by Justin Bell
Greer stepped away, looking across the street towards the convenience store, then back over to where the vehicles had vanished, and realized for the first time that Brad DeAngelo was nowhere to be found.
“You said they like women and kids?” he asked Jerry.
The combat engineer nodded. “Yeah.” He looked over towards Max. “You’re lucky you were far enough away. They either didn’t see you or didn’t want to take the chance in grabbing you.”
Max just stared at him. His stomach clenched like a fist and he wondered, not for the first time, why he had been spared all this misery that was surrounding so many others. What made him so unique?
As the sun continued its steady progression towards the horizon, the sky dimmed towards darkness, draping the group below in a dull curtain of darkened blue. There were five of them, but they felt like the only humans left alive.
***
Lights flickered low and dim in the window of the small Boston apartment. Chunhua had set up a few candles scattered throughout the living room, bathing the apartment in a soothing, calm light. Their power had been sporadic for the past two days, but in the early evening had finally cut out, dropping them into a deep and punishing darkness.
Using their flashlight they’d located the lighter and a handful of scented candles, and they’d placed them strategically around the living room, the ambient light illuminating the Liu’s small corner of the world. If there was any benefit to the tiny apartment they lived in, it was that only a handful of candles were required to lighten the living room.
“What do you want for dinner tonight?” Chunhua asked her husband.
“Maybe we could go out?” he replied.
“Are places open?”
Brandon shrugged. “Only one way to find out, I guess?”
“Where should we go?” she picked a plate from the sink and dried it with a cotton towel, then slipped the plate into a cupboard. Brandon sat on a chair with a baggie full of ice cubes pressed to his numb face. The swelling had gone down throughout the day, but there was still a dull, persistent ache in his jaw and left temple.
“Let’s try the bakery,” he replied. “The one right down the street? I love their coffee, and they have sandwiches and stuff for dinner.”
For a brief moment, the lights flickered on, and stayed on, then browned and blinked off.
“I don’t understand these problems,” Chunhua said quietly. “You say the attacks they happen in California?”
Brandon nodded. “Mostly the West Coast. But also in Utah and Texas. Everything is connected in America—that’s what makes the country so strong. But when such a big part of the country gets damaged…broken…it can put a strain on the rest. Does that make sense?”
Chunhua nodded.
“Come on, let’s go for a walk. If the bakery is open, we’ll stop. If it’s not, we’ll come back home and figure something else out. Sound good?”
His wife smiled her wide, open smile and nodded, pushing back from the sink and joining him as they walked down the hallway towards the front door. Brandon slipped on his boots and she pulled on sneakers.
Hand in hand they walked down their front stairs, out onto the sidewalk, enjoying the low, warm breeze of the spring New England day. A plump, white moon perched low in the darkened sky, though it didn’t stop the warmth from settling on Chunhua’s bare arms. She smiled underneath the narrow swath of dark hair, which brushed the broad skin of her forehead, and slid her hands in her pockets, taking long, open strides next to her husband, the man she’d sworn to spend the rest of her life with. She decided if each day could be like this one that was a promise she could live up to. Most of the street was dark, like the night, but up ahead a few scant squares of light shone through various windows, and one of them was a warm and inviting pale yellow color, the square shape distorted by the slant of the sidewalk. She looked at Brandon and he looked back at her, returning her smile, but they walked in silence, just enjoying the surprisingly quiet evening and vacant streets, something they had rarely experienced while living in Boston.
The lights had been off on the car as it navigated the road behind them, turning from a side street and approaching in near silence, the motor running quiet in this evening air. Brandon and Chunhua focused ahead on the window of the bakery and caught the first smell of fresh baked bread mixed with coffee. She felt Brandon’s hand tighten around hers at the first scent and even she loved the smell of coffee although she’d never drink it. She eased her eyes closed as she pictured what the place must look like. The quaint, home baked feel of the place. They’d sit and eat there, she’d decided, instead of going back to the dark apartment.
