by Tate, Harley
Each person nodded in turn and Lainey tugged the back doors to the van open. Bear jumped in first, followed by Owen and Jerry. They took up spots on the bench seats in the back and Keith and Lainey climbed into the front.
Go time. Keith stuck the key in the ignition and started the engine. Bear whined in the back. “It’s okay, boy. They’re friends.” He turned to give Bear a pat. “We’ll be fine.”
He backed the van out of the space and eased through the deck. Cars queued up in front of him to turn onto the street and he drummed his fingers impatiently on the wheel. Bear whined again.
“Does he need to go out?”
Keith closed his eyes. In their haste, he’d forgotten to give Bear a chance to go to the bathroom. “That’s got to be it. First gas station we see, we’ll stop and let him go.” He turned back to Bear again. “Just hold on, buddy. You’ll make it.”
“I like dogs and all, but I don’t want him peeing on my shoes.” Owen inched his feet away from Bear.
“He’ll hold it. Don’t worry.” He turned back to the front. Not a single car had moved. Keith honked the horn. Beep, beep. The car in front of him inched forward. This was never going to work. “Is there another way out of the deck?”
“There’s the service entrance on the other side. It spits you out in the middle of the studio block. You’ll have to navigate through to Fernwood. It’s got a gate.”
“How strong?”
“One of those bars that comes down after every car.”
Perfect. Keith shoved the van in reverse and checked the mirrors. Two cars stacked behind him in line. He laid on the horn and eased the van backward. The car behind him shuddered as the driver struggled to put it in reverse. It was the woman with the bags and mugs. Her crazy gray hair stuck up in every direction, curls as scattered as the look on her face.
She kept swiveling back and forth from the back to the front, unsure what to do. He honked again. She jumped in the seat. The car behind her eased back and she followed, angling to the right as she tried to make room. Keith took advantage, squeezing the van past her car.
The woman stopped, mouth hanging open, tears running down her face as Keith pushed past her. They passed the next car in line, a Fiat filled to bursting with five guys no older than twenty. Interns, maybe.
As the back end of the van cleared the little car, Keith punched the gas, swerving into the open space before shoving the shifter into drive. He sped down the ramp, crossing his fingers against running into another car. As he rounded a corner, the monthly entrance gate came into view.
Keith glanced at Lainey. “Hold on.”
She nodded and reached for Bear, grabbing him by the collar as he stuck his head between them and over the console. Keith punched the gas. The van lurched forward, gaining speed down the ramp of the garage. They hit the barricade at forty miles an hour. Wood cracked and splintered and flew in all directions. The front bumper slammed into the pavement and ground across the entrance to the garage.
Keith spun the wheel and slammed on the brakes. The van shuddered and skidded to a stop inches from hitting the wall to an adjoining building. Jerry was right; they were in the middle of the studio lot. Golf carts lined a far wall and Keith eased the van around the building and past the waiting carts.
A wrong turn and a backup later, and he finally turned onto Fernwood. Once a through street, it now appeared to be half parking lot and half receiving bay for shipments of who-knew-what. “Which way?” he called out to Owen in the back.
“Van Ness is jammed as far as I can see, but you might be able to squeeze through on Bronson.”
Keith turned to the right and eased up to the cross street. A huge F-150 blocked his access to the road. He honked. The guy stuck his hand out the window and flipped him off. Encouraging.
Lainey rolled down the passenger window and craned her head. “It’s total gridlock. Bumper-to-bumper in both directions.”
“So much for stay put and don’t get in your car.”
“Anywhere else?”
“It’s a grid right here, all right angles with no alleyways. Once we cross Sunset, we’ll have more options.”
“I can’t even see Sunset.”
Owen pointed. “If we head north, we can skirt through a parking lot just before the corner, maybe squeeze in between some cars to get onto Sunset, then turn left and—”
Keith laughed out loud. “Turn left? I can’t even get into a lane. There’s got to be another way.” As he leaned over and rose up on the balls of his feet to see past the truck, Bear whined again. Keith fell back into the seat. “Sorry, buddy. It’s going to take a little longer than I thought.”
The dog whined again, louder this time and more insistent.
Keith turned around. “What is it? Do you have to go that bad?”
In response to his question, Bear jumped half up onto the console and stuck his nose in Keith’s side. Jab, jab. This wasn’t about the bathroom. Keith stilled. What was that about animals predicting things like the weather and earthquakes and all sorts of phenomena? They could feel the vibrations and changes in pressure—right?
Did the same thing apply to—
Chapter Twenty-Seven
LAINEY
Corner of Fernwood and N. Bronson
Los Angeles, California
Saturday, 1:45 p.m. PST
A flash lit up the van and obliterated Lainey’s sight. She slammed her eyes shut and reached for Bear, pulling him close and shielding his face with her arm. “Close your eyes! Don’t look at it!”
She remembered the comments in the library book about the sight of a nuclear explosion causing permanent blindness. She sucked in a breath. It couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not already. They were supposed to be out of LA, away from the blast zone and the immediate threat of radiation. They were supposed to be halfway to Chicago to find her mom, not stuck in gridlock less than a mile from the freeway.
