“I'm fine.”
“No one's bothering you? Giving you a hard time?”
“Of course not. What are you talking about? It's just me. And if someone tries to mess with me, they're going to have to answer to me. When are you getting here?”
“The whole thing's a long story,” said Damian. “Basically the traffic was too bad and we had to walk...” Damian didn't want her to worry, so he didn't tell her everything else that had happened.
“Who? You and your work friend?”
“Yeah, Matt. Is it OK if he comes over too? He doesn't have anywhere else to go, and his apartment isn't OK to stay in.”
“I suppose so. Just get here as soon as you can. Things on the news are just getting crazier...”
“Hey, buddy!” someone was shouting from across the parking lot.
Damian looked up. There were two young guys, both about twenty years old.
He couldn't make out their features, except that their faces seemed unusually pale, as if they hadn't spent much time outdoors. In Albuquerque where the sun was strong, their paleness really stood out.
They looked like the kind of guys that he wouldn't want to run into in an alley late at night.
“Yeah, you!” shouted the other one, clearly pointing at Damian.
Damian turned around and, seeing no one else there, realized that they were talking to him. And him alone.
“Mom, I've got to go.”
“What's going on? I heard someone shouting.”
“Nothing. I'll see you soon. Don't worry.”
“But...”
Damian knew that he couldn't concentrate on this new threat of the two young men while also trying to keep his Mom calmed down. So he just hung up the phone, and put it back into his pocket.
He stood up slowly, facing the two young men.
They were walking towards him now. Quickly. They walked side-by-side, with their arms and legs moving fast.
Damian looked around. The parking lot was still deserted. And the street was too. All the traffic must have been concentrated on the larger roads. This was just a road that went nowhere.
What should he do?
And where was Matt? What was taking him so long?
“Hey!” One of the guys was pointing his finger at Damian as he walked forward. He had long, greasy hair.
The closer the guys got, the more muscular they looked.
One of the men had something stuck into his waistband. It was obscured by his shirt, but Damian had the idea that it was probably a weapon of some sort.
Damian wanted to run into Matt's apartment building. Run into Matt's apartment. He knew which one it was, since he'd been there once before for an office poker game.
But the guys were cutting across the parking lot in such a way that blocked him from accessing the building.
The guys were close now. Only a few feet away.
Anger was etched all over their faces.
Damian looked pointedly at their necks, trying to see if they were infected or not.
Their veins didn't look enlarged, but it was a little hard to tell.
“How can I help you gentlemen?” said Damian. The word came out unnaturally. It felt like something that someone might say in a movie, not something that he'd say in real life.
“You know what you did!”
The one guy got really close to Damian, not lowering his outstretched hand or his finger. He put his finger right in Damian's face, to the point where it actually touched Damian's nose.
“I'm sorry,” said Damian. “I really don't know what...”
“Enough!” screamed the guy. “You can't pull this kind of stuff with us. Not again. Not after last time. Where's the money?”
“I think this is a classic case of mistaken identity,” said Damian.
That's when the punch landed.
Damian didn't even see the swing.
But he definitely felt the punch.
His vision seemed to shake. He felt like he was losing his balance as the world seemed to tilt in front of him.
It seemed as if he might fall, simply collapse to the ground.
He managed to stay upright.
But not for long.
He actually saw the second punch coming in. A right hook. Aimed right at his temple.
He raised both his hands, thinking that he'd somehow block the punch.
But the punch was too fast. Too powerful. It blew past his hands.
Damian was too weak.
The punch hit him in the temple.
His vision went funny, and he collapsed to the ground, crumpling to the parking lot pavement.
“Check his pockets,” said a voice above him. “I know he's got it.”
Got what? thought Damian.
Whatever it was that they were looking for, he knew he didn't have it, and he worried about what they'd do when they discovered that.
8
Matt
There wasn't time to discuss why Jamie and the other woman were in his apartment.
“Do you recognize the voice?” whispered Jamie.
Matt shook his head.
It was the truth. He didn't recognize the voice. And not only that, but the voice didn't sound like one of his neighbors.
He wasn't exactly on a first-name basis with his neighbors. It was the kind of apartment building where people tended to mind their own business and stay to themselves. Even in New Mexico, which was often considered a little friendlier than the rest of the country, there were plenty of apartment buildings like this. More so now that the city was growing and more outsiders like himself were moving in daily.
Matt did, however, know what his neighbors looked like. Most of them, at least. And this big deep burly voice didn't match the image that he had in his head of any of them.
“What are you going to do?” whispered the woman that he didn't know.
“Hey, open up,” came the male voice from the other side of the door.
“Hang on,” yelled out Matt, trying to stall for time, not knowing what to do.
If he opened the door, he might be attacked.
But even worse than that, he might simply be infected by the virus.
As he stood there, his mind racing, he suddenly realized the absurdity of the situation.
Why didn't he just tell the stranger to go away, that he wasn't going to open the door for risk of the virus? What was he trying to do, win an award for politeness?
