“What is it?”
“I just said ‘was.’ Twice now. Not ‘is.’ Was.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked back at him. “Did you lose anyone? Family or friends?”
“Friends, but Emily is my only family. She’s the only one that matters.”
“You were at work when it happened?”
“Leaving work,” he said, and stopped short of telling her all the boring details about his last day at RistWorks.
“But you still have your wife.”
I hope I still have a wife, he thought.
Cole said, “Yes.”
“You’re lucky, then.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” Then, because he was finding the conversation trending in a direction he didn’t like, “Is that all you need?”
She looked down at the bag in her hands. “I think so.”
“Think some more. You were pretty quick.”
“I thought you wanted me to be quick.”
“No. Take your time and think about what you’ll need. The essentials. Nothing that will slow you down. When you’re done, come back to Dante’s.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He left her standing in the living room by herself and returned to 505, glad to be out of the apartment. He thought Fiona felt the same way—she likely had some good-byes to say and probably would rather not have him watching while she did it.
Back at Dante’s, Zoe and Ashley had gathered all the unspoiled food and canned goods they could find and put them on the table, while Cole took another look at Dante’s and his aunt’s bedrooms. The woman was in her fifties, and as expected of someone that was a nurse, there was a fully-stocked first-aid kit in the bathroom. He also found a box with hospital supplies, including bandages, sutures, and threading needles. Cole cleaned out the medicine cabinets and found even more useful things hidden in the closet. He dumped all of it into a spare backpack that Dante had in his room, while the teenager was stuffing his own pack for the trip.
Cole took a moment to go back into the bathroom and take off his shirt and dress the wound in his back. He was trying (and failing miserably) to clean the cut when Zoe knocked on the door and leaned in.
“I thought you might need a hand,” she said.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
She closed the door behind her and used Dante’s aunt’s first-aid kit to clean, disinfect, then cover up the gash. He expected her to be queasy around blood, but then remembered how she had nonchalantly pulled the piece of glass out of him back at the manager’s office.
“You’ve done this before?” Cole asked.
“No.”
“You’re very good at it.”
“It’s barely a cut. Not exactly brain surgery. And the packages are clearly labeled.”
“Still…”
“What, you thought I’d be squeamish?”
“Most people are.”
“You mean women?”
He smiled. “Some women. I know a few who are better at it than most men.”
“Like your wife?”
He nodded.
“The way you talk about her,” Zoe said, “she must be an amazing woman.”
“She is. I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for her. She saved my life.”
“Are we talking literally or figuratively?”
“Both.”
“Now I really have to meet her.”
“You will, when we reach Bear Lake.”
When she was done, Zoe opened a warm bottle of water and washed her hands over the sink. Dante’s aunt had stocked up on spring water earlier in the week. According to Dante, they always had enough to last at least a month due to the aunt’s unpredictable hospital schedule that sometimes prevented her from going shopping for everything but the essentials.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You don’t have to thank me, Cole. You did more than that for my daughter and me. We owe you our lives.” She grabbed a towel off the rack and cleaned her hands. “Thank you, for not leaving us behind.”
He nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“I mean it,” she said, staring intensely at him. “You could have just left us out there so many times, but you didn’t. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, pulling his shirt back on.
“Maybe Dante has a fresh shirt.”
“Not necessary.”
“Yours has blood on it.”
“I’m not worried about dirty clothes right now.”
“What are you worried about?”
“Everything else.”
“We’ll do fine,” she said, as she began packing the first-aid kit back up. “You’ll see.”
“I hope you’re right.”
She handed the kit back to him and smiled. It was somewhat convincing. “I know you underestimate him. Dante. But he’s a strong kid. He’d have to be, to have survived all this while confined to a wheelchair.”
“Strong or lucky?”
“Maybe a little of both.”
“We’ll see,” Cole said.
Back in the living room, he tossed the backpack on the sofa next to Ashley, who was eating corn from a can using a metal spork.
“Good?” he asked her.
The kid nodded back with a mouthful of corn.
Zoe came out of the kitchen behind him with a blue gym bag. It looked heavy. Maybe too heavy. “It’s everything I could salvage from the fridge. These should last us for a while.”
“It’s too big. You’ll have to take out half of it to lighten the load.”
She lifted the bag up and down, then frowned. “You’re right. What should I keep?”
“Nonperishables should be priority. Take out anything that won’t last past a few days.”
“You really think we’re going to need that much? Bear Lake’s only twenty miles away.”
“That’s twenty miles in a city gridlocked with cars and teeming with God knows how many crazies waiting for us to step outside.”
“You have a point.” She sighed at the bag and headed back to the kitchen. “I’ll go through it again.”
Dante rolled out of his room, his own backpack slung over one of his wheelchair’s handlebars. He had put on sneakers and a black leather jacket.
“Nice jacket,” Cole said.
“My aunt bought it for me for my birthday,” the teenager said.
“She’s got good taste.”