The ground beneath the van shook, a low, steady rumble like waves in the asphalt. Car alarms began to sound, rising in volume as the tremors rolled through the city.
Keith’s hand wrapped over hers. “Is this…?”
She nodded even though no one could see it. “It has to be.”
“I thought—”
“So did I.” Bear squirmed in her embrace. She hugged him tighter, but he wiggled free. “Bear, no!” Lainey blinked her eyes open. The light was gone. “It’s okay. You can open your eyes.”
Everyone in the van blinked the world into focus. It looked mostly the same as it did before, apart from a few cracks in the walls of the studio and on the pavement.
“We must be miles from the blast.”
“Did anyone see where it came from?”
Owen spoke up. “Behind us. I’d say southeast.”
Lainey stilled. “Downtown.”
“That would be my guess.” Owen tapped his tablet. “Everything is down. I can’t get online to confirm.”
“How far is that? Five miles?”
Jerry thought it over. “How the crow flies, I’d say a max of four.”
Lainey tried to keep the tremor out of her voice. “Then we don’t have much time. Twenty, thirty minutes, tops.”
“Before what?”
“The radiation reaches us.”
Keith backed up the van.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting us out of here.” He shoved it into drive and punched the gas, navigating past the cars lining the street as he accelerated down the sidewalk. “We don’t have enough food or water to last three days, let alone two weeks.”
Jerry spoke up. “There’s a gas station across Sunset. We can all hit it together. I’ll get water. Owen, you get energy drinks.”
Lainey agreed. “I’ll get snack bars, as many as I can carry.”
“I’ll get dog food.” Keith sped down the sidewalk, narrowly missing another car as it edged off the street to attempt the same maneuver. He slammed on his horn and the car stopped an inch from the van’s
front bumper. They sped past.
As Sunset neared, the gridlock worsened. How would they ever get across the street?
Lainey unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to Jerry. “Hand me that cordless mic, will you?” Lainey grabbed it from his outstretched hand. “Thanks. Can you—”
“Already on it.” Jerry slid off the seat and turned to the controls behind him, powering up the satellite dish.
Lainey grabbed the outside of the window frame as she smiled at Keith. “Don’t get me killed, okay? And honk the horn. A lot.”
“What are you—”
Before Keith could finish the question, Lainey jerked herself up and out of the window, parking her backside on the window ledge. She held the microphone up to her face like she was broadcasting. Keith honked the horn. The driver in the car in front of them craned his neck and she waved at him frantically.
“We’re on the air! We need to cross Sunset! Please! It’s an emergency!”
He nodded and inched his late-model sedan forward while the car behind him backed up just enough for Keith to edge through. One lane down, five more to go. It was painstaking work, but eventually, they did it, bouncing over the curb and into the gas station parking lot as Lainey slipped back into the seat.
“Good thinking.”
“How long has it been?”
Keith glanced at his watch. “At least seven minutes.”
Lainey cursed. “We’re going to run out of time.”
Keith threw open the door. “We have to try.” He was out of the van with Bear on his heels before Lainey could shove her own door open. Jerry and Owen flew out of the back and together, they ran into the store. Keith directed Bear to do his business outside and to sit as Lainey raced past him.
The lights in the convenience store were off and the clerk called out. “We’re cash only. Credit is down.”
Lainey didn’t stop to process. She headed straight to the snack food and stared at the shelf. There had to be a hundred bars at least. She tugged her blouse out of her waistband and held it out like a laundry basket as she cleared the shelf with a sweep of her arm. A blur of everything from granola to energy to fruit bars all fell against her chest and she kept going, loading up until bars fell out over the top and slipped between the buttons underneath. She couldn’t carry any more.
Lainey took off, running toward the front, and dumped it all on the counter before Owen and Jerry joined her with as many cases of drinks as they could carry.
The man at the cash register held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa. I can’t process all this by hand. I told you, the power is out.” He stared at them like they’d come from some other planet and didn’t understand the rules.
“Didn’t you see the flash?” Lainey jabbed a finger toward the windows.
“What flash? I was in the stockroom when the power went out.”
She pressed her hand to her head. Of all the people in all the world… They didn’t have time for this. “Just guess at how much it costs.”
“I can’t do that. I’ll get fired.”
Keith slapped a thick hand on the counter and pulled it back to reveal at least five hundred-dollar bills. “That should more than cover it. You can keep the change if you’ll give us some bags.”
The cashier hesitated.
“Don’t make this turn ugly.”
Something in Keith’s tone convinced the man and he rushed to the bags, clumsily jerking a clump off the rack before handing them over. Lainey tore one open and dumped the snack bars inside. “Go!” She shouted at Keith and the others. “Don’t wait for me!” She shoved the overflowing bag in Keith’s direction and he snatched it as he ran out the door.
She heard him call for Bear as she yanked another bag open and dumped the rest of the bars inside. They weren’t going to make it. They were going to be outside when the fallout fell back to earth. They were going to be poisoned. They were going to die horrible, agonizing deaths where their hair fell out in clumps and sores spread over their skin and they lost control of their bodily functions.
