by Alex Barnett
“Uh, with forty Burnouts out there, I’d say you’re not,” Lydia said. Zack’s lips thinned and one hand shot out to land a solid smack on his brother’s stomach.
“Thank you!” he exclaimed. “See bro? Rule eight—when a pretty girl tells you you’re doing something stupid, you need to listen. And may I say, the two of you sound beautiful.” He grinned playfully, sketching an exaggerated bow in their direction.
One of Ava’s eyebrows climbed towards her hairline. “Rule eight?” she repeated.
“God, don’t ask,” Caleb said. He rolled his eyes in a gesture Lydia suspected was a standard response around his brother. “Trust me.”
Lydia glanced between the boys for a moment, chewing on the inside of her lip. “Anyway,” she drawled out, “we’re ready to go if you are.”
Caleb nodded. “Yeah, yeah I’m good. Zack, you gonna be okay here?”
Zack reached down and patted their duffle bag sitting on the end of the Royce’s couch. He picked up a compact metal bar, about six inches long and mostly covered with a foam grip. He tapped the bare metal end against his jeans-clad thigh and stood up, swinging the contraption in a slow arc about six inches in front of him. A barely-visible red shimmer extended from the metal end, exactly the same size and shape as the arc he’d just swung it in, and he took a couple experimental steps forward, moving the device—and the shimmering light field—from side to side. When the edge of the field passed over one of Ava’s shoes, it flared brighter and expanded to encompass more area, while a faint buzzing came from the part of the handle under the foam grip. Zack sidestepped neatly, and the buzzing stopped as soon as the energy field cleared Ava’s body.
“Think I’m good,” he said cheerfully. “No worries. I’ll just reorganize the ammo bag, sharpen the knives or something.”
“Awesome. Don’t cut yourself,” Caleb said. Zack snorted.
“I’m not the one has that problem,” he smirked, with a knowing expression.
“Shut up, that don’t even count.” Caleb reached over and scrubbed his hand over Zack’s hair, startling an irritated squawk out of his brother.
“What? All I’m saying is—there’s two people who handle all the sharp things we have, and it ain’t the blind one that’s been running down our band aid supply.”
“Punk,” Caleb muttered affectionately. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, man.” He turned to Lydia and Ava. “You said something about the back yards?”
#
For two weeks after they barricaded themselves in on Meadowbrook, Grandpa, Jim, and Andrew did nothing but circle the court and try to put as many failsafes and emergency plans (and backup plans, and backup backup plans) into place as possible. There were small supplies of food and bottled water in every house, three central points where their spare weapons and ammo—mostly from Grandpa’s collection—were stored, a complex system of signals and all-clears that everyone had had to memorize…
And each of the back yards of the houses had been painstakingly connected.
Thanks to some robberies a few years back, and a massive neighborhood campaign, each yard was enclosed by a six-foot privacy fence. Once the barricades were all as solid as possible, Eric Grant carefully cut through two or three boards in each fence that didn’t already have a connecting gate, then bolted hinges onto the sawed-off boards and reattached them, forming miniature doors in the fences that were just big enough for a person to squeeze through. The result was one continuous loop around the backs of the houses that would allow them to stay out of sight while going from house to house.
They slipped through the ‘doorway’ that let out of the Royce’s backyard and into Emily DeSantos’s. Caleb held the boards open for Lydia and Ava, and then grunted as his solid frame impeded his progress a bit.
Lydia bit her lip and cleared her throat quietly. “Is your brother okay?” she asked as they made their way over grass dry enough to crunch under their steps. Caleb turned back to her with a raised eyebrow.
“Loaded question,” he said, “but yeah, he’s as okay as anyone gets these days. Why?”
“I just—he was talking about someone in the hallway. Bella? I mean, was that your sister? His girlfriend?”
To her surprise, Caleb snorted in laughter, quickly stifling it. “Yeah, Bella was definitely the closest thing Zack’ll ever have to a girlfriend!” He shook his head, still grinning, though now the smile was tinged with melancholy. “She was Zack’s service dog. Big, giant German Shepherd Zack qualified for when he was twelve. Sweet old thing; I kinda miss her too.”
