by John L. Monk
“Jack, in here!”
He rushed forward into a candle-lit room, prepared for the worst and wishing for anything but what he saw. Lying on a king-size bed was the paper-thin body of a woman next to an adult male corpse.
“How can she still be alive?” he said in horror.
“She’s not,” Lisa said. “He is.”
Jack jerked back in fright—the so-called corpse was a man in the last stages of the Sickness. His mouth worked open and shut, dragging in painful gasps for air, and his body was covered in sores. The woman on the bed had died some time ago and had simply dried out next to her husband.
Jack’s parents had agreed not to let it progress this far. His mom ended his dad’s suffering after he’d lost the ability to eat or drink. A few days ago, she told Jack she loved him, zipped herself into a sleeping bag, and followed his dad into death by her own hand.
The green-haired girl was beside the bed on her knees, praying under her breath in a mumbled rush.
“Hey,” he said. “You, uh … You should get out of here. There’s no … Your dad, he …”
Lisa looked at him and shook her head.
He couldn’t say the simple truth: there was no hope here. The girl wasn’t paying attention to him in any event. She just prayed and rocked.
Lisa retreated to the living room, and Jack followed her.
“What now?” he said.
Her eyes flashed angrily. “Oh, I’m suddenly in charge?”
Jack started to reply but she stopped him.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just … my parents. They looked that way. Mom … she was so thin when she died. I carried her down three flights by myself. We buried her first. The hole wasn’t deep enough for the … to stop the dogs from …” She turned around and shook in a series of short, wracking sobs.
“Let’s go outside,” he said.
She nodded and followed him out.
“Sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I haven’t cried this much in years.”
“I tried crying, once,” Jack said. “Just to see what it was like.”
She glanced at him, smiled a little, and slid down into a seated position against the wall. “We can’t leave her in there.”
“I’d ask her to join us,” he said, “but she won’t leave her dad. Not until he’s gone. The way he looked, it can’t be that long. She’d be a good addition to the group.” He looked back inside. “I mean, for her age. No idea how her head’s doing.”
Lisa nodded.
They waited like that for a while, not talking. The girl didn’t show up, and the door was still open.
“Lisa,” he said at one point, choosing his words carefully. “When you said eight kids attacked you guys and only six left … did you mean that the way it sounded?”
She nodded.
“Can I ask who did it?”
“Me,” she said in a light voice. “Greg took the bodies in my dad’s car and put them in the dumpster.”
Jack nodded thoughtfully. There was probably no delicate way to ask her to kill the man in apartment. And what kind of coward was he, that he couldn’t do it himself?
Lisa snorted and glanced at him in disgust. “I’m not going to euthanize that man, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He shook his head. “Totally not thinking that.”
A few minutes later, he got up and walked back inside. He found the girl lying on the ground next to the bed, staring off into space. Her father, unfortunately, was still breathing. It couldn’t be much longer.
“Hey, you—kid,” Jack said. “We have a group, but we need more people. Your dad, though … He’s not going to make it, and I’m sorry about that. None of the adults do. I don’t think he has much longer.”
The girl didn’t reply.
He tried again. “We’re a good group. Nice folks. We need more help. If you want to come, there’s a spot for you.”
He hated how lame he sounded. Insensitive. Lisa would have done a better job.
The girl hadn’t been crying when they’d first walked in. Now her cheeks gleamed wetly in the flickering candlelight.
“So, if you’re interested,” he said. “You know, after … We’re down at the Rolling Meadows Welcome Center. There’s heat, food, and other people for protection. We’re leaving for a better place soon, so you need to hurry. Two days, tops, and then we’re gone. Okay? Can you nod if you understand?”
A minute later, when she didn’t nod or get up, Jack stepped quietly from the room. Then he and Lisa left.
10
They returned to Rolling Meadows by cutting through a duplex community. Jack had lost the heart to continue their search after seeing the girl and her doomed father, and Lisa clearly felt the same.
When they turned the corner at the end of the long block of garden-style apartments, they saw a group of about ten people in front of the Welcome Center. Boys and girls, and no little kids. For a moment, he thought maybe Tony and Greg had wildly succeeded in bringing in more people. But then he saw some of them had pistols clenched carelessly in their hands. And though none of them was tall with red hair, he knew what he was looking at.
“Do you see Greg?” Lisa said, squinting against the afternoon sun.
Jack said, “Nope. Nobody else, either. Maybe they’re still out recruiting.”
“I hope so. What do we do?”
“Oh, I’m in charge now?” Jack said, more from a sense of nervousness than a desire to be funny.
Lisa smiled tightly. “We have the drop on them. How many rounds does that rifle carry?”
His mouth felt dry. “Thirty in the magazine.”
“Do you want me to do it? I can spare you that.”
Jack sucked in a long, steadying breath and shook his head. “I’ve had more practice. From a distance I—”
A girl in a puffy orange coat pointed their way and shouted something. As one, her companions turned to look. One raised a pistol and fired, causing Jack and Lisa to crouch automatically. The shooter was too far away for anything like accuracy, but he could still get lucky.
