“She’s right,” said Matt. “Come on. Let’s go check it out.”
Matt had to walk at a brisk pace to pass Judy, who seemed to be getting better with each step she took.
Maybe it was the sort of steely resolve she had, that enabled her to seem to miraculously recover. Maybe when she encountered difficulties, like her son’s infection, or her cousin’s death, she merely got stronger by sheer force of will alone.
Or maybe it was just something else entirely.
But she was doing better, walking quickly.
“There are some cars up there,” said Jamie, who’d caught up to the two of them.
“Where’s your cousin’s house?” said Matt.
“It’s not really a house, unless he built one since I last saw him. He had the structures located in about the middle of his property.”
“Structures? Like sheds or something?”
“Basically. Some are open-air. I think he usually parks back there near them. This little driveway continues almost all the way through his property, bisecting it, if I remember correctly.”
“Are there any other roads?”
“I don’t think so, but you can drive on a lot of the flat parts of the property.”
Matt glanced down at the driveway, which was really nothing more than a poorly maintained dirt road. There were a lot of tire tracks, as if a lot of vehicles had driven over it recently.
“See any more vehicles?” said Matt.
“Just the two,” said Jamie. “Two big black SUVs, down that way.” She pointed to the northwest, where the mountains loomed in the distance, clouds hanging around their high peaks.
“There are probably more,” said Matt. “Check out these tire tracks.”
“It’ll take us about twenty minutes to get to his structures,” said Judy. “I’m sure he has a couple of vehicles. We can use those to explore the property. See who’s here. He always leaves the keys on the seat...he’s a lazy guy. Or was, I should say...we’ll have to cut him down pretty soon.... I’ll do it, since we’re not sure about the virus yet and our immunity...”
“Judy,” said Jamie. “Don’t you think you should take it a little easy? You weren’t doing good back there. Now you’re making me out of breath with this pace.”
“We don’t have any time to go slow,” said Judy, a look of intense resolve on her face. “We’ve got to figure out who else is here, what they want, and how to get rid of them.”
“Get rid of them? What if they’re friends of your cousin?”
Judy shrugged. “We’ll have to see how it goes. What their goals are. All I know is that we can’t give this place up. It’s got a well. A deep one. And at some point, water is going to be what we desperately need.”
Jamie glanced over at Matt, with a raised eyebrow.
But Matt just nodded along. “She’s making some good points,” he said. “The faster we get this figured out, the better.”
34
Zach
Zach’s homemade tank had made it down the long dirt driveway just fine. He’d paused briefly at two black SUVs, shooting out the tires with a handgun, before continuing on.
Zach was intent on following the demons down their dark paths. He was intent on serving.
When he got to the area where all the vehicles were parked, he knew he was in the right place.
“Here they are,” he said to himself. “The demons themselves have congregated. Time to extinguish the flame of the devil. With the stuff of the devil himself.”
And with that, still muttering to himself, Zach crawled back into the bunker-back of the truck. There, he was surrounded by the thick corrugated metal, strong enough to stop bullets. He fondled his weapons and stared out through the narrow slits in the armor.
People started gathering. Some of them waved their hands at him. Some of them shouted.
But they were a horribly disorganized group. There were a dozen of them or so. Some of them stood there with weapons. But many of them lay on the ground, blood already all over them, obvious victims of the virus.
He knew they were just demons. Just harbingers of the apocalypse. He knew it was his mission to extinguish them. He ignored their cries. He loaded his weapons. Flicked off safeties. Began to take aim.
When Zach didn’t answer, they started shooting at him.
And, just as he’d planned, as he knew would happen, nothing happened. No damage to the vehicle.
The gas tank was surely ensconced in intensive armoring. As were the wheel wells, where Zach had built out protruding structures to stop any damage to the tires. The engine, as well, was protected by his triple-plated metal armoring.
“You can’t do anything to me,” said Zach. “I’ve been planning for too long.”
And with that, he let loose with his AK-47. He didn’t fire indiscriminately, but took his time. His mind felt hyper-focused. Nothing could deter him. Nothing could stop him.
He shot those on the ground first. They were already close to death and he brought them closer.
“Just doing the good work,” he said. “Just taking souls off this plain...just sending them beyond...sending them beyond.”
As he shot, “Just sending them beyond,” became his own little chant, which he sang to himself as he shot relentlessly.
They tried to take shelter from him, those that could still walk and still function. They tried to hide behind and inside their vehicles.
But it was no use.
Zach was prepared. Too prepared. He had endless time. Endless rounds of ammunition. Endless functioning weapons. When he ran through a clip, he calmly grabbed another one.
And when the spirit struck him, as they say, Zach took another bump of meth. He even smoked it, seeing no reason that he couldn’t put down his weapons for a moment to take a hit off his pipe.
Zach may have been crazy. He may have been paranoid. He may have been high as a kite. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a formidable opponent.
