by A. M. Geever
“Thought I fell in, huh?” he said when he got closer.
She snorted. “Not quite, but let’s get a move on.”
The deceleration of the SUV woke Mario up.
Shit, he thought. He had not meant to fall asleep. He had meant to stay vigilant until he had a better read on these strangers. He straightened up and looked around. Skye’s attention was on the road as she guided the SUV through a hairpin turn. Rocco sat in the front passenger seat opposite her, head against the window, snoring softly. Tessa and Doug sat in the middle row of seats. Delilah had managed to wedge herself between the driver and passenger seats and snuggled up to Skye, her head on Skye’s lap. As the road straightened ahead of them, Mario could see a gate in the distance that straddled the road.
“Rocco, wake up,” Skye said.
Rocco sat up and stretched his arms, wiggling his fingers in Skye’s face. She swatted his hand away.
As they pulled up to the gate, Mario could see that it stuck out from the exterior wall—a double entry like San Jose. Skye waved out the window, shouting a hello to people in the tower, but the other side of the conversation was unintelligible.
“There’s a truck in the screening gate area. They’re opening up the people door for us,” Skye said.
Mario called Delilah to him as they exited the SUV and put her on a leash. They headed for a door in the timber gate, where they were met by a red-haired woman who stepped through.
“Hey, Skye, Rocco. Tessa, good to see you! Who’s this lovely girl?” she said, putting her hand down for Delilah to sniff.
Delilah’s tail wagged so furiously it smacked on Mario’s leg like a wire whip. The woman smiled pleasantly at Doug and Mario, looking curious, but didn’t ask who they were.
After giving the dog a few pets, the woman said, “Come on through.”
Once they got through the gate door, the scene inside was chaotic. A box truck with supplies was parked, cab doors open wide. At least fifty people were crowded around a tall man with blond hair. He looked to Mario like a corn-fed midwestern farm boy who had been through the wringer. His clothes were filthy, his color sallow, and his brown eyes held such haggard rage that Mario took an involuntary step back. It looked like he was almost arguing with another man in front of the large group of people.
“Shit,” Skye said.
“Come on, Skye. Put on your big girl panties,” Tessa said, grabbing Skye’s hand and pulling her along. “He won’t see you, anyway, with that many people.”
“Any idea what that’s about?” Mario murmured to Doug, tipping his head at Skye.
Doug shook his head. They joined the others at the edge of the crowd.
“…tole some of their vaccine serum a couple weeks before we arrived. I barely managed to bribe our way into the city. They weren’t going to part with anything. They had been fighting with another group set up at a college, but that had died down. The prick I talked to said, ‘even if recent events were different, we don’t sell vaccine to outsiders.’ What does it matter where we’re from?”
Murmurs whooshed through the crowd. Mario and Doug looked at one another. He was talking about San Jose.
The tall, older man he was conversing with shook his head in disbelief. The wire-rimmed glasses perched on his hooked nose wobbled. He put a hand up to steady them.
“It’s hard to believe,” he said. Hastily, he added, “Of course I believe you, Brock. You hear the stories of what it’s like there, but it’s hard to believe we have nothing of value to them.”
“They don’t give a shit about anyone.”
There were more murmurs from the assembly. When it became apparent he had no more to tell, people drifted away in twos and threes.
“Come on, let’s go,” Skye said. “I don’t want to—”
“Skye!”
The man named Brock was working his way through the thinning crowd toward them. Skye’s posture stiffened, and her shoulders hunched as if she was steeling herself. For a moment Mario thought she was going to ignore the guy and keep walking, but she stopped.
When he reached them, Brock said, “Skye…it’s so good to see you.”
He wrapped his arms around her. Skye returned the hug, barely. She began to wriggle out of his embrace almost immediately, but he did not let go right away. When she did manage to extricate herself, he kept hold of her hand.
Delilah began to strain at her lead, her attention focused on Brock. Mario heard a low rumble in the pit bull’s throat.
“Brock,” Skye said, taking a step away from him. “I didn’t know you were back.”
Brock’s bloodshot brown eyes were interested only in Skye. He looked at her like she was an oasis in the desert. He had not bothered to acknowledge the rest of them.
He said, “We just got back. It was a disaster.”
“I caught the end of your story.”
“That’s a tough break, man,” Rocco said.
Brock finally tore his gaze from Skye. “Hey, Rocco, Tessa.” His eyes skittered over Mario and Doug, then went back to Skye.
Skye pulled her hand away, her unease so evident that Mario found it hard to believe the guy did not notice.
“We’ve got business, Brock. I’ve got to go,” Skye said.
“Jennie’s dead.”
All three of the LOers gasped. Skye’s eyes widened.
“What?” she said.
“Jennie’s dead,” Brock repeated. Tears began to leak from his eyes. “On the way back, we got caught by a horde, and she…she…”
He broke down completely, unable to go on.
Mario saw that Skye also had tears in her eyes.
“Oh my God. Brock,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
She stepped toward him and put her hand on his shoulder. Everything about the way she moved and interacted with him had softened. When he put his arms around her again, she held him. He wept on her shoulder like a bereft child.
