“Me too, Clare-Bear. But we’ll have the truck. We can always leave.”
“Thanks for coming, Dad. I know you don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to stay here by ourselves, either. No offense.”
Clara’s smile is full of an affection I haven’t seen in over a decade. “I know what you mean.”
“Maybe they’re right. It makes sense to be with people. They have weapons and fences.” Whether or not I believe it is another story, but my job is to take care of Clara, to make her feel secure. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know.”
I hesitate for a second before I put my arm around her shoulders; it wasn’t long ago that she would’ve shied away. When she leans in, I know we’re making the right decision. For better or worse, I’m casting my lot with Rose, Sam, and Mitch. We’ll have to be vigilant, but this isn’t the time to go it alone. Maybe there isn’t ever a time to go it alone, contrary to what I thought before.
Across the aisle, Rose sits on a single seat with Willa by her feet, and she gives me and Clara a gentle smile. That smile, contrasted against the hands she twists in her lap, sums up Rose in a nutshell. All you need is a dash of intermittent temper. I’ve seen it come to the surface—directed at me, no less—but I get the feeling it’s only called out in dire situations.
“You okay, Red?” I ask.
“Great,” she says cheerfully, smiling at Holly, then watches out her own window. She isn’t a half-bad liar either.
We take a different route than the ones we took to Rose’s office and Always Ready. Chambers Street is wide and straight once you get over the large hill, and it’s been blocked off at the intersections with various cars and trucks. They don’t keep out zombies—or Lexers, as Barry called them. They do seem to discourage large packs, though that might be due to the pied piper bit from yesterday.
The few we pass watch us with dropped jaws, then stumble behind the van. Bodies lay in the driveway to a well-kept apartment complex, tossed like discarded mannequins into a large pile. The houses have broken windows and doors, and mangled limbs peep through overgrown grass.
Nora, who rides with us, says, “It got real fucked here. The police couldn’t make it near for days. It’s good the Lexers didn’t come over the hill to you guys right away.”
Our first fence wouldn’t have stopped a big pack that wanted in. Neither will the current one, though it’s a step up. Maybe the fairgrounds are the right move. Now that I know the whole country—the whole world—is like this, nothing seems like the right move, except maybe a well-stocked bunker.
“Don’t your parents live over here?” Jesse asks from his seat with Sam.
Nora nods without looking Jesse’s way as we roll up on Eighteenth Avenue. “We cleaned out that Bi-Mart, the Albertson’s, and both the gas stations.” Clearly, she isn’t going to say more on her parents.
The Bi-Mart shopping center is a collage of stopped cars, dead dead bodies, and broken glass. The Albertson’s across the avenue is the same. “They tried to cordon off a straight boundary around the fairgrounds, but there are too many little streets that don’t go through, so it’s kind of a hodgepodge.”
“Fucking Eugene,” Rose mutters under her breath, and I suppress a laugh.
“They’re using school buses and fencing at the intersections,” Nora continues. “Lexers get through, but only a few at a time. We can take care of them that way, you know?”
Everyone nods. We cruise along Eighteenth and stop at one of the aforementioned school buses at the next intersection. The truck beside it roars to life and pulls forward, leaving us room to turn up Polk Street. The houses are marked with an X spray-painted by the front doors. “What’s with the X on the doors?” I ask Nora.
“They checked houses for survivors. If there’s an X, it’s cleared out. If there are numbers, it’s how many Lexers are trapped inside. They didn’t have time to take care of them all, but they don’t want to be surprised next time. If you see a zero, it means there are some inside but they couldn’t tell how many.”
“Good system,” Sam says.
“Yeah. We were making our way to your neighborhood, slowly but surely.” Nora looks to Holly. “Your dad was worried sick.”
Holly’s stiff smile returns. She’s usually friendly, which means she’s either nervous or she doesn’t like Nora, though I can’t imagine why. By all indications, she seems like a decent kid.
The van turns onto Fifteenth Avenue. A large apartment complex is set back behind enormous cedars on the right, and the houses on the left are all marked with an X. “Did they clear out the apartments?” Jesse asks.
