by Dave Bowman
Jessa swallowed. It sounded like there were three of them, and at least one of them was armed. She was no match for them.
“I already told you, Aaron. The boss says we have to put anybody down trying to steal food. How are we supposed to live if we let people take what’s ours?”
Jessa looked around. There was no way out that wouldn’t get her detected. The men were near the front door, and they would see her if she took the side door through the restaurant.
“I know, I know, but it just seems a little extreme, you know?”
“Dude, if you want to be a BSC, this is how things work. And if you don’t want to get on Bobby’s bad side, you’ll have to play by his rules. Otherwise you’ll be on your own out there.”
“And I wouldn’t recommend that. Not if you want to stay in Denver,” a third voice said.
Driven by panic, Jessa moved silently to the end of the aisle. She could see their shadows from where the men stood a few aisles over. She had to do something fast.
Ducking around the corner, she tiptoed into the back hallway. She heard the men’s voices rising – they were arguing about something. A loud crash rang through the store. It sounded like a display case falling to the floor.
She took that opportunity to push open an unmarked door at the end of the hallway. She closed the door behind her soundlessly, praying they didn’t hear her movement.
The muffled sounds of arguing continued out front as Jessa stood in the pitch black room. She fumbled in her pocket for a small flashlight and swept the beam of light across the room. Shelves stacked with merchandise lined the walls. She was in a storeroom. Her pulse quickened as she realized that there were no windows.
No way out.
She would just have to wait for the men to leave.
She needed to find a place to hide in case anyone entered the storeroom. There were some large cardboard boxes stacked high in the corner. She moved them away from the wall to create a space large enough for her to crouch in. It wasn’t the best hiding place, but it was all she had.
Jessa tried to slow her breathing down as she hid herself behind the boxes. She strained to make out what the men were saying in the front of the store.
“Clean all this crap up. You know how we’re supposed to keep these stores neat. We need to get out of here and meet Bobby in twenty minutes.”
They were leaving. Jessa just had to wait a few more minutes, then she would get out after they were gone. But suddenly she heard footsteps approaching the storeroom.
Her heart began to pound again. It thumped wildly in her chest, and she feared it was so loud the men would be able to hear it. She held her breath, willing her body to be as still as possible as the footsteps came closer to the back room.
The doorknob jostled, and she braced herself. Her Glock was in her hand, and if she had to, she would shoot her way out. Maybe she would get lucky.
But the door didn’t open. Instead, she heard the sound of a key being inserted and the deadbolt turning. The key was withdrawn. Then the footsteps began again, this time moving away from the storeroom.
Her breathing quickened and her palms grew sweaty, still crouched behind the cardboard boxes. She heard the men speaking, their voices muffled as they moved farther away.
“Okay, everything’s locked up back there. They told us to keep all the doors locked in these stores that we can.”
“Good, let’s get the hell out of here. Don’t want to keep Bobby waiting.”
She heard a car start outside the store, then drive off.
When she was sure they were gone, Jessa ran over to the door and felt for the flip lever on the deadbolt. But there was none. Just a keyhole.
Panicked, she clicked on the flashlight and looked at the door. The deadbolt was a double cylinder and needed a key to open it from both sides.
She was locked inside.
They were gone, and she was trapped.
15
Jessa wrestled with the door and the doorknob, turning the knob and kicking at the door. But the door was made of metal – strong and resistant to her futile attempts to break the lock.
She sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall, thinking. She could hear her breathing as it grew short and quick until she was almost panting. She had to calm down.
Why would they have a double cylinder deadbolt on this thing? she thought, her mind racing. It was a major code violation, not that codes mattered anymore.
Jessa returned to her feet and clicked the flashlight on again. The room was tightly packed with shelves, boxes, and merchandise everywhere, which added to the sense of claustrophobia.
She began to search through the room, looking for a spare set of keys or anything she could use to pick the lock or remove the doorknob. The flashlight illuminated only small areas, and the darkness outside its beam seemed to close in on her.
After a long while, she gave up and returned to sit on the cool floor. She was sweaty and breathless.
It was hopeless. She wasn't getting out of the room until someone unlocked it.
Over and over her mind returned to the same fear: running out of oxygen. She tried to stay calm, because her anxiety was making her breathe faster. She had to distract herself.
She ate a can of tuna and some trail mix, then washed it down with a Gatorade. After sitting a while with the flashlight off to conserve its battery, she flicked it back on. The darkness was getting to her. She had to find something to occupy her mind.
Jessa began to explore the shelves and inventory, unpacking boxes, organizing the cans, reading the labels. She filled her backpack with a selection of the best food she could find, then changed her mind and repacked it several times. When she had exhausted herself with pointless tasks, she sat down to eat again.
She hoped that at least a couple of hours had passed. Most of all, she hoped that someone would be back to unlock the store room tomorrow, but she had no way to know. What if no one returned for days or weeks?
She had plenty of food and liquid, but she doubted she would survive in this room for that long. Even if there was enough air supply, her flashlight battery would eventually run out. Sitting in the cramped, pitch black room to wait indefinitely seemed like an impossible feat. And that was assuming she’d make it out alive once those men discovered her.
