by Mark Kelly
He pushed back his chair and walked to the other side of the desk. “Once, I find that prick, all the loose ends will be tied up. I’ll take care of it—just like I always do.”
She tilted her head and fixed her eyes on him. “I know you will…but maybe he’s dead already. Besides, who would he tell? Colonel Young is dead. You killed him.”
His face hardened. Young was collateral damage.
“I’m not taking the risk. Simmons is a threat.” He put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed.
“Family looks after family.”
32
NATURE’S CHILD
April 10th, 10h37 GMT : Pennsylvania
Mei sensed the change in movement and woke from an uneasy sleep. She blinked and took a bleary-eyed look at her mobile phone—5:37 am.
To her right, a blush of soft orange light crept into the sky. They were heading north. They pulled off to the side of the road and parked behind Gong’s car. The van rocked from side to side as a transport truck zoomed past.
It had been hours since they last stopped, a quick in-and-out at a gas station outside of Gettysburg. That stop had cost them half of their remaining cash, and the ATMs weren’t spitting out anymore.
“Where are we?” she asked Lucia
“Don’t know.”
She looked out the front window of the van. The fields on both sides of the highway brimmed with spring crops. A worn billboard sat in the middle of the sea of green. It’s faded red paint announced, Bandit Truck Stop - Fuel and Food, 2 miles ahead - exit 45.
She watched Simmons climb out of the passenger side of the car in front and walk back to the van. She rolled the window down.
He smiled at her. “Good Morning.”
“Morning,” she answered back, “Where are we?”
“On our way to the Michaux State Forest.”
“Where and what’s that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t exactly know—somewhere in Pennsylvania.” He tilted his head towards Gong and the car. “He thinks we should find somewhere to wait things out for a few days, somewhere off the beaten track.”
“Why?”
“If they’re still looking for us—for me, they’ll focus on the major highways. After a few days, they may stop looking—focus their resources on other things.”
“Okay, and then what?”
“I don’t know, but first things first.” He leaned in through the open window and spoke to Lucia. “Stay close. We’re going to pull off up ahead and then turn onto a logging road.”
She nodded and he turned to Mei. “See you in a bit.”
She waved goodbye.
Hiding out for a few days was probably a good idea. Any doubts she had his story were gone the minute she saw the car riddled with bullet holes.
Twenty minutes later, they were on the logging road. Road was too kind. It was more like a trail. She ducked and cringed as they drove through a cluster of tree limbs. The broom-handle-sized branches smacked against the front window and scraped along the side of the van as they passed.
The road ended at the edge of a clearing that bordered a small lake. An outcrop of granite weathered from the elements and glaciers that had passed over it millions of years earlier ran from the water up to a meadow of knee-high field grass. Gong parked the car at the base of a giant Oak tree. Lucia pulled in next to him.
Simmons was the first out of the car, followed quickly by Emma and Gong. Saanvi climbed out and looked around, seemingly bewildered. She and Lucia joined them.
“We will stay here for a few days,” Gong said, “But others will come. We must remain alert.”
“What do you mean, others?” She asked him.
He pointed towards the forest and the lake. “People will come looking for safety from the pandemic. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but they will come.”
Their mood dampened by his somber warning, they stood in silence and warily searched the tree-line and surrounding forest. Simmons walked to the edge of the lake, crouched and dipped his hand in the water. He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the granite rock face.
“Tony, what are you doing?” Mei shouted to him while the others watched.
He turned back to her with a mischievous look on his face. “Washing up. I spent two days in a garbage dump. If we’re having guests, I want to be clean.”
He stripped down to his underwear and lumbered into the water, whooping and yelling before he dove in and disappeared. His head broke through the surface ten feet away. “It’s a bit chilly,” he shouted, “anyone want to join me?”
Emma was the first and then Lucia and Gong. Mei looked at Saanvi who stared blankly at the group as they fooled around, splashing each other with the ice cold water. I’ll help her wash up afterward.
She ran to the van and returned with a bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. She felt her cheeks blush as she took off her shirt and pants. She held them in front of her for a moment. No one was paying any attention. She dropped them and threw the shampoo and soap into the lake. The water was cold from recently melted snow and ice. It numbed her muscles and froze her brain. It felt good. She felt alive.
They finished bathing and sat on the rock outcrop around a small camp fire Gong had built. The dry pine crackled and burned with a ferocity that quickly warmed them.
The remainder of the day was spent exploring the surrounding area. A marshy swamp on one side of the lake stopped their progress but at the other end, they found narrow deer trails that meandered through the forest. When they returned, dinner was freeze-dried Beef Stroganoff and the last of the stale crackers.
Emma finished first and took Saanvi to help her set up the small tent she had packed. It was barely large enough for the four women. Simmons and Gong would sleep in the van.
“What next?” Mei asked when the two girls were out of ear-shot.
“I’ve got to get to the authorities and tell them about Raine and Mayer,” Simmons answered.
