by Cross, Amy
The white bridge. That's where Mallory said she'd be. I make my way into the park and start walking to where I think she meant. After a couple of minutes, I realize that I'm obediently sticking to the paths rather than cutting across the grass; even though I know there's no-one around to yell at me for doing the wrong thing, I decide to remain on the path even if it takes me longer. Somehow, it just feels right to do things like this. Besides, I'm worried about getting lost in the dark; with only the moonlight to guide me, I could easily end up wandering around for hours, especially now that it's clear the small fire is just a burning bin sitting out alone in the open.
Eventually, however, I spot another light up ahead, and I see the small white bridge illuminated by a welcoming orange glow from the other side. Picking up the pace slightly, I hurry along the path, ignoring the constant clicks and purrs that I imagine in the darkness. When I get to the bridge, I realize I can hear voices, and soon I see them: a dozen or so people, huddled around a burning oil drum, locked in what seems to be a pretty animated group discussion. As I get closer, I spot Mallory, sitting slightly back from the others and looking as if she doesn't quite belong. I stop and stare at her, and I can't help but wonder whether it was a mistake to come here.
"Elizabeth!" she calls out, suddenly looking over at me. Running down the side of the bridge, she throws her arms around me, acting as if she's pleased to see me. I can barely see her in the darkness, and frankly I'm a little taken aback by her enthusiasm. "I didn't think you'd come," she says, letting go and stepping back. "Are you okay?"
I nod.
"You don't look okay."
I take a deep breath. "Is anyone okay right now?"
She smiles and grabs my hand, leading me over to the others. "You can tell me later," she whispers, with a knowing look in her eyes. "Hey, guys! This is Elizabeth! Remember I told you about her? She's the one who helped me get away from the guy who tied me to a fucking chair. I told you she might come and say hi, and now here she is!"
"Is that right?" says a man nearby, as he stands up and walks toward me. "We've heard a lot about you over the past day, Elizabeth. Mallory says you saved her life."
"Oh," I reply, a little taken aback. "I don't know if that's quite what happened."
"I'm pretty sure it is," Mallory says.
"Not many people can say they saved another person's life," the guy continues, reaching out and shaking my hand. "My name's Jonathan Kendricks."
"He's our leader," Mallory says.
"I'm not sure that's quite accurate," Kendricks says with a smile. "We don't have a leader here."
"He's being modest," Mallory adds. "This is the guy who helped up come up with a plan. Without him, we wouldn't all be working together like this."
"There's strength in numbers," Kendricks continues. "Everyone has a strength. They just have to find it and acknowledge it, and then bring it to the fore." He steps aside and indicates the group of people gathered around the fire. "Won't you join us, Elizabeth? It's not much, but we're more than happy to share."
Smiling awkwardly, I hurry closer to the fire. There's a part of me that hates the idea of coming here and immediately letting these people help me; at the same time, the walk to Central Park was so cold, I feel like I'm on the verge of hypothermia. As I warm myself, I look over at the other people gathered nearby and I realize they're all staring at me with different expressions; there's an older man who looks shocked by my appearance, and a younger guy who looks as if he's a little suspicious, and a middle-aged woman who looks too tired to really give a damn. I can't help wondering if some of them are a little resentful of the way I've just shown up and started warming myself by their fire.
"Ask her," says one of the others suddenly.
"She's not," Mallory says.
"Ask her!" says another person gathered around the fire.
"She's not!" Mallory says again, raising her voice.
"It's okay," Kendricks says, stepping closer to me. "I'll do it." He smiles. "Elizabeth, there's something I need to ask you. As you might be aware, there's a kind of virus going around. We're not absolutely certain about how it works or even what it does, and so far it seems as if it's not easily transmissible to a certain group of people, but we still need to be sure, so..." He pauses for a moment. "Are you sick, Elizabeth?"
"No," I say.
"Are you sure? Do you have any symptoms of anything at all? Coughing? Fatigue? Any kind of rash?"
I shake my head.
"We should check her," says one of the others.
"It's okay," Kendricks says, "I can deal with it. Elizabeth, Mallory says you've been in close contact with some other people. Your brother and another man, is that right?"
I nod.
"Did either of them show any sign of sickness?"
"No."
"Nothing at all?"
"Nothing."
"And you're sure you don't feel sick?"
"I'm sure."
He narrows his eyes as he stares silently at me for a moment. "Then that's good enough for me," he says eventually.
"What if she's a carrier?" one of the other voices asks.
"If the virus was passed on so easily, we'd all be dead by now," Kendricks replies. "Do you really have to have this same discussion every time someone new arrives? We talked about all of this two days ago when Susan joined us." He turns to Mallory. "Give her some food. She looks like she's about to faint."
"I'm not tired," I reply. Frankly, I feel so strung out and wired, I don't know if I'll ever be able to sleep again.
"But you're hungry, right?" he continues.
I nod.
"Mallory, take her over to the stash and give her something to eat before she collapses."
"Wait," says another man. "She's our visitor now? Since when did we start giving away food?"
"It's just one sandwich," Kendricks replies.
"She wants to eat, she can find her own food," says one of the women. "What if a hundred people show up? Are we gonna feed them too?"
