The Nightworld

by Jack Blaine

  Once we hit the main road out of the suburbs, it’s not long until we reach an on-ramp. I walk halfway up and try to scope out the empty freeway. No abandoned cars out there that I can see, not like the descriptions of snarled roads across the country that news reports were showing. I stand still, listening for any sound, looking for any sign that people are around, but I see and hear nothing. Tank sticks right with me, as though he’s heeling. I wish I could stay on the freeway because the road lights are still working, spilling isolated pools of illumination every two hundred feet or so. It’s comforting, and I bet it would make travel faster too.

  I’m standing on the edge of the on-ramp, weighing the odds, when a green station wagon comes careening toward me from the freeway, veering crazily. Tank and I barely have time to throw ourselves into the scrub brush before it rolls right over the spot where we were standing. I hear the sound of impact and the screech of twisting metal. Before I can get up to see what the car hit, another car comes racing down the ramp just as fast as the first. Breaks squeal as the car stops suddenly. The motor idles. I risk peeking over the tops of the bushes Tank and I are hiding behind and see a red Mustang. The driver’s side door starts to open, and I duck, holding Tank down too. I hear the door shut and then footsteps, eerily distinct in the quiet after the roaring engines and crash noises. I edge upward to see if I can get a glimpse. A man is walking toward the station wagon, slowly, deliberately. The station wagon smashed into a light pole, and the front end is wrapped around it. I can hear someone trying to get one of the doors open, but it looks like they must be crunched shut.

  The man has a shotgun leaning against his shoulder, barrel pointed to the sky. He’s tall and he’s wearing black leather everything. Pants, vest, hat. Some sort of white symbol is painted on the back of the jacket—it looks like a crescent moon. He stands in front of the station wagon, watching it, for the longest time. The door noises stop. I keep waiting for him to go help the people inside, but instead he lowers the shotgun and points it toward the front windshield. A muffled scream comes from the station wagon right before he unloads into it. He just keeps shooting until there’s nothing left of the windshield and no sign of life in the car.

  I barely have time to duck again before he turns around. I hear his footsteps going back to the still-idling Mustang, hear the door shut. He doesn’t drive off right away, and I have a sick fear that he’s looking around, that he might be able to see me and Tank, who’s being as invisible as a hundred-pound mutt can be, but who is also, well, a hundred-pound mutt, hiding behind some scrubby bushes. Finally the motor revs, and the Mustang heads back up the ramp. I listen to it for a long time, until the sound of the engine is completely gone.

  I don’t want to go look at what’s inside the station wagon.

  Chapter 15

  Tank whines when I start toward the car. He doesn’t want to get close to it, and once I am near, I understand why. There is a man in the driver’s seat; I can see him through the front, where the windshield was before that guy turned it into a million tiny crystals. Some of them cover part of the man’s face—or what’s left of it.

  There’s a boy, about five years old, sitting in the passenger seat. He’s wearing an orange parka and a rainbow-colored hat that looks like it was knitted by somebody—maybe his mom. He’s holding on to a stuffed green dinosaur.

  I know I should do something practical. I should check the back of the car for supplies, or see if the man has any ammo, or a knife, or anything I could use. But I can’t. I can’t go any closer to the car at all. All I can do is turn and walk away, shaking. I want to unsee that little boy more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life, but I know, somehow, that I never will.

  I walk for hours, following the freeway, keeping out of sight as much as possible. I hear a couple of cars on it, but I’m staying far enough away that I don’t see them. Mostly I can stick to green areas with some cover made up of bushes and the occasional tree, but sometimes I’m forced to travel along frontage roads. I don’t see any sign of life along them, but I have a feeling that doesn’t mean much. I try to be as quiet as possible, and keep out of sight.

  Navigating in the dark is hard. I risk the flashlight a few times, but Gus said to try to avoid that—he said my eyes will adjust better if I don’t use light. He also said that the flashlight is like a beacon to anyone looking. I don’t want a beacon, that’s for sure. Who knows who’s out there looking.

