As Martina’s group came around the east side of Mount Mojave, the highway transitioned into a four-lane divided freeway. This allowed them to pass by the town of Rosemead without actually driving through it. In the distance, she could see the buildings of the Lancaster/Palmdale area. Over three hundred thousand people had lived there. How many of them were still alive? Were any?
Thankfully, she didn’t have to find out.
A few miles south of Rosemead, Martina exited the freeway onto Highway 138. This shot them due west, bypassing both Lancaster and Palmdale, and taking them all the way to the famous Grapevine portion of the I-5 in the mountains north of Los Angeles.
When they finally reached the interstate, Martina pulled over on the transition road, and retrieved her jacket from her bag on the back of the bike. Her friends eagerly did the same. Unlike the warm day back in the desert, it was considerably cooler here.
“A little something to eat might be nice,” Craig said as he climbed back onto his seat.
“And I gotta pee,” Noreen added.
Martina checked the old map she’d picked up back in Ridgecrest. “Gorman’s just a few miles to the north. We should be able to find someplace there we can take a break.”
“Sounds good to me,” Craig said.
“Yeah, whatever,” Noreen said, looking like she was going to burst. “Let’s hurry.”
The someplace turned out to be a Carl’s Jr. burger joint on the north side of the freeway. It was thankfully free of the dead, and with little effort, they were able to get the heat turned on.
They sat silently for a while, already weary from their journey as they ate some of the food they’d brought with them.
Riley spoke first. “So where do we go from here?”
“Up the Five,” Craig said. “That’s the way we always go to the Bay Area. Dad always says…” He paused, the hint of discomfort. “Always said it was the fastest way there.”
Martina didn’t respond right away. The problem was, there were two main routes up the coast. Craig was right. The I-5 was the fastest, but the 101 freeway over on the coast went there, too. And while the latter route did take longer, it was the route Ben preferred. He called the I-5 the Mind Number and refused to use it. What if he were heading down to find her? Just because he hadn’t yet didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it at some point. The last thing she wanted was to miss him because she and the others took the wrong road.
The I-5 or the 101?
Their break stretched to an hour and a half as she tried to decide which way they should go. By then, it was growing dark, and the brisk air from earlier had turned frigid. Though she still didn’t have an answer to her quandary, she knew the last thing they should do was travel in the dark.
Next door to the Carl’s Jr. was an Econo Lodge motel. They selected two rooms with an adjoining door—one for the girls and one for Craig. Craig found a DVD player and several movies in the main office, attached the device to his TV, and asked the others to join him. Noreen passed, and was soon fast asleep. Martina declined, too, though her mind was too occupied to shut down just yet. So Riley went to Craig’s room alone. Which, Martina thought, was how Riley and Craig had probably wanted it to work out.
At least someone isn’t alone.
Martina lay in her bed for nearly an hour, staring at the ceiling as the weapon fire and dialogue of what sounded like Aliens seeped through the partially closed dividing doors. Her mind was filled with memories—her family fleeing to the mountains; a trip with Ben to the aquarium in Monterey; tossing a football with her brother in the backyard; a cough from the back room of the cabin; her mother’s eyes, rheumy and unfocused; her father dead.
All of them dead.
She pushed herself angrily out of bed, pulled on her shoes, and grabbed her jacket. As she passed the adjoining doors, she peeked into the other room. Riley and Craig were propped up on the bed, riveted by the movie, their arms around each other.
Quietly, Martina opened the main door and slipped outside.
The cold air made her cheeks feel as if they were freezing in place. Each exhalation created a cloud of vapor three times the size of her head. But the cold didn’t bother her at the moment. It was nice actually, a distraction.
She wandered down the road toward the freeway entrance. There was a Chevron gas station just ahead, and to her right a small strip mall that consisted of a jewelry store, an antique shop, and a combination mini-market and liquor store.
She almost kept walking, but something in the half-lit liquor store window caught her attention. Framing the top and sides were strings of silver and red garland, and sprayed on the glass in a frosted white:
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Christmas had been a week ago, a day that had gone uncelebrated as the world began to die. In fact, it had been almost exactly a week ago, which meant today…
She checked her watch. It was fourteen minutes until midnight. There was still time.
She hurried across the street to the liquor store and pulled on the door, but it was locked.
“Crap!”
She looked around. Typical cement blocks marked the ends of the nearby parking stalls. The blocks were old, and a few were cracked and broken. She grabbed a loose chunk of cement and slammed it through the glass window.
She looked at her watch again. Eleven minutes. No time to waste.
She ducked through the opening and searched the store for the rack she wanted. It took a few minutes, but she finally found it. Two bottles would probably be enough, but she grabbed three just in case, and stuffed them into a bag she found behind the counter. In another aisle, she snatched up a bag of plastic cups and headed back outside.
It was exactly 11:59 when she threw open the door to her room and flipped on the lights.
“Hey, everyone!” she yelled. “In here.”
She set her bags on top of the dresser and started unloading the bottles.