The two friends ran back around the corner to bangs and cracks as more joined in. A short-term solution. The complex was like Swiss cheese, with covered walkways running through the middle connecting parking lots on either side. Unless they fled the neighborhood, they’d be surrounded in no time.
Jack had cleared the rifle back at the girl’s apartment and topped off the mag. Now he chambered a new round, this time without engaging the safety. When the first kids appeared—a boy and a girl—he sighted on the boy and fired, jerking some at the recoil. The boy went down and didn’t move.
Jack hoped the girl would run, but she didn’t. She raised a pistol and fired as fast as she could.
BAM BAM BAM!
Jack grabbed Lisa and pulled her back around the corner under a shower of stinging splinters.
“Over there,” she said, pointing across the street at a set of dumpsters nestled in a concrete niche.
Wordlessly, they took up positions on either side of the one labeled “Cardboard Only” and aimed their weapons. There was a terrible smell coming from it—one he recognized from the houses he’d searched for car keys. Supposedly, Greg had dumped two bodies here from the first assault on the Welcome Center.
Not ten seconds later, armed pursuers came boiling around both corners of the building.
Jack didn’t hesitate this time—he ruthlessly cut them down. Loud as it was, he could hear Lisa’s shots as well. Boys and girls fell dead in the grass. Two who survived the onslaught fired back, their bullets clanging loudly against the steel of the dumpsters. The rest ran away. For the ones that kept firing, he spared none. The shooters quickly fell to the devastating accuracy of the rifle, and soon the field was empty but for the lingering haze of gun smoke and a lawn littered with broken bodies.
The muscles in Jack’s neck tightened of their own volition, like when he’d once had a stomach virus, and suddenly he was on his knees throwing up. Li
sa came over and held him.
Between heaves Jack said, “Can’t … stop … puking.”
He attempted a humorless laugh, trying to be strong for her. For them. Shackleton wouldn’t have thrown up. What a disaster for the crew of the Endurance if he had.
“Shh, Jack, just take it easy. We’re okay now,” she said. “You did what you had to. Those idiots would have killed us.”
A minute later, when the spasms had passed, he said, “Was it like this for you the first time?”
Lisa wiped his mouth with her coat sleeve, her expression blank.
“Different,” she said.
He waited for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he forced his gaze back to the lawn on the other side of the road. Near one of the still shapes, a little sign poked up admonishing people to clean up after their dogs. Five lives, and a sixth around back. Kids who should have been talking about football and YouTube and “doing it” and whatever nonsense flitted through their stupid, cabbage brains.
“Come on,” he said, getting up. “Let’s go see.”
The entrance to the Welcome Center was littered with broken glass, and what glass remained in the doors was riddled with bullet holes. The doors hadn’t been locked, but the gang had shot them up anyway.
“I think they’re the same ones from last time,” Lisa said, nudging a large piece of glass with her sneaker. “Trying to prove a point.”
The first thing Jack noticed on entering were droplets of blood scattered in the foyer, but the entryway was free of anything but glass and bullet holes. No bodies. The party room was similarly shot up, with stuffing from pillows scattered everywhere. No bodies, and no blood.
It didn’t add up.
“No sign of the children,” he said. “Or Pete.”
Lisa went to check the rental office. Moments later she called out, “Jack, come look!”
The room had been smashed up. There were scratches and gouges from gunshots on the face of the safe—and a thin trail of blood leading to the entryway.
“They shot the safe,” she said. “Looks like a bullet bounced off and hit one of them.”
“Least they didn’t get it open,” he said.
She tried the dial and swore. “Those … those idiots!”
“What now?” Jack said.
“The stupid dial’s broken! I can’t get in.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Our food’s in there!”
He wanted to reach out and reassure her but thought she’d bite his arm off.
“Your brother’s still out there,” he said. “That’s way more important.”
That seemed to snap her back. “Greg—oh, God! Surely he must have heard the shots.”
Thinking of the bullet-riddled glass and busted safe, he said, “We didn’t hear them.” It must have happened when they were inside with the girl and her dad.
Lisa opened her mouth to reply, and then the sound of an automobile came rumbling from outside. Raising her pistol, she looked at him, her face angry and set.
“I’ll check. You stay here,” Jack said and crept to the entryway. A moment later, he called back, “It’s Pete!”
Pete got out of the car and said, “What happened to the door? We heard shots. Are those bullet holes?”
Jack said, “Never mind that. Are the children with you?”
“What? Yeah, back seat. And I got that stuff you wanted.” He stared fearfully around as if expecting gunmen to parachute in at any moment.
Quickly, Jack explained everything that had happened.
“Have you seen my brother?” Lisa said.
Pete shook his head. “We left before them. I found lots of great stuff.”
“I don’t care!” she yelled and stormed back inside.
Pete recoiled as if slapped. “What the heck’s her problem?”
“Never mind,” Jack said. “So what’d you get?”
Pete smiled broadly. “A little food, some nice backpacks. Some pills like you asked for. But check it out: there’s a guy five buildings down. He locked his door and left. We definitely want this guy.”
