“They coming in?” Luke called from around the corner at the end of the hall.
“Soon, I think.”
The hail of bullets petered out and then stopped completely.
I peeked back around the corner at the door, which now looked like swiss cheese. There was no movement.
“Is everybody loaded and ready?” I asked as quietly as possible.
Luke put his head around the corner and nodded before holding out a toner cartridge with a blasting cap taped to it. The fuse was half a foot long.
“I say we light this bad boy and slide it down the hall before they break in,” Luke said. “I bet it’ll give them a hell of a surprise.”
I saw another shadow at the window. They obviously assumed whoever was on the other side was dead or had run off. The arm came through the window again, scrabbling blindly for the bar that would open it.
“Do it!” I mouthed and watched as he lit the fuse with a lighter and slid the toner cartridge down the hall toward the door. It whizzed by me and came to rest in the broken glass a few feet in front of the doors, the lit fuse sputtering like those on one of the bombs from a Looney Tunes cartoon.
I left my position and ran down the hall past Luke.
“Come on,” I yelled.
He followed right on my heels; we were about halfway to the side door when we heard the ink bomb go off behind us with a loud bang. We had no way of knowing if it had hurt, or even slowed down, any of the Tigers, but the sound of the explosion gave my heart a quick jolt of excitement.
I felt a strange elation and suddenly understood the term ‘adrenalin junkie.’
3
The cloying fog still lay thickly about the alley as Luke and I hurried to the truck. Sonny confirmed that there had been no sign of the Tigers. It surprised me. Obviously they knew the truck was here, Chen had specifically mentioned it. Maybe he didn’t expect Sonny to run? Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter; it just made our life a little easier for a minute or two.
Luke and I checked the back to make sure everybody was inside and ready. They had done a good job of packing; boxes of gear had been stacked up and strapped against the side walls. It would offer little protection in the event of an all-out attack but might protect against a stray bullet here and there.
Someone had the good sense to hang ropes from the metal meshing that lined the roof of the cargo bay, and Sonny was directing everybody to wrap the ropes around their wrists and grip them to offer some stability against the movement of the truck. I gave him the thumbs up before we pulled down the door and secured it.
Luke and I rushed to the cab where Indigo was already waiting for us. Being a local, she had volunteered to navigate us out of the city in place of the injured Sonny. She moved into the middle and Luke and I climbed in on either side of her. She looked nervous, gripping the revolver I had given her tightly, as if she was ready to use it at any second.
“I haven’t spotted anyone,” she said, indicating the end of the alleyway in the distance. “But that might be because of the fog. You better hurry.”
I started the truck with the intention of letting it warm up for a few minutes, but my hand was forced when a figure materialized out of the fog in the alley. He took one look and then ran out of sight, presumably to go and tell Chen of our impending escape.
I gunned the engine and the truck lurched forward. I’m embarrassed to say I took out a few garbage bins along the way and, at one point, the wing mirror on the passenger side scraped along the brick wall as we picked up speed and barreled down the alley.
I didn’t know whether there would be Tigers waiting for us at the end of the alley or not, but I knew I wouldn’t be stopping if they were stupid enough to try and block our escape by standing in the way. I slowed only slightly as we approached the mouth of the alley.
“Turning right is the quickest way to get to a freeway,” Indigo said, her voice tight with tension.
“I know, but that’ll take us right past the front door,” I replied. “They’ll shoot at us for sure, and from that range they won’t miss.”
“Left, then, and around the block,” she suggested. I nodded and took my foot off the brake pedal.
The truck was speeding up again when a figure appeared out of the fog to the right. It was Chen. His right hand and the sleeve of his jacket were covered in black ink. I didn’t have time to gloat because that same ink-covered hand was holding a handgun, which he was calmly raising toward us. My eyes met his and I saw him bare his teeth as he began firing at the truck. I flinched, trying to make myself as small a target as possible while Luke and Indigo ducked under the dashboard.
He was either a bad shot, or he was trying to disable the truck rather than kill us. The passenger side window was shattered by one of the rounds, and others thudded into the front and doors of the truck. I gritted my teeth and drove the truck straight at him. He jumped out of the way just before I struck him and I swung left, taking the corner way too fast.
Indigo and Luke yelled like they were on a rollercoaster as the truck tilted dangerously and then righted itself before I accelerated down the street and away from the academy and the Tigers. By the time I checked the rearview mirror, Chen was lost in the fog behind us.
“Everybody up here all right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Luke said, brushing broken glass off his lap and onto the floor. “Looks like the printer paper armor worked great.”
“Indigo?”
“Yes, I’m alright,” she said, her voice solemn. “Without a window, this is going to be a pretty cold ride.”
“Turn the heat up. It might help some. Luke, help me keep a watch behind us. I’m going to drive around randomly for a while in case we are being chased.”
“No problem, man,” Luke said, his eyes glued to the passenger side mirror. He reached out and adjusted it so he could see out of it better, making it useless to me as a driving aid.
