All evening, his gaze kept going to the lights. He so much wanted to know what she was doing, what she was thinking, find out more about her. The excitement and worry about the lunch tomorrow made reading almost impossible. Finally, he settled on a movie and didn’t notice when she finally turned off her lights somewhere around midnight.
He couldn’t believe she was there, that there was another sane person living in the city. At least, he hoped she was sane.
The first thing he needed to do this morning was bread the chicken, get it ready. Then he planned on going over to Powells and do some cleaning. After that, he would take a shower and do the cooking.
As the chicken fried, he would bake rolls and do the deviled eggs. The last thing he would do before leaving was pick some ears of corn and boil them.
The brown wicker picnic basket sat on the breakfast table, ready to be filled, a constant reminder of the hoped-for lunch ahead.
He made himself some quick breakfast, then breaded the chicken, then with cleaning supplies in his backpack, a rifle in one hand and a long-handled squeegee in the other, he headed out to Powells Bookstore.
The morning was cool, the city deathly silent, the streets still in shadow. He figured the best time to do the cleaning he wanted to do in their picnic area was before it got hot. That way, he could also go home and take a shower before cooking.
The area outside the rare book room on the top floor of Powells luckily didn’t have many skeletons in it. He used an empty book cart and a blanket to gather the few there were and move them into another room. Then he wiped down one of the big, old wooden tables right in front of the window in the corner. He used the long-handled squeegee to wash the tall windows, and a push broom to move most of the dust out of the area on the hardwood floor.
He stood back and stared at the area. He had loved bookstores before the disaster, had raided a lot of them since. He had more books than he wanted to even count now. This felt like the perfect place for a picnic, and she had suggested it. Did that mean she loved books as much as he did? He hoped so.
He took out a checkered tablecloth he had found in the same store as the picnic basket and spread it on the table. If she got here before he did, she would know he had been here and got the space ready, and that he was coming back.
The sun was just starting to break down into the streets as he finished the last sweeping. He had cleaned them a perfect place to have a picnic and get to know each other.
He hoped the lunch went as well as the place she had picked.
He could feel himself starting to get nervous. He was going to be lucky to get out a word at first. Figuring out what to talk about had always been his problem on dates. He had no doubt that he and Carey had more than enough to talk about, considering what they had both been through over the last three years. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to start the conversation.
He glanced at his watch. He needed to get going. He wanted to have more than enough time to get home, take a shower, fry chicken, make the other things, and get back here right on time for his first date in over three years.
He had a date. That was something he never thought he would ever have again.
A date.
He whistled all the way back to his building.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOR CAREY, the morning before her first post-disaster date seemed to drag.
She had woken up at the first light streaming in through her east-facing windows. The bed had been comfortable, the room great. She had opened a few windows just before going to bed to get the cool evening breeze. Now it felt almost cold, a feeling she loved and had missed since leaving the coast. She’d leave those windows open until the day started to heat up, then close them and the drapes to keep the room cool for later this evening.
She checked her watch. Six in the morning.
Six hours until lunch.
Six hours with nothing to do but shower, get dressed, and walk the fifteen or so blocks up to Powells Bookstore on Burnside. If she stated now, she’d be about five hours early. Maybe she could go a little early and do some cleaning, get the space ready for a picnic.
She liked that idea.
She liked having something to do in her day, something to look forward to. Many mornings over the last three years, she had woken up with no idea what to do for the day. Especially that first year. Many days that year, she had just stayed in bed, cuddling with her cats, only getting up for food and the bathroom. Sometimes she just read, taking her mind away into a made-up world, other times she just slept and lay there, staring at the ceiling.
More than likely, a doctor would have called her depressed. And damn it, she had a right to be depressed. The world had ended, everyone had died, leaving her alone. That would depress a fence post.
During the second year, she had had less and less of those days in bed. This last year, not a one. Just surviving, keeping her home running and food on her table, kept her busy. There seemed to always be something to do, something to fix, some reason to get out of bed.
Today, she had a date.
She lay there, thinking of Matt’s wonderful face, his deep voice, his alluring smile. She sure hoped that what she saw was what she got with him.
“Okay, lazy, get up and get going.”
Those words often got her out of bed. This morning was no exception. She took a quick, and very cold shower. Cold showers in the morning were a completely different animal than cold showers after a hot, sweaty day of walking. Cold, early-morning showers were just downright painful.
She finished dressing, then decided that the best thing to do was finish setting up her generator in the right place and then, if she had time, set up her kitchen. A decent set of goals for one morning.
The small generator she had managed to bang and lug up the stairs would run a small microwave and some lights at the same time. Last night, she had set up the generator two rooms down the hall, with it venting out an open window. That way, the sound of the motor running didn’t bother her and she could still hear if someone was coming.
