The Lives We Lost: Fallen World 02

by Megan Crewe

  In the middle of the second morning, Tobias wiggled a finger toward the dashboard and said, “We should stop at the next town with a clear enough exit ramp. Gas is getting low.”

  He’d been sounding more confident since taking the wheel the day before. Guilt pinched me. I’d snuck Tessa and Leo into the harbor office before giving them their doses of the vaccine, to avoid any argument. I wasn’t going to offer something so precious to someone I hardly knew, who was only helping us out of obligation. Who might run like he did from the army base if things got tough. But it was harder to think that way with Tobias sitting next to me, drumming on the wheel with his fingers in time to a tune he was humming.

  I shifted Meredith on my lap and peered at the map book. We’d passed the signs announcing that we were entering New Brunswick just a few hours before we’d stopped last night. It looked like we could make it to Ottawa in three days, as long as the snow didn’t get much deeper.

  As long as we could find gas.

  “That exit looks good,” Gav said from the backseat. He pointed to a lane where the wind had left the snow shallow, and Tobias nodded.

  “Do you think there’s any chance some places still have electricity, Leo?” I asked.

  His coat rasped against Tessa’s as he shifted behind me. “There were a few power stations still running, the last I heard,” he said. “But most of them had broken down. And that was more than a month ago.”

  “If we can find a station that has power, Kaelyn and I should be able to get the pumps running,” Gav said, squeezing my shoulder. “We’ve had some practice.”

  My stomach twinged as we passed a frost-encrusted McDonald’s sign at the edge of the town. I didn’t even like burgers that much, but I’d have all but killed for one now. A little taste of our old, normal world.

  “Here we go,” Tobias said, turning the wheel.

  He pulled up beside a row of pumps labeled as full service, though the shop across from them was dark. The hoses lay in a tangle beside the pumps. I eased Meredith off my lap and stepped out into the January chill, shaking the feeling back into my travel-numbed legs.

  “What should I do?” Meredith asked, her eyes wide.

  “Just wait here, okay?” I said. Gav hopped out, and we hurried to the station shop together.

  The inside had been ransacked: shelves toppled, papers and boxes crushed underfoot. I picked up a newspaper to check the date. November 16. That was two weeks after we’d lost all contact with the mainland.

  The paper felt strangely thin, and as I paged through it I realized it was missing most of the usual sections. No sports, no entertainment. I wondered if the government had canceled those events to prevent people from mingling in public places, or if the organizers had stopped out of their own fear. After a glance over the headlines—US President Pleads for Calm in Face of Global Pandemic. Utilities Failure Imminent—I dropped it onto the counter. I knew those stories. I’d seen them for myself on the island; could see them now in the desolation of yet another town.

  Gav flicked the light switch on and off, getting no response. We squeezed behind the counter and peered at the various controls. He sighed.

  “Doesn’t look good.”

  “I guess it would have been too easy if we could have filled up the usual way,” I said. “We’ve got the siphon tube.” Leo had brought it with the rest of our supplies from the SUV.

  We scanned the area as we came out, but there were no vehicles in the station’s lot or outside the big discount store on the other side of the street.

  “No luck,” Gav said to the others. “We’ll have to go further into town and find cars to siphon from.”

  As Tobias reached to turn the key in the ignition, Leo grasped the back of his seat. “Wait,” he said. He peered through the window toward the town. “If there are any people around, showing up in an army vehicle…it might startle them. Give them the wrong idea.”

  “You don’t figure we’re safer in this than walking around?” Tobias said.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Leo said, his voice tight. “A lot of people are upset with the military right now. I’ve seen people jump a guy who wasn’t even a soldier, just for wearing a camouflage jacket. Okay? If you’ve got weapons, let’s carry them in case we need to defend ourselves, but I’d rather leave the truck.”

  “Sounds all right to me,” Gav said. “Keep a low profile, get in, get out, maybe no one will even notice us.”