“Yeah,” Nora replies. “Those were senior apartments. By the time we got there, a bunch of them had died. But we brought about a hundred-fifty to the fairgrounds.”
We pull to a stop, and I lean to look out the front window. The street dead-ends at a chain-link fence set in tall bushes and topped with three strands of barbed wire, with a swinging gate at the street. Another fence is just behind. That one is black chain-link, taller, with a gate that rolls to the side. It’s covered with plastic sheeting of some sort, but the roofs of a few of the fairgrounds’ buildings are visible over top. We’re not entering by the main entrance; maybe this is the main entrance now.
The black gate slides open. A woman in camo exits and swings the first gate wide while two men watch the street with rifles. The van rolls through and between the livestock building and a long office building, then stops at the side of the indoor ice rink’s entrance. The parking lots are just ahead, where there has to be space for over two thousand vehicles, though only fifty or so are parked inside: fire trucks, police vehicles, a couple of ambulances, a few military trucks, and some civilian vehicles. Across the lot and to the right are more buildings.
“You have to go into the ice rink first,” Nora says. “I’ll tell your dad you’re here. He’ll be waiting for you when you’re finished.”
“Finished with what?” Rose asks, but Nora’s already through the back door. Barry comes around and waves us out.
“Ready, Clara?” I ask. She grabs her smaller bag and follows me to the asphalt. The uniformed soldiers—who seem more like boys in age—unload our larger bags from the SUV and line them up at the glass doors of the ice rink.
“Come on in,” Barry says, and we follow him to the lobby doors. “They’ll check you over, get you cleaned up, and then you’ll be good to go. Grab your bags as you go in.”
I take my backpack and Rose’s second suitcase on our way through. She thanks me, her voice high with unease. Past the admissions desk and through the doors at the end of the lobby, we enter an open space floored with black rubber mats and furnished with wooden benches where one sits to tie one’s skates. Large windows overlook the ice rink. It’s now a dormitory, with cots set up in the wide oval that was once ice. A few soldiers sit on them or on the bleachers outside the rink, chatting with one another.
The smell of popcorn hangs in the air, and the shelves behind the rental counter that once held ice skates now hold weapons. Guns. Knives. Long and short pointy things. Stuff that I have no idea what it is. The might of the U.S. Army sits behind an ice skate rental counter.
Two women and a man, all dressed in fatigues, exit a snack bar area with plastic cups full of buttery kernels of popcorn. All three head for Willa. The youngest soldier, who looks more like a girl fresh out of high school, crouches low. “Hi, puppy! Aren’t you cute? What’s your name?”
“It’s Willa,” Rose says.
Willa puts her paws on the girl’s knees and licks her chin. The girl laughs. “Can she have popcorn?”
“Sure,” Rose says with a weak smile.
The soldier drops a few pieces and seems about to speak until she looks past me, does an about-face, and follows her two friends back into the snack bar. I turn. A man makes his way over. Medium height, with an oily face and wide, protruding lips that bring to mind a frog. Though the man smiles, I don’t lik
e the coldness in it. Like he’s pretending to smile.
“Welcome,” the man says. “I’m Master Sergeant Boone. When you’re here, you’re on Army ground. We feed you, we house you, and we expect you to follow the rules.”
The guy is not concerned with niceties, that’s for sure. I want to tell him where he can shove his food and housing, especially since they’ve taken my food, but I stay silent. Another man appears, this one older. He’s dark-skinned and tall, with a thin frame and face. “That’ll be all, Sergeant Boone.”
Froggy nods. “Yes, First Sergeant.”
He walks ten feet away as the other man offers a genuine smile. “I’m First Sergeant Carver. I bet you have no idea what that means.” There are a few laughs. “It means, for us, that I’m in charge of this place until someone higher ranking comes along. Barry tells me you had plenty of food and water. Built yourselves a nice fence, too.”
Clara settles on one of the benches and puts her chin in her hand. She looks so grown, yet young enough that I’m frightened. Everything I wanted for her, all the stupid shit, doesn’t matter. The only thing I want now is for her to survive.
“He also said you’re not thrilled about being here,” Carver continues. “Ethan’s been a big help with his nursing skills, and we want his family to be as comfortable as possible. If you need anything, come straight to me. Okay?”