Ava’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Wait, I thought Burnouts left the animals alone. There were a couple of cats we used to see wandering around up the street; Burnouts never bothered them.”
“Oh no, no, she wasn’t with us when all this went down. Me and Zack were down near Charleston when they started trying to quarantine cities. Kind of a road trip, just the two of us. Zack’s thinking. Well. He was thinking about Florida for college. Took him to see a couple schools, travel around a little. We were on our way back when the first reports started going off. We were tryin’ to get back home, but…” Caleb’s went quiet, low and sad.
“Where’s home?” Ava asked gently as they came to the next fence. Again, Caleb held the boards for them, and then boosted himself over rather than trying to squeeze through.
“Here,” he said, landing with a soft grunt. “Well, Ohio, anyway. We grew up in Portsmouth, little town right on the river across from Kentucky.”
Once again, Lydia pulled up short in surprise. A few places in Ohio had gone dark, but the state had not yet been declared no-man’s land the way places like New York and Florida had. And the area Caleb was talking about was a good two hours south of them—he and Zack would have had to pass through there to get to Columbus.
Caleb sighed, reading the confusion in their faces. “We made it pretty close, but the roads started backing up the closer we got to home,” he began, his voice as raw and choked as it had been last night with her grandfather and Andrew pointing weapons at him. “Couldn’t pick up anyone on the radio, no signs of life. There’s nothing there. So we just kept goin’. S’all we got. And Zack says—” He broke off, shaking his head. “It’s all we’ve got.”
They skirted through another of the fences, into the McCains’ back yard. They were the only family that had fled when the evacuations were announced, leaving behind the van that was the main part of the barricade. They were the only other family on Meadowbrook with children: two small girls that Lydia occasionally babysat. Their yard was still littered with toys and a dried out kiddie pool, as though it was just waiting for Allison and Riley McCain to come back.
“It was just us and our dad; our mom died when Zack was four,” Caleb continued. “And Dad…” He paused, swallowing hard. “We know he’s, he’s dead.” There was an odd finality in Caleb’s words, as if he didn’t need any other confirmation. “Dad was a cop. He would’ve been right on the front lines when things started goin’ crazy, you know? We know he’s gone.”
“Oh,” Lydia said softly. They didn’t ask for further details. What else was there to say? Everyone knew that the casualties had been worst amongst first responders and hospital staff. “I’m sorry,” she offered. Caleb shrugged with a watery ghost of a smile.
“Thanks,” he said.
They continued through the yards, making a wide arc around the houses. Lydia kept a sharp ear out as they went, listening with breathless anxiety for sounds on the other side of the fences.
“We’re going to have to jump the last one,” Ava said as they slipped through the fence between Grandpa’s yard and the Perry’s. Caleb jogged a few steps ahead of them and stood by the fence, leaning down and cupping his hands together.
“Here, let me—” Lydia grinned and darted forward, leaping up to grab the top of the fence and boost herself over. She jumped down onto the grass on the other side, Ava following a split-second later. “—get outta your way,” Caleb continued without mis
sing a beat.
Caleb pulled himself over the fence, his movements smooth and quick. Lydia wondered how often he’d had to do things like that, how he and Zack had been surviving by themselves. The way they moved together, and the easy accuracy with which Caleb had managed to drop some of the Burnouts chasing them the night before (even flat-out running for his life) told her that they had learned how to survive out on the road. And learned it well.
Eric Grant had a small deck with a sliding glass door behind his house. The door opened as they jogged up the deck’s wide steps, and Grandpa glared at them from inside the kitchen.
“I am almost positive I told you to stay put,” he grumbled. He closed and locked the door behind them before turning around with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Andrew wanted to see if you have any ideas about what to do,” Lydia countered. She didn’t say anything about how very much she just wanted to see him, needed to see with her own eyes that he was still here and all right. She had a feeling he understood, anyway.
