The Last City (Book 1): Last City

by Partner, Kevin

  Today, though, the highway was filled with the wreckage of cars, trucks, SUVs and tractor-trailers, all scorched black and half-melted into the ground. Rusty slowly picked his way through the wreckage, Devon occasionally calling out when some sharp piece of metal was getting close to the tires, as they made their way closer to the town itself—or, at least, what was left of it.

  Parks, office buildings, apartments, homes—not one inch of the city appeared to have been spared by whatever disaster had befallen it. Brick and glass buildings had been reduced to piles of smoking rubble, homes had burned down overnight, many blackened beyond recognition by the ash, soot and flames.

  “Hey, you!"

  Devon peered around Rusty to see a man stumbling among the blackened cars outside a smoking hulk of a building. According to the sign on the side of the road, this was the Gold Digger's Hotel and Casino, but that sign was the only thing Devon could see that wasn't burned to a crisp.

  Rusty pulled a shotgun from beneath his seat and laid it on his lap as the man got closer. "What d'you reckon? Should we ride on?"

  "He's the first living soul we've seen," Devon responded, feeling the reassuring weight of the Glock G17 in his pocket. "He should be able to tell us what happened here."

  The man made his way to Rusty's rolled-down window. He looked as though he'd been lightly toasted and had the air of a drunk who's hoping the nightmare will go away when he sobers up.

  "What the hell happened here?" he managed. "I woke up in this parking lot with a load of dead people. Was it a bomb?"

  Devon cursed under his breath. This old soak knew less than they did.

  "It was a whole lot worse than a bomb, by all accounts," Rusty said. "But that's what we're here to find out. We're goin' to the city hall."

  "Take me with you, will ya? I ain't got no place to go."

  Rusty looked across at Devon who shrugged. "I guess we'd better."

  They regretted it almost instantly as the truck filled with the tangy aroma of burned hair and cheap whiskey. "Ah, thanks fellas. I reckon Mayor Hawkins'll have a plan."

  The city hall was in the oldest part of Ezra, a city that had been founded where Redemption Creek passed across the mouth of Henman Canyon. The hall was a red brick building connected to the low-roofed fire department depot next door. The remains of a fire truck sat smoldering on the road outside and Devon could see shadows on the asphalt where human-shaped figures had been dragged away.

  They had passed a few forlorn people on this last part of their journey through a ruined city, all of them heading in the same direction, but they'd seen no vehicles moving. "I don't like the idea of leaving the truck. Seems to me a working vehicle is suddenly pretty darned valuable."

  "Yeah, I think you're right. You can drop me and …" he looked over his shoulder at the man on the back seat, "… Kelvin near the city hall and then circle around and pick me up. Give me an hour. Never thought I'd be wishing so much to see Hope again."

  Around a hundred people had gathered in the chilly playing field behind the city hall. Most were sitting in the rows of seats on one side, wrapped up in blankets and sleeping bags as a handful of other people moved back and forth with obvious purpose. Many wore the shocked expressions of folks whose world has been turned upside down inexplicably. One minute, they'd been watching the game in their centrally heated homes, the next they were curling up in old blankets against the cold. Above them, a pall of steam rose as their warmth leaked into the cold winter air.

  Devon pushed his way through the stragglers still making their way onto the field and headed for one of the helpers, a young woman with short hair and an exhausted expression. She had just handed a cup of warm coffee she'd taken from a cart to an old man huddled in a blanket.

  "Excuse me, I'm looking for the mayor."

  She turned to him in a cloud of steam and shrugged. "Isn't everyone? She'll be in her office trying to get through to the county. Complete waste of time, but she's gotta keep herself busy."

  "I'm from Hope," Devon said, as if to explain why he deserved special treatment.

  She did a double take, held his gaze for a moment and then said, "Seriously? How did you get here? We've got barely a handful of working cars."

  "I'd rather talk to the mayor, if you don't mind."

  "Oh, would you? Well, you go right along Mr. …"

  "Myers, Devon Myers."

