by Harley Vex
“We’re here,” Alana said. “Now we can climb out and see where we are.”
My heart thumped. “The sun.”
Alana and Jerome both turned to me, and Jerome set the two bags down on the ground. “Laney,” he said.
His tone said it all.
The sun had already taken so much from me, and now it could take what what little I had left. If these suits, which were probably meant to protect the Collider more than the scientists, couldn’t protect us—
“I know we have to go out there and move before nightfall,” I said, “but I don’t know if I can.”
And then Alana wrapped me in a stealth hug from behind. “We’re going to make it. Have faith. If the tarp protected us all today, then these suits will probably do the same. They’re plastic, not cloth. No holes in them. We’ll just have to follow Jerome’s lead and keep our heads down as we walk.”
I shuddered and took a breath of the dry, but cool air. Alana slowly released me, as if she sensed I wouldn’t panic. They didn’t understand. Neither of them really knew how cruel UV radiation could be, even though Alana had been by my side through the ordeal. But she hadn’t been there during the last stages, unlike Dad and I.
“I know,” I said, looking down at the wrinkled white plastic that covered my body. “We have to beat David at this game.” I grabbed onto those words because it was true. If they were going to shove me aside, I was going off on my own. Well, we. Had we obeyed David, then we’d die a slow, horrible death from poisoned food or starvation.
Jerome gave me a thumbs-up. “That’s the spirit.” And he walked up to the garage door, pressed some useless buttons on the wall, and then leaned down. “Dr. Marson had to have come through here. I bet he lifted this and then it kind of came back down on its own. It’s not locked.”
“We need to cover our faces as much as we can,” I said, tightening the pull string around my face. White plastic closed around my vision until the material obstructed half of my view. It would have to work because we still needed to breathe. And as I watched, Alana did the same beside me.
We looked like slugs.
After Jerome had tightened his suit as well, Alana and I joined him at the garage door. More terror pumped through my chest, making my heart race, but I swallowed and shoved it down. We had to do this. And, I knew, I could do this. After all, I had done worse, and before this part of the world ended.
Together, we lifted the garage door, which squealed from wear and disuse.
And we stood at the mouth of the rust-colored world.
Light and a chill fell over us. The sun was a pale orb behind that film of reddish-brown haze that still lurked high in the atmosphere, and judging from its position, it was late afternoon. I looked down as Jerome grabbed our supply bags. More sweat broke out as I surveyed the land in front of us. A faint track, just a series of old tire tracks and cracked earth, really, stretched out in front of us and curved out of sight around a shallow hill. Otherwise, the area was lifeless except for a few plants struggling out of the rocky soil and a trio of cacti that were amazingly still holding on.
“Let’s go,” I said.
The thought of David propelled me forward. He would not win or defeat us. If there was one thing I could control now, it was that. The thought of taking away one of his victories sent a tingle of satisfaction running up my spine.
Yes. I could do this.
The three of us walked out together, and I tried not to think about the shelter we were leaving behind. I looked up just enough to make sure we were staying on the track—we were—and then back down again.
“How’s everyone feeling?” Jerome asked.
Alana spoke to me as much as herself. “I’m not burning. Maybe my nose is, a little, but otherwise, I seem fine. I think that haze is helping.”
“That doesn’t mean we can take these suits off.” Her words tempted me to remove mine, just to feel the cool breeze over my skin. But I wouldn’t dare, even if I overheated. Besides, we had water. “We should get onto a hill and look around. Maybe we can see the gas station from here, and how far we are from the Visitor Center.”
“Good idea,” Jerome said.
We walked for another fifteen minutes, and yes, my nose got that salty, burning feeling that warned me it would turn some shade of red in no time. I pulled the suit down as far as I could until it was grazing my eyelashes. “We need shade.”
Of course, there wasn’t any, and when I got no answer, I held my hand over my forehead to block out the rays. Since the plastic face shield wouldn’t do anything, I had no other choice.
“Up here,” Jerome said, approaching a taller hill with jagged rocks and a few cacti that hadn’t fallen victim to any brush fires. “Careful. These booties are slippery and none of us need to slip and fall to our deaths.” Then he waited, extending his hand.
Yes. We needed to see. I took his gloved hand, and my palm tingled from the contact as I hoisted myself up onto the sandy rocks. The hill itself was maybe twenty feet high, but it was enough.
The breeze intensified at the top, which was soothing on my nose, and I found I could see a good distance.
“We’re like a mile from the Visitor Center?” I asked, keeping my hand over my face.
“Looks like it,” Jerome said.
In the distance, the narrow Visitor Center and its buildings stood, glimmering under the sun. Nothing there moved, though we were still close enough to see the pair of tractors waiting outside the two hangar-like buildings. So David and the others hadn’t left yet.
“I hope the others have the sense to ditch David so he can stop holding their safety and their lives hostage,” I said.
Jerome shook his head. “He’s evil. That’s all I have to say about that. You don’t have to let your upbringing warp you like that. Sure, my parents are...are...were fine, but plenty of people are better than where they came from.”