Neither of them heard the car until its front tire bumped the sidewalk, the motor revving and growling like an angry animal, an animal larger than any Chunhua had ever seen. She whirled, her heart slamming, her hand springing apart from her husband as he back-pedaled. Both of them shocked out of their bakery-smell stupor, neither of them could do anything but let their mouths drop open in stunned silence as the vehicle barreled into them. Brandon shouted as he lurched away, his left leg slammed by the hood of the vehicle, his hand outstretched towards his wife. But she was too far away for him to grab and pull to safety. Even as he spun clumsily aside, the rocketing sedan smashed Chunhua’s hips and drove her up into a clumsy forward tumble, her shoulders denting the hood and her back spider-webbing the windshield. She cartwheeled awkwardly and her head bounced off the roof, her legs carrying her over into an ungainly sideways somersault, sending her sprawling hard to the cracked asphalt.
Brandon stumbled, slamming to the street on his right shoulder, pain stabbing at his ribs and arm, his eyes widening as he saw the limp and boneless form of his young wife cartwheeling over the speeding vehicle. Even as she hit the pavement with a sickening thud, slumping over into motionless lump, the dark swirls of unconsciousness gripped at him, pulled at him, and dragged him into oblivion.
Chapter 8
“Muzzle discipline! You hear me? Muzzle. Discipline.” Jerry stood in the flat, dirt-covered yard behind the convenience store, hands on his hips, glaring at Max as he crouch-walked through the tumbleweeds, his revolver held tight in two clenched fists.
“Keep that gun pointed up away from your toes. You don’t want to blow your feet off before you get to the target, right? Trigger discipline first, muzzle discipline second. Once you have those mastered, then maybe you can actually shoot something.”
Truth was, Max had shot something. He and Phil had been working with Greer and Jeremiah for several hours a day for a full two days since Brad, Rhonda, and Winnie had gone missing. It had proven to not just be a good distraction, but to be a necessary instructional as well. Since the attack from the Demon Dogs, the clan—as they now called themselves—had decided that everyone must carry a loaded weapon at all times and be prepared to use it, and this was a scary proposition without some serious training.
It had been two days since they’d gone missing. Two days since the Demon Dogs had snatched his mother, his sister, and his friend. They had run to the ATVs, stumbling over themselves like amateurs, and by the time they’d even gotten the engines revving, the truck and van had vanished down the road, disappearing amongst the strip mall carcasses and trees. Phil had kept right on running down the straight away, even after they’d lost sight—even after it was blatantly obvious that they would never catch them. Jerry had to nearly run him off the road to convince him that a half-cocked pursuit without weapons and without any idea of their destination was a recipe to get them all killed.
So it began. Jerry took Max under his wing and Greer took Phil under his, and they worked with them. Hours upon hours for two days, taking only a couple hours for rest and sleep, and sporadic breaks for makeshift meals courtesy of the cannibalized, yet thankfully still edible remnants of the convenience store and what remained in their trailer. Canned and boxed food and bottled water was not high on the nutrition level but was enough to sustain them for a few days as
they built up their strength and prepared their rescue operation.
Max scoffed at the idea. They had no idea where the Demon Dogs had taken his mom, his sister, and Brad, and they had zero leads and no way to figure out what their plans were. All they’d done for two days was practice how not to shoot, though when Jerry did take the time to run through the basics of double-tap shooting and aiming for the biggest part of the target’s body, Max had begun to gain some confidence. They’d gone to work disassembling some dead coolers from inside the store and set up makeshift firing ranges, trying to find out the right balance between conserving ammunition and practicing their accuracy.
“Stop!” Jerry shouted and Max halted, freezing in position. “Target at two o’clock!” he shouted and Max lifted his arms in unison, swiveling, drawing down on one of the metal sides of the cooler which was deep into the dry dirt.
