by Dixon, Chuck
“Damn if I know. Looters. Look like some kids. A few adults.
All guys.”
“What about the minivan?”
“No reason for them to touch it.”
“But what if they do?”
“Shit, Mercy child. Let’s not worry ahead of ourselves. Ain’t this exciting enough for you already?” he growled, but he was smiling.
She smiled back, knowing he was turning this into a game, an adventure, for the two of them. A story to tell Mom and the others when they got back. Only she wasn’t a little girl anymore, and this wasn’t a ghost story or one of Doe’s lies about buried treasure. And she could tell by the hard lines around his eyes as he watched the goings-on down on the street that he knew it, too.
“They’ll be out of here by dark, and we’ll head back then,” he said without taking his gaze from the street.
“Okay,” she said.
“Check the bathroom. You might be able to see the minivan from the window in there.”
“Okay.”
“Just stand back from the glass. Don’t let anyone see you.”
“Okay.”
Mercy closed the door of the bathroom behind her, reducing the room to shadows. She lay the shotgun across the sink basin. She climbed in the tub and stood to one side of the single pane awning window at the back of the room. Pressing her face to the cool tiles gave her an oblique view of the minivan parked on the street behind the stores. A pickup lifted high on knobby tires was pulled up alongside, motor idling. Four guys had the doors of the mini open and were rifling through it. They tossed the contents out of the cargo bay and cabin. One of them upended a container of Raquel’s DVDs, sending them spinning and rolling to the street, flashing silver. Another found the Florida Panthers ballcap on the dash and put it on his head backward. Another tore the crucifix from its chain on the rearview mirror and tossed it aside.
They wore black strips of cloth tied around the legs of their jeans or around their necks like bandanas. Maybe a gang thing. Maybe to identify themselves to one another so they didn’t shoot each other. Two of the guys, young guys, had the same design printed on the fronts of their t-shirts. The distance and angle didn’t allow Mercy to see what the emblem was.
The men whooped and hollered. This was a party. As they backed from the plundered mini, one of them let loose a long volley from his rifle. The mini rocked then sagged on its tires as it was peppered with rounds. They climbed back into and onto the pickup and rolled off. The shooter took a last few shots from the truck bed, breaking out the remaining glass around the mini.
Mercy sank to the floor of the tub to bury her face in her hands.
15
They pulled into the lot of a strip mall a few blocks away. Jim Kim brought the car to a stop in an open area. Leaving the Sorento running, they jumped out to tear off the parkas and throw them aside. Smash flung his helmet away to bounce over the cracked paving. They were both soaked through in sweat.
Jim Kim returned to his seat behind the wheel. Smash stood looking across the lot.
“I’d like to get there before dark,” Jim Kim said.
“See that? A cop car,” Smash said.
A police car was pulled up at an angle to a burger place near the front of the lot. The driver's door was open. A pair of blue-clad legs poked out from inside.
“So what?” Jim Kim said. But Smash was already trotting across the lot toward the car.
Jim Kim put the Sorento in gear and followed after him.
A cop lay back on the front seat. It was clear enough to Smash what had happened. Suicide. The cop had a pair of bites out of one arm. He’d blown his own brains out all over the inside of the prowler rather than join the marching morons on the streets.
Smash held his breath and pinched his nose closed with one hand. He leaned over the bloated carcass to feel around the floor. He came up with a gun. A Glock. Smash knew the model from the first-person shooters he played. He shoved it into the waistband of his jeans.
The Sorento pulled up close, motor purring. Jim Kim rolled down the window to hiss through his teeth, trying to get Smash’s attention. Smash was practically straddling the dead cop, struggling to unbuckle the gun belt stretched tight over the swollen belly. His efforts caused a blast of trapped gas to escape when the cop’s sphincter released. Gagging, Smash clambered backward out of the cop car. His eyes teared in the noxious cloud of corpse fart. Jim Kim covered his mouth with a hand, raised the window, and turned the AC to max. Smash leaned on the cop car and spewed what remained of the unfrozen pizza.
He wiped his lips on his arm and returned to trying to free the gun belt. With the collar of his t-shirt pulled up over his nose, Smash pulled the body out of the car. It flopped to the ground, limbs loose. The shattered skull bumped on the rocker panel, spilling maggoty bits of brain tissue.
As Smash worked to free the holster, Jim Kim scanned the lot. A tapping sound made him turn to look at the windows of the burger place. A pair of kids, a boy and a girl, stood inside. They dragged fingers down the glass. Their skin was waxy and translucent. Jim Kim thought at first they were both wearing sunglasses but realized that their eyes were covered in flies teeming to get at the moisture within. The little girl, maybe eight years old, pressed her face to the glass. Her tongue moved against the glass like a gray snail. Jim Kim looked away.
“I got it,” Smash said, returning to the car. He shoved the pistol into the holster and held the belt on his lap.
“It stinks.” Jim Kim winced and turned away as he pulled from the lot.
“I’ll clean it up. We need a gun. I tried to get the shotgun, but it’s locked to the dash somehow. I couldn’t find the keys.” Smash was grinning at his prize. “It’s got two extra magazines, a cop flashlight, cuffs, pepper spray, a cop radio.”
