by Holly Hook
I closed the door as another shot struck it. Glass spiderwebbed. I sucked in a breath, changed gears, and gunned the truck forward and to freedom.
"Watch out!" Alana shouted.
I turned in time to avoid a teacher's car. My senses were still in overdrive. I could see that the car had a university sticker in the back window. It was Mr. Ellis's car.
Mr. Ellis, who was still lying deep underground and never to be discovered again.
The dust thickened again, but the weight of six people in the back was keeping the truck down in the wind. Mina was right. It was helping. I drove past the school sign and back onto the street. The wind blew against us now, making it hard to see, but at least it was going over the hood of the truck.
"We're out of here," I breathed. I was still numb from the shock of being shot at.
The reality of it would hit tomorrow. It always hit tomorrow when you thought you would be okay, and then a wave of emotion would sweep over you and reduce you to a puddle, a shattered mess. But right now I had to drive, and do the best driving I had ever done. I shifted the truck into the next gear and hit the gas. The restored motor roared, defying the storm, as we left the school and the shooter behind.
* * * * *
It took what felt like hours to reach the expressway.
The dust came and went and at one point, for five glorious miles of desert the air was pretty clear. I slowed down enough for Alana to get out of her seat and check the back.
"We didn't lose anyone," she said. "They're all still under the tarp. I think Jerome gave us a thumbs-up." She opened the window. "You guys okay?"
The truck couldn't go very fast, so there wasn't much wind to block out the sound. "We're doing great!" Gina said in her usual sarcastic way. "It's totally comfortable back here being smashed against other bodies. I feel like we're being smuggled."
Alana laughed.
It was her first time doing that in days. Maybe the others were so relieved that we'd gotten out of Colton and out of the storm for now that they could laugh again. Me? I still couldn't imagine doing that ever again. The world ahead was black. There was no light anywhere.
Why did Dad have to be away all the time in the past year? It was like he couldn't bear being home.
Why did he always have to work now and be so busy?
I hated it. I hated everything.
If I found him again, I was going to ask why he always left me alone.
It wasn't like the whole thing with Mom was my fault.
At last, after the edges of the horizon turned back into old blood and the glow of the coming sun approached, I passed the first sign for the expressway. It was ten miles ahead.
The sun.
I had forgotten about it. We hadn't had a chance to plan shelter, or plan how much time it would take to reach the next town full of death. The dust was clearing the farther we got from Colton, as if the monster had decided to bury only my hometown. My house was back there along with everything I knew, succumbing to the dust. The only one back there was David and he was even more terrifying out of sight.
"That tarp had better serve another purpose," I said, "or they're going to be in trouble back there. Alana, tell them to cover up the best they can."
Her eyes widened. I was back to being the doomsayer now that she was back to being the optimist. "Everyone," she yelled out the back window. "Stay under that thing. The sun's rising. You might want to double layer it just to be safe. We'll stop somewhere. David can't follow us now."
He had been shooting at me.
I was his main target, the first one on his hit list. Even though the tarp had been much bigger and easier to hit, he'd been firing at me and me only.
My stomach heaved. It would never feel normal again. This was a new reality of fear and trauma and everything bad. I couldn't remember what normal was even like. It was the absence of these things, or was it?
We passed another sign for the expressway, and then another. The road workers out here wanted to make sure that no one got lost in the desert. That no one died out here. The truck didn't move as fast as I would have liked and we were already down to a quarter tank, but at least we had the equipment to get more gas when we needed to. We just needed to get to another town or gas station first.
Provided there weren't too many Davids out there.
I wondered if David would meet anybody ever again. There was a tiny, tiny chance but even that was too big for me.
We rolled over a pothole and I pulled the truck all the way back onto the road. I was swerving.
"You need to sleep," Alana said. "You're really deprived."
"We're all deprived," I said.
"No. I don't think you've slept since, I don't know."
I couldn't remember. Sleep didn't come too much anymore. I was glad when it did and it was empty, or full of stupid dreams that I used to probe with my dream journal. Happy dreams, even. I couldn't remember when I had one of those. I could sure use a vacation.
I rolled over another pothole and Tony yelled out in the back. The poor guy's skin was still on fire. I was still peeling a bit from the first burn, a burn that had to be the last no matter what I did.
"Sorry!" I shouted. It was probably the nicest thing I had yelled to him so far.
"It's okay," Tony yelled. "Maybe someone else should drive."
Finally, after a lot of arguing, I pulled over and turned over the wheel to Gina, who had started the truck in the first place when she and Jerome found it in the mechanic in Marlon, sparkling like a museum truck. I gave her my insulation armor and my goggles. I got into the back and lay down next to Jasmine and Jerome. It was not comfortable back here. Someone hadn't put on deodorant. None of us smelled the best - how could we? - but there were so many worse smells in the world right now. This hardly mattered. I was getting thirsty and hungry and everything in between and I couldn't move my arms wedged between people and under this horrible tarp. Panic rose inside of me. We were a row of bodies ready to be buried. My heart raced. My palms broke out into sweat as the wind whistled above us. We had only this blue plastic between us and the sun that was coming up. The engine revved as Gina picked up speed, and at last we turned and went around a curve. I pushed against someone. No one spoke.
