Apparently, Ben had considered placing another guard on the freeway bridge to the west of the city, but in the end decided if the Marauders were coming, they would also be coming in via 3.
30
Abandoned Manchester by moonlight was desolate. It wasn’t a metropolis. The first buildings we passed were houses. It was more like a big town on its outskirts with the occasional high-rise building. When we had discussed it as our potential new home, I had imagined a sparkling, modern city. The reality was jarring. If I had been imagining a post-apocalyptic American ‘every’ town in the Before days, this was definitely pretty close to how I would have imagined it.
Mother nature had begun to reclaim the streets. Unhealthy looking grass sprouted from the road’s surface like hair from an old man’s ear. The smashed windows of the buildings and houses we passed were like jagged, blind eyes, their empty gaze sinister.
I don’t think I was the only one who was spooked as we weaved our way through those empty streets. Of course, it could have been exhaustion, but our group was the quietest I had heard it since our encounter with Jonah and his people.
We turned onto Elm Street, which cut through the city, parallel to the river. There were a few houses at the beginning of Elm Street, but the further we walked, the bigger the buildings became. I pointed out an impressive office tower to Luke. It was on our right as we walked into the heart of the city and was at least ten stories high. As best I could tell in the dark, it was newer than the other buildings we had passed. The signs said it had been known as the Brady-Sullivan Tower. I made a mental note to come explore it.
We walked a good ten blocks before we reached our final destination.
“It’s just down there, at that set of lights,” said Joe, pointing a hundred yards down the road.
The Radisson was set back well from the road, a plain building with a large, overgrown lawn in front of it. There was a faint glow of candlelight in the windows of the entrance. The thought of seeing Indigo and Max warmed me, but it would have to wait. I wanted everybody safely inside first.
I turned around and looked back at our people. They were stretched out at least a block behind us.
“Joe, Paul, you go on in and help the people already in there get these guys settled. Luke, do you want to hang back with me until they’re all inside?”
“Sure thing.”
Luke and I patted backs and offered encouragement to the weary travelers as they passed us. Five minutes later, we followed the last stragglers up to the portico of the hotel. There was a bottleneck again to enter the lobby and Luke and I waited as patiently as we could at the back of the line.
We craned our necks trying to catch a glimpse of our girls in the lobby, but it was near impossible in the candlelight until we got closer. Finally, I spotted Indigo. She was handing out blankets and pillows to the newcomers. My heart leapt in my chest when she turned my way and gave me a smile. Brooke was nowhere to be seen.
“Brooke must be resting,” I said.
“Yeah. That’s good. She’s so close now,” he said, seriously.
I punched him lightly in the shoulder.
“Yep, won’t be long now, dude, and your sleepless nights begin.”
“I can’t wait. What’s it like?” he asked, looking me right in the eye.
“It’s the best thing ever,” I said. “You’ll be a great dad, Luke.”
“Thanks,” he said, the blush of pleasure coloring his cheeks barely discernible in the poor light.
Finally, we made it inside. I waited as Indigo handed out her last welcome bundle and then embraced her in an enthusiastic hug.
“How is Maxie?”
“He’s good. He’s in a room with Ava and Peace for tonight. They were all exhausted.” She broke away from me and hugged Luke. “Brooke is in room 214 if you want to join her. No elevators, of course, but it’s just one flight. The stairs are over there. Here is a flashlight. Just knock.”
“Thanks! You’d make an awesome concierge,” he said and was gone in a flash.
We had a brief chat with the rest of our leadership group, Paul, Ben, Jamal, Beau, Joe, and Allie, before everyone headed up to bed. Jamal had already napped and would take first watch on the doors with Danny. They were both armed with guns and would fire three shots at the first sign of trouble.
We were staying in room 213, opposite Luke and Brooke. When we stopped in front of the door, Indigo handed me the flashlight she was carrying and reached into her pocket, pulling out a keycard which she swiped to open the door.
“How ... there is no power?”
“Battery powered.”
“But, it’s been years.”
“There are a bunch of batteries in the storeroom. We changed all the batteries for the rooms we’ll be using. It’s where we got the flashlights from, too.”
“Okay, great stuff,” I said, taking her into my arms. “You’re as clever as I thought you were.”
“Possibly cleverer,” she said cheekily and pushing the door open with her foot. “Max won’t be back until the morning.”
31
Sunlight streaming through the tinted window woke me. I rolled over to look at Indigo. She wasn’t there, but a note was on her pillow: Downstairs in the dining room when you wake up - XX
Feeling warm and rested, I stared up at the ceiling for a moment, reluctant to get up. It was literally the most comfortable bed I had slept on in about six years.
When I did finally sit up and put my legs over the side of the bed, I winced. Every muscle in my body ached. When I stood, I immediately forgot all about those aches. They were insignificant compared to the scream of pain in my feet. While I didn’t have blisters, my feet were red and chafed from being in boots too long and there was a deep ache in my heel.
I went to the bathroom and relieved myself. I didn’t flush. I knew it wouldn’t work. That didn’t stop me from trying the faucets in the shower on the way out, though. I would have given my left eye for a hot shower right then. Nothing. Not even a dribble.