“You stink,” Jim Kim said and rolled his window down to allow fresh air to wash over him.
“It all stinks. The world stinks. It’s the new normal,” Smash said, leaning forward to fix the gun belt around his waist.
Jim Kim drove with his head out the car window. The wind whipped through his hair. He was two months overdue for a haircut.
“Shame I couldn’t find the keys. We could’ve switched to a cop car. How cool would that be?” Smash said.
Nothing is cool about this, Jim Kim thought.
16
The on-ramps and approaches to the interstate were jammed with abandoned cars and trucks. Somewhere up on an overpass, a multi-vehicle fire smoldered. They stayed to surface roads, Jim Kim steering the Sorento around obstacles in the road. He tried to keep them to broader four-lane roads but sometimes had to drive through parking lots to move around gridlocks.
The remains of bodies were everywhere. Unidentifiable heaps of clothing with clouds of flies hovering over them. The fresher kills had black turkey vultures gathered around them. Neither Smash nor Jim Kim had ever seen vultures in town. Now they were everywhere in bunches along curbs, perched atop street lamps or wheeling in the sky.
“It didn’t look this bad on TV,” Smash said.
“Uh-huh,” Jim Kim said.
The dead would turn at the sound of the approaching car and make to pursue it at a pathetic pace. Jim Kim watched them in the side view mirror as they stumbled in the Sorento’s wake in a hopeless attempt to keep up. The rearview mirror was obscured by the pile of luggage stacked to capacity in the rear seat.
There was something else they hadn’t seen on TV. Bed sheets hung from the windows of some of the apartment buildings and from the second stories of homes. They saw one strung up in front of a Do-Nut Palace. They hung like flags or banners. On each one, a number was painted or smeared large enough to read from the street.
6
3
5
2
They didn’t see any numbers as large as two digits.
“What’s that about?” Jim Kim said, leaning low as he drove to look at a print bed sheet with a blue number 4 smeared on the cloth like finger paint
s.
“Beats me,” Smash said.
They drove along a three-lane road that paralleled the interstate, weaving around piles of rubbish, abandoned cars, and the occasional rotting pedestrian. The streets were quiet except for the purr of the Sorento.
A sound reached them through the silence as they neared an intersection with a road that would take them under the interstate and closer to Tool Town. It was a crackling noise with a harsh mechanical tone. As it grew louder and closer, it became clearer. A voice. A man’s voice. Under it was the rising rumble of engine noise.
“Pull in! Park here! Right now!” Smash said.
Jim Kim jerked the Sorento right toward the curb just shy of the intersection. He pulled in at an angle and backed up to turn his wheels.
“It’s not a goddamn driving test! Just pull in and cut the motor!” Smash hissed, gripping the wheel.
Jim Kim did as he was told. They both ducked low, eyes peeping over the dash. A three-story block of apartments obscured their view of a vehicle approaching on the cross street. The engine rose to a throaty growl. The voice became louder, the words more distinct.
“—limit of one item of carry-on of personal items. Firearms are prohibited. All are subject to search and seizure, as well as a medical examination. We reserve the right to refuse transport to anyone for any reason. Please make yourself visible with hands held away from your sides.”
A male voice, droning without inflection. Either a recording or someone reading from a printed form. The notice began again from the beginning, the voice echoing off the surrounding buildings.
“This is your state National Guard responding to Evacuation Order SHR-45. Stand in plain sight. There is a limit of one item of carry-on of personal items. Firearms are prohibited…”
A Humvee rolled into the intersection, doing twenty. Large cones of a public address system were mounted atop the roof. It hooked a slow left. In its wake followed two camouflaged military trucks with three school buses behind. The buses had chicken wire screens bolted over the windows.
As the buses passed by, Jim Kim was able to see people at the windows. A teenaged girl was laughing at something someone else said. An old man looked through the glass and wire with a face frozen in shock and sadness. A black kid of about twelve was looking out the window with a vague expression. He had earbuds in his ears and nodded in time with the music coming through them. His eyes met Jim Kim’s. If he was surprised to see an Asian guy watching him over the window ledge of a Kia, the kid gave no indication. And then the bus was past them and gone.
Bringing up the rear of the convoy was another Humvee, this one with a machine gun mounted in a turret atop it. A soldier in helmet and face mask leaned on the gun, turning his head left and right. He racked back the bolt on the big gun. In the side-view mirror, Jim Kim saw the soldier in the turret pick off a pair of infected staggering along the sidewalk. Expertly placed short bursts shredded them from the waist up. Their remains tumbled to the walk. Another infected soul ambulated into the street and was struck by the first of the school buses. The rest followed, bumping over the form until it was crushed to a puddle.
The repeated notice sounded, receding to a tinny buzzing as the convoy moved south toward the center of the city.
“Where are they taking them?” Jim Kim said, sitting up once the last vehicle was out of sight behind them. He restarted the Sorento and hooked the left to take them under the interstate.