  The young woman turned back to the cart and dug out another coffee. "Right. You go and see her and tell her from me that she'd be more use to us out here. Once you've had your cozy chat, that is."

  Devon realized he'd stepped on an invisible landmine. "I'll tell her. Who is the message from?"

  She handed the coffee to a woman who lay wrapped in a filthy blanket, a baby in her arms. "Libby. Libby Hawkins. And you can tell her that unless we get these people under cover soon, we're going to start losing them. Seems to me that it's safe to go inside now, or at least safer than freezing to death out here. Tell her that from me. Maybe she'll listen to you. You're her type, after all."

  Without saying another word, Devon gave a brisk nod and strode toward the city hall. He'd come here to find out what help Ezra could give Hope, but it was obvious now that his town had dodged a bullet. His stomach tightened as he wondered what the people of Ezra would do when they found out that Hope had survived.

  He had the terrible feeling that, however bad he thought the situation was, it would turn out to be much worse.

  He was right.

  3: Abigail

  He found Mayor Hawkins in a small office at the top of the stairs. The security guard reluctantly let him past when the mayor's daughter gave him the thumbs-up from across the field.

  The mayor sat beside an open window staring at her computer screen and turning an empty packet of Lucky Strikes over and over in her hands. She had the air of a condemned prisoner enjoying her last cigarette as the firing squad loaded their weapons.

  "Any news from the rescue parties, F—? You're not Frank …"

  "Hello, Madam Mayor," Devon responded—he'd decided that “good afternoon” would not be an appropriate greeting—"my name is Devon Myers and I'm from Hope."

  That got her attention.

  "Oh good grief, am I pleased to see you! Take a seat. What's the situation there?"

  Devon sat down and drew in a lungful of cigarette smoke as, from outside, he could hear the sounds of an argument breaking out on the sports field. This was going to be tricky. "When I left there this morning, the mayor was just trying to come to grips with what was going on. He sent me to ask for help."

  Hawkins stared at him out of black-ringed eyes that spoke of an exhaustion that went way beyond a lack of sleep. "And how much help do you think we can send, Mr. Myers, now that you've seen what's become of Ezra?"

  Devon nodded. "Yeah. We saw enough as we drove in. The city looks as though it's been consumed by fire."

  "Exactly. I was opening up a unit at the hospital. It was as if a thousand firebombs had been dropped on the place. So many didn't get out. I don't think I'll ever get over it.

  "Made my way back here. Frank had gotten the generator running and I tried to raise the county, then the state, but the secure lines were dead. The satellite phone works, but no one's transmitting. Is it possible it's affected the whole country?"

  Shrugging, Devon rubbed his sore eyes. "Who knows? For now, I guess the best we can do is keep people alive until order is re-established."

  She locked eyes with him. Neither wanted to be the one to admit that day might be a long way off.

  "The people outside need to see their leader," he added.

  "You've been talking to my daughter, have you?" The temperature dropped another couple of degrees. "And what else did she say?"

  "She said that you'd be better helping out there than sitting in your office."

  Mayor Hawkins sighed. "Oh, she's probably right, but I'm needed back at the hospital. Come with me if you want. If you can stomach it. Bring your vehicle around an
d we can talk on the way."

  Devon would have given anything to get back into Rusty's pickup and drive home, but he couldn't abandon Ezra until he knew exactly what was going on here, so he sat wedged between Mayor Hawkins and a less-than-happy Rusty as they picked their way through to the hospital.

  Hawkins did most of the talking, and she seemed almost as interested in Devon's background as she was in Hope, though that was possibly because Devon's responses to questions about the town tended to the monosyllabic.

  "So, you're a cop?"

  "I was. Counterterrorism."

  She dragged her gaze from the scene outside and regarded him. "Really? So, what's your analysis of all this?" She gestured at the ruins of her city.

