BURN - Melt Book 4: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series)

by JJ Pike

  She started up the car and inched forward. Try as she might, Barb could not ignore the rats. They ran under her tires with a thunk and a thunk, as if they had no street smarts at all. The water wasn’t getting much better, either. She wanted to ignore it, but that wasn’t the best course for her angel-faced buttercup. The water was higher, she was sure of it.

  There were people ahead. She squinted into the light. They were a small band, not like the marauding thugs in Bryant Park. She could get by them without much trouble. She’d stick to the opposite side of the street and not make eye contact. The closer she got, the more her anxiety rose. Her mind was full-on fritzing and teasing her away from reality. It was bad. Very bad. They were hunched and dragging something low to the ground. She’d been kidding when she said she was in a Mad Max movie. Now it looked an awful lot like The Walking Dead.

  Barb shook herself, hard. KC would protect her. She had her hound from heaven, sent directly to protect her and the little one. “All will be well. All will be well. All will be well.” She was driving as fast as she could, given the obstructions.

  And the water. It wasn’t draining away. It couldn’t be a single mains break below one business. It had to be several businesses that had been compromised. Even as she tried not to see what was happening, the water had crept an inch or two higher. Now it was lapping the edge of the curb. That wasn’t possible. “Please, Lord, take this from me. Let me be of service. Save my child.”

  The pink waters did not abate. The dragging people did not go away. Whatever she was about to face, she was supposed to face. It was ordained. Nothing happened without a reason.

  She couldn’t make out the stumbling, fumbling clutch of humans coming her way. Were there three or four? More? She jogged to the left, then righted the van and drove as straight as she could before she met with another block. There were three cars parked, side by side, in the middle of the street. To her left there was a mailbox and one of those annoying “Real Estate” newspaper boxes, though no one used those and hadn’t for years. Her only choice was to drive to the right. She had to drive directly into the people who were headed her way.

  They had seen her. The person at the front straightened up and waved. Barb steeled her heart. If she picked up every one of these stragglers she’d have no room for the people she’d promised to save. She couldn’t drive with her eyes closed, but man she wished she could.

  A figure broke away from their strange configuration. Was it crawling? Had she lost it altogether? It was gathering speed, this apparition. She was no fan of horror movies, but she’d seen enough stuff on the internet to know what kinds of creatures crawled out of wells and through space and time, crushing reality and bringing hell with them.

  Though her modern faith held no room for these musings, deep inside the little girl who’d listened to the tales of hellfire and brimstone, who’d worried about demons, who’d believed the Rapture had happened and she’d been left behind on more than one occasion. That part of her mind held her in abject terror.

  The beast was on all fours, racing towards them. KC started up her racket, letting the fiend know that they would not go down without a fight. Barb held her derringer in her trembling hand. For this, she would use one of her precious bullets. If the beings that followed were zomboid—she didn’t believe in zombies, that was fiction, this was nuts—but if they were a creeping form of malignancy, she’d use her gun or Neal’s Taser and blast them all to smithereens.

  “This is not real,” she whispered. “I am here. On Earth. I have a little girl now. I cannot fall into my madness. Cannot. Must not.”

  The beast came into focus. Barb gasped, then sobbed, then laughed, then sobbed again. If this was her brain playing tricks on her, to relieve her of her panic and existential angst, it was doing a damned fine job. The beast was only Maggie-loo, all smiles and slobber and unending enthusiasm. How had she gotten so far north? She would never leave Pete.

  Oh, God. Was that Pete? Was he part of the clutch of people coming her way? The tattered remnants of her friends were hunched to the ground because they were dragging something. No, someone. She tried to shush KC, but it was no use, the girl was in full-on protection mode. She’d take a few minutes to calm the body-slamming hunk of muscular fluff when she got back. They were in trouble. Her friends were in big trouble.

  She parked the car and leapt out. “How? Why? I was coming to get you. I said I would.” She had a pang of guilt. She’d almost bailed on them. If her faith hadn’t been so strong she might have faltered and done the cowardly thing and thought only of herself and her baby.

  “The water’s rising,” said Alice.

  So, they’d seen it too. That was a good sign. No, it was a bad sign. Rising water wasn’t good for any of them. “Was it red?”

  “Yes. For a while.”

  Barb shuddered. “It’s a sign.”

  Alice shook her head. “We’re close to the garment district. It could be a batch of dye. We’ve seen all kinds of things. Rats like you wouldn’t believe.”

  They’d made a kind of pallet for Bill and had dragged him from 19th Street all the way up to 42nd Street. Pete was ashen, but standing. His arm had bled through the bandages and was dripping from his cuff onto the pavement. The blotches on his hands were bigger. Alice was doubled over, hands on her knees, panting. Bill was out of it, but even fast asleep he looked like a man who was not long for this world.