“Which authorities do you wish to tell, Professor?” Gong asked. “Assuming you are able to find a voice that is sympathetic to your accusations—which I doubt, you will still be jailed until an investigation is completed.” He paused and added. “Assuming an investigation is even undertaken.”
Mei caught Simmons’s eye and nodded. “He’s right and if you go to jail, you’ll probably become infected.” And die there. She didn’t need to tell him that, he knew.
“What then?” he asked in a strained voice. He picked up a stick and poked at the fire. “Mistake or not, they committed genocide.” He threw the stick into the fire and looked at her. “They need to be held accountable.”
“They will be,” she said, “but we need to stay alive long enough to ensure it. How do we do that?”
She watched as he closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his knees. He began to slowly rock back and forth on his butt. Fifteen seconds later, he stopped and opened his eyes.
“It’s simple. We need to avoid people.”
They listened as he told them about the CDC models and the government’s plan to quarantine any location with a large number of cases. “Just like the hospital,” he said and looked at Mei. “Only on a much larger scale. If you’re inside a quarantine zone, you’ll die—sooner or later.”
Gong spoke. “It is the same in China. That was the government’s plan—their last resort.”
Mei looked at him. His daughter must be in one those cities. She couldn’t imagine what he was going through knowing that.
“Where do we go then?” she asked Simmons.
“I don’t know,” he said in a troubled voice. “There aren’t a lot of options. During one of the briefings, they showed us a color coded population map of the United States. Red was the worst, green the best. The entire eastern seaboard, from Minnesota to Louisiana was shaded red. Where we are right now, the northeast‚ was dark red—the absolute worst.”
“What about the rest of the country?” Mei asked. “Where was it green? What about Calif
ornia?”
“Red—there are forty million people there. The only states that were green were in the northwest—Idaho, Montano, Nevada, Wyoming—and Alaska of course.
“And Nevada and Alaska are out.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Alaska’s too far and Nevada’s too dry. Over time, the basic infrastructure—water, power, sewage, communications—will collapse. A lot of the systems are automated but people are still needed to do the maintenance, flip the breakers when things reset, stuff like that. The Department of Energy showed us a model that predicted total failure of the electrical grid in less than a year under a worst-case scenario.”
“Do you think that could happen?”
“No idea…probably not, but why take the chance?”
“Where then—Idaho?”
“Maybe, but it’s more than two thousand miles from here. That’s a lot of ground to cover.”
She blew on her cup of coffee and took a sip. The wisps of steam reminded her the evening with Barb and Don. She swallowed the coffee and reached over to grab his hand.
“What about Canada? It’s closer—maybe five hundred miles from here at the most? Other than a few big cities like Toronto, Montreal…Vancouver, the population is spread—”
Gong interrupted her. “All of the borders into and out of the United States are closed.”
“He’s right,” Simmons agreed with a nod. “But it’s also a long border and at some point, they won’t have the resources to protect it. During the briefings, most of the discussion was about the southern border. What are you thinking? Where we would go?”
She smiled at him. “I have an idea.”
33
YOU NEED TO GO
April 11th, 11h50 GMT : Pennsylvania
The sound of rubber tires crunching over gravel woke Simmons. He bolted upright to find Gong already awake and crouched at the rear of the van, peering out through the window. The Asian turned back to him, his brow creased with worry.
“We have visitors.”
Simmons pushed his sleeping bag aside and scrambled to the back. A white and green half-ton truck with a set of red lights on the roof was parked on the edge of the clearing.
“Shit, it’s the police.”
Gong shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
The man who stepped out of the truck was stocky, in his mid-thirties with a full beard. He wore a light gray, button-down short-sleeve shirt tucked into a pair of green pants. A woman sat in the passenger seat and Simmons could barely see the top of a child’s head beside her.
He slowly pushed the van’s rear door open. It made a god-awful screech and the man quickly turned to it.
“Morning,” Simmons said. He climbed down from the back of the van.
“Park’s closed, Sir,” the man answered back. “You’ll have to pack up and leave.”
“But we just arrived last night. We only want to stay a couple more nights, Simmons pleaded. “We’ll clean up. We won’t leave a mess.”
“Sorry, Sir, that won’t be possible. Like I said, the park is closed. You’ll have to leave now.” The ranger stepped behind the open driver’s side door. He stretched across the seat.
Out of the corner of his eye, Simmons saw Gong reach behind his back for the gun he had tucked in his pants.
The ranger stepped back into the open. He held a clipboard in his hand. Gong relaxed. The ranger pointed to the tent. “Please pack it up now. I don’t want to have write you a ticket.”
“What’s going on?” Mei asked from the edge of the forest. Everyone turned to her voice. She held a roll of toilet paper in her hands.
Simmons nodded towards the ranger. “He wants us to leave.”
“Now?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Please pack up. The park is closed to visitors.”
The child in the back seat, a little girl, made a noise. The ranger shared a nervous glance with the woman in the truck. She leaned over the seat and shushed the child.
Mei joined Simmons and Gong at the van, her back to the ranger. “He’s lying.”