“Double tap!” Schroeder shouted and Max complied, squeezing off two rapid gunshots, the flat echo rolling over the plains. The two shots preceded two sharp bangs of bullets hitting the metal hide of the cooler, drilling twin holes about chest height.
“Hold!” Jerry shouted, walking over to where Max was standing. He approached the cooler and looked at the shot placement then nodded towards the young boy. “Nice job,” he said, looking at where the bullets hit. “Double tap, center torso. That’s what you want.”
“What if they’re wearing armor like you?” Max asked.
“Weren’t you there? I still went down hard and fast. Armor stops the bullets, but they still hurt like the dickens.”
Max nodded then stood, looking at his pistol, turning it over in his hands. He rotated out the chamber, checking the load, then spun it and clicked it back home, feeling the weight of the weapon.
“What is it with you and that old school revolver anyway, kid?” Jerry asked.
“Some guy pulled it on us. I knocked him down and took it.”
“Dang. You’re a tough guy, huh?”
Max shrugged. “Not as tough as you.”
Jerry shook his head. “I’m not so tough, Max. Don’t let this fool you.” He turned away towards the store and began walking, but Max chased along after him.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “The way you took command. I don’t think we would have survived that fight in the trailer without you.”
“And what do you think I was doing in that trailer, Max?” he asked. “I was sitting there, wasn’t I? Lost my family, no real connection to the world. I was just sitting there, waiting to die. Waiting for the radioactive cloud to settle down on me and end it all. How tough does that make me?”
Max pulled his lips shut as Jerry continued walking towards the store but followed him along the way. They went in through the busted employee entrance and made their way into the store itself, walking around the coats laying on the floor where they had slept during their short periods of rest. Inside the store Greer and Angel stood by, watching Phil navigate one of the aisles, his weapon clutched in his hands, operating as if he was in the middle of an active gunfight in an enclosed location.
“Swivel three o’clock!” Greer shouted and Phil moved forward, then spun right, his weapon coming up and around.
Greer glanced over at Jerry and Max as they walked in. “Hold up!” he shouted. “Take five, Phil.”
Phil lowered the weapon, sliding his pistol into the belt at the small of his back, clicking the safety on first.
“You doing all right, bud?” Phil asked, walking towards Max. Max shrugged but didn’t reply. The truth was, the past two days had been difficult. The world felt like a very large and lonely place with just the five of them, feeling like a vacuum had sucked the life and energy clean from Salina, Kansas. While nuclear fallout loomed and an eternal winter hovered just above, this spinning void of energy clutched at their insides, threatening to pull them twirling and spiraling into the abyss of hopelessness.
In a world breaking apart around them, they had done what Phil and Rhonda had wanted them to do; they had formed tight bonds with those closest to them. With family. With friends. Max had grown to love Brad like a brother, and now three quarters of his family was gone. Not just gone, but evaporated, seemingly swept into thin air, with no indication of where they were or how they might find them.
It’s a small world after all, unless you don’t know where to start, then the world feels very, very large indeed.
“Do we know what to do about mom, Winnie, and Brad yet?” Max asked.
Greer looked over at him, trying to muster up a sympathetic look. “Angel knew some guys in prison affiliated with the Demon Dogs. He knows they’ve got a pretty big congregation in Topeka. That might be our best place to start.”
“Topeka?” Max asked. “Isn’t that a big city? And like a few hundred miles from here?”
“It’s our best bet right now, buddy,” Phil replied.
“But what if they went further south? Or back towards the west? What about going to get Lydia? Brad’s parents? What about any of it?”
Phil walked over to his son, bending to embrace him. “I know it’s difficult, Max. We’re all doing the best we can. We’re grasping at straws, but we’ve got no other ideas right now. Topeka is practically on the way to St. Louis, so we’ll still be following our track.”
“If I’d been a better shot, I could have stopped it,” Max growled. “I could have shot their tires out. Done something.”
“It happened so fast, little guy,” Jerry said, trying to sound calm. “There wasn’t much any of us could do.”