Doug asked Rocco, “Who’s Jennie?”
“His sister,” Rocco said, still looking shocked at the news. “She was Skye’s friend. I can’t believe it.”
The rumble in Delilah’s throat was just below a full-on growl. Mario tipped his head toward the side of the enclosure between the gates to P-Land. He wanted to get Delilah away from the others to get a little breathing room. She didn’t seem to like Brock, and she really didn’t like him holding Skye close.
“We need to see what we can find out about home,” Mario said softly. He leaned against a section of exterior wall a few feet from the door they had entered by.
Doug nodded. Skye still held Brock. Even though she was about five foot ten, the man crying in her arms dwarfed her.
“At least we know they’re not fighting anymore,” Doug said. He looked at Skye and Brock. “I wonder what the story is with those two. She wanted no part of him until he told her about his sister.”
“Delilah sure doesn’t like him.”
They lapsed into silence. A minute later, Tessa and Rocco joined them.
“We’re going to take you to see the Council,” Rocco said. “Skye’s going to stay with Brock for a while.”
“Did they go to San Jose hoping to bring back some of their vaccine?” Doug asked.
Tessa nodded. “Yeah, but it sounds like it didn’t go so well. I met some people from San Jose a couple years back. It sounded pretty fucked up considering they have the only cure.”
“You would think they’d want to share it,” Doug said.
They were all silent for a moment. Mario was grateful that Doug had not told anyone that they were from San Jose. Things could have gotten a little awkward. Brock had looked murderous while telling his story. The last thing they needed was the guy deciding they were a good punching bag to vent his frustration on.
“Do you mind me asking what the story is?” Mario asked. “Skye did not look happy to see him at first.”
Rocco shook his head. “Brock is Skye’s ex. It was a nasty breakup. But she was really tight with Jennie.”
When he saw Miranda as they arrived at the Institute the following morning, relief would have bowled Mario over if he had not been sitting. Delilah bolted from the SUV ahead of him. Miranda stooped to greet the enthusiastic dog, petting her while trying, without much success, to avoid getting a full-on lick on the lips.
“Hey, beautiful,” Mario said when he reached her.
Miranda wrapped her arms around him. It had only been two days since she had stayed behind at Commander Smith’s invitation that could not be refused, but it felt like years.
She kissed him, and the spark of heat behind it took him by surprise. She must have been worried about him, too. Delilah tried to wriggle between them.
“Okay, you two, break it up,” Doug said. “How ya doing, Coppertop?”
Miranda hugged Doug, then jabbed him in the ribs. “I was a little worried when they said you had to stay at P-Land overnight. They took very good care of me, but even New Jerusalem didn’t seem too bad at first.”
“You got an extra day with three squares and a cot and hot water, and still you were suspicious,” Rocco said as he and Skye joined them, but his tone was joking.
Miranda shrugged. “You can never be too careful.”
“It was just late by the time we finished up there,” Mario said. “Smarter to spend the night.”
“We got an electrician and a crew lined up,” Skye said. “So I guess it’s official that we’re neighbors.”
Mario nodded, excited at the prospect of soon getting to work, and also at the idea of spending some time alone with Miranda. Their kiss had made him hungry for more. But allies were important, and even after the end of the civilization as they had once known it, manners were too.
He nodded and said to Skye, “Nice to meet you, neighbor.”
11
To hear Miranda tell it, LO sounded like a theme park. Doug laughed to himself at the face she would make at this characterization. He had to remember it for later.
For a smaller outpost, LO had a lot of things going for it. They had a doctor, a nurse practitioner, and a dentist: the trifecta of post-apocalyptic healthcare. They had a two-layer palisade that was twenty-five-feet high. Its poles were whole trees nestled beside one another, with the second layer behind the seams where every tree on the outer layer met. Miranda had come away with a very positive impression of Commander Smith. Smith ran a tight ship but worked hard to get buy-in from the residents. The people Miranda had met seemed happy to be there.
They were not just in Tualatin Hills Park. Miranda seemed to have passed whatever Smith’s character tests were, too. When Smith had learned that he and the others were going to be delayed overnight in P-Land, she had pulled out the maps and showed Miranda where they were as a show of good faith. Along the park’s southern border was a small housing development, a residential Catholic Boys’ Home, and an apartment development. LO had expanded into all three. Two creeks ran through the former park, so they did not lack for water. They had even set up some windmills, but Doug wasn’t sure where. Along with solar, they provided electricity for stoves in the housing plans and the kitchens at the Boys’ Home.
The windmills also helped power LO’s defense system. A week later, Miranda could not shut up about it. Doug was itching to learn more. Since one of the things that attracted zombies was sound, LO had figured out a way to use it against them. They’d set a perimeter that encircled their settlement about two miles out in all directions. Along the perimeter were Station Houses that broadcast white noise. The levels weren’t high, just enough to attract zombies within approximately a quarter mile. The system was designed to funnel zombies from the north and west and most importantly from the east—where Portland was located—southwest of LO to a kill zone. Amplification was normally set at the same level throughout the system, but when they wanted to funnel zombies to the kill zone, the volume became progressively louder from station to station, luring the zombies where LO wanted them. They killed zombies at every Station House, of course, but the bulk were redirected to the kill zone on a regular schedule. If the density of zombies was getting too high in the kill zone, they could amp the sound up elsewhere to redistribute them.