Finally, she decided to try to sleep a little. She broke down a cardboard box, flattening it. It was the only protection she had from the cold, concrete floor. She curled up on the cardboard and clicked the flashlight off. The room became pitch black. When sleep finally came, it was welcome relief.
She woke frequently through the night, alert to any sound. At some point, she could sleep no longer, though she had no inkling of the time of day or night. She began to pace the room once more.
When she was awake, she kept the flashlight off as long as she could. But sooner or later, the darkness would become unbearable. She’d always break down and turn it back on for a while, standing it up on its end to illuminate the space like a candle.
When she felt certain she had been in the room for at least ten hours – or maybe it was only six or eight? – the flashlight’s beam began to pulse and weaken.
“No!” she muttered under her breath. “Don’t go out.”
She clicked the switch off, deciding to save the last bit of the battery in case of emergency. Returning to her cardboard bed in the pitch black darkness, she fought back the tears that were threatening to spill down her face and tried to return to sleep.
Someone was in the truck stop again. Muffled voices woke her, and her eyes flew open. She quietly rose to her feet, grabbed a bottle of wine, and stood against the wall behind the door.
“Shut up and go see if there’s any beer in the storeroom,” a vaguely familiar voice said. “I told Bobby we should never have let you in.”
Footsteps approached the door and a man muttered under his breath something indecipherable. Jessa held her breath as the key turned in the deadbolt. The heavy door pushed ope
n with Jessa standing unseen behind it.
Light flooded the room. A haggard looking man stepped inside the room and looked at the merchandise scattered across the room.
“What the –”
Jessa slammed the bottle of wine over the man’s head before he could finish his question. The glass shattered, sending broken shards and cheap Merlot everywhere. The man fell forward in a slump, unconscious.
Jessa grabbed her bag and drew her pistol.
“That good for nothing –”
A middle-aged, obese man rounded the corner and froze when he saw Jessa’s gun. By the time he started to reach for his own, Jessa had already fired, hitting him in his chest. He fell down dead.
Jessa edged forward in the hallway, looking up and down the store. Where was the third man?
Everything was silent for a moment and her eyes darted nervously around.
Then, the sound of “I Love Denver” snow globes crashing to the floor rang through the store.
“Come out where I can see you!” Jessa called.
A young Latino man, perhaps just a teenager, stepped cautiously into the center aisle with his hands up.
“Please don’t shoot me, lady,” he implored.
“Give me your gun,” Jessa said. “Put it on the floor and slide it over to me, slowly.”
“I don’t have any guns,” he said.
Jessa narrowed her eyes, the Glock trained on him.
“Man, Bobby’s going to kill me,” he said as he took a pistol from his waistband and set it on the floor. “You may as well just shoot me now.”
He slid it across the smooth floor to Jessa and she retrieved it, never taking her eyes off him.
“Is there anybody else?” Jessa asked.
“No, just the three of us.”
“Go stand over there, facing the coolers with your hands on your head. I want you to stay like that until you hear my truck down the road,” Jessa said.
The guy did as she instructed, and she quickly moved toward the front entrance.
“I think you need to make some new friends,” Jessa said. “Bobby doesn’t sound too nice. And your partners back there weren’t all that great either.”
The kid laughed. “You must be new to town.”
Jessa didn’t respond. She was at the door now.
Freedom, in the form of her Forest Service truck, was just a few dozen yards away in the side lot. She moved quickly to her vehicle, careful to scan the area for anyone else.
Once her truck was roaring down the highway, she leaned her head out the open window. Sunlight and fresh air had never felt so good.
16
Jessa drove through the sleepy suburb of Castle Hills on high alert. Although the area seemed peaceful and deserted, she couldn’t fall into the trap of letting her guard down. Since leaving the truck stop, she had been worrying about running into any other thugs. If she could make it just a few more miles, she would arrive at the 470 loop, where she would hopefully bypass the worst of Denver.
From what she overheard in the truck stop, it sounded like the area was controlled by organized gangs. And they sounded dangerous. She just had to get through this next stretch of road, then she could start to head west toward Chris’s cabin.
She saw no signs of life in the suburb, just a few tumbleweeds blowing across the road. It was late afternoon. She had lost an entire day and night stuck in that horrible storeroom. She stepped on the gas, wanting to make up for lost time and itching to get out of this potentially dangerous area.
In Lone Pine, just a few miles shy of 470, her low fuel indicator light came on. She pounded her fist on the steering wheel in frustration. She would have to stop for gas. Running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere could be a death sentence.
She took the next exit off the interstate. Taking a chance, she turned down a quiet road. With some luck, she’d be able to find an abandoned car off the beaten track to siphon gas from.
The motionless landscape was suddenly broken by a movement to her right. She gasped, her core tightening.
A woman had jumped out from behind a boulder in a large wooded area just before Jessa drove past. Jessa looked in her rear-view mirror to find the woman frantically flagging her down.
