by Harley Tate
“We need to find that vet ASAP.”
“Why?” Jerry twisted around.
“Keith’s passed out. I can’t wake him up.”
So much for that feeling of accomplishment. Lainey took the first exit, slowing to leave the highway and head into the desert town. She crossed her fingers and hoped for the best.
Chapter Twenty-Three
LAINEY
Streets of Hesperia, CA
Thursday, 10:00 a.m. PST
“This is hopeless. We’re never going to find a veterinarian.” Owen stuck his head between the front seats. “We should get back on the highway and head to another town.”
Lainey wasn’t ready to give up. “There’s got to be something.” They had driven through a residential area for the first hour, uselessly trawling planned community after planned community. Stucco houses with terra-cotta tile roofs blended one into another. Chain link fences separated dry, desert backyards, and solar panels covered almost every roof. The more she drove, the more her eyes glazed over.
Owen leaned in from the back seat. “I bet most of these people have power.”
Jerry shook his head. “Don’t be so sure.”
“What about all the solar panels?”
“Doesn’t mean they aren’t on the grid. It’s called net metering.”
Owen scrunched up his nose. “I don’t understand.”
Jerry twisted in the seat. “I looked into it a while back. Went to one of those seminars. You put a whole roof full of panels on your place and in theory you can take care of yourself, but the electric companies don’t want to lose a customer, so they convince you to stay on the grid. You sell all the excess power you generate back to the utility. If you use more than you generate, you pull off the traditional grid. It’s all connected.”
Owen let his glasses slide down his nose. “What if the grid collapses?”
“My guess is a lot of people will have worthless solar panels without some tinkering.”
“Some must have generators,” Lainey suggested.
“I’m sure they do. But not all of them.” Jerry turned back to look out the windshield. “Most of them don’t know the first thing about the panels or how they work.”
Lainey turned into what appeared to be a business district and her spirits brightened. Maybe they would finally find a vet or a warehouse store here. Anywhere that might help Keith and Bear. She glanced into the rearview as they passed a self-storage facility and a string of small businesses tucked into a warehouse. So far, Keith hadn’t woken up.
They passed an RV parts supply store, a commercial upholstery operation, and a church occupying most of a flat, nondescript warehouse. A train track ran alongside the road and Lainey’s confidence dipped again. They were searching for a needle in a haystack.
“Wait!” Owen called out, scrambling up once more to squeeze between the front seats. “Back up.”
Lainey threw the van in reverse and backed up down the dusty road until she came alongside the closest warehouse.
“Turn in.”
She squinted to read the sign. “Hesperia Animal Control?” She shook her head. “Why here?”
“They’ll have everything we need. Antibiotics, sutures, all of it.”
“How do you know?”
“I volunteer at one back in the city.” Owen faltered. “Or at least I did.”
Lainey eased the van into the empty parking lot. “You really think it’ll have what we need?”
“Better than driving around, don’t you think?”
She parked near the door and killed the engine. “Let’s hope we can find a way inside.”
They left Keith and Bear inside the van and locked the doors before scoping out the building. It took a few stops and starts, jiggling door handles and peering in windows, but they finally found a commercial garage door in the back. Jerry set to work, removing the casing housing the external controls and shifting wires and levers until he motioned to Owen to try the door. It slid up on a rusty chain and Lainey ducked inside.
Almost immediately a cacophony of barks and whines assaulted her ears. She froze. There were animals inside?
She hadn’t stopped to consider it. Owen clicked on a flashlight and shined it over the warehouse. Lainey’s stomach lurched. Almost every cage was full. Dogs of all shapes and sizes pawed at the chain link, barking and wagging their tails in relief. Behind them, a wall of smaller cages held countless cats, all howling and mewling for attention.
“Ugh. What’s that smell?” Jerry covered his nose with the back of his hand.
“It looks like they’ve been abandoned.” Lainey walked toward the first row of cages and used her own small flashlight to light up the aisle. Bowls in every cage were licked clean and piles of excrement lined the walls. “I don’t think anyone’s been here for days.”
“Who would do that?” Owen hurried past her, shining his light on each hopeful dog as he rushed by. “Who would leave them all here to starve?”
“Someone who’s more concerned about staying alive.” Jerry cast a grim look around. “This isn’t a no-kill shelter. This is animal control.”
“We can’t leave them here. We have to do something.” Owen stood at the end of the aisle. The flashlight beam shook as he held it. “I’m going to search for the keys.”
Lainey nodded. “There’s got to be food stores somewhere. I’ll search.”
“We need to stay on task.” Jerry didn’t move. “Keith and Bear need medicine and supplies.”
“We can split up. Each of us focusing on a specific task.” Lainey turned to Jerry. “If you don’t want to help, then can you look for the medicine?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just—” He pinched the back of his neck. “Even if you let them out, then what? We’re in the desert. There’s not much food around here.”
“Most were strays before,” Owen replied. “They can be strays again. Beats the hell out of starving to death in a cage.”