And that way, if the neighbor refused and tried to break in, at least Matt would know what he was working with.
“I'm not going to open the door,” called out Matt, not taking another step forward, and thanking himself for having the presence of mind to lock the door behind him when he'd entered the apartment. “You might be infected.”
“Fair enough,” came the voice. “Just wanted to let you know that they're saying they're going to evacuate the building...”
“Evacuate the building?” called out Matt.
But the voice didn't come again. The man was gone.
“That's what they did to my building,” said Jamie. And then she told him how she and her roommate, Mia, who she introduced briefly in mid-sentence, had jumped off a bus on their way to some kind of holding center.
Matt had to admit that Jamie had probably done the right thing. “Sounds like you made the right call,” he said. “Now let's not let the same thing happen to us. Come on, we've got to get out of here.”
Necessity was dictating that he ignore the strangeness of Jamie breaking into his apartment.
But in a way, he was glad for that. He didn't want to have to go over how he'd given her a key. Looking back on it, he really didn't have any idea why he'd done it. It had just been one of those things that had seemed like a good idea at the time. And then later on? It had seemed like the worst idea he'd had in his life.
“We don't have anywhere to go though,” said Jamie.
“Come with us,” said Matt, without really thinking it through. The words just tumbled out of his
mouth.
“Come with you where?”
“We're headed to Damian's mom's house. We're going to hole up there.”
“Uh, all right.”
“Help me gather some stuff,” said Matt, his mind not focusing on the social implications of what he'd offered, but instead on the list of things that he needed to gather up before they left for Damian's mom's house. “There's food in the kitchen. Get whatever you can. Make sure to get everything from the freezer and the top cabinets.”
“All right,” said Jamie and Mia together.
Without a word, Matt disappeared into the bedroom. He headed to his safe in the closet, unlocked it, and took out his Glock.
He checked it over, and loaded it. It felt good to load it, and it felt good to have the weight of the Glock in his hand.
He also had a holster in the safe, and he took a minute now to fit it into the waistband of his pants. He untucked his work shirt, letting it hang out so that it covered the Glock.
He checked his profile in the mirror, and while he looked a little funny with the long shirttails hanging down, the Glock and its holster didn't print at all on the shirt. It was invisible, which was just the way he wanted it.
Next, Matt grabbed a flashlight from his nightstand, and a couple other odds and ends from here and there.
He really didn't have that much stuff in his apartment. Back before he'd moved out here, he'd been contemplating buying a bunch of camping gear, since camping was the sort of activity he wanted to spend more time doing. In the end, he hadn't bought the gear, and instead of camping he'd spent his outdoor time in New Mexico hiking on the weekends.
But now he wished that he'd made the investment in that camping gear. After all, who knew how long this would all go on. And who knew where they'd end up.
In the back of his mind, Matt had the idea that Damian's mom's house was just a stopgap measure. Maybe they could wait it all out there. And maybe not.
Back in the kitchen, Matt found Jamie and Mia jamming food into large black trash bags. The freezer door was open, letting some chill into the room.
“Good work,” he said, grabbing the last of the frozen dinners from the freezer and jamming them into a bag. Then he took the bag, tied it up, and slung it over his shoulder. “Come on. We'd better be getting out of here.”
Only when the three of them were out in the hallway did Matt think that it was a little weird that he had offered to let Jamie hole up with him and Damian. After all, he hadn't spoken to her at all since that very awkward incident..
And he hadn't even asked Damian if it would be OK.
“Are you sure this is going to be OK with Damian and his mom?” said Jamie. Apparently she was thinking along the same lines.
“Yeah. Damian's a good guy... And he knows you from the office... I'm sure it'll be fine.”
Matt noticed that Jamie and Mia didn't seem to have any other ideas about where to go. They didn't put up too much of a fuss about being an inconvenience or anything like that, so they must have been pretty desperate.
Which he could understand.
He didn't even hold it against them for breaking into his apartment.
Hell, he might have done the same, if he'd been in their shoes.
The three of them made their way through the hallways, carrying the trash bags.
Matt didn't spot the neighbor who'd called out to him through the door. And he didn't spot anyone else either.
In fact, they didn't see anyone. The hallways were as empty as they had been when he'd come in, and he wondered if the anonymous “neighbor” was misinformed, or perhaps lying.
It didn't really matter. The building definitely wasn't a good place to ride out a virus crisis.
“Did you two see anyone when you came in?” said Matt.
They both shook their heads.
“Not a soul,” said Mia.
He noticed that he felt better, just knowing that he had his Glock on him.
Of course, now that he had the Glock, there might come a time when he'd have to make difficult decisions. For instance, if a potentially contaminated person was coming at him, did he have a right to shoot them?
Yes. The answer was definitely yes. But that didn't mean that it'd be an easy decision. Taking a life was serious, and while he thought that he had what it took do to it, he'd heard of plenty of stories of people freaking out and choking up when the time came to defend themselves.