“What’s going on?” Noreen asked, only half awake.
“Get up,” Martina told her without looking back. “We don’t have much time.”
Suddenly alert, Noreen said, “Is something happening? Do we need to leave?”
Martina ignored her and ripped open the plastic holding the cups.
“What’s with all the noise?” Riley asked, walking into the room holding hands with Craig.
“Over here,” Martina said.
She ripped the foil wrapper off the top of the bottle, removed the metal safety cap, and popped the cork.
“Is that champagne?” Craig asked.
Martina smiled, and poured four even cupfuls.
“Come on!” She forced a cup into each of their hands.
“I don’t know,” Riley said.
“You just need to take a sip,” Martina said. She looked at her watch. “Okay, here we go. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…”
“What are you doing?” Noreen asked as Martina counted.
“Five, four, three, two, one.” Martina raised her glass. “Happy New Year.”
Noreen was the first to laugh, then Riley followed, and finally Craig joined in.
“Happy New Year,” they said.
They all drank.
“Hey, this is pretty good,” Noreen said. “Can I have some more?”
“Sure,” Martina said. “It’s New Year’s.”
Another round of the wine was shared.
“I thought you were going to tell us we needed to run,” Noreen said.
“Why would we need to do that?” Craig asked.
“I don’t know. Could be anything.”
Martina knew exactly what her friend was thinking. “Don’t say it.”
“Don’t say what?” Riley asked.
“I swear, Noreen, if you say it…”
“I didn’t,” Noreen said.
“Didn’t say what?” Riley pressed.
“Didn’t say zom—”
“Noreen!” Martina said. “What did I just tell you?”
“Zombies?” Craig as
ked.
Noreen shrugged. “Maybe.”
Riley rolled her eyes. “Oh, great. Now I have that in my head.”
Martina looked at her. “Your fault. You kept asking.”
They laughed and joked about it for a while and had some more champagne.
When the conversation lost some of its steam, Craig said, “I’m not really sure we should actually be celebrating New Year’s. I mean, what’s there to celebrate?”
“The most important thing of all,” Martina said. “We’re alive.”
The others contemplated her response.
After several seconds, Craig raised his cup. “To being alive.”
The others raised theirs.
“To being alive.”
January 1st
Year 1
World Population
1,000,207,113
Ten
MUMBAI, INDIA
6:11 AM IST
SANJAY PEERED OUT the third-floor window at the alley. It was still empty.
Where was she?
It shouldn’t have taken Kusum more than four hours at most to make the round trip, but five had already passed. He cursed himself for about the thousandth time. He should have been the one to go, not because he thought she was incapable, but at least he would know what was going on. Instead, he could only sit there as his anxiety spiraled out of control. But the decision had apparently not been his to make.
“You went for the close-up look of the survival station,” Kusum had said. “That means it is my turn.”
“Why do we need to take turns?”
She looked at him, clearly thinking it was a stupid question.
“Maybe we should both go,” he suggested, hoping for at least a partial victory.
“Someone needs to stay here and keep an eye on what is going on,” she said. “You are familiar with both the buildings and the people—”
“Not all the people,” he interjected.
“Many of them. You will stay. I will go.”
He was beginning to see the pitfalls of falling in love with a woman who was smarter and potentially more competent than he was. “If you take too long, I will come look for you,” he said.
“You will not,” she said. “If I do not return by sundown, you will go to the camp, but you will not come looking for me. Do you understand?”
“Sundown? Impossible. I cannot wait that long.”
“Sanjay,” she said, her voice mellowing in the way it did when she tried to point out the obvious. “There are many people counting on us now. If something happens to both of us, they will have no chance.”
“I will not let anything happen to you.”
“I know. And I love you for that. But do not come looking for me.”
What else could he do but agree? Of course, that didn’t mean he had to stick by the bargain. He looked down the alley again. Nothing.
Dammit. Where are they?
Kusum had gone to the furniture factory to fetch the three others who had come with her and Sanjay into the city. Given the situation at the Pishon Chem compound, it seemed a good idea because their help might be needed.
Patience, the voice of Kusum said in his head.
He moved across the room to the window on the other side. His hideout was an apartment in a building two blocks from the compound. Though the Pishon Chem facility was visible from the window where Sanjay was perched, he could see only the very tops of the Pishon Chem buildings and a small portion of the fence that surrounded the property.
He was supposed to be closer, had been closer, in fact, until just an hour ago when he’d returned to this meeting point, expecting to find Kusum and the others waiting for him. Seeing they weren’t there, he didn’t even consider going back to his former position.
On the roof of one of the compound buildings, he spotted one man in a UN uniform patrolling the top. It was disturbing to him how hard they were trying to sell the United Nations angle. Most survivors would arrive at the facility in a state of shock. If the soldiers were wearing jeans and T-shirts, and only had the letters UN hand painted on the sides of their helmets, people would believe them.
