“It is. That’s exactly what it is. Except now, it’s formal. You get my word that I’ll keep out of your business if you keep out of mine.”
Plan John gives a thunderous chuckle, from deep in his throat. “Oh, I do like you, Johnson. We should have more of these little talks.” He leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. Sleepily, he declares, “You know, everyone left in Funland is here for a reason.”
“So I’ve heard.” Rumor says that when the warden and most of the prisoners and guards were bussed out, it was Plan John and Plan John’s money that determined who stayed and who went.
“And those reasons are my reasons. Civic responsibility is such a rarity these days. It falls to men like me to craft our communities where we can. Everyone here is here because they have a quality that I believed would prove useful in the times ahead.” Plan John looks at Doyle then, with a directness that makes his knees weaken. There is conviction in the man’s scrutiny. “Have you asked yourself why you’re here, Mr. Johnson?”
“I haven’t given the question much thought,” Doyle says truthfully.
“But you accept that there is a reason?”
“If that’s what you’re telling me.”
“Perhaps,” suggests Plan John, “I just wanted someone honest to keep me on my toes.” He draws a handkerchief from a desk drawer and wipes the square of cloth across his brow, then slowly, delicately, between the gaps of his fingers. “Whatever the case, I like you, Mr. Johnson. Would you care to hear why?”
“Not overly.”
“I like you because you’re a crazy son of a bitch, and you don’t even know it. You haven’t the faintest notion of how crazy you are.”
“I guess not,” Doyle concurs.
“Also, you have the balls of a bull elephant.” Plan John chuckles once more, a rich and fluid sound, as if struck by his own image. “So, yes, we have an understanding – for the moment.”
Chapter Five
Fernando’s hands are shaking so much that, even though the interstate is empty, Ben worries he’ll manage to crash into something. The constant noise from behind them can’t be helping. The metal panel welded over the dividing window doesn’t do more than muffle the screams and banging.
“You did good back there,” Ben says eventually, feeling that someone has to speak up.
Nando glances his way. His eyes are round with suppressed tension.
“You saved our asses,” Ben informs him, willing Nando to return his gaze to the road.
Then, just as Ben has convinced himself that Nando’s in shock, he asks, “Is there water left?”
Carlita passes him a bottle and Nando takes a long swig. “I was sure they were going to shoot,” he says.
Ben can tell he means it, that in those moments he’d believed they were all going to die. “Well, they didn’t,” he says futilely.
“No, they didn’t.”
Apparently, that’s all Nando has to say on the subject. At least his shaking has subsided. Ben checks his watch, sees that it’s past three. They lost the greater part of the day in getting out of the city. After a few minutes, when they haven’t passed any vehicles, military or otherwise, Nando starts to speed up. The road is empty in both directions. Ben presumes the army has also shut the highway off ahead, and hopes that barricade is past their turnoff. It’s too much to expect that they’ll get so lucky a second time.
After keeping to the speed limit for a while, Nando dips the gas pedal farther. Ben watches the dial creep toward a hundred. Without traffic, a hundred miles an hour doesn’t seem fast. Nando’s hands are perfectly still on the wheel now. Either he’s calmed down or the shock has taken a different turn; so long as he keeps them on the road, Ben doesn’t much care. He’d have thought Carlita might protest, but she says nothing. She’s staring straight ahead, one hand clenched in her lap, the other draped around Kyle’s shoulders. Kyle himself is asleep, or maybe pretending to be. He shut his eyes after they passed the APC and hasn’t opened them since.
Nando slows when they pass two army transports. They’re on the wrong side of the highway, but Nando is in the inner lane and the transports keep to the outer, passing with plenty of space. The other vehicles are travelling almost as fast as they have been. Ben wonders if something’s happening back in the city.
Then he thinks, Of course something’s happening. The question is what – or perhaps just, how bad.
For the first time, Ben lets himself feel relieved. They’re out. Whatever happens, it can’t be worse than the catastrophe they’ve escaped.