“Now’s not the time for a philosophical discussion,” Alana said from the bottom of the hill. “We know David is bad. Do you see the gas station? Did it survive the fires?”
I turned, balancing on two larger rocks. I was glad for the distraction from more morbid things. My stomach lurched. The fires. If they had reached the station, it would be bad. I spotted the long, black remnants of the wildfire first, stretching across the landscape and giving off whiffs of smoke. It had spread through an area of dry brush, jumped over the road, and caught up with the second tractor, which was no longer on the road. I couldn’t see where Dr. Shetlin had fallen from here, but I didn’t want to.
Beyond the blackened landscape, the land turned back into rocky soil and sparse vegetation that didn’t burn, and it was there that I spotted the Happy’s Gas.
“Yeah. It’s far away, but it’s got to be that building way over there with those specks for cars. I think we can reach it before night.” More dread curled in my gut. We’d get there easily, just by walking down the road that looked to be a quarter mile away. But then what? We still hadn’t worked out that part of the plan.
“That’s established.” Jerome helped me down the hill, and we got back to the dusty track without dying. He picked up the bags again. “We get there, see if anything starts, and grab any maps they have. Because I’m sure a gas station in the boonies will have at least one.”
“And if nothing starts?” I asked.
He frowned. “Well, there’s that small town full of old people we went through on the way here. Rocky Falls. I’m afraid we won’t be able to beat David to it, unless we can all run faster than those tractors.”
We picked up our pace, and I kept my hand over my face as much as I could. It helped a little, and Alana and Jerome did the same. After another few minutes, the track curved again, and we came to the side of the road. We turned, and I warned Jerome and Alana about what they would see—and smell—once we got into the burned area.
“Noted. Thanks,” Jerome told me as if it weren’t a big deal. But death never was until you saw it.
“
And I don’t think we should walk on the burned ground, just in case we kick up any new fire,” I said, eyeing the black, burned landscape ahead. I had shoes under the plastic booties, but still.
I swallowed.
Staying on the road meant walking past Dr. Shetlin. In the daytime, when she’d be plain to see.
Still holding my hand over my exposed face, I motioned Alana and Jerome to the side of the road as we reached the burned area. There had been a lot of brush here before, and this might have been a flood zone at some point, but now it was just a stretch of blackness. A few embers still glowed in the depths, and the smell of smoke overtook everything.
Alana swore as the other smell reached us.
“Don’t think about it until we’re out of here,” I warned her. “That’s how you cope.”
“Got it,” she whimpered as we hugged the white, faded line on the side of the road, treating it like a tightrope. A shape was lying on the road to my left, but I didn’t look.
And at last, after what felt like an eternity, we left it and the smell I’d never forget behind. Jerome said something about converting to vegetarianism, but no one laughed. The black landscape seemed to go on forever, but at last, we stepped out of it as we descended another hill.
And the gas station waited on the other side, shining and untouched.
“Happy’s Gas,” I said, stopping. Dr. Shetlin had gotten halfway to it. At least, that was my estimate. “We’re almost there.” We hadn’t been walking that long, but the urge to get out from under the sun propelled me forward. I had been holding down my fear until now, and now that a temporary shelter was in sight, I couldn’t stop.
“Hurry,” Alana said. “We don’t have long before David and the others set out. He wanted to set out before full sunset.”
The road ahead of us was clear, with no cars pulled over on the side and no dead drivers on the side of the road. But as we got closer to the station, I could see three cars in the parking lot, cars that would probably never move again, and a shape lying halfway out of the front, swinging doors.
There was no sign of Dr. Marson.
But maybe, just maybe, he was inside.
And it was half an hour later that Alana, Jerome, and I stepped into the parking lot of the station.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When the awful smell hit, I was glad for the face shield.
The shape I’d seen halfway out of the wooden swinging doors was a body lying face-down. It was a man who wore a tight blue shirt, something designed to cut down resistance to the wind.
And the UV rays hadn’t started mummifying him.
I pulled my face shield down, and it fit tightly enough that my breath made it fog, but it didn’t matter. As we crossed the paved parking lot of the station and approached the pumps, one thing was obvious. People had died here, just as they had at the Center.
“Hold your breath,” I warned.
“Got it,” Alana said, and her voice was small, like she was going to another place. Not that I could blame her.
There were three vehicles at the station: an SUV at a gas pump, a pickup truck that was covered in dust, and a refrigerated truck that probably held supplies for the gas station. I stopped under the gas station awning that housed the pumps from the sun, and I lowered my hand, amazed at how much my arm was shaking from the effort of covering my face. Jerome and Alana did the same.
Someone had thrown the passenger door of the SUV open, as if the occupant had jumped out in their last moments to escape the mysterious agony that must have descended. How many people were inside? There were three expensive-looking bicycles attached to the back, so these people were adventurers, probably looking for a trail to brave the desert. The guy in the doorway was a cyclist. It all fit. He had dressed like one.