  KC was hammering at the inside of the van, making it rock to and fro, frantic to protect her human.

  “Give me a minute,” said Barb. “I’ll calm her. Then we’re going to drive back uptown. I’ve found a way out. We’ve gotten ourselves a ride.”

  “A ride?” said Alice.

  “I met a double amputee who knows a billionaire.” She knew how it sounded and she didn’t have enough credibility with Alice to convince her that it wasn’t some of her looby-lala talk. “It’s a long story. Trust me, I have a way off of Manhattan.”

  Barb climbed back into the van, cooing at KC and telling her it was all going to be fine. KC’s barks were the kind that required her to put her whole body into motion, bringing her front paws up and crashing them down into the car door. She’d slobbered up the window and scratched holes in the upholstery. She was fearsome. Barb petted her. “Come on, girl. These are good people. You can stop now. Shush…” KC didn’t let up.

  Barb needed to calm herself if she was going to calm the dog. She took a deep breath. And another. Slower, deeper, into that place where you know you’re safe. She put her hand on the baby, the center of all her happiness, the gift she’d never believed would be hers. Her heart-rate dropped, her breathing evened out, those microscopic signals that are in your sweat and relay to your dog that you’re freaking out and they’re right to bark their heads off would be dropping now. She’d read all about her micro-particles of sweat and the chemicals they contained. If a dog could be trained to sniff out a cancer it could surely smell panic.

  “I’m fine. Truly I am.” She buried her head in KC’s fur. It was thick and luxurious, the kind of fur you could lose yourself in. The dog leaned on her. What a sensation, to have a dog press all their body weight onto you. Why had she never had a dog of her own? It was heavenly. “These are my friends. I’m going to take you out to meet them. I need you to be a good girl.”

  She’d been around enough doggie people that she knew it was harder for dogs to “meet” one another when they were on a leash. The theory was simple, dogs had two choices when they were under stress: fight or flight. Put a leash on a dog and you’ve taken away one of their options. She’d take Mouse out first. He’d been no trouble. He was the cutsie wiener dog who would befriend anyone. He’d shown no interest in the baby, but then he was a boy dog. Perhaps they weren’t as interested in children.

  She wrapped Mouse in her arms, still shushing KC, and joined her friends on the sidewalk. Alice leaned up against the wall, covered in sweat. She was not doing well.

  “My goodness. I forgot. I h
ave water for you.” She left Mouse to meet Maggie Loo and raced back to the van. She returned with water for all. “I collected glass bottles. I was listening to you, Alice. I knew better than to bring plastic out here.” Good thing the Avalond was a high-rent joint, stacked with fancy water, in blue or green bottles, that only the upwardly-aspirational could truly afford.

  Alice took the bottle straight to Bill. Not a thought for herself. She held his head in her hands and lifted him up so he wouldn’t choke. The lacerations to his face were deeper, darker. He made no sounds, but he had to be in agony.

  Barb wanted to inspect his newly-made stump, but she’d left all the bandages back at the Avalond. Meds. She hadn’t forgotten the meds. “I’ve got OxyContin. I think you should dose him up. His body has been through so much.” She was to the van and back in a flash.

  Alice pressed the pills into Bill’s mouth and massaged his throat to help him swallow. The three of them drank two bottles of water each. They were going to need to ration it a little until they got back to the skyscraper.

  “I’m going to bring KC out here. Stay calm and she will, too. She was only trying to protect me and Charlotte.”

  Mouse and Maggie-loo were done sniffing each other. Mouse had snuggled down beside Bill, while Maggie-loo was at Pete’s feet.

  Barb covered Charlotte with the burping towel. Babies like the security of the dark. All those hours of preparing for her baby’s birth hadn’t been for nothing.

  “Now, KC. I need you to be the best girl. Come meet my friends.”

  KC popped out of the van and bounded to the new humans. She licked Pete’s hand, sniffed at Alice, but was enraptured with Bill, even though he was prone, said nothing, and couldn’t give off any signals of any kind. He wasn’t happy, sad, panicking, nothing. She, like Mouse, plunked herself beside Bill. She didn’t even acknowledge Maggie-loo.

  “Go figure. You never can tell.”

  “How are we getting out, Barb?” Alice splashed a little water on her hand and ran it around her neck. Man, she was going to be so happy when they got to the billionaire’s mansion and she got a shower. Barb was bursting to tell them how lucky she’d been and what she’d managed and how it was all going to work out, just like she’d always known it would.

  “We’re getting up, up and away, rather than off,” said Barb. She held her hands over her head and made a “wocka wocka” sound. Alice frowned. “It’s a helicopter. We’re going by helicopter.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Alice. “There’s nothing landing on this rock for a long time. The fires are too bad, the smoke too thick, and now there’s water where there shouldn’t be water. There are three helipads in Manhattan, all underwater by now, I’m sure. We got a medical waiver to land a very sick little girl on the hospital roof when this first went down, but there’s a mountain of paperwork and I’d bet my last dollar no one is going to sign off on flights in or out of here now.”

