by Amy Cross
"Okay," he says, "but at the first sign of trouble, I'm flooring the pedal. You got me? I'm not wasting a fucking second." Without another word, he starts the engine, and we drive slowly past the first houses. "You see anything?"
I shake my head. The truth is, Scottsville looks deader than dead. I can't put my finger on it, but something about the place just seems totally still and undisturbed, as if no-one's been here for days. It's almost as if a faint layer of dust has descended on the whole town, and there was no-one around to clean up. As the truck continues to move slowly along the street, it's hard not to think about what might be inside these houses. After all, people don't just disappear, and there could be bodies hidden just out of sight. Eventually, Joe takes a left turn and we reach the main street, which is wider than the others but just as deserted. Where once there would have been a few people wandering from store to store, now there's nothing but a few abandoned cars and a whole lot of dust.
"Lydia wasn't kidding," Joe says as we drive slowly past the convenience store. "Look at this place. Middle of the day, and there's no-one about. Where the hell did everyone go?"
"Maybe they were evacuated," I reply.
"By who?"
"The military. Maybe the army came through and rounded everyone up. I guess they missed us 'cause our farm's so far out."
"We'd have heard," he says. "We'd have seen helicopters or something. Somehow, we'd know what was going on."
"It's the most likely explanation," I say. "What else could have happened? You think everyone just upped and died in their houses?"
"Maybe," he says, suddenly parking up in the middle of the street. "So do you think we should go take a look around? There might be some decent food in the store."
"I thought you didn't want to get out of the truck," I remind him.
"Doesn't look too dangerous," he says with a shrug. "I don't see no rampaging hoards, do you?"
"No," I say, "but I saw the cop back at the -"
"For fuck's sake, will you knock that off?" he says. "I don't know what you saw when you found that cop, but I'm damn sure you're confused about the whole thing. Dead cops don't just crawl around, okay? This isn't a zombie movie, there's no aliens coming down from space. Whatever happened, it was something weird but it wasn't something crazy. Look at this place. It's totally empty."
Staring out at the storefronts, I feel a knot in my stomach as I consider what it might be like in there. I feel like there's a really good chance that we'll find dead bodies, and I'm also worried about that cop from yesterday. If he could keep moving even after he seemed to be dead, there's no reason why others couldn't have done the same. Then again, if the two hundred people of Scottsville were in a similar state, I guess we'd have seen some kind of a sign by now.
"You can wait here if you want," Joe says, getting out of the truck. "I'm gonna go take a look in the store."
"I'll come," I reply quickly, getting out and following him across the dusty street. I keep glancing over my shoulder, expecting to see someone or something.
"So," Joe continues as we reach the store and find that the door is locked, "you got any moral objections if I break this thing down?"
I shake my head.
"Cool," he says, standing back. "If this goes well, I might even try busting down the door of the bank later. I've always wanted to be an old-fashioned highwayman." With that, he runs at the door of the convenience store, which gives way easily. A thin cloud of dust immediately floats out into the afternoon air, along with a foul smell that I can only hope comes from nothing more grizzly than some rotten fruit.
"I don't think there's gonna be anything in there," I say, keen to stay outside.
"We've gotta check," Joe replies, stepping through the door. "I'll just be a couple of minutes."
Part of me wants to go in with him, but I find myself loitering out in the street. It's weird being here when there's no-one else around. I must have been to Scottsville a hundred times, and I always thought it was a dead little place. It never seemed like anything was actually happening here, and I always dreamed of heading off somewhere to experience a real town, or even a city. Suddenly, though, I find myself desperately wanting the old Scottsville back. I just want to see one person come around the corner.
"There's nothing in there," Joe says, emerging from the store. "All the fresh stuff's rotten, and it's not like we need more chocolate, right?"
"Did you find anyone?" I ask.
He shakes his head.
"Did you look behind the counter?"
"Of course I looked behind the counter. There's no-one in there." He walks across the street, before stopping to look around. "What the fuck happened to this place?" he asks, before cupping his hands around his mouth. "Hello?" he shouts at the top of his voice. "Is there anyone still here?"
"Don't do that!" I say, hurrying over to him.
"Why not?" he asks.
"What if there's people here we don't want to see?"
"Like who?" He pauses for a moment. "Are you still banging on about that cop? Thomas, you're letting your imagination run away with you. Does it really seem like there's gonna be a bunch of fucking zombies sitting around this place? It's dead as all hell. The only chance is that maybe there's some people holed up somewhere and they're asleep. I don't wanna just drive through and maybe miss the chance of making contact."
"A few minutes ago, you didn't want to drive through at all," I point out.
"Let's not do this," he replies, walking over to the other side of the street.
"Do what?" I ask, following him.
"Arguing's a waste of time," he says as we walk along the sidewalk. "It's a waste of fucking energy, too. Let's just get on with doing what we need to do, like -" He stops in front of a bar and grabs the handle; the door swings open, revealing a dark interior. "What do you know?" he says, turning to me. "At least there's one place that's still open."
"You're not serious," I reply. "There's no way you're serious."