They both nodded.
Simmons studied the truck. Pennsylvania DCNR State Parks was painted on the side. The back of the truck was filled with boxes and what looked to be the contents of a house. “I think this is his place,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Mei asked.
“His bolt-hole, hide-out—whatever you want to call it—and we’re in it. The question is do we want to ask him to share it?”
“No,” Gong replied as a second truck pulled up. It was identical to the first but had two children in the back seat. “We may have arrived first, but this spot is theirs. They intend to stay. We are merely passing through.”
Simmons looked at Mei. She nodded. They’re right.
“We’ll pack up and get out of your way,” he said to the man. “Just give us a half hour to pack up.”
The man gave him a slow smile and nodded. He looked relieved. “Thank you.” He turned to the woman in the truck as she whispered something to him and then looked back at the three of them. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you keep your distance? Nothing personal, but we don’t know you.”
“No problem,” Mei and Simmons said at the same time.
THE PARKING LOT at the Bandit Truck Stop was filled with tractor trailers lined up in neat rows. Small groups of drivers, all wearing masks, huddled and talked while the giant trucks rattled beside them. Most of the drivers paid no attention to the two vehicles as they searched for a place to park.
A pair of National Guard humvees sat in front of the entrance to the gas pumps. As best Mei could tell, the soldiers were only allowing the big transport trucks to fuel-up.
They didn’t need gas but had stopped to use the restrooms before heading north. It was a little over four hundred miles to the border. A one-day drive under normal conditions but she guessed it would take them two, maybe three days. And they still needed to figure out how to cross into Canada.
She motioned towards the soldiers and spoke to Simmons. “I’m going to see what the deal is—be back in five.”
She was back in two. “As of yesterday, fuel is being rationed. You can only get it if you have a permit from Homeland security. Do we have enough?”
He shook his head. “For the car maybe, but not the van. We’ll keep our eyes open. There’s probably a black market for it already. Let’s get back on the road.”
She nodded and returned to the van.
A few minutes later, they were back on the road. They didn’t get very far before they slowed and then came to a complete stop. A large semi-truck in front of them blocked Mei’s view.
“Can you see what’s going on?”
Lucia shook her head.
Mei was about to climb out of the van and check when a tired-looking man with worn blue jeans and a denim jacket approached the driver’s side window. He greeted Lucia with a tip of his ball cap and knocked on the window.
“It’s okay—I think—roll it down,” Mei said.
Lucia cranked it down a couple of inches, leaving just enough space for the man to talk through.
“Morning,” he said with a thick southern accent, “Y’all might as well turn off your engine and save some gas. We’re gonna be here a while.”
Mei leaned across the seat towards Lucia and motioned her to roll the window down further. “Was there an accident?”
The man’s face turned serious. “Don’t know that I would call it an accident, but it looks like some fellas had a disagreement and did some shooting.”
“I’m a doctor. Does anyone need any help?”
He smiled grimly. “Not that you can offer. They’re dead. Just waiting for someone to take the bodies away and clear the cars off the road.”
Lucia turned the engine off, pressed her head back against the torn vinyl headrest and closed her eyes.
“You been on the road a while?” he asked Mei.
“For a while,” she said vaguely. “We left New
York a few days ago.”
“I hear it’s getting bad there. A lot of the drivers won’t make the trip into the city anymore.”
“Where are you going?” she asked him.
“Harrisburg Air National Guard Base. The Guard’s taken over food distribution.” He motioned to his truck. “Got a load of supplies to drop off, and then I’m going home to Louisville, Kentucky—home to my wife and grandkids. How about you?”
“New York State.”
She felt oddly uncomfortable lying to him.
He leaned in closer and spoke in a solemn tone. “You might have some problems. There’s chatter on the radio that the interstates are being closed.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know.”
The impatient blare of an air horn sounded from behind the van. Lucia’s eyes shot open while Mei jumped in her seat. He leaned away from the window and waved his arm in acknowledgment to the large semi-truck parked a few cars behind them.
“That was quick. Time to go. Since we’re headed in the same direction for the next few hours, why don’t you follow me. I can see a little further up the road—name’s Bill by the way.”
That might make sense, Mei thought. She glanced at Lucia who nodded.
“Okay. Thanks.”
He gave them a quick smile and returned to his truck. Mei jumped out and ran back to tell Simmons and Gong.
The hiss of airbrakes sounded and a belch of black smoke rose from the chrome pipes that ran up the side of the truck’s cab. They followed him as he drove away. The smell of burnt diesel wafted in the air.
The miles rolled by and they stayed tucked in behind the big truck’s trailer. Broken-down cars littered the shoulder, one every couple hundred yards. The interstate was busy but not packed. Mei guessed it was because of the gas rationing. She leaned over and looked at the van’s fuel gauge. Little more than half-full.
A dozen miles before the intersection of I-81 and I-76, the truck’s four-way flashers began to blink. They followed the truck as it pulled to the shoulder and stopped.