She had run electrical cords into a dozen rooms from that room, all dead lines. She actually didn’t have a cord running through the door of her room. Instead, she had banged a small hole in the wall between her suite and the next and ran the cord through there. It never hurt to be safe, as Matt had said, especially in a big city.
If she did end up making this a regular home that she visited at times, and if she and Matt got alone, she might ask him for help in setting up a security system in the hotel at some point in the future. A lot of ifs there, though.
She went down to the suite with the generator, took the hand truck, and moved the generator out into the hall again. Five rooms down from her room, she found a new home for the generator and again got it vented out the window. Then, using a hammer she had gotten from the hardware store, she banged a small hole in the wall through to the next suite, hiding the hole with a chair.
Thirty minutes later, after a lot of banging out old plaster, she had managed to string an electrical cord through the suites, hiding the cord behind furniture and drapes in each suite. Then she picked up all the decoy cords out of the hallway and other rooms. Now, she felt even safer if someone came looking for her. They would have to trace a cord through five different suites to find hers.
Next, she took a bottle of water and headed down to a kitchen store she had seen yesterday. An hour and two trips later, she had a fully-stocked kitchen, with pans, plates, silverware, serving dishes. If she stayed long enough to store any kind of food, she’d have to connect the small fridge as well, but she didn’t plan on staying in the city long enough for that.
Ten o’clock. Two hours until lunch. She had accomplished both of her goals and she still had two hours. She might die of impatience before this date happened.
She went back and took another, slightly longer, cold shower to get the dirt and sweat off her, then put on her last change of clean clothes. She was going to have to do some laundry
later today. The bathtub was going to come in handy for more than just taking baths.
Or maybe she could just stop into a store and find some new clothes. After lunch, she just might do that. She had never been much of a shopper, mostly because of the money side of things. Now, it didn’t matter. She had even used money one night during the first year to start a fire, just to show herself it didn’t matter any more. Didn’t help. She still hated shopping.
At eleven, she was ready to leave. She planned on stopping along the way, getting a few cleaning supplies, and getting to Powells a little early to clean up an area for her and Matt to eat in. It was the least she could do, considering he was bringing the fried chicken and who knew what else.
She moved to the window to shut out the warming air so that the suite would stay cool. But just before she pulled the old window down, she noticed a rumbling sound echoing over the silent city. She leaned out the window, trying to figure out where the rumbling was coming from.
She couldn’t tell.
The sound seemed to echo off buildings, one second coming from the south, the next from the north. And it was still very faint.
She stayed at the window, watching for any sign of movement, as the rumbling got slowly louder, seeming to fill every dead street with low thunder.
What could be causing such a sound?
A tank? A large truck pushing wrecks aside? Something massive, clearly, although she had no idea how sounds carried in an empty city.
Then she caught a glimpse of something moving across the river, way down the I-84 freeway toward the old airport.
She grabbed her binoculars. At first, she couldn’t see anything. Then finally, she understood what had caused the sound, and what she saw sent chills down her spine.
Bikers.
A fairly large group of motorcycle riders were working their way slowly toward town, weaving in and around the wrecks, coming in on I-84 from the east. From the distance, she couldn’t tell how many, but more than she wanted to be around, that was for sure.
Her best friend had been raped by two members of a motorcycle club back in high school.
She hated motorcycles.
She hated bikers.
Suddenly, date or no date, the city didn’t seem to be the place she wanted to be anymore.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AFTER MATT GOT BACK to his apartment from cleaning up the area in Powells, he saw that Carey had come out of her hotel twice, both for different types of supplies.
Just seeing her working on a place to stay in town excited him. She was as good-looking as he remembered from yesterday. And certainly focused.
He watched her for a moment, then went back to the kitchen and fried the chicken, at the same time baking some rolls. He had just taken the chicken out, and the rolls, and was finishing up the deviled eggs when his alarm went off.
Was Carey leaving already for Powells? He glanced at his watch. It was quarter to eleven.
He left the eggs and moved to the security room, expecting to see a red light on the area outside of Carey’s building. But instead, the light was blinking way out on Interstate 84.
He dropped into his chair and flicked up the camera for that area. What he saw rocked him back.
Bikers.
A lot of bikers.
A string of at least two dozen men, and a few women, all on large motorcycles, were working their way slowly through the car wrecks that littered the freeway. A couple of the bikes were pulling small trailers, and every one of the people were dressed in black leather.
Matt hadn’t much cared one way or another for the biker groups back when he was in school. He knew that most of them were made up of regular people, folks who just liked riding motorcycles. Some of the main motorcycle clubs were just doctors and lawyers who could afford the pricey Harley Davidson bikes, plus a few mechanics and others who had had the same bike for years and kept it up. In fact, his best friend in college, Danny, had a Harley his dad had bought him. Danny put on his leathers and went for a ride every time he got the chance. Matt had even gone with him a few times, but just never caught the excitement that Danny felt about the experience.
