The good news was that the traitors were dead. They managed to kill more men than they lost—they had darkness, night vision and the element of surprise on their side—but there were only twelve of them. Swenson was tempted to let dogs eat their bodies.
Swenson and Hastert arrived at the electrical station, a single room in a locked building surrounded by a hurricane fence topped with barbed wire. Three utility workers sat just outside the fence smoking cigarettes in the dark and looking despondent.
“Why aren’t you fixing the power?” Swenson said.
“Can’t,” one of them said.
“What do you mean, can’t?”
“Vacuum tubes are missing.”
“Vacuum tubes? Are you kidding me?”
The man shook his head.
“How old is this thing?”
“Old.”
“It runs on vacuum tubes?”
“It did before somebody took them.”
“Earl Flanders,” Hastert said.
“Shit, really?” the utility worker said.
“Who’s that?” Swenson said.
“One of the rat bastards,” Hastert said. “Saw him on the ground next to Elias Sark.”
“Man,” the utility worker said again.
“Who is he?” Swenson said.
“He works here,” the utility worker said. “Least he did. He’s dead?”
“Shot in the neck near City Hall,” Hastert said.
“We’ll go back and check his pockets,” Swenson said. “We’ll turn his house upside down. We get the tubes back, you guys can get the power back on?”
“We can try,” the utility worker said. “No promises.”
“You’ll get it back on,” Swenson said.
“If we can’t, we can’t,” the utility worker said.
Swenson was too tired to push it. “Let’s go,” he said to Hastert.
He didn’t want to walk anywhere. He wanted to curl up right there on the ground, but he and Hastert moved out.
“How could we have not seen this coming?” Hastert said.
“We did see it coming,” Swenson said.
“We locked up so many people. Maybe we shouldn’t have.”
“This is why we locked up so many people. So that something like this wouldn’t happen.”
“But it did.”
Swenson said nothing.
“We’re in serious trouble,” Hastert said.
“I know.”
“Do you know what it’s like to die from dehydration?”
Parker had no idea. The man squatting next to him in the hallway outside his cell seemed to know, though, and he didn’t seem happy about it.
Parker just wanted to sit in silence and enjoy the morning light that finally lit up the cellblock.
“Do I want to know?” Parker said.
“Probably not,” the man said.
Parker wiped sweat off his forehead. The prison was hotter than ever. Hardly anyone could sit still, including the man squatting next to him. Everyone was too nervous. The power was still off and the guards seemed to have left the building. There was no breakfast, no boiled water and no news.
For all Parker knew, the guards were dead, lured to and killed in whatever shitstorm hit the city last night. Five hours of fighting and gunfire. Five hours. The whole goddamn jail population just lay there in the darkness and listened to it. Parker could hardly believe it. No one could believe it.
There was nowhere near enough room in the jam-packed cellblock for hundreds of people to pace back and forth, but half the prisoners paced anyway while the other half sat down and fidgeted. Their nervous energy had to go somewhere, and there was so much of it in the building that Parker wondered half-seriously if they could use it to break through the walls.
At least the reek of barely washed bodies and never-washed clothing didn’t bother him anymore. He no longer noticed it.
“First you get thirsty,” the man squatting next to him said. He bounced on his heels while he talked. “You know what that’s like.”
Parker sighed. He did not want to hear about death from dehydration. He didn’t want to hear anything. He wanted to sit down and be still and pretend he was alone. He could sort of block out the sound of hundreds of freaked out people yapping at each other, but he couldn’t block out the guy next to him if the guy refused to shut up.
“Then your mouth dries out and your tongue swells up.”
Parker looked away.
“Fatigue sets in after that. It starts out mild, but it gets so bad after a while that you won’t be able to pick yourself up off the floor.”
Parker already didn’t want to get off the floor, but the man squatting next to him wouldn’t sit down. Parker marveled at the realization that he might be the least anxious person around for a change. Unlike everyone else, he could drink water out of the tap without risking infection.
The guy was not going away, so Parker figured he might as well not be an asshole. “How do you know this stuff?”
“I volunteered with Search and Rescue. Every weekend during the summer. I pulled injured people off the mountains and lost people out of the forest. The biggest killer by far out there is hypothermia, but dehydration gets people too. It’s a horrible way to go.”
“So what happens next?” Parker said.
“Hopefully someone will open the doors and let us out of here.”
“With dehydration, I mean. What comes after fatigue?”
“You sure you want to know?”
“Knock yourself out. Tell me what happens next.”
“You won’t be able to sweat. You won’t be able to piss. You’ll get headaches. You’ll get a fever. Your body temperature will go up and up and up like a race car without any water in the radiator. Then you’ll start having seizures. Your kidneys will shut down. You’ll probably hallucinate after the cells in your brain dry out and start shrinking.”
Jesus. Seizures.
Parker wouldn’t die of dehydration. He could drink all the tap water he wanted without getting infected.
“It’s your own body heat that finally kills you,” Mr. Search and Rescue said. “You ever hear of petroposia?”