“Get in the stockroom. Take as much water and food as you need for two weeks and stay there.”
The cashier stared at her with wide eyes. “Why?”
“Because this is the day everything changes. You’ll die if you don’t.”
The van shrieked to a stop right outside the convenience store, passenger door flinging wildly about. Keith shouted at Lainey, “Get in!”
Lainey wanted to tell the cashier everything and beg him to find shelter, but she couldn’t let Keith or Bear down. She ran for the van, hopping inside as Keith jammed the accelerator. She swung for the handle, almost falling out as he took a corner so fast the wheels came off the ground. She slammed the door shut and shoved the lock down before calling into the back. “Bear, come!”
He scrambled up onto the front seat, barely fitting on her lap. She wrapped the seatbelt around him and buckled them both into the passenger seat. His hair tickled her nose and she sneezed.
Keith didn’t have time to even register the sound. The van scraped along a parked car as he swerved down an alley between two apartment buildings. “I need a place to go!” He swerved back onto the sidewalk running along Bronson and honked the horn as a woman stepped off the front step of her building. She screamed and jumped back as the van flew past.
“We’re at seventeen minutes.” Jerry’s voice radiated calm from the back of the van. “We need to find a place now.”
Owen slammed his hand on the side of the van. “I’ve got it! Just keep going north on Bronson or down the alleys. We’ll hit Carlos just before the freeway overpass. Turn left.”
“How far?”
“A block past Hollywood Boulevard.”
Keith cursed. “We’ll never make it across.”
“We have to try. It’s the best chance we have.”
Lainey held onto Bear and closed her eyes. She concentrated on giving Keith strength. They could do this. They could reach whatever destination Owen had in mind and get inside before the fallout. She had to believe that.
The van collided into something hard and unforgiving, metal screeching and warping as Keith pressed on. He bounced another curb and laid on the horn, a continuous wail of panic and adrenaline.
As they careened around a corner, Lainey risked opening her eyes. They’d done it! They were across Hollywood and turning onto Carlos!
“Where to?”
“Here! Turn left here!”
Keith jerked the van hard to the left and down a ramp before coming face-to-face with a closed garage door. The van stopped with no room to spare. “It’s not opening.”
Jerry threw open the back door and hopped down. “I’ll get it.”
He loped to the door, and leaned over what looked like a control panel. A few moments later, the door groaned and whirled and cranked itself open. Keith drove the van inside. When it cleared the door, Jerry shut it again behind them.
As the last bit of light from the outside receded, Lainey turned around in the passenger seat to where Owen was seated, even though she couldn’t see him. “Where are we?”
“Welcome to the basement of the Los Angeles Superior Court.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
KEITH
Superior Courthouse
Los Angeles, California
Saturday, 2:25 p.m. PST
Keith leaned back against the driver’s seat and tried to catch his breath. They were inside what appeared to be a solid building, with no open windows or doors. He could hardly believe it.
“Did we make it?”
“Before the fallout?” Lainey lit up the face of her watch, holding it up above Bear’s head to see. “Based on how far away we were, I’d say the chances are pretty good.”
Thank God. Keith reached out his hand and rumpled Bear’s fur. They’d done it.
A small glow illuminated the space outside the van and Keith unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door. Jerry stood a few feet away, holding up a lighter as he turned aro
und to survey the area. “Looks like a parking deck. No cars. Can’t be used all that often.
Owen hopped down from the van. “It’s been closed for years. The city had planned to use it for a bunch of different things, but the building needs structural work so it’s been shuttered for a while.”
“Are we at risk? Is the structural damage serious?”
“I don’t think so. It’s more how the inside is laid out. Not conducive to the court system today, as I understand it.”
“How do you know all this?” Keith asked.
Lainey’s watch lit up her smile. “Let me guess, your station did a piece on it a while back.”
“Bingo. Somewhere around here should be a flight of stairs. The whole building’s been sealed, so we should be safe even up on the first floor as long as we stick to the interior areas.”
“First order of business: we should lock that garage door.”
“Already done.” Jerry patted his pocket. “I broke off the mechanism that attaches the door to the chain. Even if someone activates the motor from the outside, they won’t be able to open the door. Threw the bolt, too.”
Keith shook his head. “How’d you learn to do that?”
“Prior job. Commercial garage door repair.”
Keith didn’t know what to say. Thanks to the courage of these two men, they were alive and safe from radiation exposure and the chaos of the city for the immediate future. “I don’t know how to thank you guys.”
“Don’t thank us.” Owen’s voice echoed through the garage. “You drove the van.”
“We did it together.” Lainey spun around scoping the place out. “Anyone want to explore? I’d love to find a place to set up a makeshift camp before I collapse from exhaustion.”
Keith couldn’t think of anything he wanted more. He’d been running nonstop for over twenty-four hours and could feel it in every muscle and bone in his body. If he didn’t sleep soon, he might pass out standing up. “Do we still have the flashlight from the van?”