Later, as he rummaged through the leftovers of a ransacked grocery store, he heard a noise, turned, and found a man and a woman with their guns on him. He dropped his rifle, explained that he wasn’t looking for a fight, peeled back his hoodie to show his brand, and this actually seemed to do the job. They lowered their weapons and a mostly-one-way dialog began; he could tell that they still didn’t trust him, but it was nevertheless progress. They revealed that they were going to Oregon, and not much else. Zephyr fed them his practiced lies about amnesia, and waking with a terrible wound, and they nodded. When he asked where he might be able to find more people like him, however, they only shrugged, and he didn’t think they were lying.
Today wasn’t great, either, but at least nobody had tried to murder him with a bike. Mid-afternoon, and still nothing to show for his wanderings except a cold breeze and a colder sweat. What he wanted to do was go find a bed, either in one of the empty high-rises or houses, and sink into it. And yet, when he thought about Aurora waiting for him, and about the days ticking down to zero until she didn’t, his feet kept moving. So he walked, and walked, and walked some more after that. And as the sun dipped behind some medley of buildings and darkness came, he finally spotted a flickering of flame in the distance and beelined for it.
As he drew closer, he saw that it wasn’t just a flame, but a massive bonfire set outside the entrance of what looked like a former car dealership. The adjoining lot still held a hundred or more vehicles that would never be sold. The blaze was huge — the kind of controlled inferno that Zephyr expected to see at some desert music festival, not here. Strangest of all, though, was the crowd. Not just a few people, but at least fifty — some of them standing and chatting, others dancing, still more sitting or sleeping, all of them sucking up the heat.
Here they were at last, he thought, and felt that familiar pang in the pit of his stomach. The crowd was the biggest he’d seen since the attack on Alpha, and although this display looked almost primal, he still took some small measure of comfort in discovering so many people together. It happened so seldom these days — it was like looking up to see a rainbow on a misty afternoon. Except, of course, rainbows couldn’t kill you. He unlatched the safety on his rifle and slung the weapon back over his shoulder. Just in case. Probably, he’d be fine, but just in case, he told himself.
It was a party, and these people didn’t seem to care who knew about it. As he approached, the music was blaring so loud that he could’ve fired off a couple rounds from his gun and nobody would’ve been the wiser. The bonfire flared and leapt, pinpricks of glowing light popping into the darkness, as people swayed and whirled. Beer and liquor bottles stood around the flames like some sacrificial offering to them. Some people were passed out, others on the verge.
Nobody noticed him. Or, if they did, they didn’t care. The party went right on raging, people shouting and laughing and writhing against the music and the fire. A thick cloud of smoke and the strong odor of marijuana permeated the expanse — a room designed to showcase cars, not host primitive raves. Beyond the radius of the fire, the area grew darker until he couldn’t see anything except for the stray embers of cigarettes burning in the darkness like stars in the night sky.
Zephyr had almost expected to find cannibals with tangled hair, tribal face tattoos and teeth sharpened to fangs, but the truth of it was, circumstances aside, most of these people looked normal. Well, normal for spring break in Florida was probably more accurate. Most of the men lacked shirts, and the women, of which there must be at least twenty, he noted, wore bikini tops; this attire despite the cold weather outside. But otherwise, they looked like him. Just happier.
Something was out of place, though, and when he finally ascertained what, he understood that not everybody present was celebrating. The inferno raged atop a massive cinderblock just outside the showroom. It looked like a car engine. Except, someone had fastened chains to the perimeter of the block, and most of the people he thought were asleep, or relaxing, were in fact in shackles. They were prisoners. Five women and a man, locked at the ankles some ten feet from the blaze by chains stretched to break. Zephyr realized with disgust that they were all naked from the waists down.
He pondered how the same fate might’ve befallen Aurora if he hadn’t arrived when he did, and something inside of him wanted to unsling his weapon and start shooting at these people, oblivious as they were, cheering and dancing in the face of this injustice. He didn’t, though. He knew they’d be on him in seconds, and then he’d likely be the next chain on the block, or worse.
Two women holding hands slid by him and as they did, the trailing one turned, blew smoke in his face, and giggled.
“You’re welcome,” she said, barely audible through the cacophony of raw noise, waved good-bye, and followed her friend into a mass of dancing bodies.
Zephyr coughed and was about to turn away when he noticed that the two of them came out again on the other side of the mob and made for a faintly illuminated exit on the opposite end of the room. No electricity — it was hard to see anything outside of the fire’s range, but there was some other area back there. Of course, he still hadn’t devised anything resembling a plan — his modus operandi for too long, he accepted — so he shadowed them.
As he stepped through the frame, he came into a smaller cavity lit by dozens of candles scattered across wall shelves. The two women he’d followed in had already fallen into one of several plush couches that comprised the only furniture in the smoky space. Once his eyes adjusted, Zephyr saw that this shabby lounge was undoubtedly an office in another life. Now, at the end of the world, it was a speakeasy.
