched and waited, his muscles rigid, his vision skipping in lock with his heart. Then, without any warning, the night was alight with blue and red strobes and Zephyr ducked deeper into the weeds to conceal himself. The luminosity was nearly blinding and the colors unexpected but unmistakable: it was a cop car.
“Hey genius,” a voice boomed over a megaphone and Zephyr recoiled, one ear cupped. “I know you’re around here somewhere. You wanna come out and show yourself?” The speaker paused for a response and when one didn’t come, he sighed and added, “Really makes no difference to me one way or the other, but it looks like you could use a hand.”
Zephyr breathed. It’s not him. It’s not the old bastard, he thought. And it wasn’t. A man waited on the other end of the megaphone, yes, but this one lacked any drawl and sounded younger than Ross. So what? That doesn’t make him friendly, Zeph. You don’t know that he’s a real cop. You don’t know that he doesn’t have a gun aimed in your general direction right now. It was all true. He peered through the weeds but couldn’t even identify the cop car behind the silhouette of his own. The reds and blues blazed and shadowy projections flickered and marched around the street.
Something moved nearby and he turned just in time to see Jordan upon him.
“What did I say?” he hissed.
“Sorry.” She spoke so softly and still her voice wavered. It hurt his heart to hear it but there was no time to consider her feelings. “What are we—do you think we should—”
“Get down.”
The megaphone erupted again. “All right, listen.” The man hesitated. “I didn’t make the best introduction there so let me just start over. Name’s Merrick. I’ve got this nice police car with four working tires and you’ve got a three-wheeler. So I’m here offering you a ride, some warmth, maybe a little conversation. Truth is, it’s a bit lonely out here, in case you haven’t noticed. You can either take it or not. I hope you do, but if not, that’s up to you. I’ll give you two minutes and then I’m heading out.”
Zephyr didn’t move.
“Do you think we shou—”
“Quiet, Jordan,” he whispered.
“But he said he’s only gon—”
He cupped her mouth. The wind probably masked their exchange, but there was no sense in risking it. “Please. You have to be quiet.”
Zephyr knew what Jordan wanted to do. He could hear it in her voice. He wasn’t quite the optimist that she was, though. Chock it up to a bad week. The man or cop or whatever he was sounded friendly, but so did his old pal. Until, that is, he wasn’t. Still, he wanted to believe him. Not just that— he needed to believe him. He’d been going for what seemed a lifetime and it was exhausting.
As Zephyr mulled over his options, the man with the megaphone walked the perimeter of his car until he stood in full view of the headlights. He threw his hands up in the air and turned in a circle as though modeling new clothes. The boy could see him much better in the light and was taken aback because he looked exactly like the lead singer of the heavy metal band System of a Down. It was remarkable. For a second, Zephyr wondered if it really was the rocker himself but dismissed it. Thick, dark, curly hair and a big, bushy beard that enveloped everything below his lower lip. He was skinny. Probably in his mid-thirties.
The boy made up his mind, drew Jordan close and whispered something into her ear, and then rose to a hunch. A second later, the girl waited on the grassy slope as he ran for the road, his shotgun pointed in the general direction of the newcomer.
“Don’t move!” Zephyr cried.
It was terrifying and comical simultaneously.
The former because the boy understood the gravity of the situation, or so he presumed. The gusting wind and flashing lights threatened to overwhelm his senses as he ran, but he sidestepped the distractions and zeroed in on the man. Focused. Determined. If he reached for anything, there would be no hesitation— he’d pull the trigger and blow him apart. That he had come to this in such a short amount of time was horrifying, but that was a character dissection for another hour.
The latter because he really did look like the guy from System of a Down and Zephyr still hadn’t outright abandoned the possibility that the two might in fact be one in the same. I really don’t want to shoot you, dude, he thought. I might be a fan, for crying out loud. So please, please don’t go for anything.
He didn’t. The man finally turned to see Zephyr rushing him, threw up his hands, stepped backward and then tripped over his feet before falling hard on his ass.
“Don’t shoot!” He held his hands in front of his face. “Take the car, I don’t care. But don’t shoot!”
The boy stood over him, the gun held firm. “Weapon!” he shouted. “Do you have a weapon?”
“Yes. In the back of the car. Jesus. I don’t hav
e anything on me, I swear.” He lowered his hands and looked up. “You—you’re a kid.”
“A kid with a big gun so don’t try anything you’ll regret.”