  Gus gave me an old-fashioned wristwatch—the kind that you have to wind. It reads eight p.m. when I decide I can’t go any farther and I stop for the night. I find a spot about fifty yards off the freeway, a spot with four or five really tall bushes. Their leaves look gray and sort of withered, but they still provide cover. Tank runs right into the middle of them sniffing, but he doesn’t flush anything out, and he doesn’t act like there’s somebody hiding in there, so I guess it’s safe.

  I crawl through the branches into the middle of the bushes. It covers us pretty good—I bet we can’t be seen by passersby. Before I do anything else, I wind the watch like Gus showed me, not too tight, then I unroll the sleeping bag and get in it. Tank watches eagerly while I rummage through the pack and choose our dinner: one can of tuna, one handful of dog kibble, and a bottle of water to split between us. He eats his kibble while eyeing my can of tuna the whole time. When I’m finished with it, I pour some of the water into the can and set it out for him. It helps remove some of the tuna smell, which can’t hurt. Who knows what’s creeping around out there.

  Once I am as far down into the sleeping bag as I can get, Tank snuffles. I try to ignore him, but he snuffles again, and when I uncover my head he’s sitting right next to me, shivering and looking at me with his big brown eyes.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I wait as though he might answer me. “A big tough guy like you?” He keeps staring and shivering.

  He knows he’s got me when I start unzipping the sleeping bag. He waits patiently, and then when I hold it open and pat my side, he settles down, lying with his back to me. I fold the sleeping bag over both of us, but I can’t get it zipped back up with him in it. As it turns out, it doesn’t matter, because Tank is like a heater. I am warm and toasty all night long.

  It isn’t a sound that wakes me. It’s the feeling of Tank, tensing his entire body. Just as I wake he starts growling, so low in his throat that if he wasn’t lying right next to me I wouldn’t be able to hear it. I put my hand on his shoulder and feel the vibration of his growls. He’s looking away, toward the direction we came from last night.

  Then I hear it: the sound of people walking, pushing through the tall grass. I move my hand to Tank’s muzzle and bring his face around to me. I put my finger up to my mouth.

  “Shhhhhhhhhhh. Quiet, Tank.” I sure as hell hope he knows what that means. I hold him close to me, letting him know he is not to get up and run out at whoever they are. The noise gets closer. I slowly move so that I’m kneeling in the sleeping bag, keeping a tight hold on Tank, and I try to see through the bushes into the darkness.

  I see a bobbing light and realize that one of them has a flashlight. It looks like they are moving single file, with the person at the front of the line holding the flashlight. The last one has a flashlight too, and shines it up and down the line of people. I make out six between the leader and the last guy. I can’t see much, but it’s clear that the six—all women or girls—are tied at their wrists and then tied to each other, all in a line. When the flashlight beam flickers over the faces, I see that their cheeks shine where tears are streaking downward.

  None of the prisoners make a sound. They don’t struggle, they don’t cry out; they just trudge along like robots. I have no idea what must have happened to them to make them that docile, or what will happen to them when they get where they are going. I want to stop them, to stop the chain of events that has been set into motion. I think about the gun in my hand. Would it do any good to leap out of the bushes and start shooting? Would it stop what’s going to happen
to the women? Can I overpower these two guys?

  By the time I’ve decided all it will do is get me killed, the group has passed us by. I feel so helpless, but I don’t know what else to do. I guess the wanderers I’d been seeing in the suburbs, and the people who stole the Subaru, were just the beginnings of people starting to freak out. They definitely hadn’t prepared me for, first, the guy in the red Mustang, and now this human slave gang. Tank keeps quietly growling even after I can’t hear or see them anymore.

  They must be following the freeway, like me and Tank. That’s a problem. I don’t want to chance traveling behind them and passing them while they rest. They’re moving slowly, far slower than we are, and I think I can pass them if I take the freeway for a while. Not the safest thing, but safer than catching up to them.