In fact, he was likely more dangerous than if he hadn’t been high or crazy. In WWII, the Nazis were particularly dangerous in large part due to their extensive use of amphetamine. It kept their energy up and made them impervious to exhaustion, fatigue, and self-doubt. It helped with the pain, the cold, the heat, just about anything.
Zach’s use of meth wasn’t much different than a soldier’s, except that he’d taken it to an extreme, going on a multi-year bender that he’d never recover from, delving deep into pure psychosis.
Zach wasn’t scared in the least bit. The meth took care of that.
But in reality, he had no reason to be scared. He could sit in his little bunker-section of the tank, getting shot at all day without fear of injury or damage to his vehicle.
They could pelt his tank with bullets all day in complete futility, merely wasting their ammunition. Zach had tested his vehicle as extensively as he could, back on his own property, peppering it with bullets for days on end, making sure it was as tight as a drum.
No one could touch him. No one could hurt him.
Zach’s partially shielded narrow windows gave him a 360-degree view of his surroundings.
The enemy could try to sneak up on him. They could go as slow or as fast they wanted. They could come at him from any angle they chose. But Zach would always spot them. He would always see them.
And the closer the enemy got to him, the easier it was for Zach to shoot.
If Zach found himself looking and shooting toward the north for a while, a particularly clever enemy might try sneaking up on him from the south, thinking that Zach wouldn’t see him.
And this was where Zach’s genius helped him, his mad, demented, tortured mind had dreamed up the idea of placing a common office swivel chair in the middle of his homemade tank.
Seated on the swivel chair, which had a metal frame, and was welded to the floor, Zach could spin himself easily by merely moving his legs.
He could spin himself and get an almost instant 360-degree view of his surroundings through his
narrow, partially shielded window right at his eye level, and,conveniently, not nearly at eye level of anyone approaching.
So when they did approach, as they invariably did, he shot them quickly and easily.
“It’s almost not fair,” he said, scowling, as he punched another clip into his weapon. “I’ve spent too much time on this tank’s design. They don’t have a clue what they’re dealing with. Soon they’ll meet their maker.... shit...another bastard demon...a clever one...”
Zach spotted the man only at the last moment.
How had he gotten so close to the tank?
No matter. No time to worry about it.
Zach merely spun himself around, pulled the trigger, letting his perfect weapon do its perfect work.
35
Matt
“You hear that?”
Matt nodded.
It was unmistakable. The sound of gunfire. Rapid.
“It sounds just like when we were near that tank...”
“You think he’s back here?”
“Well, he disappeared from the road...”
“Could have gone on to Santa Fe.”
“Or turned back around.”
“Or come down here.”
“Why would he come down here?”
“No point in trying to analyze the mind of a man who’s built himself a homemade tank.”
“Why not? It doesn’t make him crazy. Look, he’s apparently still alive.”
“Shit. There it is.”
Judy was standing there, pointing at the tank in the distance.
It was unmistakable. It was definitely the same one from earlier. After all, how many of these monstrosities could there possibly be?
“Forget seeing any military presence. Or the National Guard. Instead, we’ve got some psycho tank operator here instead, slaughtering everyone.”
They were safely out of range. From where they stood, the gunfire sounded like the little pops of small firecrackers. A naive person, walking by out of view, might not have first thought of gunfire.
Of course, since the virus and the chaos, gunfire was probably the first thing anyone passing by would think of.
“What are we going to do?”
“Who are all those people?”
“Who knows?”
“You think your cousin could have had anything to do with them? Could they be his friends?”
“I don’t think so,” said Judy. “In fact, I really doubt it. See how fancy and new those vehicles are? Joe...well...he wasn’t like that.... I don’t think he’d be able to stand having friends or associates like that...I mean, look, he wasn’t even living in a house...he was very…”
“Counter-cultural?” suggested Jamie.
“No, I wouldn’t say that.... I guess he just didn’t really fit in any category. He did his own thing. It’s as simple as that.”
“Well,” said Matt. “It’s too bad he’s dead. Sounds like he could have been a good guy to know.”
“I think he would have,” said Judy. “I thought he’d have been able to help us.... I thought that we could help each other, you know?”
Matt nodded.
“Well,” said Judy. “No point in thinking about it. He’s dead. Simple as that. We might go that way soon, unless we figure something out.”
“Well,” said Jamie. “Why are we all acting like we don’t know what to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“The answer’s obvious, right? We need to get the hell out of here.”
“Leave?”
“Yeah. Leave. What other option is there? We saw the devastation that tank caused back at the intersection. Look at what it’s doing here.”
The popping sounds of the automatic gunfire had ceased, only occasionally resurfacing in small bursts of gunfire.
There were bodies all around the tank, at various distances. Some of them had tried to rush the tank. Others hadn’t.
“We don’t stand a chance against that thing,” said Jamie. “Look, people tried to attack it this time. They didn’t stand a chance. Could be a dozen guys in the back there, all armed to the teeth.”
“Couldn’t fit a dozen back there,” said Judy.