“Sure thing, buddy. Fuck. Just take it easy. We’re all friends here.” He nodded at something behind the boy. “That your sister?”
Zephyr stayed the weapon but glanced in the rear and there she was on her way toward them. “Damn it, Jordan, get back! I told you to stay down!”
“Sorry!” she whined. “I got scared.”
“It’s all right,” said the man. “You guys, I’m on your side here and there’s no need for any of this crap.”
“How’d you know we were here?” Zephyr demanded.
“Your tail lights are on, kid. Kind of a dead giveaway. Lots of cars on the freeway, but none with juice still. And when I saw the busted wheel, it all came together. Can I stand up, please?”
“No.”
“This is what a guy gets for trying to help someone,” the man muttered. “No good deed goes unpunished, right?”
An idea occurred to the boy. “Actually, yeah, go ahead and stand up.” He tightened his grip on the gun. “Let’s go take a look inside your car.”
“All right then, good.” The man rose to his feet with effort, rubbed his backside and winced. “You wanna maybe point that thing somewhere else now?”
“Just move.”
The front cabin was a picture of irony. A dashboard stamped by an oversized D.A.R.E. sticker and at least a dozen empty beer bottles strewn across the passenger seat and floor. System of a Down apparently liked his drink, Zephyr thought. The man hadn’t lied about the weapons, though. There were two shotguns in the backseat. Inside the trunk, they found a spare tire, a first-aid kit and three large gas canisters.
“Are we good here?” the man asked.
“Getting there.”
Zephyr lowered his aim. It was just for a second, but it was enough. The man lashed out and yanked the shotgun away from him before he had any time to react. Only a blink— a mere fraction of a moment— and everything had gone upside-down. He’s fast, he thought. He’s so freakin’ fast! And then the boy had Jordan’s hand in his own as the two of them sprinted away.
They hadn’t managed more than a few steps when the shotgun crashed— it was a deafening ruckus that spread throughout the darkness and stopped them mid-stride. Zephyr didn’t feel shot, though. No pain. No blood. He patted himself down with one hand as he surveyed Jordan, who seemed all right, too.
“OK, then. Turn around,” the man said, and they did as he asked.
He stood there, the barrel of the gun raised to the sky, the beginnings of a smirk across his face. “Now, you see? I could’ve shot you if I’d wanted to, but like I’ve said all along, I’m on your side.” And without another word, he reached over and returned the gun to Zephyr. “So, do you guys need a ride?”
19
Zephyr and Jordan refused to ride in the backseat, a mobile jail, and so driver and two passengers all sat up front. The rear cabin held the snacks and soda they transported from their ruined Civic, now a permanent metal obstruction on the highway. Zephyr had never ridden inside a police car before and found the experience both exciting and comforting. He knew it was a facade, yet cruising down the road in a black-and-white felt right in some fundamental way, as though the simple symbol of protection and service was all the proof they needed that lawfulness remained and the world was still doing just fine. It was ridiculous, of course, and he embraced it anyway.
The heater blasted hot air as Merrick drove and Jordan chomped gum. The man was not, to Zephyr’s disappointment, a rock star, but the proprietor of a comic book store some five-hundred miles up the highway. He’d been on the road for two days and encountered several survivors, none of whom had assaulted him with weapons.
“I mean, is that really how you expect to handle people now?” he asked. “You seem like a good enough kid so let me give you a piece of advice. If you keep that kind of thing up, you’re eventually gonna run into someone who’s not nearly as nice and for that matter as forgiving as me, and you’ll have some real trouble on your hands.”
The boy’s shotgun rested upright against the passenger door, forgotten for the time being. He still wasn’t convinced that Merrick was trustworthy. He probably was. Yet as the road unfolded before them, the warm air enveloped them, and the fuel gauge dipped from nearly a full tank to a half, everything but his anvil-weighted eyelids dwindled into pure triviality. He heard Jordan say something about jumping a fence and then conversation was a distant whisper as the world blurred into blackness.
He woke sometime later with a start, the sensation of falling exorcised within, and he couldn’t remember where he was. Then his mind skipped forward and it all flooded back.
“Heya, kid,” Merrick whispered.
They were still on the road and it was still too dark to see beyond the radius of their headlights. Zephyr glanced at a watch he no longer owned as Jordan slept beside him.
“How long’ve we been driving?”
“Close to three hours,” he said and yawned. “And I’d say it’s getting pretty close to turn-in time.”