  "Well, even if the attack was confined to Ezra, it would be the biggest organized terrorist attack in history by far. But unless I'm very wrong, this is a whole lot bigger than either here or Hope. Mayor Summers can't raise the authorities either, not even on a high-powered ham radio. For all we know, this was country-wide."

  He'd expected her to shake her head in disbelief, but she paused for a moment as if trying to read the truth in his expression before nodding. "Yes, I'm afraid you might be right."

  Rusty stayed with the car as Devon followed Hawkins across the fire-blackened parking lot. She was a short woman, as unlike her daughter as it was possible to be. Where Libby was vivacious and slim, her mother was squat and lifeless. How much of that was due to the events of last night, he wondered?

  Copper Creek Hospital was nothing more than a burned-out shell. Like so many of the buildings they'd seen, it looked as if a bomb had been exploded inside. The roof had collapsed in on itself and the regular rectangular windows, all empty of glass, looked like open doorways into darkness. Black smoke straggled into the cold air. Outside, the blackened, twisted remains of cars and ambulances sat like broken dominoes, many covered by blasted-out window frames and smashed panes of glass.

  Devon had seen black-and-white photos of the German city of Munich after the Allied carpet-bombing late in the Second World War. A mass of rubble with, here and there, the side of a building standing incongruously as if pointing an accusing finger at the heavens. This was different—more of Ezra was upright, presumably because the explosive power of whatever had happened had been less—and yet it had the same sense of utter devastation, utter hopelessness. And, unlike with Nazi Germany, there was likely no help coming.

  "I was here last night," Hawkins said. Devon had stopped and was looking open-mouthed at the desolation. "I saw it happen. Oh. I told you that already."

  His gaze swept the interminable landscape of ruin. He couldn't imagine what could cause such total destruction or what sort of mind might have intended it. Could this be nationwide? It was too bitter a pill to swallow. There had to be a way back, surely?

  "When you said you needed to come here, I thought it was to visit survivors …"

  Her broad face loosened a little with a tiny smile. "And so we are. I was opening the new birthing clinic and someone shorted out the electricity before the ceremony started. By the time they got the generator running, all hell had broken loose out here.

  "My God, I hope I never have to see anything like that again … People were jumping out the windows, but they all died, some slower than others. Some folks got out the front entrance. Only a few though. And the screaming. Lord in heaven, have mercy on the souls of those who died last night."

  She started walking off and Devon followed, trying hard not to imagine the scene she was describing.

  "And then I saw the whole city was on fire. If it was a terrorist attack, it was like nothing I've heard about before." She was talking as she walked, peering back at him every now and again. "And why Ezra of all places? Anyhow, the only thing I could do right then was help organize those who'd been in the clinic. They're not emergency responders, but they are medically trained and they're all we've got. Then I went back to the city hall as I figured the survivors would go there."

  They rounded the debris-strewn corner of the hospital and there, like a rose on a battlefield, stood a small building almost entirely untouched by the fire. Rubble lay around the entrance, and the wall nearest the main hospital bore black scorch marks, but if he squinted, he could almost imagine he had stepped back in time to before the disaster. The doors of the clinic were wide open—the ceremonial ribbon lay discarded to one side.

  Inside, a series of rooms branched off a central corridor. All the doors were open, and Devon could see that beds had been squeezed together, and even then, people were lying on chairs and in corners as they waited to be treated. It was as if he had wandered into a Middle Eastern hospital in a warzone. The corridor stank of burning and antiseptic, and someone was crying out in pain over the background chatter and the click-clack of purposeful footsteps on the polished floor.

  A tall woman in a white coat almost collided with them before she recognized Hawkins.

  "Madam Mayor," she said, and in her expression, Devon saw a woman far beyond endurance. Tall, with short hair and unnaturally pale skin, her stethoscope hung from her neck as if it were growing out of her body.

  "Let's go somewhere quieter," Hawkins responded, taking the doctor by the arm and leading her outside.

  The doctor yanked her arm away. "Don't have time for this. Haven't gotten around to everyone yet."