  After drinking half of a bottle of water, I let Tank have the rest. I set down another handful of kibble for him and eat a banana. Gus had put the ones he found on his son’s kitchen counter in the freezer immediately. He said he knew they would rot fast and he figured freezing might preserve them a little longer. This one has thawed out by now and it’s surprisingly good, as long as I don’t look at it. I get about two thirds of the way done before the image of the station wagon comes into my head again. I drop the rest for Tank, who seems happy to eat it.

  Once we’re packed back up, I listen hard, and then I push out of our bushes. Tank follows, ready to go where I lead. I don’t see any sign of anyone ahead of us on the frontage road. We travel along it to the first on-ramp, and I scope out the freeway as far ahead as I can see. It looks abandoned, but I know that can change fast, and there’s nowhere to hide if it does. But I don’t have another option right now, so up the ramp we go.

  The one good thing is that the freeway along this stretch is high enough that we can’t be seen from the surface roads, so all I have to worry about is whoever might be on it with me. I start to jog, but I quickly decide that I won’t last long at that pace, so I return to a steady walk. Tank sticks close. It’s funny—I remember all the times Charlie and I had to run and catch Tank when he got out of the backyard and ran through the neighborhood. He doesn’t seem eager to stray now.

  We make great time, because there’s nothing but even ground and it’s pretty well lit by the freeway lights. By the time three hours have passed, I’m betting we’re far ahead of the weird crew we saw earlier. Still, I don’t want to risk it. I decide to stay with the freeway for a while longer.

  I regret that decision almost immediately.

  Chapter 16

  I hear the car before I see it, but I try to tell myself it’s just my imagination, that it could be anything. By the time it becomes clear that it’s the sound of a motor, it’s too late. The car’s zooming toward me, on the opposite side of the freeway.

  It’s a sedan of some sort, and it’s traveling fast. The closest exit ramp is not in sight, so there’s no way we could run for it. I check over the side of the freeway to see if we could jump, but it’s too high. We’d probably both break our legs. I look around, but there is just no place to hide. The best I can do is to make myself and Tank as small as I can against the concrete barriers. I crouch down next to him and watch the car come. Maybe, just maybe, they won’t even notice us, given how fast they’re speeding along. I’m wearing dark clothes and Tank is a mixture of dark brown and black, and we’re not directly under one of the lights.

  No such luck. The sedan slows as it approaches us. It’s a dark color, with sleek, low lines—I don’t think I’ve seen a car like it in real life, only in those ads in car magazines. The tinted windows keep the interior a mystery. I have my gun in my hand, like Gus told me to do, but I don’t know if I should show it. Whoever is in the sedan might just shoot me dead if I do. I stand up as it pulls closer. The freeway here is split by concrete barriers instead of a median. The car pulls up right next to the barrier, as close as it can get to our side of the road.

  Nothing happens. I stare at the driver’s-side window, and I’m sure whoever is inside is staring back at me. But neither of us makes a move. Finally I start walking in the direction we were headed before the damn car showed up. When we get past it, I turn and walk backward. It starts moving in reverse, keeping pace with us. I show my gun, and the car slows, then stops. But after two seconds, it starts following us. I show my gun again, this time in a more no-nonsense sort of way. The car stops. I keep moving, slowly, watching, trying not to trip. The dark window rolls down about four inches. I stop and point my gun straight at the window. I can see the gun shaking in my hand, but I’m hoping whoever unrolled that window can’t. I hope I look like I mean business. I also hope, rather fervently, that I’m not about to die.

  For a few tense moments, nothing happens. Then I see movement and a hand comes out of the window waving something—it looks like toilet paper. Finally I just shrug and hold up my own hands in the universal WTF? sign. The window rolls down even more, and I can see a guy in the car, a balding guy wearing wire-rimmed glasses. He keeps waving the toilet paper.

  “White flag?” He sort of whisper-shouts the words, looking around like he’s afraid someone will hear him. I am afraid someone will hear him, so I walk over closer to the cement barricade, keeping the gun pointed just below the window. The guy’s really ugly, with old acne scars all over his face—the worst case I’ve ever seen. But he doesn’t look like a killer.