"We'll take a vote on it," says the other guy. "If you're in favor of giving this girl one of our sandwiches, raise your hand." No hands are raised. "If you're not in favor," he continues, "raise your hand." Half a dozen hands are raised. "Sorry, girl," the guy says, turning to me. "We're not giving you any of our food."
"Then she can have one of mine," Kendricks says. "Mallory, get a sandwich for Elizabeth and mark it off from my rations."
"Come on," Mallory says, grabbing my hand and leading me away from the group. "Ignore them," she says quietly. "Some of them are fucked in the head, and Kendricks is getting high on his own sense of importance."
"It's fine," I say. "I get it. Food's scarce. You can't just go handing out what you've got to everyone who wanders along."
"That's why we're getting out of here," she replies with a smile. "And you're coming with us."
Chapter Two
Oklahoma
"What do you mean?" I ask, using my arm to shield my eyes from the sun as I look over at Joe.
"I mean it won't start," he replies, leaning under the hood of the truck. "Just give me a minute..."
It's just after sunrise and we were supposed to be heading out of Scottsville, but now it seems that the truck - which was working perfectly well last night - has suddenly developed a fault. To say that this is suspicious timing would be an understatement; to be honest, it's stretching credulity to believe that this particular, hitherto totally reliable truck would go wrong just when we need it the most.
"Is the battery dead?" I ask.
"It's not the battery," he says, sounding annoyed.
"Is it the clutch?"
"No."
"Is it the alternator?"
"No!"
"Is it the -"
"Do you know how to fix stuff like this?" he asks, interrupting me.
"No," I say.
"So you're just randomly asking if it's things you've heard of?"
I pause for a moment. "I was just tryi
ng to help."
"Then leave it to someone who does. Make yourself useful. Go fetch me something to eat."
Sighing, I turn and walk around to the back of the truck, where our food is stashed in bags, covered by a tarpaulin. Something about this whole situation feels really wrong, and I can't stop wondering whether Clyde Langman has something to do with the problem that's hit the truck. After all, it was Clyde who persuaded Joe and me to stay for the night, and it was Clyde who made a half-hearted attempt to steal the truck yesterday. There's something about that guy that I don't trust, and I can tell Joe's skeptical as well.
"How can it just stop working?" I call back to Joe.
"I don't fucking know," he replies. "If I knew, I could fix it, couldn't I?"
"You guys got a problem?" Clyde asks, as he steps out of his front door. "I found an old ether cylinder you might be able to use."
"Truck won't start," I say, as I carry a piece of bread over to Joe.
"Won't start?" Clyde hurries over to join us. "What do you mean, it won't start? It was working perfectly fine yesterday!"
"We know," Joe mutters darkly.
"Maybe it's the fuel pick-up," Clyde suggests.
"Great," Joe mutters, "now there's two of 'em."
"Joe's good with vehicles," I tell Clyde. "It's what he's best at."
"Shut up," Joe replies. He pauses for a moment. "Part of being good with stuff is knowing when to try a different approach. I keep thinking that maybe we should just abandon the beauty and maybe see if we can borrow another vehicle."
"Borrow?" I ask.
"We don't need keys," Joe says. "All we need is the right two ends of the right two wires, and we're good to go."
"You know how to hot-wire a car?" Clyde continues, looking shocked.
Joe smiles. "I know how to do a lot of things, my friend," he says as he slams the hood down at the front of the truck and gives it a reassuring pat. "You know what? It's a fucking waste of time to start trying to fix this damn thing. What we need to do is we need to take a look around, find the fanciest fucking set of wheels in town, and commandeer them so we can get out of here. All those in favor, raise your hands." He holds his hand up, and a moment later Clyde cautiously does the same. "That's two votes in favor," Joe says, smiling at me. "Seems we've got the simple majority we need."
"You can't go around stealing cars," I say, watching as Joe wanders across the road, heading for a small van that's sitting slightly at an angle outside the convenience store.
"Who's gonna stop me?" Joe replies with a grin.
"Yeah, but you can't!" I say again.
"Watch me," Joe says, trying the door but evidently find it locked. "What's the phrase Mom used to use, Thomas? Needs must as the Devil drives? We're in a spot of bother here, and it'd sure do us good to be able to drive off to the next town. If these vehicles are sitting around with no-one using them, why shouldn't we see what we can do?" He stares at me for a moment. "I know your problem," he continues eventually. "You wanna leave things as we found them, just in case everything suddenly gets back to normal. Well, it's not happening, okay? These people aren't coming back. It's survival of the fittest, and I'm definitely one of the fittest."
"Your brother's a confident man," Clyde says quietly to me, looking a little uncomfortable. There's something skittish about this guy, as if he's hiding something. I've been suspicious of him from the start, and this sudden problem with the truck isn't helping.
"You don't know him," I reply.
"He's right, though," Clyde continues. "There's no-one that's gonna come and stop us from taking what we want. You really think a cop's gonna come round the corner and get in our faces?"
"So what do we do?" I ask, turning to Joe. "You want us to just go around looking for trucks to steal?"
