by A. M. Geever
Doug did not like it, not one bit. But he did not see that they had a choice.
“Or you can stay here, Doug, and she can go,” Smith offered. “No offense meant to Ms. Tucci, but you seem to be in charge. I thought you would prefer to do the introductions.”
Miranda sighed. Her disgusted I-give-up sigh. “Fine. I’ll stay.”
“Are you sure?” Doug asked.
“Yes.” She looked at Smith. “But please quit calling me Ms. Tucci.”
Smith nodded. “Done.”
“Don’t fuck us over,” Doug said, his manner still friendly, but the threat lurking below the surface clear as crystal.
“I have commanded airmen and women in three different theaters of conflict, Doug,” Smith said. Her affect was also friendly, but a flinty resolve came through. “I have never ordered anyone under my command to violate the Geneva Convention, nor did I tolerate it. I’m not going to start now. Ms. Tucci be fine. You have my word.”
He believed her. Maybe it was Smith’s directness and no-nonsense manner. Even so, he didn’t like leaving Miranda behind.
Skye said, “I’ll round up a few people to take Doug back.”
“Make sure you all get some lunch,” Smith added. She stood, then stooped to pick up the papers that had fallen on the floor. “I’ll see about getting Miranda situated.”
Smith gestured at the books and papers that filled the room with a handful of papers.
“You know the kicker of all this? I retired a year before. My husband and I had just moved to the prettiest little house on the Lost Coast. I was so done with command.” She laughed and shook her head, bemused. “I guess command wasn’t done with me.”
10
Mario cocked his head, his hand still holding the door of the outdoor latrine. He heard the rumble of a vehicle engine, faint, but getting louder. Delilah cocked her head, also listening, and the macaques began to shriek.
He jogged toward the building, his hand resting lightly on his holstered Sig P226. In every direction, macaques streaked to the safety of hiding places. Once he and Delilah were inside, Mario snatched up the nearby chain and strung it tight through the door-width push bars and snapped the padlock shut. He knew the doors on the opposite side of the lobby were already padlocked but checked anyway. He took the stairs two at a time to the second floor. The main parking lot sat at the rear of the building. Whoever was driving the vehicles would end up there, assuming they did not go off-road.
Would the chains and padlocks keep someone out? No. A person only had to break the glass. But it would slow down anyone who did not want the integrity of the building compromised. Even transparent glass doors could keep zombies at bay unless they pressed against them enough to break the glass.
Could Miranda and Doug have found a vehicle in working order? Highly unlikely. Mario settled in next to the window facing the parking lot. A few minutes later, an old pickup truck and a late model Honda Pilot came into view. He could not see through the Pilot’s tinted windows, but two people were in the truck.
The truck and the Pilot drove behind a dense copse of trees that had grown through the center of the parking lot’s broken concrete. The vehicles did not re-emerge on the other side. Several minutes later, Doug appeared, followed by a woman and a man, both heavily armed. Doug did not appear to have his Glock or rifle, but he did have his machete. He was also wearing a drab-green knitted hat and gloves that he had not left with yesterday. His body language was relaxed. Another woman emerged from behind the trees, but it wasn’t Miranda.
Mario’s pulse skyrocketed.
Doug led the group up the sidewalk to the rear lobby doors. Mario left the window to meet them. When he emerged from the stairwell, Doug and the others waited outside the door. Delilah pranced in place, warbling, tail wagging at the sight of Doug. Doug was listening to whatever a tall, slender woman was saying to him. The other woman, shorter, with a pointy chin and nose and a pinched look to match, shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Behind them stood a man built like a brick shithouse, dark eyebrows pulled down over even darker eyes, his mouth twisted in a suspicious scowl. They were all dressed for the weather and looked well fed.
“Open the door,” Doug said, his breath frosting the glass.
Doug scratched his chest in a circular movement, which signaled that the strangers were okay so far. Scratching your nose meant danger, but had that been the case, Doug would have started scratching his nose as soon as he had come into view of the building. So, Doug was reasonably sure these people were okay, but the lack of Miranda and Doug’s semi-weaponless state meant the strangers were holding the cards.