Parker sighed. He didn’t actually want to hear this. He wanted to smack the guy. It took him a moment to realize that he thought about smacking the guy instead of biting him.
“Petroposia is what eventually happens if your car breaks down in the desert and nobody rescues you. After you’ve chugged the water out of the radiator, you’ll eventually go for the gasoline.”
Mr. Search and Rescue had Parker’s attention now. That was for damn sure.
“You see where I’m going with this?” the man said.
Parker nodded. He did indeed see where Mr. Search and Rescue was going with this.
“Two days from now,” the man said, “if the power isn’t back on and the guards haven’t brought some us some water, we’ll all be drinking out of the tap.”
31
Kyle woke to loud banging on his motel room door.
“Yo, Kyle!” Andy’s voice. “It’s me. Open up.”
Kyle groaned. He needed at least another four hours of sleep.
Andy banged on the door again.
Kyle rubbed his eyes and sat up. His head felt heavy. His mind was numb, his thoughts incoherent.
More banging from Andy.
“Hang on,” Kyle said.
He forced himself up and padded over to the door in his underwear. He unlatched the chain, turned the deadbolt and opened it.
“Get dressed,” Andy said. Somehow his neighbor looked wide awake and ready to take on the day, as if he slept right through all the gunfire last night.
The weather was still warm. Kyle felt a little chilled standing there in the doorway wearing just his underwear and a T-shirt, but only a little.
“You won’t believe what’s outside,” Andy said.
At this point, Kyle wouldn’t be shocked if an alien saucer had landed in the parking lot.
>
“Shit,” Kyle said.
The Suburban was gone.
“What?” Andy said.
Hughes must have taken it in the night.
Kyle said nothing. He just ran his hands through his hair and put on yesterday’s clothes. He’d crawl over a trail of corpses for a hot cup of coffee.
“Power’s still out,” Andy said and let himself in. “And dead people are everywhere.”
Kyle sat on his bed and laced his boots up. “Infected?”
Andy shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Kyle was ready. “You have any water?”
“A few bottles,” Andy said. “I can share. I boiled some in the microwave. There’s enough to last a few days if we’re conservative with it. You have any?”
Kyle shook his head. “I had a filter in the Suburban. Had a bunch of stuff in the Suburban, but Hughes must’ve taken it.”
“I heard someone drive it away last night,” Andy said.
Somehow Kyle missed it. The only sounds he’d paid the slightest bit of attention to had been the gunshots.
Outside was a horror. Dozens of bodies littered Main Street, many of them clad in the unofficial uniform of the mayor’s militia, some with rifles in their hands.
All the dead were men. All appeared to be shot to death.
Hundreds of townsfolk were out surveying the damage. They huddled in groups on the corners. A few curious onlookers inspected the bodies, but most stayed clear.
Kyle saw no children.
He and Andy joined a huddle in front of a bank building where a dozen or so adults, mostly men, gathered around and shared what they knew.
Kyle and Andy learned three things.
A group of “traitors” had disabled the electrical grid. They’d assaulted the mayor’s house. They’d killed Temple, the militia commander, in his bed.
No one knew where the mayor was or even if he was alive or dead. No one knew when the power would be back on. And no one knew who was in charge anymore.
Lander seemed to be tilting at a 45-degree angle. All kinds of people were sliding off the board, and anyone who didn’t hold on tight risked sliding off with them.
The chaos and uncertainty presented Kyle with an opportunity, though.
He could go to the hospital and get Annie.
Nash woke on the couch while Annie slept late in the bedroom. He’d already pulled the front curtains closed so that no one on the street would see movement inside the house.
He made no sound. Just fixed a small breakfast of crackers with peanut butter—things he’d stocked up on months earlier before the store shelves went bare—and returned to Juliette’s couch with a novel. Enough light filled the living room through the side windows that he could see the words on the page without any trouble, but he couldn’t get into the story, couldn’t track what was happening, couldn’t even remember sentences right after he finished reading them.
His own front door was less than fifty feet away. Steele’s remaining men could batter it down any second. Still, he knew he was in the safest possible place. Not quite hiding in plain sight, but so close to home that no one would think to look for him there.
He wanted to go home, but mostly he wanted to slip into Juliette’s bedroom and watch Annie sleep.
He didn’t dare. She’d be creeped out if she saw him do it, but he didn’t feel like a creep. He wasn’t a dirty old man. He was just lonely and had been for a long time, and he just wanted to look at her. He wanted to touch her too. She was a beautiful woman and he wasn’t blind. What man wouldn’t want to touch Annie? What man wouldn’t want to slip into the bed beside her?
He couldn’t, though, not today and not ever. It would violate every professional code of conduct between a physician and his patient. The world didn’t care about such things any longer, he knew that, but he still cared. He had to.
And besides, he was old enough to be her father. He didn’t feel old enough to be her father—he felt like the exact same person he’d been in his twenties—but he was at least twice her age, and if he didn’t see himself as twice her age, Annie certainly did.
“Doc?”
Annie’s voice from the bedroom. She was awake now, finally, and it was almost noon. She needed the rest after so much blood loss, and she needed some peanut butter, some protein.
