She hesitated for what felt like a full minute, but was probably no more than half a second. “A girl just saved your life. I hope you were worth the bullets.” She put out a hand. “Now come on.”
The three of them followed the stranger down toward Gate 31. From there they ran out an emergency exit and into thigh-deep snow. The cold wind struck them at once with shocking force. While the airport had been chilly, it hadn’t been anything like this. Even during those brief forays filling up her sealable coffee mug with snow, things hadn’t felt so glacial. And also so final.
Ten yards away was the snowcat, an enclosed airport snowplow on tracks. The yellow emergency lights were flashing but there was no one inside.
“Where’s Doug?” Holly yelled, fighting to be heard over the wind.
“He didn’t make it,” the man explained sorrowfully. “He was killed in the riots two days ago.”
When they got to the cat, they climbed onto the thick rubber tracks, Holly bending onto one knee to help Dillon scramble up. Seconds later, all of them were inside, settling into one of four seats. Tucked in a narrow space behind them were their few meager possessions.
As the stranger who’d rescued them started the snowcat’s engine, Holly and Johnny stared back at Concourse C. What they saw there was like something out of the old fire-and-brimstone sermons Holly had listened to as a teenager. When the end of the world finally arrived, this was how her pastor had imagined it would look. Man indiscriminately killing his fellow man, his heart brimming with bloodlust and evil.
The snowcat was pulling away and Holly watched as dozens of innocent people streamed out of the airport exits, trading certain death inside for possible death out here. It was a similar calculation she had made. And yet, unlike the other poor souls trundling now through the deep snow, her scenario had involved an enclosed vehicle. With the shock of what they’d just been through still lingering about her, Holly turned to thank the man who had saved their lives.
“Name’s Manny,” he said, shaking each of their hands in turn. He looked young, no more than twenty-two, maybe twenty-three years old. His skin was the color of raw almonds, his cheeks badly pockmarked from what looked like the ravages of teenage acne. He threw the cat into gear and they shook as it lumbered forward. The vehicle was in its natural habitat and yet even that didn’t stop it from fighting for every meter of forward motion. Thankfully, Manny or someone else had thought enough to remove the shovel, which would only have prevented them from moving forward.
With the chaos at O’Hare slowly receding behind them, Holly turned to Johnny. She found the banker staring at his hands in disbelief, tears streaming down his soft, moisturized cheeks. Dillon regarded him with the cool, deliberate quality of an extraterrestrial observing a strange new planetary species.
“What exactly happened to Doug?” Holly finally asked, trying her best not to replay in her mind any of the disturbing scenes they’d all just witnessed.
“A couple days back, he and a group of twenty TSA people were sent to Terminal Four in order to quell what they thought was a simple disagreement.” Manny’s voice was on the high side. He was also a fast talker, rattling out one word after another like a machine gun. “But when they arrived, the team was jumped.”
“You weren’t with them?” she asked.
“Hell, no. Look what I’m wearing. I used to plow the runways. Keep them safe for planes to land. A few of us got coopted to help the TSA guys after the situation got serious, but not me. I opted to help retrieve and parcel out rations to the folks trapped in the airport. One of the reasons I’m still here.”
“A sense of duty,” Holly said, touched by Manny’s selflessness.
“Well, by the time the snow got too high, I figured I was stuck here. Was only when the situation got desperate that Doug and I hatched the plan to book outta here on one of the cats.”
Her mind returned to Doug. “And after the ambush? What happened then?”
A dark shadow filled Manny’s face. “They killed half of them outright. The rest were kept as hostages, bargaining chips the group hoped to use in order to demand greater rations. When their demands weren’t met, they started killing the agents one by one. Doug was in the last batch and it tortured me there was nothing we could do to save him. You see, they accused us of hoarding food for ourselves. Said we’d emptied every shop and restaurant in the airport and that we were storing it inside some airplane hangar. I’m not sure how, but they’d also managed to convince themselves that Terminals One, Two and Three were somehow getting preferential treatment. Of course, I won’t lie. There were a few cases of abuse and mismanagement here or there since the lights went out. How could there not be? I will say this, in the seven days I spent there I never saw any kind of systematic abuses.”