“What’s he look like? I’ll talk to him,” Jack said. He didn’t know what to feel more pleased about. That there was an unaffiliated teenager nearby who wasn’t comatose with grief, or that Pete was using words like we when talking about their group.
“Tall, black, big muscles,” Pete said. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you there.”
Jack shook his head. “We still need to wait for Greg.”
Pete stared at him blankly, then nodded in realization. “That girl’s brother.”
“Her name’s Lisa.”
“Oh yeah. What do we do with the stuff I got?”
“Leave it for now. I need you to grab your blanket and give me a hand.”
Pete ran in to get it. When he came back, they went to the scene of the gun battle. His eyes widened in horror at the grisly scene.
“Oh, Jesus!” he said, cringing away when Jack searched the nearest body.
“Just lay the blanket down and stack whatever you find,” Jack said, coming back with a small caliber pistol and an extra magazine.
Pete dropped the blanket in a heap, shaking his head.
“No way,” he said. “I’m not touching dead people!” Without warning, he ran back to the Welcome Center.
Jack was both irritated and relieved. Irritated because he could have used the help. Relieved because now he could cringe his way through the ghoulish task without anyone witnessing his distress. A leader had to project invincibility, even if it was just make believe.
Five minutes later, he’d gathered eight handguns, maybe a hundred loose bullets, six more magazines, and no food. The bodies were too large and too many for him to haul to the dumpsters and dispose of by himself. When Greg got back, Jack would ask him to help. He didn’t want the little kids finding them.
Pete’s haul from the apartments was considerably more lucrative. He’d gotten a pile of key rings, some fishing gear for Jack, gold chains for Tony, a few pistols and boxes of ammo, and a small assortment of boxed and canned food. He’d also brought back a trash bag full of prescription pills, none of which were recognizable as antibiotics. There were a good deal of pain meds, though. Jack stowed those away in his almost-empty pack, left the rest in the garbage bag, and gave that to Pete to dispose of. He didn’t want any of the children getting into it and thinking it was candy.
“Any trouble getting in the apartments?” Jack said.
“Most of the doors were already open,” Pete said, eyeing him warily, as if any moment Jack would ask him to touch a dead body. “Used the crowbar on the others. Really hard—it’s super heavy.”
“What about apartments with dead people?”
Pete shook his head. “Mandy went in those. She doesn’t mind the smell.”
It bothered him that Pete was so quick to risk the girl’s health and sanity rather than do it himself, but held off saying anything so soon after the attack. They had enough to worry about.
He found Lisa in the rental office working on the safe.
“How’s it looking?” he said.
She’d removed the broken dial from the door and was busily turning the metal rod with a pair of pliers.
“Not as bad as I thought,” she said. “It still spins. But without the dial, there’s no way to measure each turn. Maybe with some kind of disk and a little superglue …” She turned back to the safe, twisting the rod around slowly, then sighed and stood up. “So yeah, that’s what I need.”
“Should be easy enough,” Jack said.
A commotion sounded from outside.
“They’re here, they’re here!” Mandy yelled on the way out the door.
Jack and Lisa emerged to a scene as joyful as it was disheartening. Tony and Greg had definitely brought in new people to fill their ranks. Five of them. The problem was: most were between four and seven years old, and the oldest looked to be about eight or nine.
“I know what you�
��re thinking,” Greg said when he saw their faces, “but what could I do? This place we found was full of them. They were wandering in and out. They were starving.”
They certainly appeared to be starving. Skin and bones, the lot of them, with dirty clothes and grimy faces.
Quietly Jack said, “We can’t save everyone, man. It’ll be hard enough saving ourselves.”
“Yeah, I know, but … oh, jeez,” Greg said, taking in the shattered front doors. “What happened here?”
11
Standing near the door to the teenager’s apartment with Pete and Tony, Jack considered the best way to make his pitch—provided the boy was back home. According to Pete, he’d locked his door and left three hours ago.
“Do you remember if he was armed?” Jack said.
Pete shrugged. “He might have been.”
“How could you not remember?” Tony said.
Pete sat on the stairs and folded his arms. “Because I don’t.”
“You’re not coming?” Jack said.
He shook his head. “If he has a gun, he could freak out and shoot us.”
“If you’re so scared,” Jack said, “how did find him in the first place?”
“Mandy saw him when she was checking doors.”
That was odd. “Where were you?”
“Downstairs waiting. He went out the front, so I didn’t get a good look.”
Jack couldn’t believe it. “You let a little girl roam the floors by herself?”
“I told her to run if she didn’t feel safe,” Pete said. “Get off my case.”
Tony didn’t hold back. “Man, you’re a little baby, that’s what you are.”
“Oh yeah?” Pete said, standing up. “Say it to my face!”
Tony shoved him, and Jack had to step between them. “Knock it off. We’re here for a job.”
The two boys glared at each other a moment more and then settled down.
“Come on,” Jack said, and went to stand outside the door. “Keep your gun holstered, but be ready, and … Wait a minute—you any good with it?”
“I shot it a bunch of times,” Tony said, puffing his chest out fractionally. “It’s easy.”
