by Sweet, Dell
Watertown: Johnny and Lana
Late Afternoon
The city was a mess. Buildings toppled, streets blocked off with debris, no power and no people out on the streets that they had seen.
Against all odds the outskirts of the city seemed completely deserted. A small mall fronted the interstate exchanges. A home improvement store anchored one end of the mall, a big box store and dozens of other shops filled out the mall, the parking lots were all but empty. At least at first glance. The big box store was deserted, the doors barred, chained and locked. A little work with the tire iron from the Suburban freed up the chains and a nudge from the nose of the truck shattered the heavy glass doors. Johnny and Scotty pulled the doors aside and Johnny drove the truck inside, crunching over the safety glass which had fallen out in one large sheet.
“Might be safer inside,” Dave said as Johnny turned the truck around, narrowly missing one check out aisle and faced back toward the doors.
“I think we're stuck here for the night,“ Johnny said. Stock up, get whatever else we need in the morning and head out. Little gun shop across the street... Truck dealership over at the mall across the street... Should be easy to get what we need.” He levered the door handle and stepped down to the ground.
“Company,” Dave said as Johnny turned toward the opening.
“Seven or eight... Came out of that strip mall entrance way across the strip,” Scotty added.
Johnny turned to Lana. “Shotguns... Rifles in the sporting goods' area. I don't want them to see what we really have, or even use these unless we have to.” He lifted one of the machine pistols as he finished. She nodded as she and Amber sprinted toward the middle of the store.
Company
The small crowd of people was armed, Johnny saw, long before they actually reached the wide street and crossed over into their parking lot. Behind him, in the store, he had heard the sound of breaking glass several times. Presumably Lana and Amber breaking open display cases.
“Think they can see us in here?” he asked.
“Probably too dark,” Scotty answered as Lana and Amber came back with their arms loaded down with high powered rifles and shotguns.
“Careful,” Lana said, her breath coming fast. “These are loaded.” A small line of blood ran away from one knuckle as she passed Johnny a rifle that looked like it would be at home slung over any hunters shoulder. He looked her over. “Hang back with the machine pistols... Just in case.” She nodded. “You're hurt,” he finished.
Lana laughed. “Dios mio. Cálmate, te preocupas demasiado.” She smiled and pecked his cheek. “Just glass from a case... It's nothing. You worry too much about me.”
“Not a girl,” Johnny said
“Or even close,” Lana agreed with a smile. She stepped close to the front of the entrance way, still deep in shadow, but just behind the shattered doors, and shrugged her machine pistol from her shoulder.
There were a dozen of them when they came to a stop just thirty feet away from the doors. Women and kids, the old man and a younger guy hanging toward the back. The two men and three of the women were armed.
“We know you're in there,” The lead man shouted out. He was an older man, short silver hair, thin, the ragged remains of a suit hanging from his shoulders. “We don't want trouble... Just company... Safety... The nights are pretty bad now. I guess you know.” He made to step forward again.
“No... Right there is fine,” Lana said.
“I told you, we come in peace.” The man said as she stepped from the shadows. Lana re-slung the rifle and picked up one of the heavy shotguns. Scotty moved out with her and a second later Amber and Johnny joined her. The man stopped, staring them down. Johnny motioned to the rest to stay inside.
“Every bad alien movie I ever saw started just exactly that way,” Lana said.
“Is that what you think?” The man asked. “Aliens? Well, I'm no alien... I don't know what happened, but I don't think it was alien, or aliens, unless you count the meteor that might or might not have hit us. And I'm obviously not one of the gangs or I wouldn't be out here in the daylight talking to you.”
The silence held a long time.
“You hear me?” The older man said.
“I heard you,” Lana agreed. “What do you mean one of the gangs? Not one of the gangs?”
The man laughed. A short hard laugh that had nothing to do with amusement at all. “Are you serious?”
“If I wasn't serious I wouldn't have asked,” Lana told him.