An on ramp.
We had reached the expressway.
The old truck couldn't move very fast, maybe half of expressway speed. I had driven it enough times. Speed meant that we weren't going to get anywhere in any decent amount of time. The expressway eventually led to Flagstaff, but a city...I didn't even want to imagine what that would be like.
So instead, I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the discomfort in my bladder, the smells, the squashed-in feeling. It was the only option other than screaming.
Chapter Eight
So I slept.
Sleep was no better.
Once in a while, when I conked out, I got a break from the nightmares, but right now was no exception.
This time I was in a cage. It was dark in the cage, dark and full of rust and dried blood and age and despair. Metal bars crisscrossed in front of my face and there was a roof above my head, one that was free of holes. The cage was small, but not too small. I had room to pace if I wanted to.
Outside, it was sunny.
Too sunny. Too dangerous.
And there were people out there, all sitting at a picnic table.
Alana. Jerome, Gina, and the others. There was food spread out on the table and they were all stuffing their faces with bread rolls and sandwiches and slices of pie. There was even a checkered tablecloth spread across it. Tony and Mina leaned across the table and kissed each other. If I watched long enough, they might move on to something else.
The sun remained bright.
The smog was gone, leaving zero protection.
"Guys!" I shouted, beating my hands against the bars. "Get out of there. You're going to get burned!" At least the cage was safe. I could survive in here until nightfall.
Alana waved to me. "Come on out, Laney
. The food is great."
"No," I yelled. "The sun is going to kill you!"
Tony and Mina laughed. Christina rolled her eyes and said something to Jasmine.
And they continued to eat while the sun did its work on them.
Their skin reddened first. Blistered. Alana smiled and brought a slice of pie to her mouth. She chewed. The sun was killing her but she didn't even care.
I was screaming. I beat against the bars as her skin began to fall off, right along with all the others, until there was nothing left but white bone on her cheek and the food she was still chewing inside...
"Laney."
Darkness fell first and I opened my eyes to blue tarp and pale light.
"Laney. We're under an overhang and we can get into the motel."
I shook my head before I realized I could move.
After that, Jerome's voice registered.
He slapped me on the ankle. "Were you actually sleeping in there?" he asked. "I couldn't. We all need showers, and pronto."
"I agree," I said. I could barely hear myself. The tarp was still over my head and I stretched, my limbs stiff and aching. The world was blue. I had been lying here for some time. I had slept here. Exhaustion was pulling me down a lot worse than I thought.
I had slept in an enclosed space with a bunch of other people that could have killed all of us, or left us to the elements.
I sat up and pulled the tarp off the top of my head. Jerome was right. There was some overhang above me, blocking out the sun and the horrible reddish brown smog that now covered the whole upper atmosphere. Today was no different. The dust storm had calmed down, but the smog remained. I wondered if it would ever clear up again in my lifetime. Maybe, eons from now, it would and I'd see some blue in the sky again.
I missed that blue. It was from a whole other age.
I climbed down from the truck and stretched once I was on the pavement. The roof of the overhang hung over me and the light was ruddy, but I had gotten used to how it looked each time of the day. I stood next to a long brown building and some double glass doors. "It's about noon, isn't it?"
Jerome nodded. "We found a mechanical watch inside. The motel manager was wearing one. I managed to get it off and we got him out of the lobby, at least. Looks like those still work." Jerome had tears in his eyes. He had been struggling not to vomit. "His skin...his skin was starting to come off. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."
"I needed to know that," I said, even though I had expected these things. It would be a long time, months maybe, before the bodies got any less disgusting. Mummies would be easier than this. So would bones. Bones were so much less personal, like something you would find in your Biology class. Bones were clean and there were no feelings attached to them.
I wished I could reach the bone phase.
The hotel overhang was pretty big, designed to have cars come under as if it ever really rained in Arizona. At least, I thought we were still in Arizona. "Are we near Highway 40?" I asked.
"We're right off of it," Jerome said. "The others are inside looking for motel rooms that aren't, um, occupied."
I thought of an actual bed that may or may not have bedbugs. Dad never wanted to stay in cheap motels because of that, even though some of the expensive ones had the parasites, too. I'd take a room that didn't smell of death even if it had all the bedbugs in the world. Before, I would have been squeamish about them, but the things I had seen in the last week and a half had desensitized me.
I followed Jerome into the main lobby. He nodded at me in a silent breath warning. I took three of them and held it.
Tony was inside, going through the drawers of a huge desk that must have belonged to the manager. There was a fancy watch on top of it, one that was spread out and still ticking. I was glad to hear some sound other than us. It made me feel like something else was still alive in this world.