He huffed to himself, reaching up with one knotted hand to rub the back of his neck. He didn’t look like he had slept at all last night, his eyes bloodshot and watery. “I don’t know that there’s anything we can do,” he said finally. “Just wait for them to move on.”
“But who knows how long that’ll take?” Ava asked. Grandpa gave a short nod, conceding the point. He moved back towards Eric’s plain, Spartan kitchen, the three of them trailing behind.
“Mr. Carter?” Caleb said as Grandpa pulled a seat out from Eric’s small breakfast bar and picked up a water bottle that had been left on the counter.
“Let’s drop the Mr. Carter crap, okay? My name’s Mike,” Grandpa said. “You’re a good kid, Reed, I get it.”
Caleb looked Grandpa up and down, before nodding once. “All right. Mike. Look, we need to think about trying to herd them away from you. Like ASAP. Ava’s right. Unless there’s some kind of noise, or they spot something to chase, you can’t count on a group this big to start wandering away on its own. I know. Me and Zack—we’ve seen it before.”
Grandpa stared at Caleb silently. Lydia could tell by the set of his jaw and the speculation in his dark eyes that Caleb wasn’t saying anything Grandpa hadn’t already considered. “Well fair point, kid, but how are we supposed to do that? If those things see any movement in here, they’ll swarm us. Barricade’s pretty sturdy, and we’ve got the shield, but I don’t know if it’ll hold against that many,” he said.
Caleb leaned forward, bracing his hands on the breakfast bar across from Grandpa, his deep brown eyes steady and intense. “What if we gave ‘em something to chase?” he asked softly.
Grandpa straightened, setting the bottle of water down with enough force that it made a hollow thunk. “Meaning what?” He sounded wary, and Lydia didn’t like the direction this was heading.
Caleb blew breath through clenched teeth. “What if I went out there? Looks like all these yards are pretty close together. I can jump your blockade, out of sight, and get into one of the other back yards. I go through a few yards, get enough of a head start, then go out into the street and make some noise…get ‘em to chase me.”
Lydia’s jaw wanted to drop with every word. He couldn’t seriously…he wouldn’t…that was—
“Are you crazy?” Ava burst out. “There’s close to fifty Burnouts out there!”
“Yeah, and if we just sit here doing nothing, there’s gonna be close to fifty Burnouts in here,” Caleb shot back. He turned back to Grandpa with a determined look. “I know I can make it.”
“Make it where?” Grandpa asked in disbelief. “Kid, we have no recon on what’s out there; there’s no telling how many other Burnouts are out in the streets, we have no idea if any of the houses are open.” He shook his head. “Where would you go?”
“His truck,” Lydia burst out, the answer coming to her even as Caleb opened his mouth to reply. “You’re going to try to get to your truck. That was you we heard last night…you knocked over a trash can or something. It must be close.”
“Two minutes, tops,” Caleb confirmed. “Probably less, if I’m not worrying about Zack. It’s a fusion engine model—runs on gas or clean-burn. We’ve been out of gas for three weeks, but if someone’s got some around here, all I need is a gallon or two. Or if you’ve got any vehicles that use the GM-180 Fuse battery, I can change out the charge.”
Ava sputtered, and even Grandpa looked shocked at what Caleb was suggesting. He leaned forward, determination in the sharp line of his jaw, the set of his shoulders. “Look. You wouldn’t be in this mess if the girls hadn’t helped us last night. I want to help.”
“And believe me, Reed, I admire that. But it’s nuts! You really think you can stay ahead of that swarm, gas up your truck, get in the driver’s seat, and put it in gear before they catch up to you?”
“I can make it,” Caleb insisted. “Worst case scenario, I lose them after I lead them away from here and circle back to the truck later. Mr. Carter…Mike, you don’t understand!”
“Then explain it to me, son, because that sounds a hell of a lot like a suicide mission. They’ve only been out there a few hours. We’ve waited out Burnouts on the street before; we can do it again.”
“They’re blocking you in!” Caleb leaned forward. “We’ve seen it, okay? Time after time. They start herdin’ together like that, spreading out in a line, and they just freeze. They stand there and they wait until…until something sets them off. Then it’s a massacre!” His words spilled out in a torrent, almost tripping over themselves.
