Detour: Book Two of the Humanity's Edge Trilogy

by Paul B. Kohler

  “Well, this is all we have,” Clay said. “And I, for one, would rather listen to music than the thoughts in my own head.”

  “Agreed,” Lane said. “But we can turn it down just a little bit. I feel like Paul Anka’s trying to wake the dead.”

  Alayna snickered, not unkindly, and Clay reduced the volume. Lane drove swiftly down the abandoned highway, gorgeous scenery on all sides. The sun crept close to the brown and green flecked mountains.

  “You never really see it when you live here,” Clay observed. “You don’t notice the beauty. I wish I could see it all the time.”

  “All the more terrifying, thinking of these mountains as places for the crazed to hide out in,” Lane murmured. “Perfect little canyons for them. We don’t yet know if they can breed. But they certainly learn from one another. And they don’t die of natural causes.”

  “That gives me the creeps,” Alayna said. “Maybe turn up Paul Anka again.”

  “Ha,” Lane said, gripping the steering wheel with tight fingers. “Anyway, Clay. I haven’t asked you for a few days. How are you feeling since our last round of tests?”

  “Physically, I feel amazing,” Clay said. “Stronger than ever. I should start measuring my muscles to see how much they grow over a week’s time. I can feel them filling out.”

  “You do look amazing,” Alayna said from the back. After a pause, she corrected herself. “I mean, when you had your shirt off the other day, I could see, um, the definition . . .”

  Clay didn’t speak. Neither did Lane. The sudden, slight, sexual energy sparked in the air between Clay and Alayna, making it difficult for Clay to breathe. An image of her bouncing breasts above him as they made love went through his mind. He gulped.

  “Oh shit,” Lane said. They had crested a hill, revealing a scattering of abandoned cars in front of them. She slowed to a crawl, taking her time to weave through them, driving from shoulder to median. “They just left them out here. Do you think they were attacked?”

  “Maybe someone in their car turned while they were driving,” Alayna said softly. “What would you do if you were trying to get your family to safety, and then someone in the car suddenly became what you were running from?”

  “Jesus,” Lane said. “Hard to think about.”

  “Where’s your family, Lane?” Clay asked in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Have you been able to contact them?”

  “They live in England, actually,” Lane replied. “I’m an only child, and my dad’s been a professor over there for about ten years now. They up and moved. Tired of American politics.”

  “And you haven’t talked to them since the outbreak?” Clay said.

  Lane shook her head, her eyebrows lowering as she came up on another batch of cars. “Marcia and I have been cut off from communication, and we’ve hardly thought past the epidemic. Our radio signal couldn’t reach beyond Helen, and it wasn’t connecting with the military base. So I didn’t even try my parents, knowing I would probably be disappointed.”

  No one spoke, recognizing that this kind of talk would just make them feel more desolate.

  Clay turned up the oldies channel, allowing the crooning of Frank Sinatra to fill their ears like cotton balls. The day was just beginning.

  Chapter 20

  Lane continued to drive swiftly down the road, encountering the occasional cluster of vehicles. They didn’t speak for nearly an hour, each of them lost in their own thoughts. The cars they saw were empty. Clay peeked into their windows as they passed, catching sight of the occasional abandoned purse, or an empty snack wrapper. He imagined the families that belonged to these vehicles. With a jolt, he spotted a car seat in the back of a bright red car, a reminder that young children were a part of this horrible reality too.

  In the next five miles, they came upon twelve cars, all slanted in various directions, and even going into the median. Lane stopped short, smacking her hands against the steering wheel. “Well, shit,” she said. “I don’t know how I’m going to get around this.”

  Clay leaned forward, eyeing the tight gaps between the cars. “How weird. So many of them stopping at once. It’s hard to imagine what happened.”

  He turned down the radio and Lane veered off to the right taking the Jeep off the shoulder. The tires rolled into the dust and grass, spitting rocks onto the pavement. With a sudden lurch, Alayna was jarred into the window. She moaned loudly, but the others were too focused on the off-roading ahead to notice.