Dillon laid his head on Holly’s shoulder. “It wasn’t really about any abuse,” she said, running the tips of her fingers through his hair, a move he loved. More importantly, one that almost always soothed him. She hoped it might help him fall asleep and forget everything that had happened.
“Let’s be real,” Johnny cut in, not shy about being crass, “those animals were out for blood. Angry the powers that be weren’t giving them any answers. Under normal circumstances when the lights go out for a few hours most people set out some candles, get a romantic mood going. Know what I mean?” He winked at Holly as if to emphasize his point. “In our case, after a day or two went by and the novelty wore off folks started to wonder how long it would last. After a week, looks like worry turned into full-blown panic and then rage.”
Manny agreed, reaching down to flip on the windshield wipers. “That about sums it up.”
“We still don’t know how far the power outage extends, do we?” Holly wondered.
“I’ve heard rumors,” Manny admitted. “Some say the whole city’s gone dark. A few have even suggested it’s state-wide. I will say I sure don’t put a lot of stock into much of what I heard. I mean, without any working communication―at least that I know of―how could anyone say for sure how big this is?”
“The entire country’s offline,” Johnny exclaimed with unwavering confidence.
The cat lumbered through a hardened snow drift, tossing them around inside the tight cab. Holly reached out to stabilize herself. “Where’d you come up with that?”
“I just know,” Johnny said.
“You think you know,” Manny corrected him, smirking. “There’s a difference.”
Johnny rested his head against the frosted doorframe and closed his eyes. “You’ll see.”
Holly turned her attention back to Manny. “Do we know where we’re headed?”
“Into the city,” he replied without an ounce of concern.
His answer made the muscles in her chest tighten painfully. “You sure that’s such a good idea?”
He glanced in her direction, rocking back and forth in his seat as the cat struggled over a patch of tough terrain. “Where else would you suggest we go? Out into the countryside? Unless you know some place that still has power, we won’t last the night. Besides, my folks live in Pacific Heights and don’t have anyone to protect them.”
“You’re an only child?” she asked.
“Nah, got two siblings. My older brother’s in the Army, stationed in South Korea. My younger sister’s going to college down in California.”
“Lucky her. Least she’s not freezing her tush off like we are,” Johnny quipped, his eyes still firmly shut.
The banker had a knack for finding silver linings and then wrapping them around someone’s neck.
“What about you and your boy?” Manny asked. “Where are you headed? Assuming it isn’t too far, maybe we can drop you off. The cat doesn’t have a huge range, which is why I strapped a bunch of gas cans to the chassis. Should be enough to get us into town.”
“Originally Dillon and I were headed for a place called Byron,” she began, her face souring.
Manny laughed, flicking his chin at the window. “Good luck wi
th that. Byron’s more than sixty miles west of Chicago. No way you’ll get anywhere close.” It wasn’t entirely clear if his dire prediction was due to the insane weather or the never-ending power outage. Or maybe both.
“What’s in Byron, anyway?” Johnny asked, his eyes still closed.
“I’m not entirely sure,” she answered without a hint of sarcasm. “My mother had a dying wish, a letter she wanted delivered to someone I assumed was a friend of the family. A guy named Nate Bauer.”
Johnny straightened. “What’s it say?”
“The letter? I don’t know,” Holly admitted, a little embarrassed.
Manny glanced over at her with surprise. “You didn’t read it?”
“She asked me not to, but I have my suspicions on what it says.”
“Suspicions?” Johnny asked, arching one eyebrow as though he had an idea where this was going.
“I think at some point my mother might have had an affair with Nate’s father.”
Johnny snickered. “Knew it. And had you as a result?”