The sound of something scraping the ground floated through the window on the other side of the room. Sanjay quietly ran over and looked outside. The alleyway was no longer devoid of movement. At the far end was a man approaching along one of the walls, his movement odd, off-balanced.
It was another few seconds before he moved into a shaft of light.
Not just any man. It was Prabal, one of the people Kusum had gone to fetch.
He was limping, his right leg swinging carefully forward with each step. And running down the side of his face, a wash of blood.
WHILE IT HAD been disturbing enough moving through the seemingly empty city with Sanjay, Kusum found it downright terrifying doing so on her own as she made her way back to the camp.
The quiet was the worst part. Here she was in Mumbai, one of the largest and busiest cities in the world, yet there wasn’t the sound of a motor, the cry of a child, the laugh of an adult. There was no music, either, something that been such an integrated part of the background noise that she noticed the lack of it now more than she’d ever noticed its presence.
Sticking to smaller streets and pathways, she was easily able to avoid the soldiers, seeing only a single group of three near the site of an old market. She hoped the same would be true when she and the others headed back to Sanjay.
The camp was set up in the courtyard of a small factory that had made and repaired furniture. Semi-organized piles of chair legs and tabletops and bed frames took up much of the courtyard space, but there was still plenty of room for Kusum’s and Sanjay’s friends to spread out. The best feature of the place was that it allowed them to hide from view if anyone passed by on one of the surrounding streets, while still having open air above them. If they needed shelter, there was plenty of that inside.
Kusum entered through a back door that led into a basement, where she took the stairs up into the main workshop. Along the interior wall was a large door that could be opened onto the courtyard, but whoever had left the business last had shut it and locked it in place—a hopeful act that he or she would return. She exited through the smaller door on the right and stepped into the outdoor space.
“Stop.” The voice was low, the tone commanding.
“It is only me,” Kusum said.
“Kusum?”
“Yes.”
Darshana stepped from the shadows behind a stack of wooden planks, in her hand an iron rod. After she could see it was indeed Kusum, she lowered her weapon.
“Sorry, I did not realize it was you,” she said.
“Never be sorry for this,” Kusum said. “I could have been anyone. I would have been surprised if you had not greeted me like this.”
Darshana tried to maintain a neutral expression, but Kusum thought she saw a flash of pride cross her friend’s face. Though they were about the same age, Darshana and the rest of their survival group considered Kusum and Sanjay to be their leaders, and looked up to them more than Kusum thought they should.
“The others?” Kusum asked.
“Sleeping.”
“We must get them up. I need you all to come with me.”
“This way.”
Darshana led Kusum around the piles of wood and metal to the open area where Prabal and Arjun were stretched out on thin blankets.
“Wake up,” Darshana said, shaking first Arjun’s shoulder then Prabal’s. “Come on. Wake up. We need to go.”
Prabal rolled onto his back with a groan. “What?” he asked, his eyes struggling to open.
“Kusum is here. She needs us to go with her.”
Arjun raised himself on an elbow. “Kusum?” He looked around as if he didn’t quite understand, and then his gaze fell on Kusum. “Oh. Oh, Kusum.” He sat all the way up. “I am sorry. I am…um…still…”
“It’s okay,” Kusum said. “Please get up and gather your things.”
“What’s going on?” Prabal asked, slowly sitting up.
“I need you all to come with me,” Kusum said. “We found something and we might need your help.”
“What did you find?”
Darshana shoved Prabal in the back. “You don’t need to ask what. If Kusum needs us to go with her, we go.”
“Of course, we go,” Prabal said. “I was just wondering what we were going to. It was only a question.”
“It is a stupid question,” Darshana said. “We will find out when we get there.”
As Prabal rose to his feet, he said, “It is not a stupid question. It is simply a question. Who are you to—”
“Please,” Kusum said. “There is no need for this. Nothing is a secret here. We are going to a place close to the so-called UN survival station.”
Prabal shot a see-it-wasn’t-stupid look at Darshana.
“So-called?” Arjun said. “So it is not what they are saying?”
Kusum shook her head. “It does not look like it. Many of the people there are the same ones who were in charge of distributing the disease throughout the city.”
“Are you serious?”
“It is even worse than that,” she said.
“How worse?” Prabal asked.
“Survivors are coming in and being locked in holding areas.”
“You have seen this?” Arjun asked.
“Yes. Not too long before I left, a group of four women arrived. Thirty minutes later they were led to one of the holding areas.”
“What is going to happen to them?” Prabal asked.
“No way to know for sure, but I cannot imagine it is good.” She let this sink in for a moment, then said, “We need to go. There may be nothing we can do, but if there is, we need to be in a position where we can help them.”
Darshana, clearly not needing to hear more, started repacking her bag. Within seconds, Arjun and Prabal were doing the same.
As they headed through the building, Kusum said, “Keep conversations to a minimum. There are soldiers patrolling the city. They will be dressed in UN uniforms, but I do not think they are really from the UN. We need to consider them dangerous.”
The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 2: Books 4 - 6 (Ashes, Eden Rising, & Dream Sky) Page 33
