by Baker, Rich
Stephenie walks up with a large backpack on her back. She stands in front of Ben and hands him the night vision goggles she had been wearing earlier. “Let’s go,” she says.
Robert grabs her sleeve and pulls her toward him. He signs while talking to her. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asks.
“I’m not staying here. You saw the TV. You saw what Lynn turned into. I’m getting away from here,” she signs, though no one except Robert and Annie can understand her sign language.
“I agree, I think we should go,” Annie says out loud while signing. “And if Steph is leaving with these guys, I’m going with her. I’m not letting her go by herself.”
Robert stares back and forth between the two girls for a few seconds and realizes that he’s outnumbered by his sisters. He knows from experience that once they’ve aligned on something and set their minds to it, there’s no turning them around. He sighs and says, “Okay, I’m with you. But you two ride with me. But like Henry said—once this dies down, we go our separate ways.”
The girls nod their assent.
They hear the staccato of gunfire in the distance, and everyone starts throwing nervous glances back and forth.
“That was probably at the barricade on Trilby Road,” Robert says. He grabs the backpack and pulls it off of Stephenie’s shoulders, grunting when the weight falls against him. He puts it in the crew cab of his pickup, then turns back to Ben and the others. “I’ll lead the way. I’ve pulled the brake light fuse so we can run dark. Try not to rear-end me. Before we go, let’s get your brake lights disabled so we don’t give any Guardsmen we cross paths with something to shoot at.”
“Or zombies something to chase,” Toni adds.
In the shed, Robert wastes no time with the lighting configuration of the FJ.
“Time is of the essence,” he says. “And it’s not like you’re going to get a ticket.”
Before Ben can protest, Robert swings a hammer and smashes the left brake light, then the right.
“Hit the brakes,” he says to Ben.
Ben presses the brake pedal and the light still works on the passenger side. Robert whacks it with the hammer, and it goes dark for good.
“Here,” Annie says. “So we can keep on the same page.” She holds out a walkie-talkie.
Ben takes it and hands it to Toni. “You’re the co-pilot,” he says. She takes it and the night vision goggles that Henry had handed over earlier and heads to the front seat.
Robert turns and gets in the cab of his truck. Stephenie smiles at them, and Keith could swear he saw her wink before she, too climbed into the truck.
“I guess that’s it,” he says. “Let’s mount up.” The group climbs into the SUV and Ben backs the FJ40 out of the shed. From the back seat, Keith speaks up.
“Dude, that Robert guy is a dick,” he says.
“Not now, Keith. I just want to get us the fuck out of here,” Ben replies.
“I’m just saying, we don’t need any of his shit. We were doing fine until they hijacked us. It’s not our fault their people got bit and killed themselves,” Keith says, then punctuates his statement with, “Fuck him.”
“Okay, enough!” Ben snaps. “Can we please focus on not dying tonight? Jesus.”
Keith sulks while Ben puts the FJ in gear and rolls up on the rear of the Robert’s pickup. Annie’s voice crackles over the walkie-talkie she gave them.
“Take off the night vision and look behind you. It’s a good thing we’re leaving,” she says.
They all turn and look back to the northeast. A giant fireball is rising in the air, and a thunderous BOOM follows a few seconds later. Ben rolls the window down and can hear gunfire again. It sounds like automatic gunfire, which means the soldiers at the barricades are either engaged with people or zombies. Either option is not good.
The walkie-talkie crackles again. “Time to go, kiddies,” Robert’s voice says from the speaker. Ahead, he’s already pulling away from Ben in his pickup.
Keith mutters something, but Ben can’t hear it, so he ignores it. He's put on the night vision goggles that Stephenie gave him and he’s impressed that he can see clearly about seventy yards with them instead of the nine or ten yards of vision that Andy’s gave him. Ben puts the FJ40 in gear and hits the gas, spinning the back wheels in the dirt for a second, then accelerates down the dirt trail after Robert’s black truck. Annie comes back on the walkie-talkie.