“Yeah, probably not a dozen.”
“So? It doesn’t matter!” Jamie raised her voice. She was getting angry. “Don’t you two understand? We’re going to die if we stay here. Come on. Time is of the essence.”
“Not so fast,” said Matt.
“What? What is it? Come on. Why aren’t we already on the road?”
She looked like she was ready to leave, poised to start running at any moment.
“Well,” said Matt, with a look in Judy’s direction. “If we leave, where are we going to end up?”
“Where?” said Jamie, repeating his question. “I don’t know. Somewhere. Somewhere where there’s not a tank.”
“But,” said Matt, “there’s a well here and as Judy’s pointed out, that’s very important for long-term survival.”
“Long-term survival? What about short-term survival?”
“We can deal with the situation here.”
“We can? How?”
“I’ll do it.”
Matt spoke the words without really thinking about them. And moments after they’d left his mouth, they felt like they had perhaps been a mistake.
But then he realized that he was going to do something about this.
The plan came into his head fully formed.
It was simple.
He couldn’t see why he hadn’t seen it before.
He was going to do what the others had failed to do. He was going to sneak up on the tank and kill the people inside it.
He knew he could do it. He knew he could do what the others hadn’t been able to do.
Well, he didn’t know it for sure. He recognized that his momentary confidence may have just been nothing more than an overestimation of his own skill. Maybe he was feeling a little more energetic than he had felt all day, which wasn’t saying much, since the whole day had been nothing but a long dehydrated slog through rough terrain
“You can’t. You’ll get killed.”
“We don’t have any other options,” said Matt. “Judy has something of a legal claim to this place, though that’s probably not even a consideration, given that legality has gone out the window...but...we’re here. We know it has a well. We know it has other things that we need to survive. Places like these are going to become more and more important...more and more difficult to obtain...”
“There aren’t that many properties here,” said Judy. “There are huge tracts of land with single owners.”
“So?”
“It means that there aren’t going to be that many wells,” said Judy.
Matt nodded. “And forget about trying to survive in Santa Fe. It may not be as bad as Albuquerque, but trust me, we’re not going to stand a chance there...not long-term...without city water, we’ll have nothing to drink. Not to mention no food except what we can scavenge...and it’s going to develop quickly into people fighting over scraps of food, canned food, bottles of water...and none of that lasts...”
“You can only get into so many fights before you wind up dead,” said Judy.
“My thoughts exactly,” said Matt. “It’s one fight here and now, and that’s it.”
“No,” said Jamie. “It’s one fight and then even if you live, there’ll be more. People will come. Like you’re saying, they’re going to want this land. Why would we want to live somewhere that everyone else wants? It sounds like asking for trouble.”
“It’s not really a choice,” said Matt. “This isn’t like in the days of Zillow. This isn’t like buying good real estate. The reason people are going to want this land is that it’ll keep them alive...if we stay here, we’ll already have an advantage. Once summer rolls around, we’ll be practically the only ones who aren’t dying of thirst.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing,” she said, her eyes suspicious.
&nbs
p; “It kind of is,” said Matt. “After all, everyone is potentially the enemy.”
“Enough,” said Judy, throwing her hands up. “Enough discussion. Enough arguing. I’m the most senior of the group, so I’m going to appoint myself the person who decides.” She paused, apparently to see if anyone was going to contest her claim. No one did, so she continued. “Matt’s right. We need the water. We stay here. We have to.”
Jamie opened her mouth to protest, but Judy cut her off before she could.
“And you’re right, too, Jamie. This is extremely dangerous. So what I propose is that we wait out the tank. It might leave at some point. Or the person might get out. Right now, we need to get back. Farther out of view. You still have those binoculars?”
Jamie nodded.
At this point, the noise of gunfire had completely died down. There were no longer even the occasional sporadic bursts.
But yet the tank sat there. Unmoving.
Matt looked at it as they walked away, moving to a different area on the property. He didn’t think that the tank was going anywhere.
Whoever was in that tank was a madman.
And if Matt knew one thing about madmen, it was that they didn’t give up easily. They were stubborn.
Still, it wouldn’t matter much to wait a little longer. Not so long that they got weak. But if they waited a couple hours, maybe the eagle-eyed gunman in the tank would start to lose his focus.
Or maybe not.
The three of them found shade and shelter beneath one of the larger juniper trees.
The hours began to pass and every time one of them looked with the binoculars, the tank was still there.
“All right,” said Matt. “How long do we wait?”
“As long as it takes.”
“What if he doesn’t leave?”
“What about waiting until nightfall? Don’t you think you could attack him then easier?”
“I’d imagine there are locks on the tank doors,” said Matt. “And I’d also imagine that someone crazy enough to build a monstrous vehicle like that would be crazy enough, in that certain way, to have some system in place for when night comes. I don’t think they’re going to leave that thing and just come out in the open for us to attack them.”
Last Pandemic (Book 2): Escape The City Page 18