“Well, I sort of dropped hints the entire year that I wanted this, so…”
Cole chuckled.
“Thanks,” Dante said.
“For what?”
“Letting me come with you.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re taking a big risk. This,” he tapped the armrest of his wheelchair with his fists, “makes everything complicated.” He flashed Cole a half-smile. “So thanks, for not leaving me behind. Most people would.”
I was going to, Cole thought, but he said, “Sure, kid.”
Dante rolled over to where Ashley was sitting. She held out her spork, with corn in it, and he grinned and leaned forward to take a bite.
It took Cole a few seconds to realize Zoe was watching him from the kitchen. When she saw him looking over, she smiled, then went back inside.
He sighed and wondered if he’d just made the best decision of his life, or possibly the dumbest.
“We both know the answer to that one, don’t we?” the Voice said.
Oh, shut up.
Chapter 17
The office drone.
He was out there, somewhere.
Cole didn’t know where, exactly, but he knew—or as much as you could “know” something without, well, the actual knowing part—that the man was hiding, clutching that metal poker of his. The same instrument of destruction—innocuous in most settings, but not here—he had been brandishing as a weapon earlier today.
The butcher was also out there. Also in hiding.
And how many more that Cole h
adn’t seen yet, but had been drawn to the chaos of this morning like a moth to the flame?
“Too many, probably, and you’ll be saddled with a kid in a wheelchair and a buncha women,” the Voice said. “That’s not a recipe for success, buddy.”
He ignored the Voice.
“Oh, come on. That’s childish. You do know that I’m you, right?”
Laughter, but Cole ignored that, too.
He focused instead on the streets.
Besides the buzzing of flies and swaying clouds of insects, it was deathly quiet outside. There was a slight wind, but it did nothing to deter the three dogs that had appeared among the cars. They didn’t look rabid or wild, but that hadn’t stopped them from eating the bodies. Cole was reminded of something a friend once said, that when pet owners died at home and no one was there to discover the body, the animal, having run out of food and unable to seek out any, would begin to eat its former master.
Cole hadn’t believed it at the time, but watching a large brown Labrador chewing on the thick, fatty wrist of Joe the plumber made him somewhat of a believer.
“Just somewhat?” the Voice asked.
Cole pulled away from the broken security glass. Behind him, Fiona and Ashley alternated between shuffling their feet and fussing with the straps of their backpacks. Further behind them, Dante sat quietly in his wheelchair, while Zoe poised herself behind him, both hands on the chair’s handles.
Zoe gave him a smile that was supposed to be reassuring, but it did no such thing, mostly because she looked utterly terrified.
“One last time,” Cole said. “Everyone clear on what we’re doing?”
“We make a straight line for the Dodge,” Fiona said.
“Which is?”
“The white minivan down the street.”
Cole nodded. “I go first. Fiona follows with Ashley.” He focused on Fiona when he added, “She’s your responsibility once we step through that door. Understand?”
“I understand,” Fiona said. She was holding Ashley’s hand, and the two exchanged a forced, brave smile. “I got her.”
“I got you, too,” Ashley said.
“That’s my girl,” Zoe said.
Cole looked past them and at Zoe and Dante. “What about you two?”
“We’ll be right behind the girls,” Zoe said.
Her voice was calm. Mostly. He could detect a slight tremor, but only because he was looking for it. It was easy to find when you’d been around men in combat. Try as they might, it was hard to hide. Cole thought he was doing a fine job of it himself, but maybe that was only because he’d been through this too many times to count.
“You never did this with a bunch of civvies, one of whom is in a wheelchair,” the Voice said.
He’ll do fine.
“You think so?”
Yes.
“You better hope so.”
Yeah, Cole thought.
Dante must have seen the way Cole was looking at him, because the kid leaned slightly forward in his chair and nodded back, a look of grim determination on his face. “We’ll be right behind you guys. Count on it. And if anything happens—”
“Nothing will happen,” Zoe said.
Dante continued as if she hadn’t cut him off. “—Zoe has my permission to dump me in the streets and save herself.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Zoe said.
“I give you my permission.”
“I don’t care.”
“Zoe—”
“Nothing will happen,” Zoe said, cutting him off for the second time.
Dante gave Cole a Well, I tried look and shrug.
He smiled back at the kid. “How much do you weigh?”
“A buck ten,” Dante said.
“110?”
“True fact. Why?”
Cole didn’t answer him. He met Zoe’s gaze instead.
She nodded back. “We’ll be fine. Just worry about getting that car started.”
“It’ll start.”
“What if you’re wrong about the keys being inside?”
“I’ll get it started.”
“You know how to hot-wire a car?”
“Among other things, yes.”
“You think you’ll have time to do that, though?”
“I’ll make time.”
He tried to make it sound cavalier, like he had no worries in the world, but the look on Zoe’s face told him she wasn’t buying it.
“Be careful,” Zoe said.
He nodded and smiled again. It must have been slightly more effective this time, because she returned it.
Cole turned back to the door and peered through the jagged security glass window.