Lainey pressed a fist against her stomach. Willingly leaving so many animals to their fate on the streets twisted her stomach into knots, but what choice did they have? The van couldn’t hold all these animals. They didn’t know a single person in town and they didn’t plan on staying. Her mother and sister were out there somewhere, and she had to find them.
“Owen’s right. We have to give them a chance.” She didn’t wait for Jerry to reply. The food had to be around there somewhere. She strode down the aisle, trying her best to ignore the plaintive cries. After a few minutes of searching, she found a supply room filled with bags of kibble for dogs and cats.
Lainey propped the door open with a bag and hauled them out one by one. She called out to Owen once she’d amassed a pile. “I found the food. Should we dump it?”
He hurried toward her, rings of keys in his hand. “Let’s put it in two piles. Dog food in one area, cat food in another. We can spread it out so they don’t fight too much.”
“They’ll fight when it dwindles.”
Owen nodded. “I know.”
They worked together to haul the giant bags to a clear spot near the garage doors at the rear of the facility and ripped them open. When they finished, two massive berms of food lined the wall. Lainey wiped the sweat off her forehead. “Now we need water.”
They found a collection of wash basins used to clean the animals at intake and dragged them over to a shower area. Lainey crossed her fingers and turned the water on. After a gurgle and a hiss of air in the line, water began to flow. It didn’t rush out of the hose, but they managed to fill the basins with the slow stream and a bit of patience. The entire process took forever.
Jerry appeared as they finished the last tub. “I found the vet supplies. Looks like Owen was right. They had everything.” He patted a big bag. “I’ll take it to Keith. See if I can wake him up.”
Lainey nodded in appreciation and turned back to the task at hand. They were ready to open the cages. She held out her hand for the keys.
O
wen dropped a ring in her hand. “Nothing’s labeled, so we’re going to have to guess.”
After a few wrong guesses, Lainey managed to find the row of cages that corresponded with her set of keys. She unlocked the first cage door while a small, scrappy thing with a bald spot above his eye barked at her. She swung the door open and he rushed out, heading straight for the water. The lab mix in the next cage did the same as well as the bully breed after that.
One at a time, each dog yipped and barked in relief as they were set free. Lainey sucked back a rising tide of emotion. She had no idea if any of the dogs would survive more than a few days, but at least they weren’t trapped. With any luck, Jerry had woken up Keith and they were talking and carrying on in the back of the van.
After the last cage stood open and a horde of dogs milled about the warehouse, Lainey eased toward the open garage door. A few of the animals had found their way outside and a mutt with wiry white hair lifted his leg and peed on the tire of the van. She laughed for the first time in what felt like forever.
Owen found her a few minutes later. “I set all the cats free.”
She nodded. “Dogs are loose.”
“I can see that.” Owen swallowed and focused on the dust at his feet. “Do you think they’ll be okay?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded, face still pointed down, away from Lainey’s. “I saw a lot of abused animals at the shelter. The things people did to their pets.” He shook his head and looked up from hooded eyes. “We should get out of here before they start filtering into the neighborhood. Someone’s bound to come looking.”
Lainey stared at him for a moment. Despite spending three days trapped in the courthouse with him, she didn’t know much about Owen. But his pain over leaving the animals was plain. She glanced at the open door and the rising sun beyond. “We need gas. The van’s barely over a quarter tank.”
“I saw an auto body place a ways back. Some old cars in the lot. I bet we can use that hose Jerry bought to siphon.”
They walked toward the van, both slow and hesitant. It felt wrong to leave the animals on their own, but there was no other option. Owen stood at the rear of the van, about to reach for the handle.
Lainey pointed at his feet. “I think you’ve got a follower.”
Owen looked down. A scrap of a cat with a torn left ear and a stub of a tail curled around his leg. He bent down and scooped it up. The cat head butted his chin. Owen smiled. “Any chance we can take one?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
KEITH
Hesperia Animal Control
Hesperia, CA
Thursday, 12:30 p.m. PST
The smell of antiseptic roused Keith into consciousness. Jerry hunched over his leg, using a pocket knife to cut off the tape. He tugged and Keith’s leg hair ripped out at the root.
Keith cursed.
Jerry glanced up. “So you’re back. Good.”
“What are you doing?”
“Cutting off this wretched tape job, that’s what. You’re lucky you didn’t cut off circulation to your whole lower leg.”
“I needed to stop the bleeding.”
“You needed stitches.” Jerry held up something in a sterile wrapper.
Keith groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re going to stitch me up in the back of the van. I’ve seen how you clean. I’m not letting you near my leg with a needle.”
Jerry grinned. “I’ve got something a lot better. Won’t even hurt.” He yanked and more tape and hair pulled away from Keith’s leg. “At least not as much as this does.”
Bear shifted beside Keith, stretching his legs out in front of him as he woke. The dog stood and shook from head to tail before turning around in a circle and lying back down. Keith tilted his head. “He’s not limping.”
Jerry pointed at a pill bottle. “Fed him some pain meds in a can of wet dog food. I think Lainey’s right. He’s bruised, not broken.”
Relief flooded Keith, but it was short-lived. Last he remembered, they were searching for somewhere to raid. “Where are we? Did you find a Walmart? A vet?”