  He shot a dark look at Tobias, who lowered his gaze. At least, I noted, Tobias’s parka was plain gray, with nothing clearly army about it. “Fine,” he said. “But let’s make it fast.”

  I grabbed the bucket and the now-empty jugs from the back of the truck, handing some off to Tessa and Meredith. When we came back around, Tobias was showing Leo a red gun that looked like it was made of plastic.

  “A flare gun won’t do major damage, but it’ll at least scare a person,” he was saying. “Makes a pretty loud noise, though, so don’t use it unless you have to. Anyone who doesn’t already know we’re here, they will as soon as you fire it.”

  Tobias must have had a weapon on him too. Probably one that fired actual bullets. I remembered the woman I’d seen gunned down by a gang member in the street—weeks ago but still vivid in my mind.

  “We’re not going to shoot anyone,” I said. “Not unless it’s that or get shot ourselves.”

  “I don’t want to use it,” Leo said, tucking the flare gun into his coat. His stance was tense.

  Gav joined us, holding a branch he must have found, as thick as his arm and nearly as long. “Better to be prepared than not,” he said, taking the last couple of jugs in his other hand.

  Tobias circled the truck, making sure all the doors were secure.

  “Our food’s safe in there?” Tessa asked.

  Tobias gave her a thin smile. “It’s an army vehicle,” he said, patting the side of the truck. “No one’s getting in without a bazooka.”

  We tramped down the road, past the fast-food restaurants and a one-story motel, toward the more tightly clustered buildings in what looked to be the center of town. A layer of ice crusted the snow, and our boots crunched through it as we walked. The sound seemed horribly loud in the silence around us.

  We passed a couple nicer restaurants, a liquor store, and a jewelry shop. All the windows were shadowy. Meredith had paused to look longingly at a few beads scattered in the jewelry-shop window when three dogs trotted onto the road in front of us.

  We all froze. The largest dog, what looked like a German shepherd mix, woofed quietly and continued on. The others, a bull terrier and a brown-spotted mutt, followed without a backward glance. All three still wore collars. Their tags jingled long after they slipped out of sight.

  “Must be an awful lot of ownerless dogs in the world now,” Tobias murmured. “Maybe they’d be better off if the virus got them too.”

  “There could be more,” Gav said. “You think a flare gun would work on wild dogs?”

  “They’re not really wild,” I said. “And they didn’t seem interested in us.”

  “We don’t know what else is around, though. Or how hungry they might be.”

  “Well, we either keep walking or we go back for the truck and announce to the whole town we’re here,” Leo said mildly.

  “I’m all for the truck,” Tobias said.

  “There were just three,” Tessa said. “And we’re already here.”

  “Exactly,” I said, breaking from the group to stride on down the road. “Let’s just get some gas and go.”

  A few blocks further up, there were some mounds of snow that looked vaguely car-shaped. I headed toward them, hearing the others catching up behind me. We were just a few storefronts away when I saw movement up ahead and my legs locked.

  A couple of figures in heavy coats were sauntering out onto the street, just beyond the second car. We waited as they approached. From the corner of my eye, I saw Leo’s hand slip into the pocket that held the flare gun. My pulse
started skittering.

  “Hey there,” one of the figures said when they were about ten feet away. His pale eyes glowered at us. “What’re you all doing?”

  “We’re not trying to make trouble,” Gav said. He held the branch low at his side but clearly visible. “Just need some gas for our car.”

  “This is our town,” the man said, but he didn’t move any closer. I wondered if it was just the two of them—there was no way they could fight all six of us, if it came down to that. “We don’t care for strangers coming in and taking what they want.”

  “But we need it!” Meredith said. I reached for her, but she shifted away from my grasp. “It’s really important. We have to get to Ottawa, to give them the vaccine, so we can stop the virus.”

  The man raised his eyebrows. “Vaccine? There’s never been no vaccine for the friendly flu.”

  I didn’t see much point in lying about it now.

  “We have a new prototype,” I said. “My dad was a scientist—he made it. We’re trying to get to the city to find someone who can make more. We just need a little help getting there.”