It explained the overall lack of zombies in the area that they had noticed once they got inside the ring of Station Houses. They just hadn’t known that the Station Houses were there. The Station Houses were no more than one mile apart, which was the major weakness of the system. If a Station House went off-line, zombies got through the gap, and when there were enough zombies heading one direction, it caught the interest of others. So it was not a question of if they would end up going through the gap, but how quickly that happened and how many.
There had only been two system-wide failures in the five years the sound defenses had been operational. LO was still here, and they still used the sound defense system, so clearly, they had been able to bounce back and refine. The good old-fashioned trench and chain-link fence, and the tall log palisade, were the low-tech backup.
Doug checked his compass again. He only had about half a mile left, assuming he was going in the right direction. He was. Now that he knew where LO was, he had decided to try the route that he had mapped out from the Institute. Their location at the Institute was northwest of LO and a little over an hour’s journey on foot. He had needed to adjust course a few times but only needed to kill four zombies.
Smith had promised to get them a working vehicle, but he wanted to know how to get to LO on foot, just in case. He also wanted to thank Smith for their assistance brokering the deal with P-Land. As of yesterday, after five days of almost nonstop work, the Institute had power. Mario had spent the last day giggling like a kid in a candy store despite the still-long list of repairs.
Five minutes later, he had reached the correct spot on the map. Doug looked around at the trees, shrubs, briars, and grasses gone wild for ten years.
“Where the hell is it?” he said softly.
After ten minutes of searching, he noticed a fallen tree. He could tell that the tree had snapped and fallen some time ago, its fat trunk still attached to the stump by jagged, broken edges that had been sharp but were now worn and crumbling. About a third of the way up from the trunk the bark had worn off. The oval of wood underneath was smooth, as if it had been rubbed for years by the legs of people climbing over.
“Bingo.”
Doug scrambled over the tree and saw another worn spot on the next tree in front of him. Alongside the second tree a worn depression meandered through the deep, overgrown thicket. He would have mistaken it for a game trail if he had not known there were people living nearby.
Several twists and turns later, he emerged on a one-lane gravel road. To the left the road ran out of sight back toward the road he had just been on. He headed the other direction, and a few minutes later, he saw the drawbridge gate.
The first obstacle was the trench that encircled the settlement. He had been driven over it the other day—once with a hood and once without. Beyond the trench was the chain-link fence, then the palisade. There were three guard booths along the catwalk over the drawbridge, at its center and in the simple towers the drawbridge was nestled between. Doug had not been up there, but the winches for the drawbridge were in the towers on either end. The whole set up was impressive.
That must have taken forever to build, Doug thought, taking in the palisade again.
Five of the six people in the guard tower trained rifles on him. The other spoke into a radio.
“Hello,” Doug called from the far side of the trench, hands held open in front of him. “I’m Doug Michel. I was here the other day with Skye, Rocco, and Tessa. I’m hoping to see Commander Smith.”
“Wait right there,” a silver-haired woman with a rifle said.
Doug stopped. The person on the walkie-talkie was looking at him and speaking into it. A few minutes later, Skye appeared in the guard booth. Doug saw her nodding to the others, and the drawbridge began to lower.
Once inside, Skye int
roduced him to the guards before they set off for Smith’s office.
Skye asked, “You came on foot? Alone?”
“I haven’t sprouted wings.”
“Well, just so you know, that is against protocol. She’s gonna read you the riot act.”
“Oh,” Doug said. “You have a protocol for traveling on foot?”
“We have a protocol for everything.”
The gravel road opened up to the wide gravel-covered parking lot. A tiny corner of the asymmetrically slanted roof of the former park’s Nature Center peeked up past the trees in front of the building.
“Wow,” Doug said as the doors to the Nature Center closed behind him. “This is a beautiful building.”
The roof slanted up from behind him to a height of two stories. Windows nestled under the high eave in the far wall that plunged straight down from the roof. The ceiling was timbered in honey-colored pine, knots casting a speckling of freckles. Unlike the other day, the sun shone brightly, flooding the lobby with light. He was also not being held captive, which made it possible to appreciate the architecture. On the far side of the lobby to Doug’s right, floor-to-ceiling windows displayed a patio nestled in the ninety-degree corner of the building’s two wings.
“It is pretty,” Skye said. “It’s a bitch to heat with all the windows, though.”
He followed Skye around the reception desk to the offices. He could see Smith sitting at her desk, reading the papers in front of her. She looked up as they approached the door.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Smith said, smiling. “What can I do for you, Father?”
“Please, call me Doug,” Doug said as he stood in the doorway. “I just wanted to thank you in person for getting P-Land to help get the power on.”
“Not a problem, happy to do it,” Smith said, dismissing his thank you with a wave of her hand. Her eyebrows scrunched together. “How did you get here? Did you walk?”
“He did,” Skye said, nudging his ribs with her elbow. “Alone.”