Shadows played in the darkness, tricking her eyes with ghostly faces and grasping arms. But the door was closed. The dream had seemed real because the darkness made everything look like a dream. But she was awake now.
Kendra stared at the door a long time so her eyes could see it and believe.
Yes, the door was still closed. With freakproof locks.
Kendra’s hand reached for the nightstand, where Ursalina had left her 9mm—Better be close enough for any of us to grab it, she’d said. Kendra chambered a round and slid it beneath her pillow. Her heartbeat slowed, but she stared toward the door.
She would keep watch tonight.
Terry and Piranha were going into town. They would be waking in only a couple of hours, in the dead of night, and the trucks outside would rumble.
If she stayed awake, she might be able to open her door and wave good-bye.
Twelve
December 21
Terry was so caught up with shaking hands and learning names that he didn’t notice Kendra waving in the open door at the motel until they were near the corner.
Terry leaned out of the pickup’s bed to wave back. To make sure she could see him in the near darkness, he waved a long time.
Piranha chuckled. “How are you gonna act when she gives it up?” he said, biting open the foil wrapper of his protein bar. The other guys laughed, and Terry didn’t mind the joke. He doubted Piranha had seen Kendra, so he was guessing to fool the other guys. Terry wouldn’t have seen her if she hadn’t been bathed in moonlight.
“Stay focused, man,” one of the other guys said, giving Terry a playful slap.
There were two trucks filled with the scav crew, six in each truck. Terry was relieved when he and Piranha were teamed together. Terry had never taken part in an operation with so many other armed men. They were a war party.
The driver put on old-school Ice Cube, “It Was a Good Day,” and turned it up loud, with his windows open. Terry had never heard a truck’s stereo go so loud, booming across the farmland. There was no one to wake up. They all yelled the lyrics to the wind.
Even the Gold Shirt bobbed his head to the beat until the other young guy, a kid named Bobbie, said he’d jump out of the truck if he didn’t hear Metallica. For the next few miles, rock once again hailed supreme. All the stalled cars had been cleared to the side and stripped, so they had nothing to do but play air guitar and sing “Enter Sandman” at the top of their lungs.
They got ten minutes of music, about ten miles’ worth of freedom.
Then they hit the 101, and the music died.
“Playtime’s over,” the Gold Shirt said.
Fifteen minutes later, they peeled off in what was left of Sausalito, and the trucks went in opposite directions at Martin Luther King Park. Alpha truck was going north, Beta truck, their truck, south through deserted, windblown streets.
Terry hoped their truck would land near contact lenses. They twisted and turned, heading toward the bay and then inland again to a business district. Piranha had told him the kinds of places that would have them: Optometrists’ offices. A 7-Eleven. Kmart. Drugstores had saline solution and a moderate range of contact lenses. His were too strong to be common … but that also meant less likely to have already been scavenged. When in doubt, Piranha had said, just grab what he could.
But these were no ordered city streets. The area seemed desolate, more like a warehouse district. Where would they find contacts here?
“Downtown’s been thoroughly picked over,” the Gold Shirt said. “So we’re sticking to outlying areas. Put on your scav sacks. We’ll hit a few cars on the way that haven’t been cleared. Hopefully the owners are gone too—but grab a hankie out of this bag to keep down the smell.” The bag smelled of Vicks VapoRub.
Terry had forgotten about the corpses.
During their road trip from Seattle, they’d never left gas behind unless they had no choice, but they hadn’t picked over corpses since Vern and Molly. When they found cars, they’d taken what they wanted, but they left the bodies alone. They didn’t have use for wallets and wedding rings. Now, picking over bodies was part of his job description.
“I’m not gonna forget this,” Piranha said quietly, knowing.
“No—you won’t,” Terry said.
A dark-haired man in his forties raised his hand. He wore glasses, and his black jogging suit looked new. “I’m Riley. If we see freaks …”
“We will see freaks,” the Gold Shirt said. “Get used to it. If is just you in denial. What’s your question?”
For a moment, Riley forgot his question. No one said anything. Terry felt a bizarre mixture of terror and exhilaration.