Indigo had been thoughtful enough to put a fresh change of clothes on the bed. It was my ‘uniform’: patched, faded jeans; a threadbare t-shirt; and a pair of boxers which had once been red but were now a washed-out shade of pink. I got a surprise when I picked up the t-shirt. Underneath was a pair of socks. Brand new athletic socks. I squeezed them in my hand, admiring the soft texture and couldn’t resist putting them to my cheek. Not a very manly thing to do, I know, but if only you knew what a luxury they were after so long without.
Another note fell out of the socks as I separated them.
I found these in a drawer, thought you might appreciate them! Indy XX
I felt a new wave of warmth roll through me, which had nothing to do with the sun. More a sense of well-being. I was comfortable and safe with my family and friends, for the moment at least, and life was great.
I changed quickly and went to find the dining room. I was hungry, but not just for food. It felt like ages since I had held my little boy.
The dining room was a hive of activity. It was packed with our people, but I could tell probably only three-quarters of us were there. All of our original group, except for Ava who was looking after Peace and Max at a table nearby, were at the counter serving plates of hot, simple fare to the ones lined up for food. Indigo caught my eye and smiled after she blew a strand of hair from her face.
Before falling asleep the night before, Indigo had related to me how hard they’d worked at scavenging enough food to keep the whole population going for a few days. More groups would be going out this morning and searching the surrounding buildings. After the previous afternoons, it appeared the city would be a gold mine for provisions. No other people had been spotted. The city appeared to be deserted and may have been that way since the invasion.
I made a beeline for Max. He was standing against a chair, his wobbly legs getting used to holding him up. I scooped him up, much to his delight, and planted a kiss on his cheek.
�
�Maxie, you’re getting so heavy!”
“Da da ...”
“Mom said he wants to learn how to walk, Uncle Isaac.”
“He sure does, Peace. You giving him lots of practice?”
I sat with them for about ten minutes until the lineup for food was only a few people deep, then took Max to get some breakfast.
While we ate with our group, we decided a few of us would head to the Brady-Sullivan Tower. I thought it would be an ideal place to use as a lookout or perhaps a first line of defense if we could get some sort of weaponry up to the top.
“We could even live there, couldn’t we?” asked Allie.
“Possibly,” I said. “But here we have everything we need: bedding, cooking facilities. If we could get something happening here with power and plumbing, it would be perfect.”
“Beau, Jamal, and I are working on that,” said Ben. “Stay tuned.”
“Awesome,” said Luke, sniffing his armpit. “I think we could all do with a shower.”
Brooked nodded emphatically and we all laughed.
Luke turned serious. “I agree we could definitely look at using the tower as a fortress of some kind, but it would have to be in the future. There’s no way we’d be able to get set up before the Marauders get here. I say we put up a barricade across Elm Street this morning and have it manned and armed before we go and scope out the tower.”
“Sounds good” I said. “And I want at least ten people at each of the roads in. At the first sign they’ve tracked us down, I want them back here ASAP.”
Many hands make light work and within two hours we had constructed a barricade of old cars and junk which spanned the entire road. As an afterthought, we decided to do the same on the side streets which would give the Marauders access if they decided to try and sneak around. To do that work, we broke the one hundred and fifty or so who had helped with the Elm Street barricade into three groups headed by Danny, Paul, and Jamal.
Luke, Indigo, Ben, and I left to look at the tower once those barricades were well underway.
32
The day was sunny and walking through the city with my friends was a lot more pleasant than it had been the night before when everything had still seemed so uncertain. Not that I didn’t feel uncertainty that day. As much as I tried to persuade myself the Marauders wouldn’t track us to Manchester, the seed of doubt in my mind continued to sprout tendrils of worry.
I wasn’t the only one pessimistic about our chances of avoiding a confrontation with Ash and his people. Luke sidled closer to me as Ben and Indigo chatted happily.
“Dude, I think we need to be ready for the Marauders. Hopefully, they gave up once we gave them the bloody nose back at the bridge, but Ash seems like a particularly persistent kind of asshole to me. With a bit of luck, he’ll think we’ve gone to Concord. At least that would give us more time.”
“I think you’re right ... about him coming here, I mean. I have a bad feeling. Let’s get this done as quickly as we can and get back to the Radisson.”
The Brady-Sullivan complex was even more impressive in the daylight. It was set on a large open parcel of land and dominated its surroundings. It was made up of a squat section in front, itself about six stories high, with a fourteen-story tower behind.
We entered through the front doors, which were broken in, probably by looters at the beginning of the invasion, and looked around cautiously. There were no signs of life, apart from a few pigeons roosting in the lobby.
“Shall we go straight to the tower?” Indigo asked.
“Yep, let’s do that.”
We made our way through the connecting hallways and finally arrived in the lobby of the tower.
“It’s going to be a long climb up the stairs. You sure you’re up to it?” I asked Indigo.
She raised an eyebrow. “I’ll race you.”
She beat me and the others to the fire door, but, after six flights of stairs, our race was more like a death march. Even Luke, the fittest of us, called for a break after we reached the halfway point.