"The manager died right here at his desk," Tony said. "Those fish followed." He gestured to a dark, cloudy fish tank in the corner with a bunch of moldy blobs floating around on the top. Poor things. I hoped they passed quickly instead of lingering for days with no one to feed them. From the looks of the mold, they had. The radiation wave hadn't spared anything but the most basic of life.
"Where's everyone else?" I asked.
"Alana went to find a room," Tony said. "You were asleep. We didn't want to wake you, but Jerome wanted to stay out there to make sure you weren't by yourself. We figured you needed it. You almost went off the road back there."
"I know I did."
"Yeah. Stop trying to do so much," Jerome said.
"Well, I'm not the one who lost people recently." I hope, I meant to say. I really, really hoped.
Not knowing was the worst.
Not knowing was pure hell.
"You still shouldn't have to do it all yourself," Jerome said.
Tony opened another drawer. "I'm feeling better. If you want, you can let me take over some duties for a while."
I cringed. I was pretty sure Tony was no longer showing David any loyalty, but still...he had gone along with my slow, agonizing death sentence until I came out on top. Kindness didn't exist anymore. There was no way I could trust him.
"I've got it," I said.
Jerome shook his head. "Laney, you're going to kill yourself trying to handle everything."
I didn't have anything to say to that. I had almost done that several times over now. I was getting numb to it. If there was anything I had learned it was that you could never be sure of the next day. Numbness was safe. It was better than the constant terror.
"See?" Tony asked. "Your friends Gina and Jerome were getting worried about you, too."
I faced Jerome. He shrugged, trying to look all manly and cool.
"You could have gone up without me," I said.
"Promises," he reminded me.
"All right. Fine," I said, following him behind the desk to where a bunch of key cards were resting in metal kangaroo pouches. The stench was still here and it was really bad by the desk. There were no windows to open. Tony handed me one as I counted, holding my breath--
Fifteen--
I could get out of here before I needed to draw another one.
"This one is room sixty-eight," Tony said, rummaging through the others. He pulled his shirt over his face. "You never get used to this."
No. You didn't.
And it never got better.
I took the key card and bolted for the door, dodging around Jerome who must be waiting for his own card. He opened his mouth to say something but I couldn't stay in here any longer.
Twenty-seven--
Getting into the danger zone.
I pushed open the door to the reddish brown gloom that was reality. I wished I had stayed asleep until I remembered the nightmares. There was no escape.
The motel building--what was it even called?--had a good overhang to protect against that rain that never ever came. Or the sun. Still, I bolted up the metal stairs to the second level, to where I figured Room 68 was. The sun was still hitting me out here, stabbing its deadly rays through the clouds. My hands burned a little as I scanned the doors. Fifty-nine. Yes. The upper numbers were up here.
I found sixty-eight at the end of the row. I slid the key in and pushed open the door, breath held just in case. I was starting to do that now. Holding it in case the inevitable was on the other side.
It wasn't. I let out everything when I saw the ugly bed, made and empty, spread out in front of me. It was trying to hide a tall air conditioning unit that would never run again. The room wasn't that hot. It was a little warmer than the coolness outside, probably because it was on the second floor. Maybe fewer people had died on the second floor. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Tony must have sent all of us to separate rooms.
I learned that this motel was the Sunbeam and it had been here since the nineteen forties. At least, it was what the card in the bathroom said. My body ached and my eyelids drooped. I needed mor
e sleep. It wasn't like it was safe to go outside, but it was safe in here. The curtains were thick, brown and closed. I flipped up the mattress, but it was too dark in here to see if there were the red streaks that Dad said gave away bedbugs. Always flip up the mattress, he'd say. It was the ritual whenever we stayed in a hotel for the first time.
I flopped down onto the bed.
Thankfully, no nightmares waited for me.
Chapter Nine
I woke to the sound of motors.
I turned over on the bed, which was uncomfortable like all other hotel beds I had ever slept in. I was still stiff, but it wasn't as bad now. The sleep was letting my body get the rest it needed. I could use more.
Modern motors.
I hadn't heard one since we had driven the shielded Cat. I had almost forgotten what they sounded like.
They were low motors. I had heard them many, many times before in Colton. Trucks. Maybe even motorcycles. The noise increased outside and I sprung out of bed.
Someone was here. My heart raced and I pulled on my clothes all the way.
Someone might have come out to save us.
I let the hope monster get its grip on me. I hated that now. I ran to the window and parted the curtains just enough for me to peek through.
It was dusk. The horizon was bloody like usual. The moon struggled to shine through the smog above, but for one second, it cleared and cast enough light on the parking lot of the motel for me to see that we were not about to be helped.
Five pickup trucks had pulled up into the parking lot. One had its headlights on and they were all definitely postwar trucks.
In other words, they weren't from around here. Someone had driven from the eastern half of the country, from the area that might have missed the EMP.
Looters.
The thought had crossed my mind a lot of times since we got word from the emergency radio that half the world had dropped dead--that they would eventually come and take whatever was left. I just hadn't expected to see them out here so soon, but here they were and it made the hope monster fly away screaming, leaving me to stand there and unable to move.