“Hey stalker,” said the woman who’d blown smoke in his face as she draped a skinny leg onto her friend’s lap. She wore her long blonde hair in a ponytail, her skin as pale as milk.
“Hi,” Zephyr said, surprised that he could hear her, and examined the room. There were a dozen more bodies laid out on the couches, most of them sleeping.
The woman patted the space beside her and smiled. “Don’t be shy — come sit with us.”
“I’d love to,” he lied, “But I’m actually just on my way out. I really need to get some sleep or I’m going to fall on my face. I was hoping you could help me out real quick, though. I’m a little… confused.”
“He’s confused, Jules,” the woman’s friend snickered.
He ignored her. “Jules, is it? Hi. I’m Zephyr. Nice to meet you both.” He offered them what he hoped was his most disarming wave.
“Here’s the deal — and I’ll make this quick, I swear. I guess the short version is that I woke up outside of a crumbled building a couple days ago and I had this,” he said, and lifted his shirt to showcase the patched wound on his chest. “Obviously, something happened. I just don’t know what. I can’t remember anything.”
The women exchanged a look, and then Jules said, “Come sit with us, and then let’s chat.” She scooted sideways so that a space developed between herself and her friend and then motioned again for Zephyr to join them.
He did. It was an awkward exercise, not only because sitting between them meant that he faced neither, but also because he needed to unsling his weapon first. After he sat, he placed the rifle on the floor at his feet.
“Look at you,” the still-unnamed woman sighed as she ran her fingers through his hair. “A beautiful boy.”
There was nothing malevolent in her tone; she just sounded stoned. She’s probably coming down from a weeklong bender, he thought. Even so, he wanted to pull away, to get out of there, and yet he never so much as flinched. Instead, he thanked her, and was about to ask his questions again when Jules interrupted him.
“Do you remember the building?”
He fumbled for a response and then found it in the truth.
“Alpha,” he said.
“Alpha,” the nameless woman whispered. “Yes, Alpha.”
“What happened to it?” he asked.
“Do you know what was going on there?” Jules repli
ed in turn.
He’d practiced for questions like these.
“It was some kind of community,” he said. “I went there once. The bastards gave me this.” And he pulled back his hoodie to reveal the star of tonight’s show, his own personal all-access pass to the city post Alpha. When he did, he felt the other woman’s soft touch across his scar.
“He’s like us,” she said.
Jules nodded and then threw her arm around him. “We blew it up,” she said. “Well, not us, but people like us — like you and me and Heather here. People who still care about this world.”
“What do you mean?”
“That place was just… bad. The people there…” She trailed off for a moment and then regained herself. “I’ve got the mark, like you. They kidnapped me, mutilated me, took everything I had, and threw me back out to die. They did that to hundreds. They did it to kids. And they would’ve kept right on doing it if we hadn’t fought back.”
“How the hell did we do it?”
After the woman had recounted the battle from her perspective — a version that mostly mirrored his own — he finally asked her who had organized the army, who was behind it all.
She only shook her head. “I don’t know. Word just spread to meet at the boulevard after dark and be ready to fight.”
“Because two wrongs always make a right,” the other woman — Heather — interrupted.
Jules rolled her eyes. “All right.”
“No damned better.”
“I’m seriously not in the mood, bitch,” Jules said.
Zephyr pressed on. “So who leads your group here?”
“Nobody, really. Or maybe all of us?”
“The men do,” Heather interjected.
“That might actually be true,” Jules agreed. “We’re pretty much back to the basics now. Hunter and gatherer bullshit, and all that stuff. So I guess we fall in line with the men here, but it’s not like we’re their slaves or anything. We can leave if we don’t like it.”
She lit a cigarette and dragged on it. “Honestly, though, it could be a lot worse.”
“So why are those people chained up?” Zephyr asked.
“Oh, those are prisoners of war.”
“From Alpha. From the battle?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And they’re naked?”
The woman looked away. “Yep.”
He wasn’t sure what he expected to find tonight. Maybe it was the so-called hard bad, the sociopathic or psychopathic so often hypothesized about, so far removed from empathy that they would be easy to vilify and easier to hate. But these women were just lost. They might be desperate and even misguided, but underneath it all, he thought they were scared, and he pitied them.
Heather squeezed his thigh. “We can be naked, too,” she whispered. “If you want.”
How come it had never been this easy before the disappearances? He only chuckled at the suggestion, though.
“I’m flattered, but I’m also exhausted.”
He lay awake in the bedroom of some captured house that night, his legs restless, his mind racing. He missed the buzz and pop of electricity. What he wouldn’t have traded for just one more hour of It’s a Wonderful Life to lull him into dreams. Instead, he shifted in his bed and thought only of Aurora and Trey, and whether or not they had made it to the hotel in the hot desert of California. What would they be talking about now? Would they be swimming, as he had? Or scavenging those freezers for leftover food? And those contemplations inevitably led to visions of Jordan and then to the crime committed upon her by people who weren’t necessarily as immoral and depraved as he pictured them — as he hoped they were. It would all be so much more convenient if they had just been cannibals.