“We’re going across Henry’s land for a while. He has a lot of land from when he used to graze cattle and sheep. We have trails like this one all over the land to get to the fences, the water troughs, and all of that stuff. Henry sold off the last of his herd a couple of years ago and now we mostly just ride our four-wheelers on it. We used to come out at night and hunt coyotes. That’s what all the night vision stuff is for. Coyotes would kill the sheep and sometimes even the cattle, though that was rare. It cost Henry a lot of money. Besides, it gave him a lot of quality time with us; Stephenie in particular. She loved coming out on hunts, and she’s the best shot. Better even than Henry.”
Annie continues the narrative for a while, directing them to watch out as they cross a buried culvert, so they don’t drop a wheel in the gully on either side or warning them about a large washout on one side of the trail. Eventually, she stops telling them the history of the land they’re traversing and just gives directions when needed.
They come to one of several long, steep ridges of rocks jutting up into the night. These ridges mark the end of the great prairie and the beginning of the Rocky Mountains. Annie advises them to put the FJ into four-wheel-drive as they get ready to traverse the ridge in one of only a handful of spots a four-wheeled vehicle can pass through. They slow to a crawl as the two vehicles zigzag up the trail and creep their way through a narrow opening in the rocks, and then they zigzag down the steep slope on the back side of the ridge.
Annie comes on the walkie-talkie again. “We’re going to be on a regular road in a few minutes. Robert says even though it’s a paved road to keep your lights off. We’ll only be on it for a bit and then it’s on more trails. We’ll cross Highway 34 and cut across the Buttes Golf Course. From there we hope you know where you’re going because we run out of backcountry trails to follow.”
From under his sweatshirt, Andy says, “Hand me the walkie-talkie.”
Toni passes it back to Natalie, who slides her hand under the hoodie and hands off the Motorola device to Andy. He clicks the button. “When we get to Highway 34 let us take the lead. I’ve got a course mapped out that should get us there with minimum time on the roads.”
“Okay, you got it,” Annie says.
They ride for another thirty minutes without incident. Ben takes the lead and follows Andy’s directions, eventually taking a dirt road that follows an irrigation ditch.
“You’re sure this takes us to Longview?” Ben asks.
“It looks like it goes all the way to Venison Road, and from there we can cut through a farm and cross Gypsum Highway right by the Gypsum Creek Golf Course,” Andy replies.
“That’s perfect! If we can get to the golf course, that’s only like two miles from my folks’ place. I know exactly where to go from there!” Ben exclaims.
“And the last time we tried crossing farmland worked out so well for us,” Danielle says. It’s the first thing she’s said in hours, and of course, it’s negative.
“We’re out of Fort Collins, aren’t we? See any zombies?” Ben asks. “Can we just celebrate something going right tonight? For once?”
Danielle resumes her silence, which is fine with Ben. For the first time he feels hopeful their overly long journey is nearing its end.
Just as he’s thinking this, he rounds a corner on the road and hits the brakes hard. Robert, in the Ram 1500 reacts quickly and avoids rear-ending the FJ40.
“What’s the deal?” he asks over the walkie-talkie.
Ben is staring at a gate made of thick steel pipe, set on massive hinges. The gate opens toward the
vehicle and stops against a large steel plate that runs the full length of the five-foot steel pole on the right side of the gate. A thick chain wraps through the gate and around the pole and is secured by a massive padlock.
“Something that wasn’t on the map,” Ben says into the walkie. “Something we’re not prepared for.”
Ben, Robert, Toni, Annie, and Keith get out and walk over to the gate. Ben gives the lock a tug to verify that it’s actually locked. It is.
“Anyone have bolt cutters? So we can cut the chain?” Robert asks. “No? Then I’ll just shoot the lock.”
“I don’t think that will do it,” Keith says. “Look at the size of that thing!”
“I don’t care what you think. Unless you have a magic key that opens this thing, we don’t have a lot of other options.” Robert is openly hostile to Keith.
Stephenie walks up to the group, takes Andy’s night vision goggles off of Keith’s head, puts them on, and kneels down in front of the lock. Unseen in the darkness, Danielle gives her a crusty look.
