by Adam Drake
But now Ethan was in some serious trouble, possibly life threatening.
Because of me, Wyatt thought, feeling his anger grow. I should have kept my big fat mouth shut and gave those assholes our money. Then maybe my only friend in the world wouldn't be bleeding to death at a God-damned bus stop, right now.
To the man, he asked, “Hey, do you know of a hospital around here?”
“Well, I know of a private clinic some ways down north of that intersection there.”
“How far?”
The man shrugged. “No clue. But I'd guess a good twenty blocks, maybe more.”
Wyatt cursed inwardly. But what else could he do? Sit here and wait for this nonsense to sort itself out, hoping that an ambulance could eventually be called? Or haul Ethan's weakening ass down twenty blocks on the chance of finding a clinic that might not really be there?
A commotion broke out behind them among a cluster of dead vehicles. Some people were shoving each other around and yelling.
This is getting ugly. If people's nerves are frayed now, what will things be like in a few hours? Or a few days?
Wyatt shook his head at the prospect. He didn't need to think on other people right this moment. Only his friend mattered.
He thanked the man and trotted over to Ethan.
His friend's pallor was ashen, blood completely soaking his left side and down his trousers.
“How you doing?” Wyatt asked, trying not to look as worried as he felt.
“Just peachy,” Ethan said. His whole body was limp like his joints had given up on keeping things together. “Got a medevac on route, yet?”
Wyatt chuckled. “No, no medevac.” He handed Ethan the water bottle. “Here, drink this.”
Ethan took it graciously and guzzled the water down.
“Actually, I'm going to be your medevac.”
“Really,” Ethan said, dubious. “You gonna grow blades or wings or something and whisk me away?”
“Not quite,” Wyatt said. “Wait here, I'll be right back, okay?”
Ethan shrugged, a weak gesture. “Don't worry, I don't think I can crawl very far even if I wanted to.”
It pained Wyatt to leave his friend alone, but he had to. Quickly, he ran down the alleyway and back to their carts.
He unlocked them, then took turns moving them around, testing their wheels. The one for glass bottles looked to be in the best shape, so he dumped it out.
Without bothering to lock the other cart, he ran back down the alley, rattling up a tremendous noise.
He pushed the cart up to Ethan and gestured at it with a smile. “Your medevac as ordered.”
Ethan, despite his weakened conditions, gave the cart a doubtful look. “Really? You're gonna push me around in that?”
“Sure. Works for cans why not for you?”
“Well, I guess I'm recyclable in the grand scheme of things.” He shoved himself up off the bench with Wyatt's help.
“But where are we gonna go?” Ethan asked as he crawled unceremoniously into the cart. He flopped inside so he was facing backwards, his legs up over the sides like a mischievous kid in a shopping mall. He grunted in pain at the movement.
“To get you fixed up, buddy,” Wyatt said with a smile he didn't feel.
The man from the car trotted over. “Hey, you taking him to the clinic?”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said.
“Then here, take this.” The man held out a fold of money bills.
Wyatt and Ethan stared in shock.
Wyatt snapped out his reverie and asked, “What's that for?”
“Unless you guys have insurance, you might have trouble getting help from the clinic. This isn't much, but it should be enough to get your friend looked at,” the man said.
Wyatt stared at the proffered cash. So much of it. Several hundred at least. “I.. I don't know..” he said with uncertainty. No one had ever given him that much cash before. A couple of bucks, sure. But hundreds of dollars? Never.
“Oh, hell, Wyatt,” Ethan said. “Take the money. At the very least it can pay for my funeral.”
Wyatt accepted the money graciously and shoved it inside his jacket. “Thank you. I mean it.” Then, as an afterthought asked, “What's your name?”
“Ruben,” the man said. “Now get him out of here.”
Wyatt nodded at Ruben, again, and then pushed the cart, still in shock.
As they rattled along, Wyatt found his mind in a daze. That has to be the kindest thing anyone had ever done for him before. And for Ethan.
“See, not all people are complete shit,” Wyatt said as he pushed the rattling cart down the road, navigating around vehicles.
“The jury is still out,” Ethan said. His arms and legs shook with the cart's movement, all the energy gone out of him.
Wyatt looked at his friend with a mix of pity, rage and confusion. Why was this happening to them? They should be in an ambulance by now if the damned power worked.
As he pushed the cart along, he found his thoughts echoed in the conversations of the people he passed.
What in the hell was going on?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nate
After walking ten long blocks down Greenside avenue, Nate was ready to start shooting people.
He usually avoided crowds in general. No parties, or get-togethers or baseball games. Those were for the lesser folk, the chum of the sea.
In fact, if he had to count how many friends he had on his fingers he'd come up with a fist. He didn't need friends. More of a hindrance to his line of work. Can't trust people, and you really couldn't trust the jackals in the underworld where he worked.
So having to listen to all the whining and wailing of the people he passed began to fray his already shortened nerves.
Car after car, helpless drivers stood beside them. Nearly every vehicle had bumped into the one in front of it at cruising speed. Hoods were crumpled, back lights shattered, windshields cracked. The result was one long continuous line of vehicular mayhem in both directions.