“Goodness, no. A child from adultery would have been too much, especially for my parents. They were very religious. I’m not sure it was consensual. Nate’s father might have done something very bad to my mother. I’m only guessing, but I suspect she wanted him to know she forgave him.”
“You saying what I think you’re saying?” Johnny asked, eager to clarify.
She grew quiet. “I hope not. Anyway, it’s just a theory.”
“You could solve the mystery right now,” Johnny told her, staring intently now. “Just pop that letter open. Something you should have done long before you got on a plane to come here.”
Holly frowned. “I didn’t come here only because of the letter. I came to get away from someone who was threatening me. This was just a stop along the way, I suppose.”
“Still,” Manny said, “if you’re right, that’s a heavy message to deliver. I don’t envy you.”
Holly nodded. “For all I know, it’s something totally benign.”
“I doubt that very much,” Johnny said, nuzzling back into his coat. “Your mom wouldn’t have sent you all the way from Seattle if it wasn’t important. But rape? Geez Louise.”
“It hardly matters anymore,” she said. “Not after all this.”
Holly went silent after that. Her mother had died more than five years ago, her father four years before that, and in all that time the letter had sat in a dresser drawer, waiting for the hand delivery her mother had insisted on. But she couldn’t deny that the others were right. The timing of Holly’s trip couldn’t have been worse. She had fled from Travis fearing for her life and the life of her son. And since then she’d spent a week living in an international airport, narrowly avoiding various forms of assault on a daily basis. She’d even been forced to take lives when that starving mob had tried to kill them. Now she found herself riding in a high-tech snow plow, praying they had enough fuel to reach somewhere safe.
Just then, a dark thought crept into her mind and she tried hard to brush it away. Were she to do it all over again, there was only one person she would have shot: Travis, the man in Seattle who had sent her running in the first place. She didn’t consider herself a violent person, but Holly was beginning to learn there was a time to flee and a time to stand your ground.
Chapter 10
“You have no idea what I’ve been up against these last few days,” Marengo Police Chief Howard McGinley was telling them. He was a fleshy man, with large beefy mitts for hands and jowls to match.
Nate listened and nodded. Setting aside what had brought him here, he couldn’t help feeling some joy in seeing a familiar face. At one time, many moons ago, McGinley had briefly been a sergeant at Nate’s precinct in Chicago. But the older his friend got, the more he’d begun to realize being a big fish in a little pond had its advantages. Big fish didn’t get flushed down the toilet nearly as often.
“I’m down from ten officers to two,” McGinley went on. His jowls trembled as he spoke, reinforcing the man’s resemblance to Droopy the cartoon dog. “I keep thanking my lucky stars that Brass and Vasquez haven’t tucked tail and run away like the others. Seems like no sooner had the lights gone out than my officers began melting away.”
Doris, who was the receptionist as well as the chief’s wife, made a tisking sound at the back of her throat. “Howard David McGinley, that’s a terrible thing to say. You’re not being fair to those boys.”
McGinley straightened.
Doris rose from her desk, which happened to be facing the front door. That was when Nate and Dakota noticed the gun belt notched about her waist. In the holster sat a Smith & Wesson. “You’re making it sound like all our officers just scampered off. I hate to set you straight like this in front of your friend here, but I’m afraid you aren’t telling Nathaniel the whole story.”
“Nathaniel?” Dakota mouthed, suppressing a giggle.
Nate shrugged.
“See, what my husband isn’t saying is that since the power’s gone out, three of our officers have been gunned down in the line of duty. A single death in a town like ours is a big deal, but three, it’s absolutely unheard of.”
“Not to mention crippling,” McGinley added.
At seven thousand souls, Marengo was about as small as cities came. It was no surprise that incidents of violent crime tended to spike during moments of civil vulnerability and unrest. Nate had seen that firsthand soon after the blackout when thugs had stolen his property. And although Byron and its people had been hit just as hard as everyone else, aside from a handful of isolated incidents―likely perpetrated by the same group of criminals―their bucolic little town hadn’t immediately descended into an orgy of violence and murder.