“We’ll find them, Hermano, okay?” Angel said. “None of us are giving up on this.”
Max nodded. “I know. It just seems hopeless. A needle in a haystack.”
“Then we’d better start looking,” Greer replied. “I think the plan is to head on to Topeka tomorrow. According to Angel, there’s still some fuel in these pumps out here; we’re lucky they didn’t go up in flames. We can siphon some of it out, fill up our five-gallon tanks again. There are plenty of abandoned cars, so fuel shouldn’t be a problem.”
“It took us like two days to get this far,” Max said.
“And we’re going to keep heading east, like your dad said,” Greer said, his voice calm. “Keep on going, we’ll just be making a pit stop in Topeka along the way.”
Max nodded and drew in a long, rattling breath, struggling to keep his emotions in check. His fist remained clenched around the pistol though its soothing nature was growing stale and unconvincing. He walked towards the employee door and pushed through, going out into the parking lot.
Phil started after him, but Greer clasped a hand on his shoulder.
“Let him be for a few minutes,” Greer said. “The boy needs to process this. It’s a lot to think about.”
Phil nodded and relaxed himself. “Okay. Good point. We’ll let him figure some things out on his own and be ready to head out tomorrow.”
Max eased the door shut behind him and walked to the brown grass in the narrow strip of lawn behind the building. He glanced over at the metal target, noticing the twin narrow beams of sunlight poking through the bullet holes. Up above the sky was pale blue and cloudless, though it felt like the storm clouds were just on the edge of his vision, creeping towards the center, holding in the moisture, ready to unload.
A cracked and broken sidewalk ringed the edge of the building and Max sat down on it, resting his arms on his bent knees, his right hand still clutching the curved handle of the revolver. The barrel dangled down towards the ground, and for that moment, muzzle discipline was the furthest thing from his mind. Turning his hand over, he glanced at the weapon, looking at the brushed metal hide with a contoured rubble handle. So much power in such a small package. He felt the balance of it, the weight and feel of it, then aimed it towards the dirt-covered yard, glancing along the triangle sight on the barrel.
The day was quiet. Max could hear the low rustle of the wind just over the muffled voices of the adults inside the building. He didn’t feel goo
d about the plan. There were too many variables, way too much that could go wrong, and if they made one wrong move, his mom, his sister, and his best friend could be gone for good.
A low scrape of a sole on pavement came from behind him, the telltale sign of someone walking, but it was a tired, low energy walk, a shuffle more than a step.
Max turned and glared over his shoulder, his fingers tightening on the rubber grip of his pistol. The pavement rippled with the mid-day heat, obscuring the approaching walker shambling down the road. From this distance, Max couldn’t see who it was but saw that there was just one person approaching—a shorter person, about Max’s height—and based on the gait of their walk, he thought they were hurt. The shadow approached in a clumsy forward lurch, walking as if the only thing keeping them upright was pure will. Max brought his pistol around in front of him, holding it in two hands as he moved forward to intercept.
“Who’s there?” he asked, squinting against the bright sun at the figure’s back. “Speak!”
“Oh, good,” the voice said. “You’re still here.”
As Max watched, the figure took another weak, shuffling step, then toppled over forward, catching itself on the pavement. He charged forward, keeping his pistol out in front of him, his heart slamming as he moved across the pavement.
It had been the voice that had done it, and as he grew closer to the fallen form of the walker, he confirmed his instinct.
Bradley DeAngelo lay on the ground before him, rolled over on his right shoulder. His face caked with dirt and dust, his breathing ragged and hoarse. With as much energy as he could muster, he pried open his eyes and looked at Max, tears dried in the corners of his irises.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered. “I know where they are. I can take you to them.” His eyes closed and Max turned and yelled towards the building.
***
Blue lights split the darkened sky, a strobing blare of pale brightness, streaking along the brick edges of the rows of buildings, illuminating the paved roads in oblong circles of light.