Stephenie takes a small black pouch out of the pocket of her jacket, and after looking at the lock, she pulls a couple of pieces of thin metal out of it and inserts them into the key slot.
“Is that a lock pick set?” Annie asks.
Robert taps Stephenie on the shoulder and signs while he asks her.
“Yes,” she says. “Now shut up and give me a few minutes. I can get this open.”
“When the hell did she start picking locks?” a surprised Annie asks.
“And when did she get so bossy?” Robert says back. “She’s full of surprises tonight.”
Ben scans the area around them, nervous that a zombie will come after them, or a farmer will shoot at them. This road has taken them uncomfortably close to some farm houses, but so far there are no signs of life from any of them.
“Got it!” Stephenie says. She stands up and pulls the lock from the chain, removes the chain from the gate, and pushes the gate open. She puts the lock picks back in the kit, zips it up, and puts the night vision goggles back on Keith’s head, but gets them crooked. She smiles at him, lightly slaps his cheek and says, “Thanks.”
“Uh. No problem,” Keith stammers.
“She can’t hear you, dick,” Robert says. Annie smacks Robert in the back of the head, and they walk back to the truck.
Keith waits while the two vehicles drive through the gate, then closes the gate and wraps the chain around the post a couple of times. He doesn’t put the lock on the chain just in case they need to come back this way in a hurry. This way, they can ram the gate to open it with minimal damage to either vehicle. Keith runs up and jumps in the Toyota, and Robert puts the Ram in gear and starts after them.
“I don’t like that smart-assed kid, Keith,” he says.
“Really? I thought you wanted to be besties,” Annie says. “And you should be nicer. We might be with them for a while.”
“Not if I can help it,” he says.
In the back seat, Stephenie misses the conversation, but she knows how Robert feels. She sees him tense up every time Keith is nearby. Or says anything. Or exists. She smiles at that last thought. Robert is uber-protective of her, but he’s going to have to let her do her thing, especially now that the world is ending. She’s not going to live under his thumb forever.
Up in the FJ40, Keith is clearly becoming smitten with Stephenie.
“Does anyone else think the deaf chick is kinda badass?” he asks. “I guess you’d have to be, what with not having all five senses.”
“We get it, Keith. She’s cute. She shoots. She can pick locks. She smiled at you. She’s Supergirl,” Danielle says.
“What?” Keith protests. “What did I say? I’m just pointing out she’s pretty badass. I don’t know anyone else that can pick locks. And, I never said she was cute.”
“It’s just like you to be flirting in the middle of the freaking zombie apocalypse—in front of me, no less,” Danielle says with a chill in her voice.
“Oh, Jesus, here we go,” Keith says. Even in the dark everyone can tell he’s rolling his eyes.
“GUYS! Please, knock it off. I’m stressed enough as it is; I don’t need to hear this right now,” Ben says, and then a second later he adds, “Oh, God dammit!”
“What is it?” Toni asks.
“Another gate,” Ben replies.
“Cue Supergirl,” Danielle snarks.
Eleven
Denver, Colorado
D-Day grunts as he drops the body off of the roof. Five full seconds elapse before he hears the thud of the corpse hitting the pavement.
George Bustamante, Carmen’s father, is helping him dispose of the rotten bodies of the undead they’ve killed. They’ve decided to drop them off the roof into the cordoned-off area that houses the numerous trash dumpsters for the building. The last one on the utility cart is that of George’s deceased son-in-law, Bill.
“I’m sad that my Carmen had to deal with this, but between you and me, I never really liked this guy,” he says.
“Really?” D-Day says. “You guys seemed really broken up over it.”
“Don’t get me wrong, this is terrible. But given what else has happened tonight, it could have been worse. They were getting divorced, you know.”
“No,” D-Day says. “I didn’t know that. I just met you people a couple of hours ago. In case you forgot.”
George smiles at him. “You remind me of a guy I knew in the service. Said whatever he thought. No filter. You always knew where you stood with him.”