“Where’s Miranda?”
“She’s fine,” Doug said.
“That’s great,” Mario said. “But where is she?”
“James, it’s freezing out here. Open the door, and I will tell you all about it.”
James was Mario’s middle name. Miranda was not here. So far, Doug was not inspiring confidence.
“I’ll lock Delilah up if it’s going to be a problem. I don’t want her getting shot.”
“I love dogs,” the tall woman said, looking shocked. “We aren’t going to shoot her! She’s wagging her tail.”
Mario shrugged, noncommittal. He unlocked the padlock and pulled the chain loose. He gripped Delilah’s collar and pushed on the bar.
He didn’t unholster his handgun. He was clearly outgunned, but he wasn’t going to hand it over until he had to. And he didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings about his intent if he reached for it. Doug and the strangers entered in a gust of cold air.
“Are you sure she’s all right?” Mario persisted.
Doug reached to pet Delilah.
“James, she’s fine. She stayed behind with Commander Smith. We didn’t have a lot of choice about that, but we had the same take, that they’re good people. They offered to send Miranda back instead of me, but she insisted. Our new friends want to make sure we’re doing what I’ve told them we’re doing.”
Mario bit back an unhelpful retort, annoyed at Doug’s lack of alarm that Miranda wasn’t here. He didn’t know what Doug had told these people—he was better off keeping his mouth shut and listening.
“I’d feel better if she was here,” Mario said truthfully.
“Then let’s get this over with,” Doug said. He let go of Delilah, who immediately began making the rounds. “Skye, Rocco, Tessa, this is James Gideon. Tessa’s their solar expert. Skye and Rocco were part of the group we ran into.”
“We caught you guys sleeping,” Skye said.
“Well, yeah,” Doug conceded. He looked down, his cheeks turning light pink.
Great, fucking great, Mario thought. These people had gotten the drop on Doug and Miranda. Either Doug and Miranda had been very sloppy, or these people were very good. Doug was introducing Mario by his middle and his mother’s maiden name, which made Mario one hundred percent sure that Doug had not told them about Jeremiah.
“Enough with the small talk,” the man named Rocco said brusquely. He ignored Delilah, who rubbed against his leg. He pulled off his knit cap and stuffed it in a pocket. “You two,” he said, pointing a football-sized hand at Doug and Mario. “Sit. Now. James, give me your gun.”
Mario handed over his Sig and sat on the floor next to Doug as instructed.
“Liley, come,” Mario said. Two repetitions later, the excited Delilah complied. Mario put the pit bull on a down stay beside him and held her collar again.
“Any surprises you want to tell us about before we find them?” Skye asked, looking at Doug.
“Not a thing,” Doug said.
She looked at Mario, head cocked quizzically to the side.
“No,” Mario answered, trepidation building with every second that passed.
The room where they had stashed Jeremiah off the second floor’s main lab was easy to miss, small, relatively soundproof, and locked. They might find the room, but Mario doubted they could get inside.
“T
essa will keep an eye on you while Rocco and I look around. Ready, Rocco?”
Rocco grunted.
“He gets nicer, I promise,” Skye said.
Forty minutes later, everyone but Delilah was in the second floor main lab that Mario wanted to use for non-biohazardous work when they got things up and running. Mario studiously avoided looking in the direction of the door to Jeremiah’s cell. Rocco and Skye had not missed it, had asked about it, and tried to pick the lock to the outer door. They’d been unsuccessful, thank God. Both he and Doug had pleaded ignorance, saying they had not been able to get into the room, either.
Tessa stood on a ladder they had scrounged from the basement, the top half of her body hidden by the drop ceiling. Light from her headlamp flashed down through the removed sections punctuated by pings, bangs, curses, and requests for a different type of pliers, diagonals, or screwdriver. Doug held the ladder like a regular Boy Scout.