  The man studied us for a moment.

  “Well,” he said to his companion, “maybe we should just let them be for the moment, don’t you think?”

  Without another word to us, they turned and ambled back the way they’d come. A prickle crept up the back of my neck. I was glad they were leaving us alone, and he seemed to be saying we could take what we needed after all, but something about his manner felt threatening.

  “They weren’t so unreasonable,” Tessa said after the two had disappeared from view. I tore my eyes away and hurried on to the nearest car.

  The gas cap resisted my tugging fingers. Gav tried the door, grimaced, and raised the branch to smash in the driver’s-side window. Leaning inside, he popped the cap. I unscrewed the seal and fed the tube down into the tank. Then I brought the other end to my mouth, bracing myself for the taste of gasoline I was going to get if I wasn’t fast enough, and sucked in. Meredith hovered by the bucket.

  All that came up was air. I wiggled the tube around, trying to push it deeper into the tank, and sucked again. Nothing.

  “It’s dry,” I said.

  “Let me see.” Gav knelt down beside me, but he had no more success.

  “Someone else probably had the same idea,” Leo said.

  The second car proved to be as empty as the first. We walked a little farther, trying a pickup truck that appeared to have stalled in the middle of the road and a van half a block down one of the side streets, but neither gave us so much as a drop.

  “Someone’s drained them all already,” I said. The man who’d tried to warn us off? “Let’s get back to the truck. We can drive to the other side of town. Maybe whoever got the gas here only bothered with the main road.”

  “No argument from me,” Tobias said, and Gav nodded.

  “Meredith,” Leo said as we trudged toward the gas station, “from now on, you shouldn’t talk about the vaccine with strangers. I know you were trying to help, but people are afraid of getting sick, and some of them might not care that we need the samples to make more. They’d just want to get some for themselves.”

  Meredith lowered her head. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” I told her. “Just remember.” Hopefully there wouldn’t be a next time.

  There was no sign of anyone nearby when we reached the station. If they had come and gone, their footprints were lost amid the ones we’d made when we arrived. The truck’s windows were undamaged and the doors secure. I started to relax as Tobias unlocked them. He hopped into the driver’s seat while we chucked the bucket and jugs in the back.

  A shrill squealing split the air, so piercing that my hands leapt to my ears. Just as abruptly, it cut off. Tobias twisted the key in the ignition again, but the engine was silent.

  “What in hell?” he muttered, pushing open the door. He marched over to the hood and yanked it up, just as I reached him. For a second, we both stared down, motionless.

  Every lid that could have been twisted off was gone. Every tube was snapped, every wire cut.

  Gav hurried around and stopped with a hiss of breath.

  “Can we fix it?” I said, even though I was already pretty sure of the answer.

  Tobias’s shoulders slumped.

  “Not unless you’ve got a magic wand,” he said. “The truck’s dead.”

  We’d only been worrying about keeping our supplies safe—it hadn’t occurred to us that someone might wreck the truck itself.

  “The guys in town,” Gav said. “You think they did this to get back at us?”

  I hugged myself. “Or to take what we have. They couldn’t overpower us all at once. And they couldn’t get into the truck. So they’ve stopped us from leaving while they decide what to do next.” Like they were predators and we were the prey. They’d wounded us, and they were just waiting for the best opportunity to strike a killing blow.

  Tobias started to pace. “We shouldn’t have left it,” he said. “What the hell do I do now?”

  “What do we do, you mean,” Tessa said quietly.

  “We walk,” Leo said. He jerked his hand toward the truck. “There’s a tent in there, we’ve got the camping stove and food and warm clothing. We’ll manage. But I say we get out of here before whoever’s after us comes back with help.”

  “We’re going to walk all the way to Ottawa?” Meredith said, her mouth twisting as if she’d tasted something sour.

  We were almost halfway there already. I swallowed. “It’d be practically just as far trying to walk back to the island. And the vaccine won’t do anyone any good if we head back. Let’s figure how much we can carry, quickly, and get out of here.”