He set the book down, not bothering to mark his place, and brought a glass of pre-boiled water and a plate of peanut butter and crackers into her room.
She was sitting up on the bed with a pillow behind her back.
“Good morning,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“Near death,” she said. “But it’s nice to be out of the hospital.”
“Eat something.” He set the plate of crackers down in her lap and the glass next to her on the night stand.
“How long will I feel like this?”
If Nash has taken much more of her blood, she would have gone into hypovolemic shock.
“You’ll be back to normal in a couple of weeks, but you should start feeling better in a few days. The important thing for you to do now is rest. Don’t get out of bed except to use the bathroom. Don’t let anyone see you in front of the windows. This house is supposed to be empty.”
She nibbled a cracker and took a small sip of water.
“Doc?” she said and looked up at him. “Thank you.”
He swallowed. He didn’t deserve any thanks. She deserved an apology. He’d participated in her imprisonment. Perhaps she understood that he’d felt trapped too.
“We’re both free now,” she said.
Nash felt a lump in his throat. Bless you, Annie, he thought.
“But you can’t go home,” she said.
Nash had always believed things worked out in the end no matter what happened, not only for himself but for just about everybody. Anyone could get sick or injured at any moment—as a doctor, he knew that better than most—but short of receiving a terminal diagnosis, people tended to be okay despite difficulties and setbacks and even traumas as long as they didn’t give up and reach for the crack pipe.
Part of him knew that wasn’t true anymore. Almost everyone in the world was dead, after all, and his until-now fortunate home town had degenerated into tyranny and anarchy. Despite everything, though, Nash wanted to believe that events would unfold as they should. He had to. Otherwise, why even try? Why struggle? Why not lie down and die?
The power would come back on and Steele wouldn’t recognize Lander any more when he returned from his cabin. The longer the mayor stayed away, the less legitimacy he’d have when he returned. People were fighting back. Nash doubted the mayor was still even the mayor.
He had no idea who was in charge, though, no idea what was happening outside, and he couldn’t go out there or back to the hospital to find out. How long would he have to stay hunkered down in Juliette’s house before it would be safe to come out? It’s not like someone was going to come knocking and tell him he and Annie were clear.
Still, he’d be able to go home again soon enough. Would Annie go with him? He hoped so. He’d let her move in permanently, although it would kill him, especially when she found a mate, which she certainly would. That would hurt worst of all.
“I don’t know anything about this town,” Annie said. “I’ve been locked up since I got here.”
So he told her everything. She didn’t speak or ask questions, and she found her appetite and ate ravenously while Nash filled in so many blanks.
Annie licked peanut butter off her fingertips when she was finished.
“Do we have any napkins?” she said.
“Sure,” Nash said.
He stepped out to fetch a dish towel.
Juliette’s kitchen window faced his own kitchen window. He used to see his neighbor and wave once in a while when they both stood at the sink and did the dishes at the same time.
This time he was on the other side. He saw what Juliette saw when she looked through her window into his.
And
he saw a large figure sulk through his kitchen and take something out of one of the cabinets.
Somebody was in his house.
Hughes slept on Frank Nash’s couch as deep as a stone at the bottom of a well. When he woke just before noon, conscious at last on hostile ground bang inside the enemy’s nest, he snapped at once into a state of danger awareness.
But he found that he was alone.
Nash hadn’t come home yet.
Annie could be just about anywhere.
And just about anything could be happening outside. Hughes had no way of knowing if the mayor was still alive, if Carter was still alive, if Elias Sark was still alive, or even if Annie was still alive.
The power was still out. It was supposed to be back on six hours ago.
Hughes fished the water filter out of his backpack.
He had nothing to do all day—nothing whatsoever—but wait.
Kyle spent most of the day pacing back and forth in his room and chewing his nails. He’d chewed his nails since he was a kid. His mother and most of his girlfriends tried to get him to stop. All failed. It wasn’t a nervous habit, exactly, he just felt a perverse sense of accomplishment when he chewed his fingers down to nubs. He noticed, however, that he went to work on his fingernails much more aggressively when he was nervous and fidgety, and he was a lot more nervous and fidgety this day than most days.
Darkness eventually fell in late afternoon—Kyle was happy for once that it was late December rather than June—and he could finally head for the hospital and Annie.
Lander felt like winter again. Not the Wyoming winter, but the mildly cool winter Kyle was used to in Oregon. His hat, scarf and gloves weren’t necessary. A light jacket kept him warm enough. The power was still off, so he set out on foot with a flashlight.
Lander was freaky dark without electricity. No one was out on the streets. Kyle seemed to have the whole town to himself, as if he’d been whooshed back to the Pacific Northwest where everybody was dead and all homes were abandoned.
He felt thirsty. Andy had given him a couple of water bottles, but Kyle had to nurse them in case the power stayed off.
When he reached the hospital, he saw that it used some kind of emergency lighting system. The building wasn’t blazing and bright, but he could see well enough that he didn’t need the flashlight anymore.
Resurrection (Book 2): Into the Wasteland Page 29