“A camp probably,” Smash said.
“Maybe we should have waved them down.”
“A concentration camp, bro.”
“You think it’s like that?”
“How else could it be? Get everyone in one place where they watch them. Feed them government rice and beans until that runs out. We don’t want that. That’s not us.”
“No?”
“We’re free-range, Jimmy. We go our own way.”
“But the camp is an option if Tool Town turns out to be a loser, right?” Jim Kim said.
“We’ll call that Plan F. If all else fails, we get on the bus,” Smash said.
“Is there a Plan B, C, and D?”
“Sure, there is. I have it all up here.” Smash grinned, tapping a finger on his skull.
Jim Kim wondered again why he was willing to go along with the disaster planning of a college drop-out. The only reasoning he had was it was easier to keep on with Smash than to think for himself. Thinking for himself would mean that Jim Kim had to face the reality that, except for Smash, he was alone in the world. At least this way, he was moving forward with someone else rather than by himself. The ugly truth was that, in this broken world, he would never see his family again even if they did manage to survive this catastrophe.
“I figured out what those bed sheets are about,” Smash said.
Jim Kim drove on without responding, piloting through a flurry of turkey vultures startled by the passage of the Sorento.
“They’re distress symbols. Like a ship at sea. The numbers are the number of survivors inside,” Smash said as they passed a building from which fluttered a paisley print sheet with a big 3 spray-painted on it. The 3 had been crossed out and replaced with a hastily scrawled 1.
17
“Western is up ahead. We’ll want to hang a right,” Smash said.
“I know where it is. I was here at Christmas last year,” Jim Kim said.
“Just helping out, bro. Navigating. You look like you need some help. You were pretty shook up back there.”
“And you weren’t.”
“I’m maintaining. Keeping it together. Don’t worry about me.” Smash was straining to keep his voice even. Jim Kim noticed the skin around his mouth was white.
“I’m not. I’m worried about me for listening to you and leaving the condo,” Jim Kim said.
“This is gonna work out for us. You wait and see,” Smash said.
Western Avenue was a jumble of abandoned cars. Jim Kim shifted lanes and weaved between cars and trucks. A few were burnt out hulks. Some were bullet-pocked. A tractor-trailer lay on its side. The back was open, and an avalanche of spilled cartons spread over three lanes. It looked like a battlefield. There were the remains of bodies lying between cars, dropped where they stood in whatever confrontation happened here. Impossible to tell whether they’d been infected or healthy when they were gunned down. Now they were just filthy piles of bones and rags.
The main entrance for the Stores at Wellington was on the left. A big sign made of faux carved wood stood on a landscaped island that divided the entrance and exit lanes. Jim Kim swung left into the entrance past once manicured hedges. The shopping center was a vast collection of standalone big box stores. A super-sized, upscale strip mall.
Deep shadows were engulfing the storefronts and parking lot as the sun sank lower in the sky.
“Slow down. We might not be alone here,” Smash said.
“You think someone else had our idea?”
“Could be. Only makes sense, right?”
Jim Kim pulled past a vast supermarket building. The front windows were smashed out. A pickup truck was sitting where it had been used to ram through the entrance. Trash was everywhere in heaps around overturned shopping carts. The scorched remains of a semi-truck sat in front. The blackened ribs of the trailer were twisted and collapsed by the heat.
The Sorento purred on toward the back of the lot. The book store was the only untouched structure. The drugstore, clothing store, and mega discount market were busted open. Like the supermarket, the lots around them were strewn with debris. Cars out front were left where their owners either died or abandoned them. Even the pet supply store showed signs of being ransacked.
The lot was well populated with infected but not in any great concentrations. Small knots of five or six ambled around between rows of parked cars or along storefronts. They grew aroused at the sight of the little Kia and made to follow. The car gained a hundred yards on the closest group as it moved deeper into the hundred-acre parking area.
“Looks like you might have been right. No one’s broken in,” Jim Kim said, leaning on the steering wheel.
“Told you,” Smash said.
“How do we get in?”
“Seriously? You didn’t think I had that worked out?” Smash shook his ring of keys, jangling them in Jim Kim’s face.
18
“Shit.”
Smash tried another key. “Shit.”
And another and another. “Shit. Shit!”
“Are you sure you have it?” Jim Kim said, standing by the stack of luggage and boxes taken from the Sorento and piled on the raised loading dock.
“It’s here. I know it is.” Smash twirled the keyring, looking for the one that would open the rear access door to the interior of Tool Town’s loading area.
“Why do you have all those keys?”
“I made copies of my work keys for every job I ever had.”
“Why?”
“Souvenirs.”
“You have a criminal’s mind but not a criminal’s balls.”
“Let’s be glad I have the keys!” Smash hissed at him.
“So far, I see nothing to be glad about,” Jim Kim said. He bounced from foot to foot, watching either corner of the building for movement. Tool Town backed up on a service corridor. Empty trailers and some Conex containers stood in a row along a sagging cyclone fence. The other side of the fence was a thick brush of sumac. The dark and silent span of the interstate rose up a half-mile across the band of trees.
