“It’s okay,” she said softly. “We made it. Don’t get us killed now.”
Kent’s eyes were wild. He looked at Tori as if he didn’t even register what she had said.
“Slow down, Kent,” she added more firmly.
Kent finally nodded. I could see the tension melt as he eased off the gas.
We drove on without a word. The only sound was our steady, heavy breathing and Olivia’s soft whimpering.
“I’m sorry, Tucker,” Jon finally said meekly. “I . . . I . . . didn’t understand.”
Nobody responded. The terror we had just gone through was still too fresh to suddenly start thinking rationally about the fact that Jon had nearly gotten us all killed.
“Where am I going?” Kent finally asked, staring straight ahead.
Tori turned and looked back at me, waiting for an answer.
I looked around at the haggard faces. We may have been kids, but we had also been through more conflict than most adults would see in a lifetime. The fact that we were still alive was nothing short of a miracle.
“We’re dealing with two enemies,” I said. “There are no good guys to side with or help us out. The only people we can trust are in this car, and others like us.”
“What does that mean?” Tori asked.
“It means we’re going to Nevada.”
THIRTEEN
As we drove south on the interstate, I told Jon, Kent, and Olivia what we had seen at Fenway Park and that Feit was alive. I explained how Feit told us that the battle between the two military forces was about changing the course of the planet. The Air Force believed that the SYLO forces had put us on a path that would mean the end of mankind and that the only way to save the planet was to reset civilization.
Nobody said a word. Nobody questioned. It was just as well. It wasn’t like I had any answers. I was only repeating what Feit told us. SYLO and the Air Force were nothing more than tools. There was no way to know who was using them.
I think the reality of what we had just been through and what we had learned had finally settled in and left us all in shock. The fact that Chris and his cowboys turned out to be Air Force villains wasn’t the worst of it. The mysterious device being built in Fenway Park was a minor footnote. The attack by SYLO on Fenway was the least surprising of all. It made sense that the Navy was far too huge to have been crippled by one battle. None of those revelations bothered me as much as the most important bit of information we had gotten from Feit.
In their quest to “reset” civilization, the Air Force had wiped out three-quarters of the world’s population. It was a reality that was hard enough to accept, let alone understand.
I thought back to the fleet of black planes we saw high over Boston, headed out to sea. Were they on their way to another target city? Were millions more to be killed that night? The possibility was too horrific to believe, but from what we’d seen in Portland and Boston, it could very well be true.
As we traveled along the empty interstate, we saw more of what we had witnessed on our journey to Boston. There were thousands of abandoned cars, though no other signs that we were in the middle of a war. There were no downed fighter planes, no burning buildings. No wounded. No bodies.
No life at all.
The full picture of what had happened was beginning to become clear. The black Air Force planes had passed over like minions sent by the angel of death and vaporized anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to have been deep in some basement and safe from their reach. Unlike what had happened to the boat that Quinn had been on, and some of the buildings in Portland and Boston, the sweep left structures intact. The weapon was selective, and it selected people. Animals too. We didn’t see any dogs or cats or skunks or most anything else that breathed.
There were still some birds in the sky. It must have been more difficult to target flying objects. For one horrifying second I imagined that the world would soon become a giant aviary. It was like something out of a horror movie.
Everything we were seeing was like something out of a horror movie.
I felt numb. It was impossible to accept such a huge loss of life. I kept searching for other answers. Other possibilities. Other explanations.
I came up empty. The harsh truth was that we were members of a very small club. We were the survivors of the most heinous crime ever committed.
What we couldn’t know was what the future held.
“We gotta get gas,” Kent said. “We’re sucking fumes.”
He pulled off the interstate and drove to a gas station.
“What’s the point?” Jon said. “It’s not like the pumps work.”
Tori looked at me and said, “Get a gas can.”
She seemed to know what she was doing, so I didn’t question. I went into the convenience store that was attached to the station and found a can. I also grabbed a handful of Tootsie Pops. Why not?
Outside, Tori had gotten the hose she took from the Target store in Portland. I’d forgotten all about that. She went to one of the abandoned cars and popped open the gas door. I placed the tank on the pavement below it and unscrewed the cap. Tori fed one end of the tube into the gas tank and sucked on the other. She squinted, waiting for the first taste of gas. When she got it, she quickly spit out the little gas that made it to her mouth and jammed the end into the container. The suction had started the stream, and gas flowed from the car into the red can.
Tori wiped her mouth with her sleeve, and I handed her a Tootsie Pop.
“That’s for taking one for the team,” I said.
Tori grimaced and tore the wrapping off the candy.
“You’re up next,” she said and gratefully started in on the pop.
Kent walked up to us with his hands in his pockets. I tossed him a Tootsie Pop. It hit him in the chest and fell to the ground.
“Nice catch.”
He picked it up and stared at it as if it was something from an alien world . . . and maybe it was. We hadn’t been thinking much about anything that was considered normal in our previous lives. Like candy.
“So?” Kent asked. “Anybody know how to get to Nevada?”
I laughed. Tori did too. Kent finally joined in. It was a brief moment of silliness that we desperately needed.