Jessa came to a stop, grabbed her Glock from her holster, and threw the truck into reverse. Something about the woman made her break her vow to never trust anyone.
“I need help!” the woman breathlessly exclaimed to Jessa. “They’re after me. I need a ride out of here!”
Jessa paused a moment, her eyes flashing over the distressed woman and to the area around them.
She couldn’t know if it was a trap or not. It was against all reason to trust the woman, but she couldn’t make herself leave her behind. The woman’s terrified eyes wouldn't let her.
The woman lifted her shirt a couple of inches to reveal her waistband. “See? I don’t have a gun. You’re just going to have to trust me, or those guys are going to find us and kill us both!”
Jessa unlocked the door and the woman climbed in.
“Go back the other way!” the woman pleaded before she had even closed the door.
Jessa did a U-turn, eyeing the woman suspiciously.
“I know how to use this thing,” she said, glancing down at the pistol as she wedged it in between her seat and the middle console. “Don’t even think about doing anything stupid. And if you’re leading me into a trap, it’s your ass.”
The woman was frantically turning around to watch the road behind them.
“It’s not a trap, I swear. Some really bad men are back there looking for me. And I don’t think they would treat you too nice if they found you either. Believe me, I’m doing you a favor by stopping you. They would have found you back there.”
They arrived back at the interstate, and Jessa was about to head north when the woman stopped her.
“You can’t go that way,” she said. “They’ve got men stationed all over that area. Go straight.”
“But I need to get to Loop 470,” Jessa protested. “And I need gas.”
The woman pointed straight ahead. “Go that way. We have to take back roads. The Loop is a nightmare. It’s their prime territory. You’ll never make it out of there.”
Jessa sighed, but she drove straight under the interstate overpass.
The woman was still twisted around looking toward the back. “Go faster!”
The light green truck raced along the empty road. When they had covered several miles without seeing anyone, the woman relaxed a little and settled in her seat.
“Okay, I think we’re in the clear for now. I don’t think anyone controls these areas,” she said.
Jessa watched from the corner of her eye as the woman pulled down the passenger sun visor and glanced at herself in the mirror. Rather than primping in the mirror, the woman seemed to be incredulous she was still alive. Jessica could see the woman had been through hell, and she knew she wasn’t walking into a trap. Her distrust melted away.
The woman took a deep breath, then glanced at Jessa.
“I’m Trina. Thank you for the ride. I probably would’ve died back there.”
“I’m Jessa. And no problem about the ride. Sounds like you saved me, too. What happened back there?”
“I almost never go out. But I had to today. I was down to almost no food, and I had to make a run. I didn’t know those bastards made it this far south.”
Trina glanced in the side mirror again, checking that no one was following them.
“I found a house with a couple of pantry shelves full of food. I loaded it up and got out of there as fast as I could. But those bastards found me. I ran like hell, but they tracked me down and dragged me back to their car. There were two of them, just as mean and ugly as can be.”
Jessa listened with her mouth agape. “How did you escape?”
“They may be big and mean, but they sure are stupid. Threw me in the backseat with the doors unlocked. When they slowed down to turn, I jumped out. Roll
ed down the ditch. Stung like hell.”
Trina inspected her arms, which were covered in scrapes. “I ran just as fast as I could, and they lost me in that park back there. I made it to the edge of the woods, but I was afraid to leave my hiding spot until I saw you drive up.”
Jessa exhaled. “That’s some story,” she said sympathetically. “You’re lucky you got out of that one.”
Trina nodded, her eyes fixed to the side mirror.
“You must not be from around here if you’re just driving around alone like this,” Trina said.
Jessa shook her head. “No, I’m not. I’m driving in from New Mexico.”
Trina’s eyes went big. “New Mexico? What’s it like down there now?”
“Not nearly as bad as Denver has gotten,” Jessa said. “I’ve had my fair share of run-ins though.”
“Well, Denver is my hometown. It was always a great place to live until two weeks ago. Now it’s hell on earth. The survivors of the virus have split off into gangs. From what I’ve heard, there are two main ones, and they’re always fighting for control. And if you’re not in a gang at all, they make you join. Or you’re just target practice to them. God knows what they do to the women.”
Jessa shook her head and glanced again at Trina, who looked to be about forty. Her brown hair hung down her shoulders, tousled from her escape. She was wearing athletic clothing. It looked expensive but torn up, as if she had gotten into a brawl on the way to Zumba class.
“I lived back there in Lone Pine. All my family died – my husband, three kids. I just wish that virus would’ve taken me too. Everything’s just so… miserable now. Denver has become a living hell.”
“So you stayed in your house all this time?” Jessa asked.
“I went out more in the beginning. I thought I would go crazy not having anybody to talk to, and I wanted to know if there were other survivors. But I hid every time I heard anybody, and pretty soon I realized it was too dangerous to leave the house. I got out enough to figure out what’s going on now.”
Jessa looked around at the stark landscape. “Do you think it’s safe to turn down one of these side streets and look for fuel? I need to get gas soon.”