By AA 15, Zephyr was ready to go — shadowy leader of the enemy army be damned. It was an atrocity. It was unforgivable. And it was done. But the more survivors he encountered, the more he understood that there was no Red Skull calling the shots. No ruthless dictator. No central power at all. However the strike had developed, it had been carried out without singular leadership, a sporadic hive assault. Nothing more, nothing less. He could search forever and he’d never find the boogeyman because he didn’t exist.
He missed Jordan. He missed her tiny hand in his own. He missed reading to her at bedtime. He missed her silly questions and her sillier perspective on everything. He missed the way she mispronounced the words she had picked up from her books. What does im-bee-kill mean? He missed the way she laughed and threatened to pee her pants when he tickled her.
He spent the next few days at a big hotel off one of the major boulevards. At night, he heard a steady beat of movement, but he never saw anybody in the place during the days. The street was a different story. He periodically surveyed the stretching road and sidewalks with his scope and oftentimes spotted a passerby or a gang of people as they went about their business. Sometimes he walked out to talk to them, but mostly he let them go without interruption.
On AA 17, he decided to leave. There was no point in staying any longer. His vengeance lacked a culprit and target. He guessed he could stick to the area and snipe at random groups — people who had likely played some part in the attack. They might have slaves and maybe he could save a few of them. But more likely, he would die, and that would be that.
The hotel was drowning in extravagance, its crystal chandeliers and marble pillars and gold-trimmed bannisters and designer bedding. And yet, Zephyr couldn’t turn a light on and when he tried to take a shower, the faucet pissed out cold, brown water on him.
He busted through the doors into a few of the hotel rooms nearest his and stole whatever snacks and water bottles he could. He had more than enough supplies to sustain himself for several days. And he possessed a map, just in case he forgot the way back to Palm Springs. Which he wouldn’t.
Later, dressed for the weather, his backpack full of food and water, and his gun slung over his shoulder, he walked the boulevard toward the nearest freeway onramp. What a difference a tragedy made. He recalled their mad dash to Alpha, sneaking through the city streets in the cover of darkness, all three of them terrified that they might be seen. Now, though, there was no such fear. He just didn’t care. And if for whatever stupid reason someone wanted a fight, a fight they would have.
He liked to think he was prepared for battle, but he wasn’t looking for one, and indeed took precautions against any potential hazards. Periodically, he raised his scope to his eye and scanned into the distance, searching for abnormalities, motion, anything at all that might be dangerous to him.
He was doing exactly this when he sighted on a man and girl outside a gas station several blocks ahead. The man was tall, thin, with graying hair and a short beard to match. He wore a flannel over jeans and carried a wooden baseball bat in one hand. With the other, he led the girl, who was short and blonde. She was dressed in a black jacket over a yellow sundress and boots; the colors of a bumblebee. Zephyr thought she could’ve been Jordan in another life.
He steadied the reticule against the wind, his heart thumping in his chest, his breath suddenly shallow. Wait, he thought, as he locked on her again. As he studied her through newly smeared vision. As he struggled to stay his focus. To keep his composure. To stand at all.
That is Jordan.
45
Jordan
It’s her, he told himself. It is. And you know it.
Everything in him yearned to confirm it. To examine her, to embrace her, to validate her existence, to exorcise any lingering doubt. But he couldn’t. He had to be smart about this. He had to do it the right way. He couldn’t mess this up.
Zephyr loathed that man, whoever he was. He watched them walk to a nearby shoe store whose glass windows had long ago been broken out. When they stepped inside and he couldn’t see them, it took everything he had to stay his ground when all he wanted to do was run screaming ahead so that he might substantiate the reality of her again. He was petrified she might never come out of there, that he’d chase
d a ghost, that he’d finally lost his mind.
How could she have survived? The entire building had collapsed. They’d all died. Everybody. Except, he knew that wasn’t true. The scattered slaves were proof enough of that. Might she have been one of the lucky few who’d been pulled out of the rubble unscathed? He recalled the terrorist attack in New York and the catastrophic loss of life so long ago. Even then, there had been survivors.
Zephyr squinted into his scope, tried to locate them and couldn’t. He thought he could shoot and kill this man from his vantage point and knew he would never risk it. Not with Jordan so close. And there was the possibility that her captor was no kidnapper at all. He had no intention of murdering an innocent man, as much as believed him to be just the opposite. And if he really was a scoundrel, a thief of little girls, then he would die slow and hard.
There she was again, clutching a shoebox as the man guided her back onto the sidewalk. The two of them trudged along and talked as they made their way up the street on a path that would lead right to him. He needed to take shelter, he realized, and made slow, deliberate movements to back away from his crouching spot. When he was confident he would not be seen, he sneaked around to one side of a rundown Denny’s restaurant and took refuge behind it.
The long walk toward him seemed to stretch out into infinity and he thought again of all the shit that had gotten him here. He might be in Palm Springs or New Mexico now, but he had chosen to stay, and nothing could sway him of that decision. A commitment to avenge the little girl who was the closest thing he had to family in this world. And after all of it, here she was, still alive and coming right to him.
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