Now, here was a biker group, or at least a group of people traveling together on motorcycles. More than likely, that was the case. And considering all the wrecks along the roads that blocked traffic almost everywhere, using a motorcycle seemed logical. He would have made the same choice if he had decided to go exploring in other cities, and had, at one point last year, even scouted out a few of the motorcycle dealerships in the downtown area, looking for the right equipment.
Matt watched the bikers work their way slowly around a wreck of about fifteen piled-up cars, not seeming to be in any hurry. He took a deep breath and tried to count them, and really look at the faces as they passed a camera he had secured inside a building near the freeway.
Most of them looked dirty, but that could be just from riding. All of them carried rifles within easy reach on their bikes, and a few had pistols stuck in their belts. Twenty-three of them, all but four men.
Suddenly, he remembered Carey.
And their date.
He flicked the monitor back to the camera showing the area around the Embassy Suites entrance. Carey must still be inside, otherwise one of his motion sensors would have activated again. She had no idea what was riding at her.
“Get a grip on yourself,” Matt said aloud, letting his voice calm himself down. “These guys are more than likely friendly.”
Or maybe they weren’t, but until he knew for sure, it was going to be a lot safer for him, and for Carey, to not let the gang know they were here.
He flipped the monitor back to the motorcycle riders. At the speed they were traveling, and the amount of blockage they faced ahead, they wouldn’t be into the main part of town for at least another half hour, more than likely an hour.
Maybe they were just heading through, going toward California to spend the winter in the sun, and wouldn’t even stop. It was still early in the day. That was possible, but again, he didn’t dare take the chance.
And he didn’t want Carey to take the chance either. This might be the friendliest bunch of humans he had ever met, but with that many of them, he wanted to be damn sure before he strode up to the front of that line of bikes.
He punched another button and a few moments later a picture of the bikers came out of his printer. It showed at least fifteen of them. He folded it and stuffed it in his pocket.
Then with one more check to make sure Carey had not left the old hotel just yet, he sprinted for the door. On the way, he grabbed a couple of deviled eggs to stop his rumbling stomach, his rifle, and his shoulder belt with ammunition. Then he grabbed his pistol, made sure it was loaded, and stuck it inside his belt behind his back. In three years he had hoped to find more people. Now, suddenly, in just two days, he had gotten his wish.
Just not the way he had expected.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CAREY STOOD, almost frozen in the window, watching the pack of motorcycle riders work their way toward her.
“Get a grip, girl,” she said. “You got to get out of here.”
She quickly tossed all her clothing in her pack, her food, her flashlight and other tools, then made sure the pistol was loaded and ready and stuffed it in her belt.
She did the same for the rifle and slung it over her shoulder. Then she went back to the window. The rumbling seemed to fill everything around her, even though the bikers were clearly miles away. More than likely, when the city had all its people, you never would have heard the bikers from this distance. But now, there just wasn’t any other sound on the clear summer day.
Suddenly, from the hallway, Matt’s voice shouted out.
“Carey? You still up here?”
She couldn’t decide if she should say anything or not.
“Carey? If you’re still here, let me know which room. It’s me, Matt. You remember, your lunch date? I’d never normally come up here, but there’s something ha
ppening I think you should know about.”
He had come to warn her. That made her smile, even with the rumbling filling the room from the window.
“Open your window and listen if you don’t believe me. I have a picture of what’s coming up the freeway to show you.”
He knew she would be careful, not trust him for barging in like this, so he had brought proof. The guy could think under pressure, that was for sure.
She opened the door, not bothering to take her rifle off her shoulder.
He was standing down the hallway, his back to a wall, his rifle also shouldered. But this time he was carrying one. He looked slightly winded and was sweating. More than likely, he had run from the Baxter building to warn her.
Her stomach twisted at seeing him again. He was better looking than she remembered from yesterday. It was stunning how attracted she was to this man.
“Bikers,” she said. “I heard them and caught a few glimpses of them coming in on I-84. I hate bikers.”
He nodded, coming toward her, offering her a picture.
She took it and stared. The focus was from the top of a pole along the freeway, and it showed at least ten, maybe more, motorcycle riders working their way past a large pile-up of cars. The picture made her shudder and she handed it back to him.
“What are you planning on doing?” she asked, again stunned at how much she was attracted to the man standing in front of her. She got no hint that he was dangerous. Her mother’s voice came drifting back to her. Trust your instincts with men.
“Watch them,” Matt said. “Just watch them, unless I become completely convinced they are not a problem. Then I wouldn’t mind talking to them, but not until I’m convinced they are not dangerous.”
“You’re not planning on walking up to them, unarmed, with your hands in the air, are you?” she asked.
“Did you look at that picture?” he asked back, his face slightly red.
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