“Animal control.”
“What?” Keith looked around in alarm. “Why there?”
“First place we found.”
“And they were open?”
Jerry grimaced. “No. It looks like no one’s been here since the bomb. Owen and Lainey are inside, releasing all the animals.” He concentrated on Keith’s leg. “Some looked pretty rough.”
The thought of hundreds of animals with nowhere to go and not enough food turned Keith’s’ stomach. But they couldn’t save them. He swallowed. “Please tell me they aren’t going to bring them with us.”
“No. But they can’t leave them in the cages to starve, either.” Jerry pulled off the last of the tape and poured more antiseptic on the wound. “They’re dumping food and water and letting them go. It’s the best option.”
Keith nodded. They wouldn’t be the only animals newly on their own thanks to the bombs. He braced himself as Jerry peeled open what looked like a giant Band-Aid with straps.
The older man placed two clear plastic strips on either side of Keith’s wound and pressed them down on his skin. It hurt, but Keith clenched his teeth and his hands to keep from moving. Jerry lifted two blue strips sticking up from the bandage and used them like levers to pull the wound closed before laying them down across the already-secured side strips. Then he pulled off the paper backing, tore the excess plastic away, and sat back.
“There you go. Should heal up good as new, no stitches required.”
Keith leaned forward. Sure enough, the bandage had operated like a set of stitches, pulling his wound together and sealing out dirt and grime. “How’d you know what to do?”
Jerry held up his hand and showed off a faint scar. “Cut myself pitting an avocado last year. Doc used one of those to close it up. I’d never seen it, so we had a whole discussion about how they might replace stitches.”
“Please tell me you found more.”
Jerry patted a bag bulging on the floor of the van. “And then some.”
Keith exhaled as Jerry handed over a pill bottle and a bottle of water. “It’s amoxicillin. I figure it’s got to be the same as the people kind, right?”
“I don’t see why not. They give dogs Prozac, so why not regular antibiotics?” Keith popped a few pills, guessing as to the dose, and followed them down with a swig of water.
The door to the driver’s side opened and Lainey poked her head in. As soon as Keith caught her eye, relief spread across her face. “Thank goodness you’re awake.”
He nodded. “Thanks to Jerry, my leg’s fixed up, too.”
She climbed up to take a closer look. “You can hardly see the gash. How—”
“I’ll tell you later. Right now we should get out of here.”
The rear door opened and Owen stood outside, holding a scrap of a cat in his arm.
Jerry leaned back, his eyes wide. “What. Is. That.”
Owen cocked his head. “A cat?”
“Not near me, it isn’t.” He climbed past Keith and Owen and out into the parking lot. “If it’s back here, I’m up there.”
“Don’t tell me you’re allergic.”
Jerry shook his head.
Lainey laughed out loud. “You can’t be scared. Of a little thing like that?”
“My sister had a cat growing up, God rest her soul. Meanest thing I ever did meet. Scratched me up just for looking at it.” Jerry shivered in the sun.
Keith chuckled. “We’ve survived a nuclear bomb, a car chase, and a wildfire and you’re scared of a cat. Now I’ve seen it all.”
Jerry walked toward the passenger side, steering well clear of Owen and the cat. As he opened the door, Lainey called out. “How do you feel about driving?”
“Fine, I guess.”
She walked around the van and tossed him the keys. “Be my guest. I need the break.”
They all climbed into the van and after a minute of adjusting seats an
d mirrors, Jerry started the engine. He eased out of the parking lot and onto the road, headed north.
Keith leaned back and rested his head on the van as Jerry merged back onto the interstate. Owen sat across from him, the scrap of a cat curled up asleep in his lap. “Had to bring one, huh?”
“It picked me.” When Keith raised an eyebrow, Owen shrugged. “What can I say, I’m a cat person.”
Bear shifted beside Keith and he ran a hand over the dog’s head. To each their own.
As Keith closed his eyes, Lainey spoke up from the front. “Owen, do you think we can use the satellite out here?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Keith opened one eye. He didn’t like the lift in her tone. “What are you thinking?”
She twisted toward him. “We should record a piece.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jerry didn’t take his eyes off the road. “We need to find some gas and put distance between us and the city.”
Lainey doubled down. “We can spare a half an hour. We need to tell people what it’s like here. All that we’ve been through.” She leaned between the seats to focus on Owen. “Can you get it out there?”
“Should be able to. We can use some of the fire footage, too.”
After a few minutes of driving in silence, Jerry relented and pulled off to the side of the road. Owen emptied a cardboard box used to hold extra cables in the back of the van and set the cat down inside before climbing out into the dirt. He busied himself with a camera and the satellite and a million electronics.
Keith couldn’t do more than watch. He slid toward the edge of the van and eased his legs over the side, testing his bandage. His injured leg throbbed, but the bandage held. He could walk if he had to.
Lainey climbed down from the passenger seat and met Owen at the back of the van. As she wiped the grime off her face, the wind picked up her hair. She turned into the sun and it glinted off her pink cheeks and blue eyes. The sight stole Keith’s breath.
She caught him looking and raised an eyebrow.