“How many?” Terry said in Riley’s silence.
“Sometimes a few, sometimes a lot,” the Gold Shirt said. He was round, jolly, rubber-faced, like the love child of Jim Carrey and Jack Black. “Be ready for anything. Be on the lookout for explosive triggers from pirates. Chances are, by the time you’ve taken three runs, you’ve seen somebody bitten or shot. Not everyone who drives out always makes it home. If the crew is compromised, you’ll be left behind. There’s a reason this is the toughest job.”
“But we get to keep half?” Bobbie said. The kid in back.
“Bobbie, how old are you?” Gold Shirt said.
“Eighteen, sir.”
“You’re a liar. You’re sixteen. Your father ought to know better.”
“Wasn’t up to him,” Bobbie said.
The Gold Shirt tossed a glove at Bobbie, and he caught it before it bounced into the road. “Yeah, you get to keep half—so make it something worth keeping. Scrap metal. Batteries. Medicines. But don’t line your pockets. Holding back is pinching, and that’s the same as stealing. You’ll get your half, but bag it and tag it. Thieves won’t just get banned from the scavs, you’re bounced from town. Any of you.”
But probably not the locals, Terry guessed. Any town went easier on its own.
As Terry glanced at the other scavs, he wished he’d worn more layers. He had on good jeans and a sturdy jacket, unlike people he’d seen dressed in rags, but the more seasoned scavs were wearing two pairs of jeans—harder to bite through—and had their gloves taped to their sleeves. Terry cursed himself. If he hadn’t spent so much time thinking about Kendra and Piranha, he might have remembered what was waiting.
Piranha’s face was grim. If these guys found out how little Piranha could see, they might leave Piranha outside for endangering the crew. Which meant leaving him too, because Terry would stay with him. He hoped getting stranded was the worst thing that could happen today.
The sky was growing gray and light pink by the time they reached South Sausalito, just in sight of the Golden Gate Bridge. The severed cables and shattered concrete dangled into the bay.
“What happened to it?” Piranha asked.
Horatio shrugged. “No one really knows. Just one day the Sausalito side was fighting off freaks on the bridge, and the next, someone had parked a fertilizer bomb in the middle and blew it the hell up.”
“Terrorism.”
“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freak fighter,” he said. “If you fill up your scav bag, you come get another one. The idea is to fill up as many bags as you can. Everybody partners up. No one goes out alone. Ever. It’s the quickest way to get left in the cold. If we get swarmed, I guarantee we won’t stick around because we’re feeling sentimental.”
Only the seasoned scavs laughed. Riley and Bobbie looked gray in the face, and Terry thought he might look the same way. The truck’s swaying made his stomach hurt.
A vehicle appeared in the road ahead, but it was off to the side. There was movement in a window. Their truck swung to the lane farthest away but didn’t slow.
Terry stared as they sped past. At least three women were huddled around a Ford SUV with the hood up, hissing steam. The movement he’d seen in the window was from two small girls. The children waved frantically as the truck drove past.
“We’re also not a r
escue service,” the Gold Shirt said. “Out here, no good deed goes unpunished. The best way to get hurt is to divert from the plan. So if you feel sorry for those ladies and they’re still here when we come back, toss ’em a bag of your loot. Food or bottled water. Other than that, you can’t help them. And if they don’t have guns, only God can help them anyway.”
“But …” Terry started.
The Gold Shirt raised his voice to be sure he was heard. “They will offer you the world! They will scream and cry! They will look just like friends and loved ones you haven’t seen since Freak Day! But repeat after me: I will not bring home strays!”
The experienced scavs sounded robust as they repeated their mantra, stomping their feet in unison on the last word. Piranha said it loudest of all. Terry was still trying to forget the sight of the waving women and children. His sister could have been in a car like that.
“Young man?” The Gold Shirt was looking at him.
“Sir?”
“I want to hear you say it.”
Terry’s tongue felt flat in his mouth. “I will not bring home strays,” he said.