  “We can find another car on the road,” Gav said without batting an eye. “We’ll only have to walk until then.”

  I wished I could have been that confident now that our plan had just been turned on its head. His conviction steadied me. “We could bring more if we all had backpacks,” I said. I’d spotted two canvas ones among Tobias’s army supplies, but they would only hold so much.

  Tessa pointed to the discount store across the street. “I think I see sleds in the window. Those would carry a lot.”

  “If we have time to get them.” Leo scanned the buildings around us and jogged over to the gas-station shop. In a few smooth movements, he hoisted himself onto the dumpster by the side wall, leapt up to grasp the edge of the roof with his hands and elbows, and swung his knee up. After a brief scramble, he was standing.

  Tobias stared up at him. “You some kind of rock-climbing expert?”

  “Dancer,” Leo said. He turned, surveying the town and the freeway beyond. “I don’t see anyone right now. Grab the sleds. I’ll shout if there’s a problem.”

  “Hey, are you helping, or are you going to stand around and moan while we get going?” Gav said to Tobias. Tobias’s jaw set. As he clambered after Gav to sort through the supplies, I turned to Meredith.

  “Come on, Mere,” I said, as brightly as I could manage. Her body stiffened, but she pressed her lips together and nodded. She, Tessa, and I hurried toward the discount store.

  The lock on the door was broken, probably by someone looking for food, but they hadn’t touched the sleds. We pulled down six of the biggest ones that had ropes to pull them by and ran back to the truck. The plastic bottoms rasped over the snow behind us.

  Leo gave us the okay gesture from the roof. “So we have to take the tent,” Gav was saying. He started handing boxes and bags out to us. “And those two sleeping bags, and all the blankets. The food—let’s fill the packs with that. Some of the water. We can refill the bottles.”

  “I have some purification tablets,” Tobias said. “Here, we’ll want the first-aid kit, and the stove and the extra kerosene. And the radio, of course.”

  “I don’t think there are any stations to listen to these days,” Gav said.

  “It’s a transceiver,” Tobias sa
id. “A good one. Maybe we can get in touch with these scientists in Ottawa, if they’re there; get them to meet us halfway.”

  Gav gave him a skeptical look. “We got room?” he asked me.

  “I think so.” I took the bag of blankets and fit it into the sled I was keeping light for Meredith. “There’s space on that one,” I said, pointing to the next sled over.

  “We’re bringing it,” Tobias said. “I’ll take that sled if it’s a problem for someone else.”

  “You think there are any army bases on the way that could help us?” I asked him. “Lend us a new truck, at least?”

  Tobias ducked his head. “No one came to check up on us for weeks,” he said. “We weren’t getting any broadcasts on the usual bandwidths, either. I think it was the same thing everywhere. People got sick, or ran away, or holed up just hoping to get by.”

  “There were soldiers at the border,” Leo said. “As soon as a few of them got the virus, most of them deserted.”

  I wasn’t surprised, after seeing how the soldiers who’d been supposed to enforce the quarantine had run off, but his words made me colder. We really were alone in this.

  “Vaccine,” Gav said, sliding the cold box to me. I placed it carefully in the middle of my sled and then went to the front of the truck to grab the map book.

  “There are a bunch of little towns down the road, one every few miles,” I said after I’d flipped to the area we’d stopped in. “Maybe we won’t even need to camp outside.”

  “I won’t argue with that,” Gav said. He came over and slid his arm around my waist. “Ready?” he asked softly.

  “Yeah,” I said, despite the nervous thudding of my heart. He hugged me close, a silent reassurance: We can do this. We will make it. I leaned my head against his shoulder, allowing myself a second’s comfort. Any lingering guilt I’d felt over Leo’s kiss melted away. All that mattered was getting through this, and I was so, so thankful I had Gav with me while we did.

  Leo slid down off the roof onto the dumpster, and then to the ground, rejoining us. “Whatever they’re thinking of pulling on us, they’re taking their time,” he said. “Let’s not give them any more.”