And everybody screamed or yelled at everyone else.
“Why didn't you watch where you're going?”
“No brakes! I couldn't stop!”
“My brakes worked, but I have no power.”
“My horn wouldn't even work!”
“Call your insurance company – if you can!”
“My neck!”
“My car!”
This tension added up. At one point, he came upon an eighteen wheeler which had jackknifed on the road, the driver having tried to stop, but couldn't do it fast enough. He'd plowed through cars creating a wake of overturned vehicles, some on top of each other.
Two men were fighting amongst this carnage while others tried to stop them or looked on.
Nate paused to watch the circus, feeling his blood rise. He very much wanted to jump into the fray, show them how a beat-down is done properly. But after a few minutes he grew bored and continued on.
A pretty girl knelt under a tree next to an older man, maybe her father. The old coot clutched at his chest, gasping heavily.
She saw Nate as he walked by and waved frantically at him. “Can you help me, please!” He found her high pitched voice cute. He walked over.
The girl looked relieved. “Oh, thank God! No one will help us. I don't know what it is. Do you know how to-,” she stopped talking when Nate leaned down and scooped a cellphone from the old man's lap.
Nate peered at its black screen, thumbing it.
“What are you doing?” the girl asked, confused and frantic. “My phone doesn't work. No one's does.”
“Figures,” Nate said, disappointed. He tossed the phone back onto the man's lap and walked away, the girl too stunned to say more.
Nate took out his own dead phone, not expecting a change in its status. There wasn't.
“Won't be needing this anymore,” he said and threw it.
The phone ricocheted loudly off the passenger door of a souped-up red Camaro, chipping the paint and le
aving a dent.
“Hey! What the hell!” screamed the driver who had been examining the damage to his hood. The front end was firmly wedged under the rear bumper of a landscaping truck.
The driver had to climb over his windshield to confront Nate.
Nate stopped and waited.
“You're going to pay for that!” the driver screamed, waving at the dent.
Nate laughed, a deeply mocking sound. Something he practiced. “Your hood looks like that, but you get your panties in a twist over a little dent?” He sneered at the driver. “Got your priorities backwards, don't you think?”
The driver, a younger man in his twenties had a lean muscular build. Nate could tell it was all for show and not for use. Doubted the guy could even throw a good punch.
The driver came right up to Nate and got in his face. “Who the hell do you think you are? You're gonna pay for-.”
Nate's arm shot out from his side, no telegraphing at all. His fist connected with the tip of the other man's nose and kept on going, crunching cartilage.
The man's angry screams became a yelp of pain. His head snapped back, and he stumbled, knees buckling, then fell to the concrete. Blood exploded from his mashed nose.
Nate stepped forward and kicked him in the stomach. The man folded into himself, keening in pain.
“Think I should pay for it?” he said, kicking the man again.
“Okay! Okay!” the man begged, trying to block the kicks with his legs and hands.
Nate kicked again. “Piece of shit Camaro. Why don't you drive a real car?” He didn't really mean that, but was too pissed off to care.
“Stop that!” someone shouted.
Nate looked up to find a small crowd of people gathering around. A fat wide-eyed woman held up her hands. “Stop hurting him!”
The back of Nate's neck prickled and, in one fluid motion, instantly produced his pistol.
The crowd gasped in surprise.
With the silencer attachment, Nate realized that the pistol looked a little comical. He waved it at them.
“What's a matter with you idiots?” he said, almost conversationally. “Never seen a good shit-kicking before?”
Wanting it to just end, the man on the ground said, “I'm sorry! Okay? I'm sorry!”
“What?” Nate asked, aiming at him.
The man's eyes widened. Now he knew who he was really dealing with. Not some slob walking down the street, but an apex predator.
“Said I'm sorry,” the man said, tears streaming down his face. Whether he cried from the pain or for his life, Nate couldn't tell.
Nate looked over the little group of frightened people. It felt strange standing before them like this without a mask on. It felt liberating. “Anyone got a working phone?” he asked.
Every head shook, no.
“Huh,” Nate said, then lowered the pistol and walked away, continuing south.
This is big, he thought as he sauntered along the side of the road. Whatever's happened is bigger than he originally considered. How does someone turn everything off at once? Never mind turning things off – everything is effectively dead. Was it the Russians? Those crazy Koreans?
As he picked his way along the sidewalk, people spotted the pistol in his hand and gave him a wide birth. Nate didn't notice, so lost in thought.
This has got to be an attack of some sort. Some sort of device. A death ray, or something. Or a thing that sucks up electricity or negates it. Then he stopped, hit with a thought. Nuclear? Was it a bomb?
He slowly spun around scanning the horizon. The black column of smoke from the plane crash mottled the sky to the south, but it was joined by other columns, most smaller. He counted six rising from different locations. Fires all over. He glanced at the crush of cars on the road. And no way for firefighters to get to them, even if their fire engines were still working, which he doubted.
But he didn't see a mushroom cloud. If there was a nuclear attack, people would be really freaking out right now. Still, it didn't mean a bomb hadn't gone off nearby, or in space. He'd spent a lot of time surfing the internet and one of the factoids he learned was that nukes killed anything electrical.