We hurtled through the fog, although perhaps the term hurtled is a little ambitious. On a brumous day like that one, doing 30 miles an hour was pushing it. Brumous? Oh yeah, that’s one of my favorite words. It’s one I learned when I was reading dictionaries and thesauruses for fun, back when I was a kid. Nerdy, huh? Well, blame my Mom. She was an English teacher. Anyway, it means ‘of gray skies and winter days; filled with heavy clouds or fog’ – cold, sunless weather, in other words.
Throw in the snow and ice, and the day we left the academy sure fits that definition; in fact, it could well be the most brumous of all the brumous days I’ve ever experienced.
After making random rights and lefts for 10 or 12 blocks, there was still no sign of pursuit and I was becoming thoroughly lost. The truck’s CB had sputtered a few times, but it appeared the Chinese were not talking too much that morning either, probably waiting for the fog to burn off, I guessed. Finally, I stopped the truck at an intersection.
“I think that’s enough weaving to throw them off the scent. Which way from here, Indigo?”
She took a few moments to take in our surroundings.
“Um, if you make a U-turn and go back to the last intersection, turn left there and it’ll put you on Park Avenue. That should take us all the way north out of the city before it meets up with I-190.”
“Sounds good,” I said, putting the truck in drive and pulling forward and to the right. A U-turn was impossible, so I stopped again and put it in reverse, doing a three-point turn in the middle of the intersection. “Let’s get this party started.”
To be honest, I was glad Indigo was the one who sat in front to give directions. Just having her sitting near me up in the cab made me feel good inside, you know, warm and fuzzy, even though it was damn cold with Luke’s window busted out. I was surprised to even be thinking about girls, considering how much danger we were in.
We found Park Avenue easily enough, exactly where Indigo said it would be, and I turned in the direction she indicated. The further north we went, the thicker the fog became, to the point where I could
barely make out the buildings along the street. I had to slow down considerably; I didn’t want to collide with abandoned cars or any other obstacles. The visibility was so poor that I wouldn’t be able to stop in time, even going as slow as 25 miles an hour.
While we kept our eyes peeled for any movement or signs of pursuit, we chatted as the truck crawled northward on Park. My earlier assessment of Indigo was only reinforced by our conversation. She was easily the most amazing person I had ever met. I must admit to being a bit jealous that day though, because it became apparent that Indigo understood a lot more of Luke’s video game references than I did. It was also the first time I recall Luke talking about his sister, Rose.
When his parents divorced four years ago, Rose was five, and the courts split custody... Luke had stayed with his father, while Rose had gone with their mother to Chicago. Luke even mentioned going to Chicago to find Rose, talking about it like some sort of grand quest in his future. I personally had my doubts about the feasibility of such an undertaking but could totally understand his urge to try. Talking about her made me think of my family again, and I quickly buried the painful emotions that came with that memory.
It was lucky I had decided to take the way out of the city at a crawl. Three separate times in the first six or eight blocks of travel along Park Avenue, we had to weave around vehicles in the road. If we had tried to leave at high speed in the thick fog, we would almost certainly have collided with one of them.
I thought about the highway-turned-parking lot back at Fort Carter and I wondered if we would encounter a similar mess when we finally found the freeway entrance from Worcester. I didn’t think so; the Chinese appeared to be much more active in this state and would almost certainly have begun clearing the freeways for their own purposes... just as we heard they had been clearing the bodies from Warwick using American children as slave labor.
The silence and the emptiness of the drive through the city was surreal. I was finally beginning to feel a little bit better about the prospects of getting out of there safely when we heard the muffled roar of motorcycles echoing over the sound of the truck.
“Crap!” said Luke.
“I think the Tigers are on our tail again,” Indigo said.
“A street gang who rides motorcycles?” Luke said, his voice incredulous. “Come on!”
“If it is, we could be in trouble,” I said, looking into my side mirror to see if I could make out any shapes in the thick fog behind us. I knew it was useless, they’d be almost on top of us before we saw them. “I’m worried about the guys in the back if they come up behind us.”
While the supplies packed along the outer walls would provide some protection for gunfire hitting the sides of the truck, for obvious reasons, there was nothing against the back door of the truck. All that stood between the passengers and potential bullets coming from behind was a rolling door that had not been designed to stop them.
“You could pull off at the next intersection and we could wait for them to pass,” Luke said. “There’s no guarantee it’s the Tigers anyway... how could they realistically be tracking us down in this fog? Maybe it’s someone else?”
“It’s them,” I said. He didn’t argue. “I don’t want to be a sitting duck on the side of the road when they find us. The least we can do is give them a moving target.”
“I think Luke is right,” Indigo interjected. “Not about it being someone else – it’s the Tigers for sure. But I think we should take a side street and let them pass. We shouldn’t wait too long, though, the fog will hide us for a while, but I think it would be a good idea if we were well out of the city by the time it burns off.”
I looked at both of them.
“You sure?”
They both nodded, and I slowed the truck and turned right at the next intersection. We drove a block before pulling the truck to the side of the street.