  “Neal is my friend. Charles is his friend. Charles is the billionaire. He has a chopper. It’s going to take us all to safety. Come with me and I’ll show you how. I found a great place. We can eat while we wait. People had to leave in a hurry. They left canned goods, which you’d expect, but they’re all wealthy so there’s a ton of bottled water, too. I haven’t been into more than a handful of apartments, but already I found enough to keep us going for weeks. Though we won’t be here for weeks because, like I said, we have a way out.” It was so good to have someone to talk to. Alice gave her space and time. They were going to be BFFs forever.

  Getting Bill into the van was a breeze compared to getting the quadriplegic down the apartment stairs, then back up again. She elected not to tell them about the stroke victim who had no control over any of her limbs. It had all made sense when it was happening. Neal and Suze were the last ones out of the building because of their handicaps, but it sounded too far-fetched when she rehearsed it in her head. There were other things she wasn’t going to say out loud. She’d killed someone since she’d last seen them. He was a bad man. A thief. Someone who was willing to kill an old woman for no reason. She’d have to answer to God sometime. Even though she believed, with all her heart, that she was right to end his life before he took someone else’s, her parents would never have agreed with her on that one.

  Then there was the person she’d deliberately run over. She closed her eyes and prayed she hadn’t killed the marauder. It was a fuzzy line: were they trying to end her life? Was she within her rights to take matters into her own hands like that? She’d felt threatened, but maybe that was because she was afraid. It was a conundrum. She was going to have to pray into it, to gain some spiritual clarity.

  “Who’s this?” Alice reached towards the front seat to lift the blankie that shielded Charlotte from the setting sun.

  “Leave her be,” said Barb. “She’s sleeping. Her mother died and there was no one to look after her, so I’ve stepped in.”

  “There’s something corrosive in the air. You do not want a child exposed to these chemicals. Get us out of here.” Alice was right. She liked Alice. The woman had a calm and calming spirit. How good was it to meet people whose lives were blessed enough for them to pass on that blessing.

  Barb slid the door shut and ran around the van. “God is good,” she said. She was doing what she’d been asked to do. It was all going to work out.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jim cut the engine and let the vehicle roll down the slope and into the gully behind Jo’s house. They’d avoided all roads and trails and passed no one on their way in.

  The rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire told them the siege was still underway.

  “Climb out the back,” he said, “don’t slam any doors. I’m going to listen here a minute. See where they’re at.”

  Petra slid into the back and unhooked the back door as quickly and quietly as she could. Jim joined her at the back of the vehicle. As promised, the Durango had been rigged to stash a lot of firepower. He’d created fake panels in the walls and a raised bed in the floor. There was a sound absorption blanket she’d never noticed before, Velcroed to the ceiling. When he took it down, it revealed an arsenal of guns taped across the roof.

  “Under the seats.” Jim pointed her to the passenger side. Petra pulled out boxes and boxes of ammo. “And in the cushions.” He arranged the guns in lines from most kick per round to least, then set about fixing them to his flak jacket.

  Petra watched, awed that this ancient being was so slick and precise. It was like he’d practiced this every day of his life for thirty or forty years. Who knew? Maybe he had.

  “Stand still and face me,” he said. “Don’t mind me manhandling you. It’s the only way.”

  “I don’t care,” said Petra. The shooters were on the move, heading even closer to the house.

  “Arms up over your head.”

  Petra held her arms up.

  Jim slid the Kevlar vest on. He’d customized it. There were loops and straps and pockets, all of them easy to open.

  “Pick two handguns.”

  Petra reached for the 9mm Luger and the .44 Magnum.

  Jim smiled. “Good choices. The Luger has a double stacked magazine and holds up to seventeen rounds. Be prepared to use them all. Don’t make any rookie mistakes. Just because you drop the target, doesn’t mean they’re down and out. Assume your assailant is alive until you confirm otherwise.”

  “We’re going for the kill shot? Right away?”

  Jim kept working, his liver-spotted hands adding more and more firepower to her vest.

  “They’re on my property. They arrived with lethal intent. How many chances do you think we should give them?”

  “One. Tell them to leave first. Give them one chance.”

  “Lady, they already had that chance. The chance was to leave us well enough alone. They chose to come here. I don’t know why and I don’t rightly care. I’m going to guess it has something to do with that ‘friend’ of your father’s, but we can’t be sure. If Manhattan has gas fires
and everyone’s watching that on the tube, you can bet that the panic is already at viral proportions. Nothing’s going to be sane for a long while yet.”

  Petra nodded along. She couldn’t argue, though she wished it weren’t true.