Nate expressed these very thoughts and when he was done he added a question. “So what is it that makes Marengo any different?”
McGinley rocked back on his heels, his thumbs cupped under his gun belt. “For starters, the locals aren’t the ones stirring up trouble,” he told them. “These last few days we seen a veritable exodus of refugees from our giant neighbor to the east.” He was talking about Chicago, even if he wasn’t willing to call it out by name. “Way I heard it, the lights hadn’t been out more than a few hours before the city went mad. Dead of winter or not, the local cops were vastly outnumbered and tumbling back ass over teakettle to contain the situation. By day two, they had completely and utterly lost control. And it wasn’t just looting and robbery either. You run your finger down a list of federal crimes and I can assure you they were occurring on a scale none of us had ever seen before. The place has gone full Darwinian, excuse my French.” The chief grinned, giant dimples forming in his cheeks. “The innocents were the first to flee, many of them heading out into the freezing cold with little more than acute fear and a torn winter jacket. Some had cars, others were on foot. Neither got very far, I’m sorry to say. As those first few days ticked off the calendar, even the career criminals refused to stay, leaving the city in the hands of the most ruthless and deranged. Seems like everyone else came our way. And with very few exceptions, they’ve done nothing but lie, cheat, steal and worse.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Nate started to explain. He proceeded to tell them about the strange encounter he’d had at Jay’s place.
McGinley plucked a hanky from his back pocket, dabbed his forehead and then stuffed it back. “In the last two years, Jay upgraded most of our cruisers. He’s one hell of a mechanic and an all-round great guy.” The chief pointed at Nate, his index and middle finger pressed together into something that resembled a gun. “If those folks you saw are squatting in Jay’s house, they aren’t the first, nor will they be the last. This last week we’ve seen the population here in Marengo balloon from seven grand to ten times that number, maybe more. I don’t have the manpower to track down the sorry sonsabitches who killed my officers, let alone property thieves. Believe me when I tell you there’s nothing more I’d like to do. But revenge isn’t part of my job des
cription. I get I’m down to only two officers. We’re hurting, no doubt about it. And I’m sure so too is every other department that’s sitting in the dark like we are. You were a cop once, Nate, so I’m sure you understand. Right now, however, my job is to do what I can to maintain the peace.”
“He’s right,” Doris said, leaning on the desk with one hand.
“Course I am,” McGinley shouted back. “But that don’t make me happy. Every hour hundreds more pour into town. Every school we got in town is filled to the brim. High school, middle school, elementary. Heck, even that single room Elenore uses to run the pre-school’s got people camped inside. Problem is, we’re not getting in any supplies.”
Nate crossed his arms. “I spoke to a handful of folks on the West Coast via ham radio and they’re going through the same mess we are.”
That particular bit of news made Doris fall back into her seat.
Gritting his teeth, Nate was beginning to remember why he hated being the bearer of bad news. “I’m guessing by now you’ve heard we were hit with a multi-pronged cyber-attack.”
McGinley’s hanky made a sudden and much-needed reappearance. Three firm dabs and it was gone. “I can’t tell you how many different stories I’ve heard to explain the outage,” the chief said, shaking his head. “Seems the longer you keep folks in the dark, the more outlandish the rumors become. We even had some woman come in squawking about aliens and I wasn’t sure whether these aliens were of the outer space or the Mexican variety.”
Nate and McGinley shared a momentary smile before the solemnity of the moment seeped back in.
“No aliens this time, I’m afraid,” Nate said. “Whoever did this, they hit the financial institutions first.”
“That’s right,” Doris agreed. “We watched it on the news. Was the last broadcast we saw before all this started.”
“It was the opening salvo,” Dakota said, her cheeks slightly flushed.
America Offline (Book 2): America Offline [System Failure] Page 7