Tori got it back together first.
“We’ve got to gear up again,” she said. “We’ll get a road atlas.”
That thought brought us back to our harsh reality. We had to collect supplies again, just as we did in Portland, since we’d left everything we owned at Faneuil Hall. The first time we’d done it, it felt like an adventure. We had high hopes of rejoining civilization in Boston, and it had been a little bit of a rush to take whatever we wanted. Now we were faced with a new normal, and that meant we might have to be raiding stores for a very long time.
This time it felt less like an adventure and more like a curse.
Kent took the gas can and dumped the fuel into the Explorer. He and Tori then moved to siphon another car. While they worked, I went to Olivia and Jon, who were sitting in the Explorer. They were talking about something, maybe even arguing, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying, and they immediately stopped when I opened the door.
“Trick or treat,” I said and tossed each of them a Tootsie Pop. “Early Halloween.”
“Thanks,” Jon said and ate his hungrily.
Olivia wasn’t as enthused. “I don’t eat candy.”
Figures.
They both seemed upset, and I had a pretty good idea why.
“It’s okay, Jon” I said. “You did what you thought was right.”
What I really wanted to say was, “Why the hell didn’t you believe me?” but that would have been piling on.
“I’m sorry, Tucker. What you were saying about Chris seemed so . . . incredible. But I’m with you now. I hope you believe that.”
I couldn’t bring myself say, “Sure! No problem!” Truth was, he was on thin ice with me. He had almost gotten us killed. It’s hard to let something like t
hat go.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, which meant absolutely nothing.
Olivia was staring straight ahead, as if her mind was miles away.
“You okay?” I asked.
“So many people,” she said, sounding dazed. “Gone. It’s just . . . impossible to imagine.”
“We still don’t know what happened to your mom,” I said, trying to give her hope but realizing how hollow it sounded.
She gave me a sad smile and said, “You’re a glass-half-full kind of guy, huh?”
“I try,” I said. “C’mon, be crazy. Eat a lollipop.”
I held the candy out to her, and she grabbed my hand. She held me tight and looked right into my eyes.
I felt as if she wanted to tell me something but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was tortured, but we all were. My fear was that she was going to say something like “I love you, Tucker,” which I might have welcomed at the beginning of the summer, but not since Kent had admitted he had a thing for her.
And since Tori kissed me.
The last thing we needed was that kind of drama.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Take it. There’s plenty more where that came from.”
I gave her a big smile, trying to break the tension.
Olivia returned my smile and took the pop.
“For you, I’ll even eat sugar.”
The moment had passed, but I was struck by the insanity of our situation. We were alone in a near-dead world. We were all we had. If nothing else, we had to know that we could rely on one another. Without that, we would end up joining the three-quarters who didn’t make it.
Kent and Tori finished topping off the gas tank, and we all climbed back into the SUV.
“Now what?” Kent said. “Do I just drive without knowing where we’re headed?”
“I’m hungry,” Jon declared.
“I need a shower,” Olivia added.
Everyone looked to me. Whenever there was a decision to be made, I was expected to be the mediator. It wasn’t a comfortable position. If things went bad, I’d get grief, and so far there was very little that had gone right. But we couldn’t just sit there staring at one another.
“We have maybe four hours of daylight left,” I pointed out. “I say we find a store and gear up again. We’ll get a map. Then we should find a place to spend the night. A hotel or something.”
“And tomorrow we’ll head for Nevada,” Tori said.
“Why?” Olivia asked. “Do you seriously think we’re going to join up with a merry band of survivors and take back the world?”
Tori opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out. Olivia might not always have the big picture in mind, but those few words had put the plan under the harsh light of reality.
“Seriously,” Kent said. “For all we know, the Air Force has already found them and wiped them out. They have radios too. They could have heard that broadcast.”
“So what do you want to do?” Tori asked, peeved. “Crawl into a hole and hide?”
“Not me,” Jon chimed in. “I want to keep moving.”
“But if we’re moving, there’s a better chance of being spotted by those black planes,” Olivia warned. “Hiding out sounds good to me.”
“Not to me it doesn’t,” Tori shot back.
“So then go!” Olivia shouted. “Maybe it would be better if we split up.”
“Stop!” I ordered. “Nobody’s splitting up, so just . . . relax.”
There was a tense quiet in the car.
“We can’t do this,” I said. “We can’t turn on each other. Like it or not, we’re all we’ve got.”
Everyone stole looks at one another as if the reality had finally sunk in that our entire universe consisted of . . . us.
“Let’s not look too far ahead,” I added. “One step at a time. All right?”
There were a few grumbles of reluctant agreement.
“Good. Let’s go to the next big town. We’ll find a store, gear up, and then find a place to sleep. I don’t want to spend the night in this car.”
That was one thing that everyone could agree on, so Kent started up the car, and we were off.
The next big town was Springfield, Massachusetts. I’d been there once with my father to visit the Basketball Hall of Fame, but I was nine, so there was very little that I remembered about the city. Kent pulled off the interstate, and within minutes we found a Walmart.