“But... Okay... Why can't we do this in there? Look at what I have here... A handful of scared mothers with a few children. The young guy at the back is okay. Why don't we do this in there. I don't like being out in the open. It's just the gangs we have to worry about.” He looked off in all directions as he talked.
Lana looked over the group and then over at Johnny. “Nothing we can't deal with,” Johnny agreed. Her eye's met Amber's and then Scotty's. They both nodded. “So you know, there are more of us inside. Don't be stupid.”
“Wouldn't think of it,” The old man agreed. “Alan,” he said.
Lana just nodded and motioned him forward.
Early evening
They were all gathered around a small fire that Scotty had started for heat and light. The nights were still cold. Scotty had built the fire in an empty fifty five gallon drum they had rolled out from the back. It the smoke detectors had still been working they would have had trouble, but as it was the smoke just gathered high up in the steel rafters and found its way to the outside from there.
“What do you know,” Alan asked. “That might be a better place to start.”
“Practically nothing,” Johnny answered. “Earth quake... Meteor. Everything wrecked and no answers. We've been on our own since Los Angeles... No news... Met Scotty, Amber and Dave just a few days back and they have been on their own too... Maybe know a little more than we do.”
Alan nodded. “Okay,” He rested his head in his hands for a moment, and then looked up. His eyes were red; the bags under them bruised and heavy. “The second of August... It happened overnight, the first, the end of the first into the second. I don't know what it was, anymore than you do, but I suspect the meteor they said would miss us didn't. Maybe that started a whole chain of events. So, aliens? No. I think our own government did us in though. I can see your view too, because there is something alien about it. About the way we would view it, the way you would view it. A few days later the planes came over. Big Cargo planes. Sprayed blue stuff over the entire city. We thought for sure we were done right then, but whatever that was it didn't kill us, didn't seem to do anything to us... But I wonder, I really do...” He seemed to zone out for a second.
“Alan?” Scotty asked quietly.
He laughed. “Sorry. I need sleep. Sleep is what I need. Gangs,” he took a deep breath. “This city, most of the cities I've heard about on the CB are controlled by gangs now. They're out all night rounding us up, the other survivors...” He frowned heavily. “I'll be straight, not much use for other men... 'Less they think like them. Not much use for the children either. Women, gas, cash,” he laughed again. “They seem to think a day will come when it will all be worth something again.”
“You don't?” Lana asked.
“I don't,” Alan agreed. “I think somebody mucked up badly... I can't believe it was all an accident. Washington? Dead. L.A.? Dead. New York? Dead as well. There have been reports of the President being killed. In the end the Secret Service deserted her. The few that remained fled. The whole thing fell apart. And it's no better in other countries from what I have heard on the CB. Some of it could be exaggerated... Could be fear talking... But I don't think so. I think most of it is absolute truth. I think it all failed and we're on our own. That's what I think.”
Lana looked over as Amber sprang to her feet and walked away into the darkness of the store. “I'll be back,” Lana said. She got up and followed.
“I appreciate the truth, Alan,” Johnny s
aid.
Alan nodded. “Upset us too. Nothing for it that I can see.”
“Where are you from,” Johnny asked.
“Rochester... Haven't heard much from it except there is a glow to the west... Could be they still have power there.”
“Hey inside!” This from the parking lot that was now edging quickly toward twilight.
“Shit,” Scotty said. “Forgot all about that.” He jumped to his feet and headed to the opening, Johnny right behind him.
“Guess we'll have to post a guard or something,” Johnny agreed. He stared out at two small groups that stood in the darkness looking around at the deepening shadows. Scotty spoke.
“What is it you want?” Scotty asked.
“What is it we want? Are you kidding me? We want in there, out of the cold, the night.” The guy was tall and dirty looking in the fading light, but Scotty supposed they all looked a little rough. “Talking like that ain't gonna get you in here,” Scotty told him. “In fact it will get you an invitation to hit the road.”
A woman who was leading the second group, off to the right of the first group spoke up. “Look, man. We're all on edge right now. We just want to share your shelter. Manny is not so good with diplomacy.”