Quiet.
Way, way too quiet.
“Fiona…” Cole said.
She let go of Ashley’s hand and stepped forward, then put one hand on the doorknob and the other on the deadbolt. She sucked in a deep breath and settled crisp blue eyes on him. Like Zoe, she was putting on a brave face.
And like Zoe, she wasn’t completely successful.
“On the count of three,” Cole said.
Fiona nodded.
“One…”
He changed up his grip on the polymer handle of the Glock, held at his side, and flexed his fingers. Ellesway’s gun felt good in his hands. Then again, any gun would feel good right now.
“Too bad we don’t have a rifle,” the Voice said.
Yeah, too bad. But this’ll do.
“Two…” he said out loud.
Cole took two steps back to give Fiona room to pull one of the double doors open. They exchanged a glance and quick nod. She looked even more terrified than before, if that was even possible.
“Oh yeah, it’s definitely possible,” the Voice said with a laugh.
“Three!” Cole hissed.
Fiona turned the lock and jerked the handle down and pulled the big slab of wood in almost the same fluid motion.
Even before the door had opened halfway, Cole had slipped outside into the chilly afternoon air, lifting the handgun until he was eyeballing the street behind its iron sights. There were no targets directly in front of him, so he swept right, down the street, before swinging all the way in the other direction.
The door clicked! closed behind him, the sound of the deadbolt sliding back into place.
He tuned everything out behind him and concentrated on what was in front and around him instead. Cole turned left and half-walked and half-ran toward the white Dodge Grand Caravan, which, at the moment, looked a hell of a lot farther than it had from the window of Dante’s apartment earlier.
“It’s not that far; don’t be so dramatic,” the Voice said. “And oh, watch out for the dogs.”
Right. The dogs…
The Labrador lifted its head when he came within view of its big brown eyes, but it continued sitting on its haunches. For a moment, Cole thought it might attack him, but the animal wasn’t some wild creature looking to kill. It was simply hungry. When it was sure he wasn’t a threat, the dog went back to eating, chewing its way through Joe’s meaty wrist until it began gnawing on the bone underneath.
Cole stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street and began moving toward the Grand Caravan.
He didn’t run, but he didn’t walk, either. He was making up the distance just fast enough that he could still see around him and shoot, if necessary. The Glock remained in front of him the entire time, one eye aiming behind the iron sights while the other searched for flickering telltale signs of motion—any motion—beyond his limited shooting angle.
Surely the crazies could see he was armed, and if they were as smart as they appeared to be, then they’d remain in hiding, knowing they couldn’t get to him before he shot them dead. Of course, you could never count on psychopaths to be smart about such things.
He paid close attention to the bookstore across the street and the alleyway beside it. The bakery, too, where one of the crazies had emerged yesterday. Slowly, the buzzing of flies and the so
unds of dogs chewing, ripping flesh to shreds, were the only things he could hear.
The minivan appeared in the corner of his left eye, and Cole pulled himself away from the gun’s sights just long enough to glance into the open driver-side window.
The key.
It was dangling from the ignition, just as he was hoping.
“Hallelujah!” the Voice shouted.
There were five keys in the bundle, held together in a ring with a hand-decorated clay poker chip.
“Must be your lucky day,” the Voice said.
Must be.
Cole did a full 360-degree turn, snapping his vision from street level and up the sides of the buildings in his immediate area. There was another apartment building farther up, but everything else was one story. It would have been dead quiet outside if not for his slightly-labored breathing and the very loud sounds of chewing, and buzzing of insects, nearby.
He leaned around the hood of the Dodge and saw a second dog eating the remains of a man in khaki pants. Or half of the man, anyway. His entire upper half was missing. Cole had no idea what kind of weapon could have done that. Something very big and sharp.
The dog, a small brown and white mutt, didn’t bother acknowledging Cole’s presence. It was too busy eating, gorging itself on the dead man’s remains.
Cole grabbed the minivan’s doorknob and leaned inside, aiming the weapon into the roomy back seat first. It was empty except for the two grocery bags that had spilled on the floor. Familiar smells of fruits and vegetables hit his nostrils, but Cole pushed through them and climbed into the driver’s seat.
He put the gun into his front waistband and reached for the key and turned it. The Grand Caravan hummed to life. He looked toward the apartment and saw the lobby door opening and Fiona running out.
Ashley came out next, followed by Zoe, pushing Dante’s wheelchair.
Watching them moving on cue, Cole thought, Maybe we’ll actually get out of this alive, after all.
“Someone’s being a tad optimistic,” the Voice said. “Didn’t our mom tell us never to count our chickens before they hatch?”
Cole looked out the windshield, just to be sure no one had popped out from one of the many surrounding buildings or parked cars or alleyways in the few seconds when he wasn’t looking. He groped the length of the driver-side door and pushed all the buttons he could find, heard the series of pop! pop! as the locks disengaged around him.
Fall of Man (Book 1): The Break Page 13