  The Jeep bounced side to side as they navigated the ditch. The tires barreled over a bit of debris, making a loud crunching noise. Lane cried out in surprise. “Shit. I’m sorry!” she said, coming to a halt. “What was that? Jesus, that was loud.”

  “We have to keep moving,” Clay said to her. “If we stop, we won’t have the momentum to climb out of the ditch. It won’t matter what we hit.”

  Lane set her jaw and stepped on the gas pedal, driving recklessly through the dried grass. With a final jolt, the wheels squealed and spun, and then pushed them back onto the pavement. She sighed with relief, turning her eyes toward the horizon.

  “Wow. A bit of excitement,” Alayna joked, rubbing her cheek, which was beginning to bruise.

  “I’m pretty inexperienced at off-roading,” Lane admitted. Her shoulders relaxed slightly. “You know, I haven’t seen a single sign of life since we started. Just desolation. And the empty cars.”

  She picked up speed. Clay looked back, watching the sunlight glinting off the cars. “So, what are your thoughts about why these clusters keep happening?” he asked.

  “Surely they just all break down at the same time,” Alayna said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “Everyone forgot to fill up at the gas station, at the same time. Isn’t that always it?”

  “Ha,” Clay said. “If only. What do you think, Lane?”

  Lane pressed her lips together tightly, looking pensive. “I’m not sure I want to imagine,” she said.

  Silence.

  Clay leaned his head back. He was getting hungry. With the nanites strengthening his muscles, he seemed to require more food than normal. He closed his eyes, imagining he was driving home to Valerie’s cooking. What a blessing that had been. He hadn’t known to be thankful for it.

  “I do have a theory.” Alayna said, breaking the silence. “I think the first car was the problematic one. Especially back there. It was a shitty car, a late 90s model. How do you expect something like that to take you so far out of town?”

  “So it starts with the first car?” Clay asked, assessing her theory. “And then what?”

  “The second one probably stops to check in on the first one,” she continued, speaking as if she were telling Clay about a perp—just like old times. “The second one begins speaking to the first one. Light chitchat, maybe. Talking about what they’re going to do. And, especially, talking about how ridiculous this apocalypse is. Ha.” A small wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. “And then something horrible happens. Say, a pack of crazed attack. The second driver doesn’t have time to get back to his car. The third and fourth and fifth cars don’t recognize initially what the situation is. But soon enough, the first few drivers become crazed themselves. And it continues, like some kind of fucked up string of horror that feeds itself.”

  “Shit,” Lane murmured. “I told you I didn’t want to think about it.”

  “You haven’t been out here long enough,” Alayna said. “You were safe inside your lab. You’ll need to think about it soon. This shit haunts you after a while. Doesn’t it, Clay?”

  As Clay searched for an answer that wouldn’t terrify Lane, they heard a bang beneath them. Lane shrieked as the Jeep began to swerve, pulling them off to the side of the roadway. She slammed on the brakes. Alayna was thrown forward, and struck her head against the top of the Jeep.

  After several reckless measures, they skidded to a stop. The trio sat gasping, sweat pouring down their foreheads. The Jeep sat, skewed on the road, almost in the median. It was clear: a tire had blown out
.

  “Oh God,” Lane gasped. “Oh my God, what are we going to do?”

  “Calm down!” Clay said. “It was probably damaged from the ditch a few miles back. The Jeep has a spare, doesn’t it?”

  Lane nodded. She let go of the steering wheel, deep marks in her palms where she’d clung to it too tightly. She wiped her sweating hands on her jeans and jumped out, walking to the back and out of sight.

  “You okay, Alayna?” Clay asked. “I heard your head hit—”

  “Yeah, sure,” Alayna said, blinking several times. “Jesus, it hurt. But I’ll be fine. I just hope we get back on the road soon. It’s nerve-racking, being out here in the middle of nowhere. It felt much safer when there were six of us. More protection.”

  “We’ll get there faster this way,” Clay said firmly. He climbed out and walked to the back, where Lane was pounding her fist on the spare tire. Her face looked almost skeletal. Clay’s heart dropped.