“Manny?” Scotty asked.
She nodded to the other group, “Manuel... Manny.”
“These groups ain't bad,” Alan said from beyond the doorway, hidden in the shadows.
“You vouch for them?” Johnny asked.
“No... I won't go that far. I will say I have seen them around... They are not part of the gangs that are all over the place at night in the city. Not these two.”
“Good enough for me... Ed? Scotty? Anyone else got an objection?”
“We'll just watch them kind of close,” Dave said.”
“Okay... Well, somebody better go get Amber and Lana... Just to be safe.” He turned back to the parking lot and the two waiting groups. “Slow,” he called out. “Slow and keep those rifles pointed down.”
EIGHT
Johnny
Creepy here. Creepy. I have been sitting here writing this, feeling nothing, or as little as I can feel. I feel like I want to explain it all better. I didn't know that when the end is maybe coming that you really do see your life all over again. Like the past flashing before your eyes, except it is tied to feelings and it hurts. It hurts bad... It is not just pictures of things, or quick flashbacks, it is so damn complex and it feels as much as it shows... I really don't know that I want to finish this for any reason.
Later
It is later. I smoked one of those crappy cigarettes. Holy crap, if that don't clear my head nothing will. The thing about that mall is that we grew close fast. I don't mean Lana and me, I mean the others. Scotty, Amber, Alan... Dave was hard to understand, but he was just a kid. Hard for a kid to be anything at first. He needed some guidance, but he was never going to get that guidance. No... I guess I got to finish. I don't want to but my time is passing...
The next morning I came in from checking the parking lot for another truck, me and Scotty...
Watertown: The Mall
Johnny and Lana
Morning
Amber had risen early to the smell of hot food. A few of the women had begun cooking sometime before dawn, and plates were filled with food. Stew, canned ham, powdered eggs and more. The store aisles were crammed with canned stuff. She looked over at Lana who was eating as fast as she was.
“Pigs,” Lana agreed. She laughed. “I had no idea how hungry I was.”
“Man oh man. Me either,” Amber agreed.
“It is good,” Manny grinned from nearby. Amber gave him a smile and went back to eating. The conversation ebbed and swelled around them. What to do, where to go.
They were now ten, a few of the others that had come in yesterday had left when the sun came up, a few others in the mall had made it clear they would not be going with them. Johnny and Scotty were talking to each other as they scooped some eggs onto paper plates and carried some plastic cups of coffee over to the fire and sat down. Lana met Johnny's eyes with her own and he smiled back, and they both went back to their conversations.
They had posted guards all night long, and although there were gunshots further away, and a few fires they could see burning back in the city, the night had passed uneventfully.
Their small group had finally decided to go towards Rochester, New York. Alan had said that he felt it may be their best bet, due to the fact that there were no large military bases very close to it, and the lake levels would be low for a while, so there should be no flooding.
“It's probably dead center of the two major fault lines, and it's further away from the Saint Lawrence,” he had ventured.
They had discussed Syracuse, which was much closer, but rejected it when Manny had pointed out that the finger lakes could easily flood the whole area.
Scotty had agreed, and related their own travels, crisscrossing the finger lakes.
Amber had pointed out that Watertown had its own military base and reminded them of the new facility that had been under construction in the old caves under the city. More reason to wonder why the military wasn't here.
“So, we are avoiding the military now?” Johnny asked.
“Makes sense,” Scotty said... “We have seen them overfly us, but they have not offered help to us. It's like they know what they are fighting, and that says to me that they are not on our side at all... Maybe involved, in fact.”
There is a base here/” Johnny asked.
“That whole complex is probably under water by now,” Dave opinioned. “But nobody here got any help from that base or the other big base close by... Manny said it was obvious they had flights coming out of there, but when some others tried to enter the base they threatened to shoot them.”
“That true, Manny?” Johnny asked.