“Yeah? What happened to him?”
“Killed in Vietnam. The same day I shipped out home. My tour was over. He re-upped. Got killed while I was on a plane to Germany.”
“That’s too bad,” D-Day says.
“He made his choice,” George says, shrugging. “We all do, and we have to live with the outcome. Anyway, Carmen thinks we don’t know about it, but Bill has been talking to us, trying to get us to take his side against Carmen, to get her to withdraw the papers. Like we’d do that.”
“Why hasn’t she told you?” D-Day asks.
“Don’t know. She will, in time. Or maybe not now, not since this has happened.” George gestures at the body under the sheet. “She has her reasons, whatever they are.”
“So—how do you want to do this?” D-Day asks. “Wanna say something? Or just over the edge?”
George looks at D-Day for a second, and then looks down at Bill’s body and says, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. May God have mercy on your soul and grant you passage to heaven.”
He looks back up at D-Day.
“Grab his feet,” he says. Together they heft the body to the edge and pitch it over with the other fetid corpses.
They push the cart back over to the maintenance room that sticks up from the roof. It’s a twenty-foot by twenty-foot building that encloses the elevator and the UPS batteries that run the building’s core features—like the emergency lighting and the electronic locks—in the event of a power outage. The power cells are kept topped off by dozens of solar panels covering most of the roof’s surface.
D-Day turns around. “Look at that,” he says, waving his arm out over the Denver Metro area to the south and west of their building. Smoke, even in this pre-dawn gloom, can be seen rising from dozens of fires, some with flames extending hundreds of feet into the air. Outside of the downtown area, few buildings are over ten stories, and the farther out you look, the flatter it gets. There are wide swaths of neighborhoods consisting of single-family homes where the power is out, creating black holes in the normally well-lit landscape. The glimpse of I-25 they can see from the roof shows a road clogged with cars. None of them are moving. A far off scream breaks the silence, but it’s not repeated. D-Day wonders what happened to that person. He can guess, but hopes they made it.
“It’s the end of days,” George says.
“We’re not getting off that easy,” D-Day says. “Come on, we have more work to do.”
T
he two men head to the maintenance room and press the button for the elevator. It opens right away. D-Day pushes the cart inside, and then he and George get in. George presses “1” and the doors close. D-Day holds his breath, but the power stays on, and they make it all the way to the ground floor.
Carmen and her mother, Elizabeth, have been going through the building’s roster, kept in the security office, and calling the apartments on the intercom to see who’s home and who’s not. They’re on the last floor when D-Day and George return.
Carmen hustles over to her father and gives him a big hug.
“Thank you,” she says and looks at D-Day. “And thank you, too. I could not deal with that.”
“No problem,” D-Day says. “How’s it coming?”
“We’re about done. So far about half the building is here, half isn’t answering.”
“Okay. We’ve got a lot of work to do,” D-Day says. “I think the people on the lower floors need to relocate to apartments higher up. The fewer floors we have to keep secured, the better.” He looks at George. “Can you help coordinate that effort, George?”
“I suppose,” he says. “But what if people don’t want to move?”
“It’s their choice, but they’re on their own if they stay separate from the group.”
“What if we move people into an apartment, and the person who lives there comes back?”
“You’ve seen the city. What do you think the chances are of that happening?”
“I guess you’re right,” George says with a sigh.
“And don’t do it all yourself. When you meet someone who seems competent, recruit them to help,” D-Day instructs him.
“Okay, can do,” George says.
“Elizabeth,” D-Day continues, “you stay in close contact with George. When someone picks a new place to hang their hat, update that roster so we know who’s who in the building. We need to know the names of everyone in their family, how many there are, etc.”
“Got it,” she says.
“And you,” he says to Carmen, “I want you to start going through the vacant apartments and grabbing all the food you can find. We’ll use the common room on the twelfth floor to consolidate it. We need to know how many people we have, how much food and how much water we have. Then we’ll have an idea of how much trouble we’re in. Grab people to help when you find someone who's competent.”