The Gold Shirt stared at Piranha. Then his eyes went back to Terry.
“See that you don’t,” he said. “There’s no room for strays on this truck.”
Much of the morning fog had burned off by the time they reached the knots of cars, lanes tied up in both directions. At first, their truck’s driver was able to steer around the stalled traffic by driving on the shoulder, but then he stopped behind a multicar tangle. Terry remembered the Siskiyou ambush.
“One crew clears the left lane, two crews cover,” the Gold Shirt said. “Who’s clearing?”
“We will,” Piranha said, raising his hand. They knew how to clear cars—it would be easier for Piranha to steer or push than it would be to see an attacker in the distance. As an afterthought, he looked at Terry: “Right?”
“Yeah,” Terry said. His voice wasn’t nearly as reluctant as he felt.
“Don’t forget your bags,” the Gold Shirt said.
“The cars are empty, right?” Piranha whispered to Terry as they hopped out of the truck. Terry looked at the shadowed forms behind the tinted windows of the PT Cruiser stalled closest to them. At least two people. With any luck, they were dead.
When Terry didn’t answer, Piranha cursed. They tied kerchiefs around their faces. “Sorry, man,” Piranha said.
“Sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Terry said.
“Make sure they’re dead!” the Gold Shirt called.
Guns chambered as the crew covered them. Terry almost vomited when they opened the PT Cruiser’s door. A family of four. By the looks of it, the father had shot his wife and two young daughters in the head with a .38 and then shot himself—the gun still dangling from his hand. They were huddled in the backseat as if they were sleeping. Terry couldn’t stand to look at them. The smell in the car was unholy.
“Strip it,” the Gold Shirt called.
“I got it,” Piranha said, slipping on his gloves, and Terry didn’t argue.
“When we’re done, I’m steering,” Terry said. “You push.” He didn’t want to spend one second longer with the corpses, but at least he could see the road to steer.
The next car was empty, and they only had to clear two to make the path. The other scavs patted them on the back when they climbed back into the truck’s bed, making jokes about popping their cherries and the aromatic smell on their clothes.
A digital wristwatch. A wedding ring with a fingernail-sized diamond. An iPod with a quarter of its battery power remaining. A GPS navigator. An unopened box of Froot Loops. A wallet, a purse stuffed with cash (useless, of course), and two cell phones. A toy called a Leapster.
That was all that was left of the PT Cruiser’s family of four.
No contact lenses.
Terry wished he could warp himself ahead in time: day over.
It was barely light outside. The day hadn’t even started.
Thirteen
The route to the docks and warehouses was familiar to the crew—many of the lanes had been cleared on their last trip and hadn’t been tampered with. Threadville’s scav crews were like ants burrowing into a tunnel, taking pieces at a time. The Gold Shirt, whose name was Cliff, told them to keep talking to a minimum. It was hard to hear each other in the bed of the truck anyway, but they had to keep watch for pirates and freaks.
They didn’t have to wait long to see freaks.
In Sausalito’s lost neighborhoods, the infected walked streets that gleamed with broken glass. They weren’t the collected horde at the Barracks, but there was movement almost everywhere Terry looked. Crossing the streets. Hovering near mailboxes. Pawing at storefronts. Tangled in downed power lines.
And they had enough ammo on the truck to light up the city. Dean and Darius weren’t the only ones who could gain fame as shooters in Threadville.
“Let’s clear this area out,” Terry said. “Right?”
“What did I tell you yesterday?” Cliff said, annoyed.
“A gunshot is a dinner bell,” Piranha said quickly. “Freaks who hear gunshots gather, and a gathering of freaks will attract others. If more than ten come, it crosses some kind of a threshold, and you’re likely to get a swarm.”
“Glad one of you was paying attention,” Cliff said.
Yeah, and only one of us can see your face, Terry thought.
Cliff went on. “Getting swarmed in the city is a problem that can get very big, very fast. A wall of shamblers can stop this truck and jam every street in sight. When are the only times we pop off in the city?”
“To create a diversion, or to save our asses!” the veteran scavs said in unison.