Manny nodded. Saw it myself, and there were bodies out there... By the gate... Only a few, and I didn't think much of it, there were bodies everywhere those first days before they started to turn, but after I wondered if they were shot because they refused to listen... To leave...” He frowned and then went to poking at his eggs with his plastic fork. He finally set the plate down on his lap.
“I agree,” Ed, another of the ones who had come in the night before added. “Saw it.”
Glenn said that he felt the facility was probably destroyed, and had gone on to explain his own belief that anyone in there was either dead or trapped permanently.
“The Black river runs under most of the city, right through a series of old caves. I can't say for a fact, but I think what most likely would happen is that at least part of the cave system would collapse. They're done for, if they're there at all,” he had said. “And, no. They didn't have nothing to offer us either. Closed up the tunnel entrances right off the bat... Never saw any of them after that.”
“Seen a few military groups out in the city... Bad outfits... Like deserters... Bad as the gangs,” Lisa, another of the locals that had come in with Manny added quietly.
“Then we aren't going to look for them to help us... We aren't going to look for them at all,” Johnny said quietly. Scotty nodded decisively as he finished speaking.
In the end they had finally decided on Rochester, and they spent some time discussing how to get there. An hour later they were leaving the parking lot in three jeeps heading for Rochester. Lana was in the front driver’s seat with Amber beside her. The second Jeep, with Scotty driving and Jan in the passenger seat, Lilly in the back, pulled in behind them. Ed drove the last Jeep, with Dave riding beside him, A shotgun was resting between his knees. Gina in the back seat with her own rifle, a wire stock model that looked exactly like the one Johnny himself carried. Terry on the other back window, a heavy shotgun resting between his legs, and two 45 caliber pistols on a wide belt at his waist. There were a few more hand guns scattered among them, Johnny knew: He, Lana, Scotty, Amber, a few others, but most had stuck to the assault rifles or shotguns.
/>
The rain that had been threatening once again began to fall hard as the small caravan pulled out of the parking lot, turned right on the crowded street, and began to weave through the dead traffic heading out Route 3.
Mexico NY: Johnny and Lana
Late Afternoon
“So, what do you think?” Johnny asked Glenn.
Johnny, as well as Lana, stood facing the road along with Glenn and Alan: They both shrugged.
The group had stopped just ten minutes before, when they had come to the turn off for Route 104 in the tiny town of Mexico, New York. The road was so bad in places that the Jeep vehicles bounced roughly over them no matter how slow they drove.
For nearly ten miles they had been reduced to a crawl as they crept slowly forward down the broken road, passing over the thick chunks of asphalt that tilted crazily into the air. In some places the drops from surface to surface was more than six inches. Nothing the vehicles couldn't handle, but the driving had turned into a slow crawl for long stretches.
They had spent the previous two days bogged down just a few miles outside of Watertown. Torrential rains, thunder and lightning. They had spent two miserable nights in the Jeeps trying to get some sleep. They had started out early this morning with high hopes.
In the last three days combined they had moved no more than forty miles, but the rain had finally stopped and they were hopeful.
They had maps, but the roads and small villages were so torn up that it was hard to find landmarks that could tell them where they were. The occasional highway marker, Village Limits sign, even business signs that listed the name of the town or village, were nearly all they had to go by. By mid morning the rain was back and their spirits had plummeted.
The trees had been winter brown three days ago when they left Watertown, but as they drove through the steady rain more and more green came into view. To the small group of people trying to negotiate the road it had sometimes felt like driving through a jungle. The road steamed where the asphalt had been warmed by the sun earlier in the morning before the rain had come back. The trees, seemingly bent on shedding their winter grays and browns and covering the landscape in green. They had finally stopped to move a fallen tree out of the roadway and then Glenn had wondered aloud if the road would get any worse. They had all stared at the overgrown landscape for a few moments longer, but there was no way to see what may lay ahead, and backtracking now was out of the question. After a short discussion they had returned to the Jeeps and once again set out on the cracked pavement toward the west.