“Did anyone notice the name of the street we’re on?” asked Indigo. “I lost my bearings a little in the fog.”
We hadn’t.
“Should I shut the truck off?” I asked. I was worried the rumbling of the engine would carry in the fog just as the roar of the motorcycles did.
“Yeah, why don’t you go ahead and shut it down for a few minutes, Isaac? I’m going to jump out and find out what road we’re on.”
“Okay but be careful.”
Luke hopped out of the truck and jogged into the fog. A couple of minutes later, he was back at the passenger side door and we heard the motorcycles passing the intersection where we had turned. They had only been about a minute and a half behind us and I was glad I’d gone with the majority and stopped. Luke climbed back into the cab.
“We’re on Foster Street.”
“Okay, good. I thought we were here, but the fog makes it look so different,” Indigo said. “If we go another block and then turn left, we should be on a street that leads back onto Park.”
“I like the sound of that,” Luke said. “We don’t have to sit here and wait, I’d rather get moving again right away.”
“That’s the sort of enthusiasm I like to hear,” I said, switching the truck back on as the sound of our pursuers faded into the distance.
“Enthusiasm nothing,” Indigo giggled. “I think Luke realized the heater doesn’t work when the truck’s not running.”
“Well, there is that, too,” Luke said with a grin.
“This road curls around, so in about another mile and a half it will merge onto Park Avenue,” said Indigo.
“Okay, sounds good.”
And it did, until we factored in the fog and the slow driving speed. At least we didn’t have to try and outrun motorcycles.
“This kind of reminds me of the set up for an old PC game,” Luke said, his eyes peering intently ahead through the thick fog blanketing us. “By old, I mean real old... I found it in a box of my dad’s old games and had to run this emulator thing to get it to work on our computer. It started out with a group of people getting lost in a thick fog like this and getting transported to a magical world.”
“We should be so lucky,” I said, as I steered around a minivan sitting directly in the middle of the street.
“I don’t know, man,” Luke replied. “That magical world was full of dragons and vampires and other nasty shit. I don’t know how long we’d last there.”
“That’s a tough choice,” Indigo said. “Dragons and vampires or Tigers and enemy soldiers. They sound just as bad as each other, if you ask me.”
“Yeah, I’d probably take a vampire over Chen. He kind of looks like he wants to rip my throat out anyway,” I said.
“Hmmm,” said Luke. “Maybe he’s in the fog waiting to jump on the truck and pull you out through the window.”
It was said lightly, but I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. The empty, fog shrouded streets were creepy, and my unease was compounded by Luke’s very descriptive remark. I think he sensed my discomfort.
“Sorry, all this fog just reminded me of the game, that’s all.”
“No worries. Was it a good game?” I asked.
“It was pretty good, considering it was ancient and the graphics were pretty crap.”
It seemed my pensive mood was contagious and all of us were silent as we crawled two more blocks.
There was a question in my mind, but I wasn’t going to raise it in our current situation. The question of why we hadn’t seen any dead bodies in the streets, except for a handful in snow-covered cars.
Probably because the virus, the Pyongyang Flu, was pretty slow-acting on an individual basis. If Alan and Eleanor were any guide, the infected adults had gotten ill up to twenty-four hours or so before they died. If so, it figured most of them would have died indoors, tucked up in bed as their children tried to care for them.
And the children? One had to assume that the younger ones were probably still locked inside with their dead parents, and the older ones, like us, were holed up waiting for help, or wandering around trying to make their way in t
his new world.
That, or they were already slaves to the Chinese.
A fresh wave of hatred for the Chinese government washed over me. Hatred for what they had done to the people of America. All so that they could have room for their ever-increasing population. It wasn’t about race. China might have operated like a capitalist society over the last 20 years, but it was, without a doubt, a ruthless totalitarian regime, and as Huian had intimated, no one had a choice once the leaders had decided to attack America.
I made a silent promise to make them pay whenever and wherever I could.
I noticed a bright spot overhead. The sun was wrestling the weather for dominance of the day and it appeared it would be just a matter of time before the thick, cloying mist began to dissipate.
Will we make it out of Worcester before that? I wondered.
“There were some good things about it, I guess,” Luke said, breaking the silence. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the game again. “If you could get past the antiquated graphics, some of the quests and dialogue options were pretty fun.”
“Tell us about it.”
I thought Luke’s prattling might be a good way to relieve some of the increasing tension in the cab of the truck. Indigo was sitting stiffly in her seat, her hand gripping the dash, obviously on edge.
“As best I can recall, you created some people to be your adventurers and when the game started you were guardsmen of a kingdom sent to investigate a mysterious fog.”
“Guardsman in a kingdom? I thought you said the fog transported you to a magical land in the game,” I said.
“I did. But you sort of started in one as well; the mist moved you to a different magical land, because when the fog lifts you are in a desert city with Egyptian-style monuments, rather than the European-style medieval setting the game started out with.”
The America Falls Series: Books 1-3 : America Falls Box Set 1 Page 18