  “It’s useless, isn’t it?” he said, already recognizing it. “Jesus.”

  “It’s not damaged,” Lane said, clinging to the tire. “It’s just flat.”

  “Well, that doesn’t help much, does it?” Alayna said, joining them.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t check it before we left,” Clay said, leaning heavily against the vehicle. He ran his fingers through his thin hair, wanting to scream.

  A sense of dread filled the space around them. Lane flopped the spare on the ground and sat cross-legged on the shoulder, looking out at the horizon. It was clear she felt guilty.

  “All right,” Clay said, cutting through the silence. “Let’s think about this logically. We’ve been on the road for hours. How far do you think we are from Dearing?”

  Lane scratched her eyebrow with a finger. “I think we’re probably three or four hours drive away.”

  “Shit.” Alayna turned toward the median. She stood with her arms stretched out, as if she were looking to hitchhike somewhere. Anywhere.

  “That’s over a day away walking.” Clay joined Alayna. Lane was stretched out on the ground, crying.

  He hadn’t prepared for every possible scenario. And that was his one job, as sheriff—as their de facto leader. Now his daughter was going to pay the price. He, Alayna, and Lane might have to pay, as well.

  Chapter 21

  Clay leaned against the Jeep, staring off into the either. In the distance, fields of long since abandoned rye were verdant, indifferent to the ongoing apocalypse. Between the fields and the highway, steel rails paralleled the road in either direction. A rail car had been left there long enough that it was in a state of decay.

  His mind raced. Beside him on the ground, Lane held her hands against her cheeks.

  “Clay. I’m so, so sorry,” she said remorsefully. “It’s my fault. I should have made sure that everything with the Jeep was ready to go. I know I said that nobody drove my car but me. Jesus, you should have been the one driving the entire time.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up too much, Lane,” Clay said, leaning down, putting his hands over hers. He pulled them away from her face and peered into her dark eyes. He wanted to insist she be all right, but he knew he couldn’t change her feelings. “It’s my fault, all right?” he said. “I didn’t think about every possibility. And that’s on me.”

  Alayna appeared behind him, casting a shadow across his back. The sun was almost overhead, growing hotter with each passing minute. “What do we do now, Clay? Walk the rest of the way?”

  Clay sighed. “That’s one option,” he said. “We take as many of our supplies as possible, and maybe sleep somewhere halfway, provided we find shelter.”

  “Jesus,” Lane murmured, feeling the weight of his words. “I don’t know if I can walk that far.”

  “It’s a good point, Clay. She hasn’t been out here with us for very long,” Alayna said. “What about back in the last cluster of cars? I think I saw another Jeep. Maybe it’ll have a spare we can use.”

  Clay had seen it too, but hadn’t given it a second thought. And now, it was their potential solution.

  “That’s a possibility.” He stood and reached for Lane. She grabbed his hand and pulled herself up. “If it’s not damaged or flat.”

  “Don’t we have to take that chance?” Alayna said.

  Clay didn’t answer right away. He imagined walking back to the cluster of cars and finding nothing, just an empty hole without a spare. They’d have to walk all the way back, wasting the rest of the day and growing more fatigued with every step.

  “I should just go myself,” Clay said thoughtfully. “I can walk back and check it out. Grab the spare if it’s good, and bring it back. I could be back here in two hours, tops. I’ve got this nanite power in me,” he said, trying to make a joke. “I might as well use it.”

  Lane’s eyes were wide and panicked, Alayna still clung to her bad-ass persona.

  “You girls okay waiting here?” Clay asked. “Or should we go together?”

  Alayna tipped her head at Lane, leaving the decision up to her. Lane checked her watch with then said softly, “There’s no point in all of us going. If you think you can get back here in a few hours, then you best get on it. It’s getting hot as hell.”

  Clay scratched the back of his neck and stared down the road in the direction of the other cars. He realized then that he hadn’t been alone, without other survivors, since this all started. Not having anyone to watch out for made him edgy, as if he didn’t really matter unless he was holding up his friends.