There are nods all around. I’d forgotten Ethan was a nurse, though he quit years ago to join the realty business. Better hours, better pay, he’d said with a grin. He’s back at nursing now. It explains why Willa made it in, too.
A frown flits across Rose’s face before she smiles. “Thank you.”
“Mrs. Winter—”
“Rose, please.”
“If it’s Rose, then you’ll have to call me Carver. I’d say call me Leonard, but no one but my mother has called me that since I was ten. We’re going to get you through intake as quickly as possible so you can see your husband. Ladies to the ladies’ locker room and men to the men’s.” He shakes our hands in turn. “Very nice to meet you all. See you around.”
The popcorn-eating team returns, and, along with Froggy, they lead us into the rink area and down a hall. Froggy and a kid with a nametag that says Marquez bring us to the men’s locker room, and the two female soldiers take Rose, Mitch, and the girls to the women’s room. Ours is tile-lined, with lockers and a bank of showers in the corner across from toilet stalls and urinals.
“First, showers,” Froggy says. “We’ll look through your stuff while you do that.”
Sam’s face goes rigid. “Look through our stuff?”
“That’s the rule. We’ll put aside any contraband and you’ll sign a form saying we have it.”
“What does contraband include?”
Froggy points to our guns. “Those. You can have a knife nine inches or shorter. No drugs or alcohol.”
I catch Sam’s gaze, and it becomes obvious where Rose got her baby blues, and where she learned that icy hell no stare. Jesse’s doing a pretty damn good job of it himself. I bring myself to full height. “We want to see Carver.”
“You don’t need to see—”
“Carver,” Sam says, his voice like thunder.
Froggy’s mouth squashes so that he resembles a frog more than ever. “Go get him, Marquez.”
The kid runs out, and we stare at each other until the locker room door opens. “What can I do for you?” Carver asks. He frowns at Froggy, whose name I can no longer recall. “Sergeant Boone, I’ll take it from here.”
“But—” Froggy stops mid-argue and says, “Yes, First Sergeant.”
Carver watches him leave, then faces us. “Marquez tells me you don’t want to give up your guns.” Marquez stands beside him, hands behind his back. We didn’t say as much, but the kid isn’t dumb.
“That about sums it up,” Sam says. “I understand you don’t want people running around armed, but you know what’s out there. If they come in, I don’t want to be empty-handed.”
Carver lifts a hand to his chin and leans on a bank of lockers. After a few seconds of thought, he says, “Marquez, can you keep a secret?”
“Absolutely, Top,” Marquez says.
Carver smiles, his sharp cheekbones almost cutting through flesh. “Good. I’m taking your guns, but Marquez will return them to you by nightfall. I’ll sign them in where Boone can see, lock them away, and then you will hide them and not speak a word of it to anyone, understood?”
“Fine by me,” Sam says, and I nod.
“You got that, Marquez?”
“Yes, Top.”
“Marquez here, he’s the guy to see if you need anything. He can always find me. I like him because he does as he’s told and calls me Top. Right, Marquez?”
The kid’s eyes glitter. “All the time, Top.”
Carver laughs—a light laugh full of good humor, and I decide I like him, if not this place. “All right. Enjoy your showers. It’s the last truly hot water you’ll get for a while.”
We head for the showers, where I do enjoy the steaming water and soap. I take a minute longer than absolutely necessary, just to feel the luxury of hot water cascading from a faucet. I barely fit in the RV’s shower, and turning water on and off while soaping yourself up is not what anyone would call relaxing. Once out, I towel off to find Marquez and another guy waiting in the locker area, both looking a bit uncomfortable.
“We have to inspect you for bites and scratches,” Marquez says. “Sorry.”
“Of course,” I say. I’d be worried if they didn’t.
They make it as perfunctory as possible, then check Jesse and Sam before giving them the green light to get dressed. While we do, Jesse says, “It’s stricter here than I thought.”
“That’s because you’re in the rink.” Marquez runs a hand through his short brown curls. “It’s different out in the dorms. First Sergeant Carver is a good guy.”
I sit to put on my socks. “What about Boone?”