He continued on, lost in thought, but slipped the pistol back in his pocket.
Vicky's radio didn't work. Cars weren't moving, and planes – at least one he knew of – were crashing. Cops were going to have one hell of a day on their hands if this was city wide, which it was starting to shape up to be.
He arrived at an intersection which was densely packed with dead vehicles. There were more people here, most looked to be workers from a huge nearby office building. The sign outside the building made him pause. Pickering Office Tower.
Well, well, he thought. That was a name from the past. Not the building, but of one of its inhabitants.
Nate felt a strange mix of anger and excitement course through his body.
There is opportunity in chaos.
He walked toward the office tower. There were clusters of office geeks talking excitedly to each other and waving their cellphones around, trying to understand the situation.
Nate approached a trio of women, all wearing long tight skirts which he found appealing. “Hey, what's going on?” he asked a pretty blonde.
The blonde was a little startled by his appearance. Nate didn't look like he worked in a cubicle by any stretch of the imagination. “Uh, the power's gone out. Can't work.”
A brunette gave Nate the once over and liked what she saw. “Yeah, they might give us the rest of the day off.” Her eyes flashed at him.
Nate grinned. “I think it'll be longer than that. More like a vacation, an extended one.”
“Why's that?” the blonde asked, more concerned now.
Nate didn't answer. He tilted his head back to look up the tall building. “How many stories do you think that is?”
The blonde giggled nervously. “It's twenty-one stories. I should know. I had to climb down every last one of them.”
“Why?” Nate asked.
She giggled nervously, again. “Because the elevators aren't working. You need electricity for that.”
“Huh,” Nate said. Then he asked, “Isn't there a law office up there?”
The blonde blinked in surprise. “Yes, Anderson and Associates. That's where I work. Did you have an appointment?” He was starting to make them nervous.
“Yeah,” Nate said, “I got an appointment with Jonas Anderson. He out here somewhere?” He looked around at the crowd.
The blonde shook her head. “No, he's waiting it out in his office. It would take more than a power outage to get Mr. Anderson out of there on a work day.”
Nate said, “We'll see about that.” He left the perplexed women and headed to the front doors.
“But the elevators don't work!” the blonde called after him.
He entered the main foyer which was crowded with people. Others trickled through the doors, heading outside. Everyone was annoyingly excited at this curious event, so dull were their lives.
Nate found the building registry on a wall and scanned the names.
Anderson & Associates – Partners in Law - 21st Floor.
Figures it would be the top damn floor. He shrugged. Guess he had to work for this. Besides, it was the least he could do for Chris.
He found the stairs and started up. Tired looking fat men in shirts and ties bumbled downward. It was dark, but each floor had propped open the stairwell door letting some sunlight in from the floor's windows.
At the tenth floor Nate found a maintenance man up on a low ladder. He was fiddling with an emergency light which was wedged up in a corner.
“Shouldn't those be working?” Nate asked. He'd passed one on each level, all off.
“Should, yeah,” the man said. “But something is wrong with the batteries.” He tapped the large narrow block beneath the light. “Should have switched over to them the second the power went out.”
“The batteries don't work, either?”
The man
nodded in the gloom. “Not just these, but all of them.” He held out a large flashlight and flicked its switch back and forth. Nothing happened. “Phones are toast, too.”
“Huh,” Nate said, and left the man to his futile efforts. But before he climbed a couple of steps he turned back and asked, “What do you think could do that? Cause a power outage and kill the batteries?”
The maintenance man gave it a moment of thought, then said, “Aliens,” and returned to his work.
For the next eleven floors Nate played that word over and over in his mind. Aliens. That can't be. Could it? An alien attack?
As he finally reached the twenty-first floor, he pushed the thought of an alien invasion out of his mind. He'd think on that later. For now, time to catch up with an old friend.
He left the stairwell and entered a lush office foyer, the kind only lawyer money could buy. There wasn't a receptionist at the desk so he went exploring.
After passing empty cubicles and offices he heard voices coming from an open door marked Board Room.
Inside, he found two men pouring over stacks of papers and giant law books. A pair of laptops sat on the huge table, their screens black.
The men looked up as Nate entered. One of them, a fat man with a stylish goatee and powder-blue tie, gasped.
“What's up, Jonas?” Nate asked the fat man. “Long time, no see.”
Jonas stood in alarm as Nate walked up to him. “N-Nate! Oh, what a surprise. I wasn't expecting you.”
“You weren't expecting me?” Nate said, his voice rising with anger. “Jonas, you should always be expecting me.” He pulled out his pistol, but kept it by his side.
“Oh, God!” Jonas said, raising his hands. His fat blubber quivered beneath his expensive clothes. Clothes Nate helped pay for.
Nate grabbed Jonas by his powder-blue tie. “You should have been expecting me every single day since Chris died. Which wouldn't have happened if you did your damned job!”
The other lawyer, tall and skinny with glasses, had stood up. He backed up against the wall, eyes wide with terror.