  Jesus. Being a sheriff was engrained in him more than he’d realized.

  “All right,” Clay said. He grabbed his canteen from the back of the Jeep, which still sloshed with water. He slung a rifle over his shoulder, and then snagged the car jack from the tool compartment. He shoved it deep in his backpack, alongside a single granola bar. He zipped it with a quick motion. The sound was familiar, reminiscent of Maia getting ready for school.

  “I’ll be back as fast as I can,” he said, his eyes tracing his companion’s faces. He wanted to memorize them. They could be the last faces he ever saw. “Wish me luck.”

  Chapter 22

  Clay felt the sway of the rifle against his back as he walked. He’d been walking for over a half hour, and the sweat beads were rolling down his back and his chest. He ripped his shirt from his back and hung it around his neck, blinking up at the bright blue sky. He’d never seen it so open.

  He wondered if Maia could see the sky where she was. She’d love it, despite her current “teenage angst” phase. When had that started, anyway? He could see right through it, always. It was a façade. It was, perhaps, the armor she had to wear to survive high school. He couldn’t blame her for that. He’d worn similar armor. Hell, he was wearing armor now, protecting himself from the conflicting feelings he had for Alayna. He’d felt miserable ever since he’d slept with her, on the eve of the end of the world. Now, with even a glimmer of hope of surviving, he knew he should be thinking about Valerie instead and protecting himself from pain by doing all he could to keep moving, to keep fighting.

  Everyone was just doing what they could to survive.

  With Maia constantly on his mind, Clay wondered if she was thinking about him, too. Surely she expected him to come save her. That’s what he did, after all. He’d made that very clear from the beginning. And he’d expected many more years of that. Rescuing her from prom, if she had a bad date. Visiting her at college and taking her out for ice cream—or beers, even—and listening to her problems about classes and professors and roommates. He’d take care of it, if only because he listened, and listened well.

  He’d made a point to be there for her since she was young. Even more than Valerie, he was the protector. The one Maia had raced to when things went bump in the night.

  He couldn’t believe that had been an actual time of his life. It had been so fleeting.

  When Maia was a little girl, he’d taken her to the playground after work quite often, giving Valerie some time to go to the
gym or the grocery store or out for drinks with a few of her girlfriends. He and Maia’s time together had become sacred, something of a ritual. He’d pick her up from school and help her load up her backpack, hand her a snack as she chatted cheerfully about what they’d done that day. He could clearly see the image of her biting into a bright green apple, her eyes dancing as she told him about playing the recorder for the first time.

  “It was loud and stupid,” she’d said.

  He hadn’t been a musician, either.

  At the park one day, Maia had raced off with several of the other children, leaving Clay off to the side, still dressed in his Sherriff’s uniform. She’d been seven years old, and he’d trusted her, but still monitored the perimeter. He sat beside one of the mothers, who was reading a magazine about celebrity gossip and didn’t bother to look up.

  After several minutes without seeing Maia, Clay had sprung to his feet, feeling terror building in his stomach. He had a sixth sense for things like this—for knowing when his daughter was injured, or frightened. He dashed through the playground hunting for her, past the ruby red slide and around the swings. All of the children were pink-cheeked and pudgy, so unlike his bright, thin-limbed daughter.

  “MAIA?” he’d cried, looking behind trees. “MAIA. WHERE ARE YOU?”

  The other parents had begun to pay attention, standing up and watching the frantic man in uniform cross through the sandbox. “MAIA!”

  Finally, he’d raced to the nearby parking lot, seeing a circle of children gawking down at the ground. Clay had felt his stomach in his throat, bile forming along his tongue. He’d pushed through the crowd to discover his daughter, slim little Maia, with her arm badly broken She looked up at him with the same bright eyes she’d revealed as a tiny newborn, just as frightened, just as shocked.

  “Jesus, Maia,” he’d said. He’d dialed the ambulance immediately, using his ancient flip phone, and then bent down, careful not to move her. “What happened?”