He didn't think he'd be like that, but he also couldn't know for sure. No one could. Not until it happened.
But all in all, he'd rather face difficult decisions than be without a firearm. He'd rather be the one making the difficult decisions than letting it fall into someone else's hands.
The New Mexican sun was bright when they made it out through the big double doors into the parking lot.
“I thought you said your friend was out here?” said Jamie, a trash bag slung over her shoulder, panting a little from holding it there. She must have had one of the heavier ones, since Matt's didn't weigh as much.
“Here, give me that one,” he said, holding his out, offering a trade.
“Thanks,” she said, as they switched bags.
Hers had been a little heavier than his, and he slung it over his shoulder. After doing his functional training though for quite a while now, a trash bag full of frozen food wasn't really serious weight to him. He was used to cinder blocks chained together with thick heavy steel chains.
“Awww, how cute,” said Mia in a funny voice. “You two will be back together in no time. Already looking out for each other.”
Matt gave her a puzzled look. It seemed like a strange thing to say, especially considering how serious the circumstances were.
“Shut it, Mia,” hissed Jamie. Then, to Matt, she said. “She's really pretty normal most of the time... she just...”
“I hope I'm not going to regret telling you two to come along with me... this is serious... we've got to be aware of danger...”
“Hey, where's your friend anyway?” said Mia, apparently somewhat flighty, and already having moved on to the next thing on her docket, which was looking for Damian. “I don't see anyone here.”
Matt stopped talking, instead focusing all his attention on scanning the parking lot.
It was true. It was completely empty. There wasn't a soul. It looked just as empty as it had when he and Damian had arrived.
“Damian!” he called out, taking a risk in making some noise. “Damian. Are you here?”
“Just let everyone know we're here, why don't you?” said Jamie.
“So I can see you're not going to hold back on your opinions, despite me providing you with a place to stay... with you breaking into my apartment...” Matt couldn't help it. He was annoyed.
“You know that's not my style,” said Jamie, looking right at him. And he could swear that he thought he saw the hint of a smirk.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Help me look for him. He's got to be here somewhere.”
“We'll find him,” said Mia, dropping her garbage bag on the ground, and running off through the few parked cars that were there. “Don't worry.”
“What's with her? Is she nuts or something?”
“No... she's just... I don't know how to describe it. She's pretty reasonable most of the time. I mean, she's trying to help. She's just a little... different, I guess.”
“Seems kind of flighty to me,” said Matt.
“That might describe her.”
“Hey,” came Mia's voice moments later, drifting across the parking lot with some urgency.
“It looks like she's behind that parked car over there,” said Jamie.
The two of them dropped their trash bags and rushed over, sprinting across the parking lot.
When they got around to the other side of the car, they saw Mia crouching over Damian, who was lying on the ground, clutching his face.
“Damian, buddy, what the hell happened?” said Matt, quickly dropping to Damian's side, kneeling d
own next to him.
“Some guys jumped me,” said Damian.
“Jumped you? For what?”
“They thought I was someone else. I don't know. It didn't make sense. In the end, they just took my phone and my wallet.”
Jamie had knelt down next to Mia, and Matt was pleased to see that she was systematically checking Damian for injuries. It showed that she had a practical side, and that she could think on her feet.
“Looks like you're going to be OK,” said Jamie. “They didn't get you that bad.”
“It really hurts though,” moaned Damian.
“Stop being such a baby,” said Mia. “Come on. Get up. We're going to your mom's house.” She held out her arms, offering them to him as if to help him up.
“Who's she?” said Damian, looking confused.
Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to Matt. What if the men who'd attacked Damian had been infected?
“These attackers...” said Matt. “Did you get a look at them? Their veins?”
“They weren't infected,” said Damian, speaking somewhat curtly.
“You saw their veins then?”
“Yeah. I got a pretty good close-up when they were beating me senseless. I mean, I didn't ask them to see. Like, hey, man, mind if I check to see if your veins are dilated before I permit that you beat me on the body and the head? No, it wasn't like that it.”
“But you managed to see their veins?”
“It wasn't hard. They were right up against me. I saw their necks... the backs of their hands... totally normal.... not enlarged at all...”
“Are you telling the truth?” said Mia, her voice sounding high-pitched in comparison to Damian's.
“Who's she again?” said Damian, looking annoyed. “Yeah, lady, I'm telling the truth.”
“She's Mia,” said Matt. “Jamie's friend. Roommate, I mean. Here, let me give you a hand.”
Matt grabbed onto Damian roughly and pulled him to his feet.
His face was bloody, and it looked like his nose might have been broken, but other than that he was OK.
Matt filled him in briefly on the new plan. “I figured that'd be OK with your mom,” he added.
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Damian. “Come on. Let's get the hell out of here. I know a good way to get there from here. I'll lead the way.”
Escape the Virus Page 7