  “What did you say?”

  He looks exasperated. “White flag, kid. Surrender, you know? As in, don’t shoot me.”

  “Oh.”

  The guy watches me for a minute to see if I’m going to lower the gun. I keep it where it is.

  “Figures,” the guy says, looking disgusted. “I feel like I have to stop because I see a teenager and his dog walking around in the dark. Only it turns out the teenager is armed and dangerous. Great.” He starts to roll up the window.

  “Wait.” I point the gun at the ground. “I have to be careful, you know?”

  He stops the window, looks at me with an expression I can’t quite read. “Oh, I do know. I’ve seen some crazy stuff the last few days. Tell you what. Let’s make a deal that for the next three minutes, because that’s as long as I plan on staying here, neither one of us will shoot the other. Okay?”

  “Do you have a gun?”

  “For all you know I’m pointing one right at your balls, okay?”

  I nod.

  He nods back. “Okay. So, thing one, you seem to be headed in the wrong direction—the city is a mess, or haven’t you heard?”

  “I have to check on someone. And where you’re headed isn’t so great either.”

  He sighs. “My luck. I have to check on someone too, though, and then I’ll be hightailing it to warmer climes. I can give you a ride if you want. And that dog too, I guess.”

  This makes me suspicious. “Why would you do that?”

  He considers me. “You’ve heard of common human decency, right?”

  “Heard of it. Haven’t seen much lately.” I think of the men who killed my father. Of the screaming in the suburban streets. Of the girl in the Subaru, ready to shoot me without a qualm. Of the leather-clad man who killed that man and his little boy.

  “It still exists, my friend.”

  His voice brings me back to the freeway. I think of Gus, sitting in his son’s house, waiting to die. “I guess it does.”

  “So? Want a ride?”

  I consider my options. I can keep walking and maybe run into someone like that leather-clad guy or, worse, some government thugs, or I can take a detour back to the ’burbs and maybe actually make it to the city in one piece. I peer into the car. It looks warm. “Okay. Deal.”

  We both hear it at the same time: a low thrum far off, the sound of an engine.

  “Crap. Get in, fast.” The passenger-door lock clicks.

  I don’t have to be told twice. I hop the cement barrier, and so does Tank. There’s room for him in the backseat, and I stash my backpack there too. Before I have the door all the
way closed, the guy is accelerating. It’s blissfully warm inside the car; the heater is going and the fans are blowing out toasty air.

  “Name’s Morton Caruthers.” The guy laughs, a ratchety sound. “I know. A very stupid name for a very rich man. Not that that will matter for much longer. The rich part, I mean. Money’s gonna be as worthless as, well, as the dollar.”

  “I’m Nick.” I pick up a roll of toilet paper from the center console. “So this is your white flag, huh?”

  “It’s all I had handy. I’ve got the trunk stuffed with it—my theory is it will be as valuable as gold soon.”

  “Really?”

  He smirks. “Nah. I just don’t want to have to wipe my ass with leaves. Listen, Nick. Want to keep an eye on the back so I can drive faster?”

  “Sure.” I twist in my seat so I can see out the rear window. “Nothing back there yet.”

  Morton floors it and the sedan surges forward like a stallion, strong and steady. He smiles. “Always did love this machine.”

  I look around. Leather everything, with brushed chrome accents. A sound system so fancy I don’t even recognize the brand. “Rich, huh?”

  “Oh, yes. Filthy rich. Made a lot of money buying shares of the right stuff and selling before it became the wrong stuff. But like I said, it’s meaningless now, or it will be soon enough. And of course I was not one of those survival buffs. So I don’t have a bunker filled with emergency supplies.”

  “Bummer.” I check the rear window. “So what’s your plan?”

  “Head south. As far south as I can get, because it’s a little warmer. Try to stay out of the way of the wackos. And hope that somebody somewhere is working on the situation.”

  It doesn’t sound like a very good plan to me. But I don’t even have a plan at all, beyond finding Lara, so who am I to talk? “Who are you checking on, before you go?”