Rocco’s interest in the room where Jeremiah was hidden was plain. His suspicious glances were followed by thoughtful scowls, restless shifts of his body weight from one foot to the other, and deep rumbles of dissatisfaction in his chest. The only saving grace was that there were two doors. The first here in the lab, which had a window, opened to a short passageway before the second door, to the room where Jeremiah was. Luckily, the second door didn’t have a window. Mario didn’t understand the original function for the double doors, but they were the only reason their situation was not more precarious.
Tessa’s descent of the ladder pulled Mario’s attention back to the here and now. She flicked the headlamp off, then pulled it and her cap off her head when she reached the floor.
“Good and bad news, I’m afraid,” she said, untangling her hat from the headlamp. She pulled the hat back on, covering her mussed jaw-length brown hair. “We can set this lab up to run on solar no problem, but I’m not qualified to deal with the electrical on a building like this. We need to get Erik—”
Rocco groaned. “Shoot me now.”
“Oh, please,” Skye said to him, rolling her eyes. “They’re just people, Rocco. You act like you’re allergic to them.”
“I am allergic to them,” he said.
Tessa continued as if she had not been interrupted. “We obviously don’t want to burn this place down because rats have been chewing on cables. Erik will be able to direct repairs and come up with the right modifications for amps and current and whatever else.”
“Who’s Erik?” Mario asked.
“And why is Rocco allergic?” Doug added.
“Erik’s the electrician at P-Land,” Skye said, ignoring Rocco’s even louder groans of distress.
“And P-Land is?” Doug asked.
Rocco sighed. Loudly.
“It’s the other settlement in the area,” Tessa said. “Portlandia. P-Land for short.”
“I used to live there. It’s fine,” Skye added.
Rocco snorted. “I don’t see you making plans to go back.”
Skye shook her head. “They just do things more collaboratively there.”
Mario glanced at Doug. From the look on his face, he appeared just as mystified.
“So do they call themselves P-Land,” Mario asked, intrigued. “Or is that a—”
“They talk everything to death,” Rocco said, interrupting Mario. “Let’s see how many ways we can consider keeping chickens before we take seventeen votes on it, because the vegans don’t think it’s ethical to keep chickens in the first place. The vegetarians don’t think they should be slaughtered after they quit laying, but buried. But not in the garden, where they might do some good. That just doesn’t seem right after all those chickens have done for us.”
Tessa began to laugh. Skye looked on the verge of joining her.
“And the bees. Don’t get me started,” Rocco continued, his previously stormy countenance a mixture of annoyance and amusement. “Some of the beekeepers there are into vegan beekeeping, which is a thing, apparently. They don’t harvest the honey, and were a little too sanctimonious, even for P-Land.”
Mario was not sure if Rocco was pulling his leg, but Rocco did not strike him as the kind of guy who pulled your leg unless he was ripping it from your body.
“Are you serious?” Doug asked, looking like he wanted to join in the laughter but not quite sure if this was for real.
“Oh my God,” Rocco said, shaking his head as he warmed to the subject. “The bees were a pitched battle. The sourcing people backed the vegans. The humane meat eaters backed the other beekeepers but were ridiculed by the vegetarians for being hypocrites. The gardening crew just wanted the bees and didn’t give a shit. Their Council took it to a vote how many times, Skye? Six, seven? You were still living there then.”
Skye’s face was flushed pink from suppressed laughter. She lost her battle with it when she squeaked, “Nine.”
Beside Skye, Tessa’s giggling was interspersed with hiccups. Mario felt a smile forming, despite his anxiety at the intrusion of these strangers, and Miranda’s absence, and the need to keep Jeremiah a secret.
“Nine votes,” Rocco chortled. “For bees!”
When the laughing had ratcheted down to snickers and giggles, Doug said, “P-Land is your nickname for them, isn’t it? It’s not what they call themselves. What do they call you?”