“What time is it, anyway?” Zephyr asked.
“About two-thirty in the morning.”
The boy straightened in his seat, careful not to wake Jordan. His exhaustion had remained a silent predator for the last two days, always stalking, never pouncing. That is, until he slumped into Merrick’s warm police cruiser, at which point it had not just lunged, but devoured him. They’d scarcely begun the trip when he’d shut down, leaving proper introductions and stories for later. In hindsight, poor form, but he gave himself a pass. He pressed his hand against the passenger window, now painfully cold, and was glad for the comforts of the car.
“Probably take one of the next off-ramps and we can look for a place to sleep the night off.”
Zephyr nodded. “What’s your final destination?”
“Oh,” Merrick said and then considered the question. “To be honest, I haven’t really thought much about it. I’m just kind of following the road.”
“That doesn’t seem like much of a plan.”
“No, I suppose not. It’s served me all right so far, though.”
“Well, you know we’re on our way to New Mexico,” Zephyr said.
“Oh? What’s there, pray tell?”
“My aunt lives in Las Cruces. Or, she used to, anyway. I know it’s a long shot, but thought we could check it out.” The boy studied his lap a moment. “I’m not hopeful.”
“No, can’t see how you could be. There doesn’t seem to be too many of us left around here.”
“Do you have any idea what happened?” Zephyr asked.
“Not a fuckin’ clue, kid. The world up and ditched us.” Zephyr heard the clinking of glass as Merrick rummaged for something near his feet. The man returned upright with a bottle of beer and popped the cap while he steered with his knees. Then he took a big, thirsty swig and belched with loud oblivion. “You got any theories?”
“Hey, don’t mind us over here. A teenager and a little girl. You enjoy yourself.”
“Why thank you. Don’t mind if I do.” He tilted the bottle to his mouth and drank again while Zephyr rolled his eyes.
“Some people think it could be the Rapture,” the boy proposed.
“Uh-huh. Heard that one, too. Just about every one of the survivors I’ve met so far has mentioned that as the most likely possibility.”
“How many survivors have you met?”
“Oh, ten or fifteen. All of them nice enough, from what I could tell. Nobody tried to shoot me until you two came along.”
“We didn’t try to shoot you,” Zephyr said but Merrick waved it away.
“I passed through a few smaller towns on the way when I had to fill up, eat, or pinch a loaf. I’m sure you know the drill. Haven’t run into many survivors in the ’burbs. Just one older lady, actually. She pulled up to get some gas, saw me there, gave me thi
s polite little wave like we were old neighbors or something and then she just drove off when I tried to talk to her. Like she decided, ‘No thanks, not going near that asshole,’ but didn’t want to be rude about it.”
Zephyr thought about how the disappearances and the extraordinary circumstances which followed affected people in very different ways.
“So what about the others then?” the boy asked.
“Denver,” Merrick said and gulped down a mouthful of beer. “Bunch of people scattered around. Place was a total war zone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it looked like Afghanistan or something. I could tell from fifteen miles out that it had gone to shit because you could see this epic black cloud hanging over the place and when I got closer, I figured out why.”
He waited for Zephyr to respond, but the boy only considered his words.
“The city was destroyed. Buildings crumbled to the ground. Some on fire. And almost nobody there. The freeways were practically empty. It was beyond surreal. Like a movie.”
“What the hell happened?”
Merrick looked at him. “Take a guess.”
Zephyr could only conjure images of battlefields and bombs. “I have no idea. Just tell me.”
“Think nine-eleven, kid.”
He thought about it. “Planes?”
“Bingo,” he said, and took another swig of beer.
“Fell right out of the sky when everyone disappeared, and Denver took a beating. Don’t know if it was one plane or fifteen or fifty — I just know it was a cluster. And the difference is, no fire departments to the rescue. Not enough people left to put out a bonfire, let alone the firestorm that must’ve blazed after the planes came down. So everything just burned. And from the looks of it, the fire spread.”
Zephyr remembered back to the morning of the event. Had he smelled smoke in the air? Maybe. Then he thought of all those empty planes plummeting toward mountains and valleys and oceans and cities and buildings. He hoped they had all been lifeless, anyway, and winced at the alternative. He tried to push away the vision of a lone passenger thrusting himself against the door to the cockpit, screaming, banging, but unable to penetrate the barrier even as the plane streaked across the sky toward doom.
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