At some point, Ben drifts into sleep. He was up most of the night, and only nerves have kept him going, but the empty road is lulling and even the hammering and cries from behind aren’t enough to keep him awake. He’s roused by a sharp jolt that freezes him with panic, to realize Nando has stopped the ambulance and is reversing. “Shit, Fernando,” he says.
“Nearly missed the turn,” Nando mumbles.
Ben sighs and stretches numbed muscles. “Why don’t we take a break?”
“A break?” Nando echoes, as if he hasn’t considered the possibility.
“Are we going to make it there today?”
“I don’t think so,” Nando admits. “Maybe it’s not a good idea to drive through the night.”
“So we’ll need to stop?” Carlita asks. She’s had her eyes closed and sounds muzzy, as though she too has been sleeping.
“Sure we will,” Ben says. “You’re right, Nando, it’s a lousy idea to do this drive at night. Which means there’s no harm in taking a break, yeah?”
“I guess,” Nando agrees. “Okay. Let me find somewhere.”
True to his word, he pulls up a few minutes later. The men take turns to go piss among the scrub trees that border the road, Ben escorting Kyle like a bodyguard, waiting at a distance for the hiss of urine splashing loam to finish. Then they pick out a place to sit, choosing by unspoken consent a spot sufficiently far from the ambulance to mute the noises from within. Nando is last to join them. He stands apart with his phone to his ear, and in the end mutters a curse.
“No reception,” he says, lowering himself onto the dry earth.
“So Tito doesn’t know we’re coming?”
Ben decides he catches a hint of accusation in Carlita’s voice, and is pleased. He’s already tired of playing the screwup to Nando’s upright cop act.
“I’ll try again once we’re closer to a town,” Nando says. Then, changing the subject, “If we’re stopping for the night, we should aim to get some food and more water. I think there’s enough gas in the tank, but it wouldn’t hurt to fill her up.”
“We could lose the ambulance,” Ben says. “Leave it somewhere. Find a car.”
“We’re not stealing.”
“I didn’t say steal.”
“And I’m not abandoning my duty.” Nando scowls back toward the ambulance. “We’re not making that anyone else’s problem.”
“Okay then. You’ve got your gun,” Ben says, not prepared to let this go. “You put a few rounds through the side. Like that cop in the city was talking about.”
“What? Wait a minute—”
“Come on, Nando. What’s going to happen? You know there’s no cure. Those people in there…they’re sick and they’re only going to get worse. Without a cutting torch, we can’t even get them out of that thing. You think you’re doing them a kindness keeping them alive another day or two?” Looking to Carlita for support, Ben sees her expression. “Hey, I’m just saying,” he mutters.
“He has a point, Nando,” Carlita ventures, which frustrates Ben all the more, because the way she’d glared at him, you’d suppose he’d argued for setting fire to a busload of school kids.
“Sure,” Nando concedes, refusing to meet her eyes.
“If we’re going by a town anyway,” she adds, “maybe we should stop. Maybe we’ll fi
nd a car someone’s abandoned. If not, we can buy food, as you say, and some gas.”
“Sure,” Nando repeats. He sounds distant now. “Can’t hurt to try.”
“And the towns are safer? Not like the city?” There’s an edge to Carlita’s question, almost of pleading.
This time, Nando doesn’t answer. Ben suspects he knows why. Before he’d given up on the news, they had been mapping outbreaks everywhere, dots blooming like algae in the cities, meeting up to form what they’d called ‘infection bands’. Even then, though, great swathes of the US – in contrast to Europe, say – were merely spattered in a rash of isolated specks. However, the anchors had taken pains to stress that this reflected nothing except population densities. Where there was no trace of sickness, generally it meant only that there were no people.
“The odds are better than in the city,” Ben cuts in. “But I think we need to assume that nowhere’s exactly safe.”
* * *
They see a little traffic: cars full of grim-faced families, trucks, and the occasional weathered pickup. A light rain falls as evening draws near, and the air, heavy and leaden prior to then, releases the worst of its tension.