Ava sidled closer to Lydia’s side, her gaze darting from Caleb to Grandpa as she worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Lydia twisted her fingers into the hem of her threadbare softball shirt at the thought of trying to fend off that many Burnouts at once…she didn’t even know if they had that much ammo.
Grandpa was right, though. As fast as Caleb was—and he had been moving plenty fast last night, even leading Zack behind him—she doubted he’d be able to do what he was suggesting. There was too much that could go wrong. Caleb couldn’t watch his back and gas his truck up and get it running before the herd was on him. The only way it would possibly work was if…
“I could go with him.” The words were out of Lydia’s mouth almost before the thought finished forming.
She was met with dead silence.
Grandpa whirled on her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ava turn with a similar expression, her mouth hanging open. Caleb startled, straightening up from the counter.
“Absolutely not,” Grandpa snapped, with all the finality of a door slamming shut.
Lydia tilted her head, her fists clenching by her sides. Now that she’d actually voiced the idea, it burrowed into her brain, refusing to let go. She could do it. She could.
“Grandpa, it makes sense!” she protested. “I’m fast. You know I’m a good shot. I know the neighborhood. Your Jeep’s a fusion model, and I know you have a gas can in the garage! I can watch his back, and be in the cab while he’s putting the gas in. As soon as he’s done, we’re moving!”
Unspoken, but very much present in her mind, was the fact that if any of the Burnouts got too close, she was the one person who could defend herself without a gun.
Grandpa was unmoved. “I said no,” he repeated. “It’s too risky.”
“So’s letting those things hang around our front door!” It made her sick, absolutely sick to think of that many Burnouts that close to them. To Grandpa. To Ava. As long as the Burnouts were out there, her family was in danger.
“Lydia Catherine, that is enough!” Grandpa thundered.
Lydia’s jaw snapped shut, and she deflated. A hard blush scalded her cheeks at being yelled at like a little child, especially in front a near-stranger. She stared down at the countertop as an uncomfortable silence filled the kitchen. One of Ava’s hands skated lightly down Lydia’s back, to rest just below her shoulder blades in a quiet show of support. After a few tense moments, Grandpa sighed
heavily, rubbing at his eyes.
“It’s too dangerous,” he said. “Please don’t argue with me about this, Lyddie.” The anger vanished from his voice as quickly as it had appeared. His shoulders slumped, veins and dark age-spots standing out in stark relief on his skin. He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, not looking at anyone in the kitchen. “Reed, I appreciate you being willing to risk yourself, but I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Mike,” Caleb began, “I meant what I said. It’s our fault they’re out there.”
Grandpa let out a derisive snort. “It’s no one’s fault,” he said. “Not unless you two were hauling that pack of Burnouts around in your bag.” He pinned Caleb with a sharp look. “I’d have done the same thing my girls did last night. All of us would’ve. You don’t…son, I know what I said last night, but no one’s gonna turn you and your brother out. You don’t have to risk your life to earn your keep.”
“I know—no, I know. But you gotta understand.” Caleb’s jaw tightened again. “This can’t end well, okay? Not when there’s this many. We gotta do something,” he pleaded. Lydia was struck again by how sincere he looked, how utterly convinced he seemed that their situation was dangerous enough to risk going over the barricade.
It was hard to argue with that kind of conviction.
Grandpa’s fingers beat a rapid tattoo against the bottle, his eyes fixed on Caleb’s face. Lydia could practically hear the wheels turning in his head, see him weighing what Caleb was saying against what he already knew. Eventually his fingers stilled on the bottle.
“Grandpa,” Lydia began again, and trailed off, unsure of what she was going to say.
Grandpa held up a hand. “We aren’t doing anything until we can get everyone together and talk about this,” he said. “And I’m sorry…I get that you’ve got a different perspective here, Reed, but I’m not going to start jumping the gun. If they haven’t started moving on by tonight, we’ll talk.”