When we finally burst out onto the roof of the tower, we collapsed, sucking huge lungful’s of air. Luke was the first to recover and walked to the edge of the building and whistled.
“Great view!”
We joined him, Ben hanging back a little.
“Wow,” said Indigo. “Come look, Ben.”
“No thanks,” he said. “I can see plenty from here. I suffer from vertigo.”
We didn’t give him any grief about his fear of heights. Stepping close to the rail even gave me a tingly feeling in my legs and I had never had a problem with heights.
I took Indigo by the hand and we walked to a raised platform on the narrow side of the roof. From here, the view was even better, if you counted being able to see the streets and rooftops below. We stood there for a long time, looking down at the empty city we hoped would become our home.
Twenty minutes later, we were back on the street, having decided the complex would definitely make a good place to set up some defenses and serve as an early warning lookout. We even began discussing pie in the sky stuff. How, as we grew, it would be an ideal place to house the council and any other administrative bodies we decided to set up. All of that was a long way off, but it was fun to discuss.
“I want an office on the fourteenth floor,” said Luke.
“Sure thing, buddy. You want to climb those stairs every day, you’re welcome to it,” said Ben.
I waited for Luke to think of a comeback, but instead he stopped dead and put his arms out to halt us.
“Shhh!”
“What —” Then I heard it, too.
“Motorcycle! Coming fast. Wait here.”
Luke stepped into the middle of the street and pulled out his pistol. He held it loosely in front of him and gazed intently towards the end of Elm Street. The screeching of tires alerted us before the bike careened around the corner, wobbling dangerously before steadying and coming straight down the road towards Luke. I could tell something was wrong. The rider frantically looked behind after he made the corner and then slumped over the handlebars in an uncomfortable manner. When he saw Luke in the middle of the road, he started to slow his weaving ride.
As he drew closer, I saw the arrow protruding from the rider’s chest. Even though he was slowing, he wasn’t slowing fast enough. I saw his chin drop to his chest. Luke had to scramble out of the way as the rider veered at the last second and struck the gutter of the sidewalk a few feet beyond us and tumbled in a heap on the hot concrete.
We rushed over. Luke reached him first and turned the key to switch off the still-running engine. The rider was moaning and trying to sit up. Indigo and I held him down as Luke spoke to him.
“Kevin,” said Luke. “Just lay still, buddy. You’ve been shot with an arrow.”
I heard a groan and a muffled sentence that might have been something like no shit Sherlock.
Kevin was one of the kids from Luke’s security force. I knew him, but not well. Luke eased Kevin’s helmet off. His face was as white as I’d ever seen anyone. His blue lips contrasted starkly against his skin’s alabaster white. A small dribble of blood leaked from his lips. His breath made an all too familiar whistling noise.
“It ... was ... them ...”
“What about the others?” Luke asked, cradling the boy’s head on his thighs.
“All ... dead. Snuck up on us. No guns ... just ... arrows. Real quiet.”
The injured boy coughed hard, spraying blood in all directions, and then relaxed in Luke’s arms.
“How many, Kevin?” asked Luke, unaware, or unwilling to believe, that Kevin had just died.
“Kevin!?”
Indigo put her hand on Luke’s arm. “He’s gone, Luke.”
Luke didn’t say anything, just ran his hand over Kevin’s brow as though comforting him.
“We have to go, mate,” said Ben, softly.
Luke nodded and slowly eased the boy off his legs and stood.
“Indigo,
you should take the bike and warn everyone. We need every second we can get,” I said. “Maybe get Max and the other kids safe into the upper floors of the hotel with Allie, Brooke, Ava, and the rest of the mothers.”
“Okay.”
Luke pulled Kevin onto the sidewalk and leaned him against the nearest building after Indigo had sped off.
“I want to come back and bury him after we’re done with those assholes.”
“Sure. Come on. Let’s go.”
We broke into a run.
33
The plaza in front of the Radisson was a hive of activity when we got back. Jamal and Beau were passing out firearms while Paul directed those without guns to the rear. They would be the second and last line of defense. Indigo and Brooke passed out bottles of water, which Indigo continued doing when Brooke came over to kiss Luke, before handing Ben, Luke, and I a bottle each.
The well-used plastic bottle crinkled in my hand as I raised it to my lips and took a swig. We were true recyclers, the hundreds of bottles we had collected over the years used over and over again.
“The kids are on the eighth floor with Ava and the other mothers,” Brooke said, perhaps anticipating my question.
“You should go with them,” Luke said.
“No,” Brooke said firmly. “I want to be here where I can be of use.”
“But —”
“I said no, Luke.”
She stood there in the sun, one hand on her hip, the other resting protectively over her belly. Ben put his hand on Luke’s shoulder. “No use arguing, mate, I know that tone. It’s the same as the one she gave me whenever I wanted to watch football in our living room at home.”
“Fine,” said Luke. “Just stay at the back and make sure you have a gun.”
“I don’t need a gun,” she said, smiling and pinching his cheek. “I’ve got my big, hairy road warrior to protect me.”
Luke didn’t smile, and Brooke grabbed his arm.
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