"Relax," he says, pulling the door shut. "Even I'm not dumb enough to think we should stop for a drink. But I'll be damned if I'm not curious about what happened here. It's like someone just came along and sucked up all the people. A whole town doesn't just disappear like this." We start walking again, making our way to the end of the street. "There's got to be someone here," he continues. "There's got to be someone, somewhere, who knows what the fuck is going on. I refuse to believe that the whole fucking town of Scottsville has just upped and vanished overnight. There's someone somewhere, I swear to God, and we're gonna find them."
Just as he finishes speaking, there's a noise in the distance. It's not much, and it only lasts a couple of seconds, but it sounded like something hitting a piece of metal. Joe and I exchange a worried glance, and we stand in silence for a moment, waiting for the noise to return.
"It was probably just the wind," Joe says eventually, his voice filled with tension.
"There's no wind," I reply.
"We're going back to the truck," he says, grabbing my arm and starting to pull me back the way we came. We only get a few steps along the street, however, before we both spot the same thing up ahead: a figure, climbing into our truck.
"Oh shit, no," Joe says, fumbling through his pockets, just as we hear the truck's engine start up. "Hey!" he shouts, racing toward the vehicle, but it's too late. With screeching tires, the truck shoots forward and veers straight around Joe before speeding off down the street, leaving us both in the dust.
Chapter Seven
Manhattan
After double-checking that there's no-one nearby, I pull the key from my pocket and slip it into the lock on the front door of Harrison Blake's apartment.
Or, at least, that's what I try to do, because no matter how hard I try to get it to the fit, the key just won't go into the hole. After a couple of seconds, I suddenly realize that the lock has changed. Before, it was a scratched and old silver lock, but now it's shining new and gold. Before I can really react properly, I he
ar the sound of someone turning the handle from within, and the door opens to reveal Bob's smiling face.
"Good afternoon," he says politely. "Can I help you?"
"I just..." I look down at the key in my hand, and it's immediately clear that the game is up. "I just came to look for a book," I say, deciding to play it cool. After all, now that Bob seems to have found the books, I guess my best option is to pretend that I thought he knew all along.
"Well," Bob says, with a curious glint in his eyes, "the books aren't up here anymore. Henry and I took them down to the storage rooms. I figured books are a valuable resource right now, so we need to make sure they're safe. After all, it's not as if we can just go online and look for information, is it?"
"No," I stammer, my mind racing as I try to think of a way out of this situation. "Well," I continue after a moment, "I guess I'll just go and look downstairs for a -"
"Not so fast," Bob says. "Where did you get that key?"
"Harrison Blake gave it to me," I reply.
"When?"
"The other day, before he left."
"Why didn't you mention it?"
"I didn't think it was important. You've got a master-key to the whole building anyway, so... I assumed it wasn't an issue."
"You did, did you?" he asks, stepping out of the apartment and pulling the door shut. "So you had this key to Blake's apartment, and you figured there was no need to share the existence of all these books with the rest of us because... you assumed we already knew?"
I nod.
"I see." He stares at me for a moment. "So it's not like you decided to keep the books from your brother and myself for any other reason. It's not like you chose to deceive us, is it?"
I shake my head.
"That's good," he replies, starting to walk along the corridor toward the stairwell. "Nevertheless, it's hard to interpret this little incident as anything other than a slight against both your brother and myself. Elizabeth, will you accompany me down to the lobby, please?"
"I was going to take a nap," I reply.
"You can do that after you've come to the lobby with me," he says, heading through to the stairwell.
Figuring I have no alternative, I traipse after him. It's pretty clear that he's pissed off about the fact that I kept the existence of all those books from him, but I don't see why he's quite so mad; after all, he had a key all along, so it's not my fault that he didn't bother to come up and see if Blake left anything useful behind. At the same time, I can understand how, in his paranoid state, Bob might interpret my actions as some kind of threat. Maybe I should have been smarter and just let him know about the books, but I didn't realize that he felt he had to know everything about the entire building. I'm starting to realize more and more that this entire place is being run according to a new set of rules, and these rules are entirely decided by Bob.
Following Bob down the stairwell, I start to consider my options. The gun Bob gave me is up in my parents' apartment, and the only way out of the building is through the main door at the front of the lobby, or one of the doors at the rear. I keep telling myself that I'm over-reacting and that there's no reason to be so scared, but at the same time I feel as if Bob is consistently moving further and further away from sanity. At least Henry has a rifle, though, so I know Bob can't go completely insane.
"Our little group operates on trust," Bob says as we emerge into the lobby, where Henry is sitting by the door with his rifle poised, reading for any intruders. "I have to know I can trust you," Bob continues, turning to me, "just as you have to know you can trust me. When that trust breaks down, we have a problem, and when we have a problem, we have to rectify things." He pauses for a moment, clearly enjoying the sound of his own voice. "Now, ordinarily, I wouldn't view a lie of omission as a particularly serious thing. Sure, Elizabeth, you should have told us about the books in Harrison Blake's apartment, but I can let that slide. There are other things, though, that I can't let slide."
"Like what?" I ask, my chest tightening as I realize Bob might know more than I'd realized.