“In the event of gunfire, be ready to clear out in five minutes. Within five minutes, enough freaks will respond to repeated gunshots to send a swarm signal.”
“You mean … they talk to each other?” Bobbie said.
“Kid, I wouldn’t call it talking,” Cliff said. “But whether they use smoke signals, Morse code, or body odor—you have five minutes to grab your bags and get back to the truck, or you’re hitchhiking home.”
Five minutes wasn’t much time if they were inside a building. Cliff had given them the same talk during orientation, but it was more vivid when so many shabbily dressed freaks strolled the streets, stopping their mindless shuffling when the truck passed, staring after them with longing, sniffing at the air. Men, women, children. They looked ridiculous and sad in the costumes from their old lives—bloodstained ties askew, bright baseball caps, wrinkled dresses and skirts.
Piranha was stoic behind his sunglasses, nothing bothering him. Terry wondered how many of the freaks Piranha could see, and if seeing was worse than not seeing.
“Runner!” Riley said, alarmed.
The woman was wearing a Berkeley sweatshirt and pajama pants, so fresh that most of her face was still human. She rounded the corner like a cheetah in full pursuit, barefoot, her hair flying behind her. For the first few strides, she was nearly close enough to reach out and touch Terry as she clawed toward the bed of the moving truck.
She was pretty, in her early twenties. Square-jawed, smooth skin, an athletic body. Except for the red eyes and gnashing teeth, she would have been a hottie.
And she must have been on the track team, because she could run. After his first moment of surprise, Terry joined the laughter of the other scavs as they watched her struggle to keep up with them. When the truck picked up speed, she ran harder. Her face was bright red from exertion, spittle flying, cords on her neck protruding.
“Faster, baby!” one of the scavs called to her. “You want it, come get it!”
The other scavs taunted with kissing noises and obscene gestures. Terry’s nervous laughter left him queasy. When the girl fell behind, the driver slowed slightly, making it a game to see how close she could get.
Cliff surveyed them like wayward schoolchildren, his eyes landing on Piranha. “You,” he said. “Pick up your
rifle. Take her out.”
Piranha sat straight up, surprised. “But you said …”
“Diversion,” Cliff said. “We’re not where we’re going yet. Take her out.”
Terry’s laughter died. The runner was closer now that the truck was taking its time, but she was fifteen yards back. Could Piranha make her?
Dutifully, Piranha lifted his gun, bracing the stock, taking aim. Or seemed to be.
“Middle of the road,” Terry said quietly. “Dead center.”
“Who are you, his mama?” Cliff said. “We don’t have spotters. Let him shoot.”
Piranha hesitated. The truck slowed more, and the runner was gaining. Terry readied his own gun, nervous. If she reached the truck’s bed …
“What the hell are you waiting for?” Cliff said. “Take her out!”
Bam. Piranha fired, but the runner kept coming. The shot had gone wild. Perspiration gleamed across Piranha’s forehead. Ten yards. Eight. Six good strides, and the runner would be on them.
Bam.
Piranha’s second shot chipped her shoulder, making her stumble, but she ran on, reaching out as if to leap—
Bam. By the third shot, she was close enough even for Piranha to see. The runner crumpled to the street, shot in the crown of her head. He’d almost missed her again, but it was good enough to take her down. She was still twitching as they drove.
“You tryin’ to shoot her or kiss her?” Cliff said, angry. “My four-year-old coulda hit her faster’n that!”
The other scavs joined in the ribbing. “Annie Oakley here sure ain’t coverin’ me,” one said.
Terry’s heart raced. Would they stop the truck and throw them out?
Piranha shook his head, still hidden behind his shades. “Man, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “She just … she … she looked like …”
Piranha was pouring it on, pretending he’d been overcome instead of blind.
“That is what I’m talking about!” Cliff said. “You newbies are too soft! I don’t care if it looks like Angelina Jolie. If you hesitate, you or someone on your team dies!” He was practically nose to nose with Piranha, yelling in his face. If Cliff told Piranha to take off his shades, he would know.
Domino Falls Page 10