Kyle, who has felt withdrawn and out of sorts ever since they left the police station, finally begins to relax. He hadn’t wanted to admit how scared he’d been in the city, not even to himself. When his dad and Carlita start tentatively talking, he joins in. He makes a dumb joke and they laugh and suddenly things seem better. He and Carlita even play ‘I Spy’ for a while, until the monotony of endless pine forest defeats their imaginations.
They spot a sign for a town, which his dad manages to pinpoint on a sheaf of printed-out maps that Nando hands to him. The place looks tiny, barely more than a main street. Nando says that’s for the best, that the smaller the place, the less hard it will have been hit.
Then they crest a rise and there it is, far down the road ahead, mostly hidden amid the trees.
“We can’t drive this thing in there,” Ben points out.
“We’ll get closer,” Nando says, “and see if anyone’s about.”
They pass a couple of houses before the town proper, wood and brick two-stories set well back from the road. Kyle notices that there aren’t vehicles on the driveways. Just past the second house, a trail leads into the forest, cut off by a high mesh gate. There’s space on the roadside, and Nando pulls up there.
“We’ll be hidden from view,” he announces.
They all get out, eager to be free of the cab’s confines. Kyle walks back and forth a while, staring at the nearby house, attempting to catch a glimpse of someone at the windows. He can’t say how, but some unnamed sense tells him the house is empty.
“Kyle,” Carlita calls. “We’re going into town. You stay here.”
“What?” He’s genuinely shocked.
“We need you to guard the ambulance,” Nando says.
That’s bullshit, Kyle almost snaps back. He tries to devise a more reasoned argument. He doesn’t want to be alone here. He can hear hammering, sobbing, and shouting from inside the ambulance; it hasn’t let up for a moment. But neither does he want his argument to be that he’s afraid.
“It might be good to have the kid along,” Ben says. He gives Carlita a look Kyle can’t decipher.
Carlita throws her arms up, a gesture of mock surrender. “All right. Then I’ll stay.”
Kyle thinks he gets it. Two men and a child are less threatening than three adults. Not that he’s a child, but at fourteen he looks young for his age, he’s pale and skinny, no one is ever going to take him for a threat. And ultimately, the reasons don’t matter. He’s glad to not be the one left out.
The three of them, Kyle, his dad, and Nando, walk in single file on the roadside to where the sidewalk starts. The wide main street stretches to perhaps forty buildings, with an intersection before the halfway point and presumably more houses in the other directions. The buildings match those they passed coming in, brick and wood, all much the same. There are a few empty lots, and in general an air of run-downness. No one’s around. The first shops are closed and of no use anyway: a hairdressers, a pharmacy, a place that appears to sell nothing except ride-on lawnmowers. However, farther up Kyle spies what looks like a general store.
“There’s a gas station,” says Nando, indicating the intersection. “I’ll see if anybody’s there. Why don’t you two try the store?” He moves off without waiting for an answer, crossing to the far sidewalk.
Kyle and his dad walk in parallel with Nando as far as the store entrance. The sign behind the glass is turned to ‘Open’, but Kyle is doubtful. Even under normal circumstances, it’s late for anywhere to be serving, let alone in a dead-end burg like this. He’s surprised when his dad pushes the door and it gives.
The inside is roomier than is necessary for the two wide aisles. The shelves are stacked mostly with boxed and canned groceries, while, near the entrance, candy, magazines, cheap paperbacks, and greeting cards are mounted in rotating stands. The counter runs along the rear wall; behind it sits a middle-aged woman. She resembles a fourth-grade teacher Kyle had once: dyed hair piled in a bundle, narrow glasses perched on her nose, and a sour look, as though she’s tasted the world and found it not to her liking. She is eyeing them with open suspicion.
“We’re not open.”
“We don’t want to bother you,” Ben says. “Just hoping to buy a little food and some bottled water. Or soft drinks. Whatever you might have.”
“Like I said. We’re not open.”