“I do not want to go into the station,” Jerome said as he circled the SUV. “No one’s in the vehicle. That means everyone ran inside when the radiation hit.”
Relief spread through me. That meant we could check it to see if it started, though I was sure it wouldn’t. The SUV was too new to have survived the EMP, and the awning above us wasn’t enclosed enough to have absorbed it, right?
“We have two other vehicles,” Alana said. “And we’re going to have to go inside if we’re going to figure out the distance between us and that little town.”
Yes. The station would have a map. They all did, usually in a frame that hung next to the bathrooms. I’d traveled enough with Mom and Dad to know.
“Well, we can pull this plastic up over our noses. Smelling our own sweat is better than what will be inside,” I said, joining Jerome at the open passenger door. I looked inside to see that he was right. No one was inside the vehicle, but there were plenty of metal water bottles, probably for attaching to the bikes. These people were off to have a good time, and now they were dead. I could only imagine their panic and confusion as they died.
Alana and Jerome did, and they waited.
And I realized something. It was my responsibility to direct this. I had dealt with death before, and I hated that I was the unspoken expert. I paced, thinking, as my plastic suit crinkled.
“We can take the bikes, if nothing starts,” I said. “We’ll move quicker, at least. They look like they’re locked onto the SUV, so that means we might have to find the keys on whoever died.”
Jerome frowned. He had already pulled down his face shield, too. “I was afraid of that.”
“But the bikes will help,” Alana said.
I eyed the plastic bags that Jerome had set down near a pump. It wasn’t as if anyone would steal them, but I still wanted them with us at all times. “We take those with us when we go inside. I don’t see David coming up the road, but he will. That’s another reason we need to get in and out of the station fast.” There was no need to state the first reason we needed to look and vacate quickly.
“Okay. So, we find the keys, and we look at the map to see how many miles it is to that little retirement town. You know, it’s only like forty minutes from Colton, and I forgot its name.” Alana shrugged, and I knew she was trying to distract herself.
Distraction worked well when you were about to face something unbearable. “Well, we had no reason to go there, since it was mostly older people from out of state.” Then I braced myself and headed to the door.
“Laney, let me go in there first.” Jerome cut in front of me, shoulders hiked.
“Gentleman,” I said, meaning it. And brave.
Jerome went into the station, and Alana lifted her eyebrow at me. It was a question. But I shook my head. Of course Jerome and I hadn’t hit it off in the bathroom while we were trying to work out our escape.
There wouldn’t be time for anything like that soon, or ever. Normal life was on hold until further notice.
“God,” Jerome said, coughing as he stepped over the body in the doorway.
I followed, keeping the plastic over my nose.
The gas station, having taken the full brunt of the EMP, was dark. The wooden floors creaked underneath, and I caught hints of feathers, horns, and other decorations on the walls. Glass displays hung below them, filled with articles about the Arizona desert. Pictures of wildlife. Rocks. Displays of fake cacti. Between all the tourist traps were shelves of snacks, heirlooms, and other gas station staples like bottles of oil.
The only light came from the front windows, and the rusty glow hung over everything.
An older woman leaned over the checkout counter, and she was dead and swollen. The smell got worse the closer I wandered to there and away from the guy in the doorway. But there was nowhere to go that was safe.
“Another body over here,” Alana squeaked from the opposite corner.
“Five dead people,” Jerome breathed as I hyper-focused on a glass-covered display of fancy knives and lighters.
But there were also supplies that might come in handy.
“Over here,” I said, forcing myself to get closer to the counter. I breathed through my mouth, and that
was slightly more bearable as I eyed the knives and lighters. A shudder raced over me as I thought of having to use them for self defense. I’d used knives before while out camping, but never in a fight.
“Ah. That might be useful.” Jerome appeared beside me and looked down at the wicked-looking blades. “Let me check behind the counter and see if there are any firearms. Have you ever shot anything?”
The chill intensified. “I’ve held a few guns before, and my dad let me shoot one at a range a couple of years ago. That was in Montana, I think.” My throat went dry, and I forgot all about the smells.
We were talking about having to fight.
And maybe having to kill.
Then it really hit me. We had no help here, and we were on our own at least until we made it to the alive zone. If anyone was even healthy enough over there to give us any problems.
But other survivors, as David had shown us, would probably be the biggest threat.
Jerome stepped behind the dead woman and searched her pockets, while Alana shuffled around behind me and said something about finding some keys. I stood there, berating myself for shutting down, while Jerome looked under the counter.
Why? I had the most experience here.
“Ah-ha!” he shouted. “This woman was ready to meet anyone who might want to rob her way out here.” And he pulled out a legit shotgun. It was complete with a strap, too.
“Are you serious?” Of course, I knew gas station attendants had to protect themselves.
And now we had to do the same.
“Let me see if there are any other weapons.” Jerome carefully set the gun on the counter, and I studied it in the pale light as he bent down. It was better than looking at the dead woman, but also worse.
David, if he found this, would kill us or at the very least use it to further control everyone. He came from a military family and a rancher family. If anyone would be comfortable around guns, it was him.