“Seriously?” Olivia complained. “First Target, now . . . this?”
Nobody commented.
Walmart was open for business. Or at least it was open. The five of us grabbed carts, split up, and went on another shopping spree through the deserted superstore.
On this trip I was less worried about comfort and more concerned with practical items. I picked up a flashlight, a couple of headlamps, and some camp lanterns. Batteries too. I had always taken electricity and light for granted. Not anymore. I also grabbed some water-purification tablets in the camping area. There was no way to know if we’d always find plumbing with running, filtered water. The last thing we needed was dysentery. There was a big first aid kit in the same area, so I put it into my cart along with a waterproof box of matches and a compass. I took another hoodie, a T-shirt, and extra socks and underwear. In the grocery area I took a bunch of ramen noodle boxes and freeze-dried food packets thinking we could boil water over a fire and have a hot meal.
My last stop was in the book area, where I found Tori thumbing through a large road atlas.
“This is pretty detailed,” she said. “Every page is a map of a different state. But it’s also got fifty folded satellite maps of each state. “It’s not Google Earth, but it’ll do.”
She dumped it into her cart and moved on. I took note that she had restocked with several boxes of ammunition. Gotta love Walmart. Where else can you buy Fritos and bullets?
We all met at the front of the store, and I was relieved to see that Olivia had chosen much more wisely this time. She only had a pair of jeans, a sweater, socks, and underwear. We all stared at her near-empty cart.
“What?” she asked defensively. “I couldn’t find anything I cared to wear.”
Everyone had been equally practical, for whatever reason. Jon had thought to grab several walkie-talkies and replacement batteries. Kent had stocked up on bags of trail mix and beef jerky and bottles of Gatorade. Everyone picked up headlamps and lanterns. We were in and out of there in half an hour with our supplies packed into individual canvas bags.
“Okay, Mr. Practical,” Kent said. “We took that step. What’s next?”
“We gotta find someplace to spend the night.”
“I have an idea,” Jon said.
Jon hadn’t been offering much. He was still the new kid and wasn’t all that social anyway. And he had nearly gotten us all killed, so hearing him volunteer an idea was strange.
“Let’s find another hospital,” he suggested. “There’s food and beds, and if they have a radio I can probably figure out how to get it running on the backup batteries.”
“You want to hear the broadcast again?” Tori asked.
“I want to make sure there still is a broadcast,” he replied. “It’s been over a week. I don’t want to drive a couple of thousand miles for nothing.”
“That’s really smart, Jon,” I said.
Jon beamed proudly, as if he had re-earned my trust.
For the record, he hadn’t. But he did have a good idea.
It didn’t take us long to find a huge hospital called Bay State Medical Center. We drove around until we found the entrance to the emergency room, the most likely place for a radio. We left the car in front, grabbed our gear, and headed inside.
Jon led the group as if he knew where he was going. I guess when you work in a hospital, you get a feel for how they’re set up. Within minutes we were behind the reception desk. Jon scanned the area and headed straight for a closed door. He opened it and . . .
“Gotcha!” he proclaimed.
There was a radio setup very much like the one at Maine Medical Center.
“Give me some time,” he said. “As long as they’ve got emergency power, I can fire this up.”
“I’m starving,” I said. “Let’s hit the kitchen to see what hasn’t spoiled.”
We left Jon to work and went hunting for the cafeteria. It took a while to find, but it was worth it. There was a pantry loaded with canned food. We also found sealed bags of taco shells and plenty of bottled water. We would eat well that night.
I opened the cold locker and immediately wished I hadn’t. The smell of rotting meat and vegetables made me gag. I closed the door quickly, grateful that the seal was tight enough to block the smell.
“Get used to that,” Tori said.
We cracked open a few cans and dished out tomatoes, peaches, and some processed meat that I probably would never have eaten in our previous life, but when you’re hungry, most everything tastes good. None of us cared about manners. We all just dug in and ate.
“Vitamins,” Tori said. “There’s probably a pharmacy where we can grab some multivitamins. It’s not like we’re going to be eating balanced meals.”
“Good idea, Mom,” Kent said and gave her a friendly hug. Too friendly, if you ask me, but nobody asked.
When we had eaten our fill, Tori loaded up a plate of food and headed out.
“For Jon,” she said and walked off.
“You know the great thing about eating like this?” Kent asked.
Olivia and I looked at him, waiting.
“No cleanup!” He tossed his plate onto the counter. “Who said Armageddon can’t be fun!”
We didn’t laugh.
“Jeez, just trying to lighten things up,” Kent said, irritated.
“I’m going to find a shower,” I said. “Hopefully the water’s still running.”
“Where should we sleep?” Kent asked.
“The emergency room is probably okay,” I said, thinking out loud. “It’s below ground.”
The sun had set, which meant we were once again in the dark. I grabbed one of the camp lanterns and went in search of a shower. It didn’t take long to find one. There was a locker room near the ER that was probably for nurses. At the far end was a three-stall shower. I put the lantern down outside of one stall, stepped inside, crossed my fingers, and turned the faucet.
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