“Okay. But since you’re here. If you can spare us a minute.”
“I’ve been told not to sell. Due to the emergency.”
“We don’t mean to cause any trouble,” Ben says. “You can see, I’ve got my son with me. He hasn’t eaten all day. If we can just get some water—”
“Are you sick?” the woman asks abruptly.
“I’m not sick. None of us are sick. We’re just tired and hungry.”
“You need to get out.” There’s an edge of panic in the woman’s voice. “I can’t sell to you and I don’t want you in here.”
Kyle puts a hand on his father’s arm. “Come on, Dad. It’s okay. It’s only one night.”
“Sure. Yeah. Let’s all go hungry.”
“It’ll be okay,” Kyle repeats. There’s something in the woman’s face that worries him.
“It’s people like you…” Ben says to the woman, and then, “ah, fuck it.” He spins away and, in his anger, nearly sends a rack of candy bars toppling. He looks as if he might shove the stand over altogether, and pauses, instead, to right it. “Sorry to have taken up your time,” he tells the woman, sounding not sorry at all. He pushes through the door and Kyle hurries to keep up, careful not to look back at the storekeeper.
In the street, Kyle glances around for Nando. He can’t see him. But far along the road, in the opposite direction from which they came, a figure is walking toward them. He’s wearing a hunting jacket and a wide-brimmed hat, and is keeping close to the center. Kyle can make out clearly the rifle slung over one shoulder.
“Go back to the ambulance,” Ben says.
Kyle wants to, but he can’t bring himself to move. He can’t take his eyes off the man and the rifle.
Then he does see Nando. He’s stepped into view across from them, where the gas station forecourt is. The man with the rifle has marked him also, and has adjusted his course slightly to maintain the distance between them. He isn’t looking at Ben and Kyle. Nando walks slowly, deliberately, across the forecourt. He stops when he reaches the road. The man, only a few feet from him now, stops too.
“I was checking if anybody was serving,” Nando tells the man.
The man unslings his rifle. Even from a distance, it’s expensive-looking, all black wood and polished metal. The man doesn’t aim, just holds the rifle in the crook of his arm, the way a hun
ter would.
“But there isn’t,” Nando continues. “So I guess I’ll be leaving, try somewhere else.”
“Where’s your vehicle?” The man’s voice is low and throaty. Stubble darkens his jaw, and what’s visible of his face is all hard angles. His eyes are hidden in the shade of his hat.
Is that deliberate, Kyle wonders; is he deliberately hiding his eyes?
“It’s outside of town,” Nando says. “We didn’t intend to alarm anyone.”
“What’s so alarming about it?”
“I’m a prison driver. I’m transporting prisoners.”
Another voice comes from close behind Kyle. “That you, Holland?” It’s the woman from the store.
“Louisa,” the man acknowledges her.
“That one took something.” Though he can’t see, Kyle can feel her accusing finger jabbing at his father’s back. “He was acting real aggressive. I think he might be sick.”
The rifle snaps up. The man doesn’t use the scope, merely sights along the barrel. “That right?”
“I’m not sick,” Ben says. “I didn’t take anything.”
“They’re looters,” the store woman moans. “Like you warned about.”
“We just want to leave,” says Nando. There’s a forcefulness to the words that draws everyone’s attention. Sure enough, Nando has a revolver in his hands, pointed squarely at the man’s body. “I’m a police officer. We’re not looters.”
The man, Holland, keeps the rifle on Ben, not acknowledging in any way the gun aimed at him. “You said you’re a prison driver.”
“Right now, I’m both.” Nando has begun to back toward Kyle and Ben, with slow deliberate steps, never once letting the barrel of the revolver drift from the man’s body. “I can show you my badge. But you’ll need to lower your weapon.”
“You tell your friend,” the man says, “to return what he stole.”
“I didn’t steal anything,” Ben insists. But the man doesn’t appear to be listening, though he still has the rifle trained on them.
“We’re leaving,” says Nando.
A Savage Generation Page 5