Marquez rolls his eyes. “Battlefield promotion, and he wants everyone to bow to him. Just ignore him. We do when we can. You’ll have jobs to do, but you’ll do a lot of sitting around and they’re afraid you might go crazy. That’s why they take guns. One dude went nuts a week in and started pointing his at everyone.”
“Home’s sounding better and better,” Jesse says. He buttons his jeans and throws on his shirt.
Marquez grins. “Nora said you had a dope setup. You know how to use a weapon?”
“I’ve shot a pistol and a rifle, but that’s it.”
“Come by the Pavilion once you’re settled. Nora and I can show you some stuff. Barry’s been talking about training civilians.”
“Yeah? Cool.”
Jesse eyes his grandpa, who takes no notice. After he looks away, Sam winks at me. I have to agree staying out of it is the best course of action. First off, neither one of us will tell a twenty-two-year-old man that he can’t learn weapons, especially now. And second, neither of us wants to be on Rose’s shit list when she finds out.
Our belongings are returned, minus the guns, and we head out to the main area. It’s full of soldiers who call to each other and joke around as they pass in and out of the building. Maybe a shift change. The majority are young men, and the majority of those check out Clara and Holly as they go by. The two girls whisper beside where Mitch and Rose sit on a bench with their belongings. All four have damp hair.
Rose and Mitch stand as we approach. “How’d it go?” Rose asks.
“Assholes took my axe and Clara’s hammer,” Mitch says.
Sam moves forward and speaks low, telling them about the guns. He finishes it off with, “I’ll bet we can get them back.”
Mitch nods and straightens her brown shirt. “They have better-fitting clothes here, anyway.”
Barry comes toward us with a smile. “You ready?”
We follow him to another set of glass doors at the corner of the building, where he points to a group of long, low interconnected wooden b
uildings just to our right, painted barn red and forest green. The centermost building has a peaked roof and is attached to a long rectangular building on either side. Another peaked roof building sits at the end of those rectangles, with one more oblong building at either end, to make seven buildings total. These are the Exposition Halls, where one can see the farm animals at the county fair every July. Clara loved the chicks when she was little, especially the ones hatching under the warming lights.
“Just take your smaller packs,” Barry says. “We’ll be right behind with the rest.”
A man exits the building and waits on the asphalt, rocking from foot to foot—Ethan. He’s a few inches shorter than me, slim but toned, with a boyishly handsome face and blond hair worn longer than when I last saw him. Holly puts her hand against a window, her face shining.
Rose stares through the glass. She sniffs once, twice, and then swipes at her cheek. Holly hugs Rose to her, their hair blending into one mass of damp curls, before Rose pulls back. “Go ahead, say hi.”
Holly runs out the door, down the steps, then across the small road to the buildings. Ethan’s face breaks into a joyous smile before he clutches Holly. Jesse casts a somber look toward Rose’s back before he follows. By the time he reaches Ethan, Jesse is grinning, and he goes willingly into his dad’s embrace. Sam pats Rose’s shoulder and heads out after them. Knowing what I know, what Rose has confessed about their relationship, I have no idea what to say. But I do know Ethan is a fool if he fucks this up again.
Mitch places her hand on Rose’s arm. “You okay?”
I hear Rose whisper, “I’m not sure,” as Clara and I move into the sunlight. A few moments later, Rose walks past us toward Ethan. He looks up from the kids, both of whom speak a mile a minute in answer to his questions, and his smile leaves no doubt that, however much of a fool he may be, he loves his wife. He strides to Rose and pulls her into his arms. Rose’s head presses to his shoulder until Ethan takes her face in his hands, kissing her once, then again. Rose sets a hand on his cheek, says something in a soft voice.
There’ll be no such reunion for me. I stare into the parking lot, chest burning. It’s full of people walking here and there or sitting in the sunlight. Tables are grouped under a giant outdoor tent near a half-circle of food trucks. The dining area. Another large tent with full sidewalls, purpose unknown, is off to the side, taking up two rows of parking spots between the Expo Halls and main Events Center building. The latter building takes up much of the east end of the grounds and is made of brick, with a silver roof and a glass atrium that rises well above the roof in the center.
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 38