  "Looks to me as though you need some rest, doctor."

  The woman shook her head, but Hawkins said, "Look, I have some medical training and so does Mr. Myers here. We'll cover you for a couple of hours while you get a little sleep."

  The doctor was so obviously relieved that Devon felt backed into a corner. How could he refuse? In truth, he could think of a dozen reasons to say no, but none of them amounted to a hill of beans in this new world. Right now, everyone needed to pitch in and do what they could for their fellow human beings whether they came from Hope or Ezra.

  "Last count, we had one hundred twenty-three patients. Twenty of those are not expected to survive. Mostly burns, of course, but also lacerations, some amputations and plenty of broken bones."

  Hawkins nodded as if ticking each of these off a list. Suddenly she seemed focused, and Devon could glimpse the capable politician who had seemed lost forever.

  "We've got a couple of hundred at the city hall, but I guess there are other people hiding out in the city. Good grief, I hope so. How about supplies?" she asked.

  "I sent a group of orderlies into the hospital as soon as the fire died down to scavenge. We're okay. Pain relief is what we need the most; that and hydration. We're going to need food soon, though. The cafeteria's all but out."

  Hawkins turned to Devon. "Mr. Myers, will you relieve the doctor until I can organize a salvage party? I also need updates from the rescue effort. I should only need an hour."

  Devon's mouth dropped open as panic swelled in his gut. He'd never worked in a hospital. He hated the places and, in truth, was more than a little squeamish. He'd dropped to the floor once when he'd given a routine blood sample, much to the amusement of his colleagues in the force. He'd passed basic medical training and when called upon he'd been able to do what was needed in an emergency. But he was no doctor.

  "No way! I'm not qualified!" he said.

  "Look, Mr. Myers, we've all got to step up to the plate. You're a police officer, so you know your first aid and you know how to command. So, man up and help us!"

  With that, she spun around and, taking hold of the doctor again, strode off, heading into the hospital parking lot.

  "Of course," Devon said, his heart sinking into his boots as he followed the doctor back into the hospital.

  The time that followed was the worst of his entire life to that point. The doctor disappeared for six hours. He didn't blame her, and it wasn't as if he was on his own, but the birthing unit staff looked to him for direction even though he was less qualified than they were. He knew they were simply exhausted from having to make life-affecting decisions, but he was reduced to fun
ctioning entirely on gut instinct and that had let him down before with tragic consequences.

  He looked down at the young woman on the bed, then took her hand as she stared at him out of a ruined face. She might once have been pretty, but now she was like something out of a nightmare and only her eyes remained bright and unsullied, though clouded with tears.

  Her scalp was a mass of livid burns punctuated by tufts of burned hair and she moaned desperately as her head rolled back and forth in quiet agony. She looked like an extra hired for a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Captain Picard and his crew encounter a planet of hideous snub-nosed aliens with vivid red skin and leaking sores. Except this was real.

  Her name was Abigail Langdon; it said so on the hastily scribbled clipboard notes. She'd told him that her two children and husband had died as they watched TV together while she was out back tidying the yard. She'd run into the house when she'd heard the first explosion, but had been thrown out again when the kitchen went up in flames. She stank of burned flesh, hair and urine.

  Third-degree burns. Extensive necrosis.

  NETS

  He'd quickly come to learn the euphemisms. NETS. Not Expected To Survive.

  Yet she was still alive.

  And she wished she was dead.

  It would be easy, and it would be merciful. They had a little intravenous morphine and Devon knew that no one would stop him, least of all Abigail, who lay there looking up at him with pleading eyes. She wanted out.

  But he wasn't going to do it. Sure, in the days to come, he'd rationalize his choice not to give her the easy exit that mercy demanded. The easy exit the least-loved animal would have been given without a second thought. However he justified it, in the end it amounted to cowardice. So, as he heard the voice of the doctor approaching and his shift was coming to a close, he put the syringe away, took a packet of generic morphine capsules and put a strip in one of her hands, a bottle of water in the other.