"Bingo," Joe replies. "Think of it like you're in a big showroom and you've got a credit card with no limits. There's a few criteria, mind. We need something big, preferably something fairly new. If it looks cool, that's a bonus. Don't worry about whether or not the doors are open or any of that shit. We just need something substantial to get us down the road. You know what I'm saying?"
Shrugging, I turn and start walking along the street. Although I don't like the idea of stealing a truck, I want to get out of Scottsville. Something about the place really freaks me out, and I can't shake the feeling that we might not be alone here for too long. I keep thinking back to that cop who dragged himself to our house, and I keep expecting to see someone similar in the distance.
"Sucks about the truck, huh?" Clyde says as he follows me.
"Yeah," I reply, not wanting to get involved in a conversation right now.
"You know it's not my fault, right?" He keeps pace with me, waiting for me to say something. "I didn't do anything to the truck," he continues eventually. "Not on purpose and not by accident. I swear to God. If you're thinking that this is my fault, it's really not, okay?"
"Okay."
"I just figure, if something odd happens, you're bound to suspect the new guy, especially if he kinda, sorta tried to steal the truck when you first met him. But I swear to God, I want to get out of here as much as you do. More, even. There's a bad energy about Scottsville right now, and I just wanna get somewhere that I can get some answers. You know what I'm saying."
"I don't know if -" I start to say, before suddenly I spot something in a nearby parking lot. "I..." I pause, and my blood runs cold as I realize what we've found.
"I know what you mean," Clyde continues. "I just want some expert to come on the TV and say, like, boom, this is what's going on, and boom, this is how it happened, and boom, this is how we're gonna fix it. You know? I want the fucking facts. It's the not knowing that's the killer." He pauses for a moment. "Kid? You okay?"
I take a deep breath, forcing myself to stay calm.
"Kid?"
"See that white truck?" I say, pointing toward the parking lot.
"Uh, yeah," Clyde replies. "You think that's our wheels?"
"It's my father's truck," I continue. "I've gotta go get my brother," I add, before turning and running back the way we came.
Chapter Three
Manhattan
When we reach the other side of the bridge, Mallory leads me down to where a bunch of backpacks are piled up against one of the walls, picked out by the moonlight. She crouches down and grabs a pre-packaged sandwich, before adding a number to a piece of paper and then bringing the sandwich over to me.
"Eat," she says.
I open the sandwich to stuff it into my mouth as fast as possible. I feel bad, wolfing down food as soon as I get here, but I'm starving and this is the first thing I've eaten for almost twelve hours. The hunger's so bad, I feel like an animal rooting through a trashcan.
"So I'm guessing this isn't a social call," Mallory says after a moment. "I'll be honest, Elizabeth. I thought it'd be cool if you came, but I wasn't expecting it. What happened?"
"I'm... I just..." I continue eating for a moment. "I got thrown out of the building."
"You got what?"
"Bob and Henry," I continue. "They made me leave. They locked the doors and told me they'd never let me back in. I waited and waited, but eventually I realized they were serious, and then I thought I heard a noise down the street and I got scared, and I decided I had to find someone, and you were the only person I could think of, even though you were all the way down here, so I walked and..." My voice trails off as I realize I've just given her something of an info-dump. "Sorry," I add. "I just... things didn't turn out too well."
"So how come you got kicked out?" Mallory asks, leaning back against the wall. "I mean, who the fuck gives anyone the right to kick you out of your own home?"
"It's all some stupid power play thing," I reply, speaking with my mouth full. "My brother's got this weird hero worship deal with Bob."
"I could tell," Mallory says. "When Bob was doing things to me, your brother was just standing by the door and watching. In a way, I thought he was creepie
r than that Bob guy. I mean, at least with Bob, I knew what he was doing, but your brother had this look in his eye as if..." She pauses for a moment. "Sorry, he's still your brother. I shouldn't say stuff like that."
"It's fine," I reply, finishing the sandwich. "You're right. There a side of him that I hadn't seen before. It's like he's suddenly become this power-hungry little asshole. I swear to God, the moment Bob put that gun in Henry's hands, everything changed."
"Power corrupts," Mallory replies, with a sad smile on her face. "Bob sounds like a pretty good manipulator. He's a fucking sick bastard, too. If I ever see him again, I swear I'll ram a fucking screwdriver into his face."
"How bad did he hurt you?" I ask cautiously.
She shrugs.
"Pretty bad, huh?"
"There's no point going on about it," she says. "The guy couldn't decide half the time whether he was horny or angry. Sometimes he was both."
"Did he -"
"Let's just keep out of the details," she continues. "Let's just accept that your Bob guy is a bad, bad person." She smiles, but it's a sad smile, as if she's trying to hold back tears. "Let's just leave it at that. If I ever see him again, I'll fucking cut his throat. But I'm not gonna see him again. He's gonna die and rot in this dump, and that's all he deserves."
"But if he hurt you," I say, "you have to do something."
"Like what? Call the cops?" She laughs, and then she stares at me for a moment. "It doesn't matter," she says eventually. "The past is the past, and we're all more worried about the future right now. You reached us just in time, Elizabeth. We're all packed, ready to leave in the morning."
"Where are you going?"