Rocco grinned. Skye’s giggles ramped back up until she laughed so hard she needed to wipe tears from her eyes. It took Tessa three tries before she managed to say, “LO. It’s short for Law & Order.”
This time, Mario laughed with them.
An hour later, they were almost ready to depart for P-Land.
“It’ll take an hour to get there, three days to get the deal settled, and an hour to get back,” Rocco said.
Mario looked at Rocco, alarmed.
Skye said, “He’s joking.”
Rocco socked Mario on the shoulder. “So serious, this one.”
Mario suppressed a wince. Rocco’s playful punches smarted, but the ice had been broken. With no evidence of treachery, even Rocco seemed to have decided that he and Doug were good guys. Good guys Rocco and Skye never let out of their sight or left alone with one another, and whose guns were not returned to them.
Affably watchful Rocco was preferable to suspiciously scowling Rocco, but Mario would feel a whole lot better about their impending departure if he or Doug could check in on Jeremiah before they left. He definitely had enough water for a few days, but not food. Doug had tried twice without success to shake Skye. He had not tried again as it might make her suspicious.
It was up to Mario.
“Let’s hit the road, then,” Skye said.
Mario visibly hesitated as Rocco walked ahead of them, then said, “I know this sounds stupid, but I’d feel better padlocking the main door. I know we can’t do much about the other after we go. I’d just hate to lose anything, being here on our own.”
He watched Skye take a quick look at their belongings. They didn’t have much, which meant they couldn’t afford to lose anything. Rocco had already walked ahead, out the rear doors, which left Skye to watch Doug, and Tessa to watch Mario.
“Tessa,” Skye said. “Want to help Mario?”
Tessa nodded. “Sure.”
“Doug,” Mario said. “Do you mind taking Delilah while I get this?”
“No problem, James,” Doug said.
Delilah darted out the door ahead of Doug and Skye. Delilah had taken a shine to Skye and looped back to prance around her. Mario turned toward the front doors on the other side of the large central lobby, not hurrying nor dawdling. He stooped to pick up the chain, checking to see that Doug and Skye were well on their way to the parking lot. He started to attach the chain, then looked at Tessa.
“If it really takes an hour to get there, then I better hit the latrine before we go.”
“Okay,” Tessa said.
Mario knew that Tessa had used the latrine before, so she knew it was a thousand feet from the front doors, off to the side of the buildin
g. He handed her the chain and padlock.
“We both know you’re not here to help with the door, but I can handle the latrine on my own,” he said.
He ducked out the door and strode toward the latrine before she could respond. He glanced back. Tessa hesitated, then decide to wait for him. As soon as he was out of her sight line, he ran to the building’s side entrance. They had unlocked the door after clearing the building in case they needed a quick escape route. It was insecure as far as people went but even unlocked, zombies could not open a heavy metal door that swung out. Mario ducked inside the building and took the stairwell to the second floor two steps at a time.
He hurried to the lab, grabbed the key to Jeremiah’s cell from a cabinet along with a few Meals Ready to Eat, and opened the door. He hated opening the second door on his own without a weapon in his hand, but he did not have time, and he didn’t want Jeremiah getting a weapon. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. Jeremiah looked up from where he lay on the cot by the far wall, under the small window. The composting toilet near the inoperable sink smelled okay. Paperbacks littered the floor around Jeremiah. He stuck his finger in the book he was reading as he sat up.
“What do you—”
Mario tossed the MREs in Jeremiah’s direction.
“Might be a few days, don’t fret.”
He pulled the door shut, locked it, repeated with the next. Last stop was to reach below a table top by the sink and feel for the grip of his back up handgun—another Sig P226. The tape pulled away clean. He tucked the gun into his waistband at the small of his back, out of sight under his outer layers.
He was sweating by the time he exited the building. His detour had taken him two minutes, maybe, but it felt like ten. If Tessa had become suspicious or investigated, the situation was about to get sticky.
When he rounded the corner of the building, he saw Tessa standing just outside the main doors. Mario saw her shoulders relax when she saw him.