"I've been thinking about Mallory," he says, "and how she escaped. You were very keen to let me believe that your brother left a door open, weren't you? But what if that's not what happened? What if your lack of loyalty to this building extended to other actions? When I found your little hideout in Harrison Blake's apartment, Elizabeth, I started to wonder what else you might be keeping from us."
"I didn't -" I start to say.
"I started to think about you as a person," he continues, interrupting me. "I started to wonder what kind of person you are. After all, until a few days ago, I'd never even given you a second thought. So I thought about whether I could trust you, and I came to a startling conclusion. I decided that, when it comes to it, I can't trust you. Not for a second. And do you want to know why I can't trust you? It's simple. I believe you released Mallory, and I believe you gave her some food from our dwindling stockpile, and I believe you did all of this despite knowing that both your brother and I have been working to neutralize the threat that she posed -"
"You mean by torturing her?" I ask. As soon as the words have left my lips, I realize I should have kept quiet.
"Here's the thing," Bob says. "At first, I thought that perhaps my suspicions regarding your behavior were unfounded, Elizabeth. I berated myself for thinking so little of someone I barely knew. So I turned to the one person who knows you properly. I asked your brother if he believed you might be responsible for Mallory's escape. I expected him to defend you. I expected him to uphold your honor and tell me I was wrong. But that's not what he did. No, he told me he'd been thinking the same thing. Your own brother, and he couldn't defend you. It hurt me, Elizabeth. It really hurt me to see the anguish in this boy's eyes as he admitted, not in words but in more subtle ways, that he knew you'd betrayed us both."
"Henry," I say, stepping past Bob, "we need to get out of here. Let's go and talk, we need to -"
"Fuck off," he says, staring at the window. It's as if he's refusing to even look at me.
"Henry -"
"Fuck off," he says again, his voice sounding calm and dispassionate. "I don't need you to tell me what to do, and I don't need your help. Bob's right. You let me take the blame for something you did. I can't forgive you for that."
"Bob was torturing her!" I say. "He was hitting her, and cutting her. He was pulling out her fingernails, Henry. He was -"
"I know," Henry replies firmly.
"And you just stood there and let him?"
"She came to spy on us," Henry replies, still refusing to look at me. "I trusted Bob, just like I trusted you. The difference is, he didn't let me down."
"I didn't let you down," I say.
"What about this morning?" he asks. "What about when you let Bob think I was responsible for Mallory getting away?"
Sighing, I realize I made a huge mistake earlier today. I should have told them both what I'd done; instead, I played right into Bob's hands. "I'm sorry," I say after a moment, "but you can't let that one mistake cloud your judgment, Henry. This man is a psychopath. He's insane! He's -"
"Standing right behind you," Bob says suddenly, sounding rather amused by everything I'm saying. "Now, don't get me wrong, Elizabeth, but I'm starting to get a little insulted by some of the things you're saying. I mean, I consider myself to have a fairly thick skin, but you're throwing some rather nasty accusations around. If you don't like my methods, and if you don't like the way things are run around here, maybe you oughta reconsider your options."
"What the fuck does that mean?" I ask.
"It means you're not welcome here," Bob continues. "We've discussed the matter, and we've voted on it, and we've decided that we're going to ask you to leave."
"You're going to what?" I ask, staring at him.
"You heard me. When you helped Mallory get away, you chose your side. You made us realize we can't trust you. That's your choice, and you're perfectly entitled to do whatever you want, but we don't have to
suffer the presence of a traitor in our midst."
"Do you hear this guy?" I say, turning to Henry. "Listen to him. He's lost his mind. Can't you see? Bob's insane. He thinks we're in some kind of war! He's obviously watched too many movies! He's not like a -"
"You need to leave," Henry says suddenly, still staring at the door.
"What?" I ask, suddenly feeling a cold sweat pass through my body. "Henry -"
"Bob's right," he continues. "You let us down. We can't trust you. How do we know you won't do the same thing again? How do we know you haven't already agreed to help Mallory and the others? You might sneak down during the night and let them in."
"This is bullshit," I say, almost shaking with anger at the way Bob has managed to turn my own brother against me. How the hell did I let this happen?
"Regardless of your thoughts on the matter," Bob says, "I'm going to invite you to leave the building now." He walks over and opens the door. "I don't feel that we owe you any resources from our supplies, but I'm confident you'll be able to find food nearby, and your new friends will undoubtedly give you something."
"This isn't your building," I point out. "You're not in charge."
"Am I not?" he asks, smiling.
"You can't throw me out!" I turn to Henry. "Come on, stop messing about. You know this is insane!"
"You know what?" Bob says, walking over to me. "You're right. This isn't my building. I don't have the authority to throw you out. But then... What are you gonna do to stop me?" He grabs my arm. "We can do this the easy way, Elizabeth, or we can do this the unpleasant way. It's entirely up to you."
"Henry -" I start to say.
"We can't trust you," Henry replies.
"You heard your brother," Bob says.
"Get off!" I shout, trying to get free of his grip. Suddenly, Bob reaches around and puts me in a headlock, before dragging me across the lobby. I push against him, trying to get free, but he quickly gets me out onto the sidewalk, where he throws me down onto the street before hurrying back inside and locking the door.