by Holly Hook
Then nothing.
Chapter Thirteen
"Wake up, Laney."
Alana shook me and I turned over. I wondered how she'd gotten into the house. I kept the door locked whenever Dad was gone. We lived in a smaller town, but even in Colton you had your sick people. They were everywhere and they disguised themselves as folks like the rest of us.
"Huh?" I asked. "How did you get in?"
Alana paused like she had news she didn't want to give me. "We're in the police station," she said.
Then I remembered.
The world had gone to hell and we were in the middle of the death zone.
I opened my eyes. The light was still long, but it was different quality now and safely away on the far side of the room. Alana stood there, huge bags under her eyes. I took a breath and the stench of death greeted me. The hallway stretched out of my view, but I knew the dead officer was still there, leaning out of the bathroom.
I had to pee.
"Are there any buckets around here?" I asked.
"Gina found one in the storage," Alana told me. "We've been using that. The guy in the bathroom...well, we don't want to touch him. The bodies are getting worse. Flies survived the radiation. At least, their babies did."
It took me a second to get it. "Oh," I said.
"You slept all day," she told me.
I sat up and pulled my shirt over my nose. The smell got a little less. Amazingly, my stomach roared with hunger. I couldn't remember my last meal. Dad and I had eaten pasta together a week ago. It had been the last time we'd been face to face before his job sent him across the country again.
Shattered glass littered the carpet and the vending machine was ransacked. Jerome and Gina had set countless bottles of water and other drinks on the reception counter along with bags of chips and candy bars. Someone had even found a few bright red apples and set them out along with a very flat sandwich. They'd raided the cops' lunches.
The apples looked delicious, even more so than the Butterfingers and PayDays that sat next to them. I'd been eating nothing but junk food these past couple of days. My body screamed for real food. I started to stand, but a wave of dizziness swept over me and I fell to the couch again.
"I'll get you something," Alana said. She walked to the counter, keeping her gaze outside instead of at the body in the hall. "Just sit there. Jerome and Gina are sleeping in the jail cells right now. Thankfully there was no one in them. There must not be too many people to arrest in this town."
"That's good," I said. "Did you ever sleep?"
Alana faced me. "For a few hours. We've been doing shifts," she said. "The sun's going down now. I have news, but I'll let you eat first."
"Bad news?" I asked.
"No. I guess it's good."
She handed me an apple and a candy bar. I wolfed them down and the dizziness vanished. Then I sucked down the water. My body thanked me as strength returned to my limbs. "How's the fire?"
"It got a little close earlier, but it wasn't like we could leave. We left you asleep in case the smoke got in and suffocated us. I didn't think you wanted to be awake for that."
Alana's attitude was changing. She was becoming more like me and I hated it. More realistic. That was what death did to you, I guess. She had lost her entire family and I could see in her eyes that the truth was starting to hit. They were duller. More sharp in a way. Harder. Alana wasn't in denial anymore. As she stood there and watched me eat, her gaze shifted outside. I could barely see out the glass door, which someone had put a big curtain over, but the crack I could see through revealed lazy, rising smoke and blackened buildings. The edge of a nearby trailer stood there, untouched.
"Did anyone raid that yet?" I asked.
"Yes," Alana said. "There wasn't much over there. We found some blankets we threw over ourselves so we could go out, but there was a little old lady living in there and she didn't have much. Just some jewelry. That's not going to do us any good anymore. Money can be burned, I suppose, if we need to start any fires."
"Living?" I asked, regretting it right away.
"Well, she used to live there. She was really old, though, and it looks like she had a good long life at least." Alana's eyes turned red and wet. "She was on her bed. We put her blankets over her and kept a few of them for ourselves. They're behind the counter. It wasn't as bad as seeing that kid in the gas station."
She turned away before her tears could fall.
That was when something had changed in her. Seeing the child, maybe around her brother's age.
I couldn't think of anything to say. I knew what it was like to take the hospital elevator to the oncology floor at the hospital. I walked past rooms and I saw people who were worse off than my mother, people who were skin and bones and some without their hair. There was that feeling that she didn't belong there, that she didn't have the same thing these other people had, that her stay there was just temporary and she'd be better soon.
Alana had joined my world. So had Jerome and Gina, even if they didn't realize it yet.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"You don't need to apologize," she said, sniffing to suck in the pain. "It's just what it is, you know? I think we should just get to Colton, grab what we need and get out. You can't bury anybody in that ground out there."
Alana knew what she would find there. It was that dread right before you saw someone you knew dead for the first time. Dead, and stuffed. In Alana's case there was no funeral home to make things look pretty on the outside. I couldn't blame her for not wanting to go to the elementary school or her house. Or any of Colton, for that matter.
All I had was the guinea pig. When we got to Colton, I would have the job of going through each of our houses and grabbing what we needed. If David hadn't burned the place to the ground, that was.
We sat there in silence for a while. There wouldn't be any more happy conversations for a while. It was all grief management now. "I said I'm sorry because I couldn't go near the little kid at the station."
"Gina and Jerome moved the bodies. You're fine." She turned to me. Alana had gotten her composure back. "We found a truck that starts."
I jumped off the couch. "You what?"
"It was in a brick garage," Alana said. "There's a working, really old, antique truck in there that looks like it was just worked on. The mechanic is across town. Jerome and I put a couple of blankets over us and walked over there. We're not burned. We tried all the vehicles we could find that didn't have bodies in them. The truck's the only one that works. It must be from the thirties or something. You have to turn this crank to get it to start."
"That's awesome!" I said. I couldn't stand the thought of walking for another full night. We had already covered the longest walk, but still...we couldn't stay in Colton forever and couldn't walk all the way to Oklahoma City. I needed a shower. My house would be empty. The only reason I couldn't smell myself was due to the stench filling the station.
"We're going to go grab the truck as soon as Jerome and Gina wake up," she said. "You're the driver. You've had the most experience out of all of us."
"Okay," I said. It wasn't like there would be any traffic to deal with. "We'll see how far it gets us. A truck that old won't go that fast, but it beats walking. I'm not sure how we're going to pump gas from now on."
Once we got the truck moving, we'd be in Colton pretty shortly.
Then we would see what was there.
Dread rose inside me and I felt like I was standing right outside the funeral home all over again. People would cry. I'd be the shoulder for them to lean on. And if David and the gang were there, some of us might die. I might have to hold someone's hand as they took their last breaths.
"We don't know how dangerous this is going to be," I said. "If David's there, maybe only one of us should go and check Colton out to make sure it's safe." I looked outside. The sky had turned to brick by now. Dusk. This was the new sunset color. "I'll go, check it out really quick, and come back to get you guys if it's all clear
. That way you don't have to see things you don't want to see." I waited for Alana's response.
"Laney, you shouldn't have to go alone."
"It should be me," I said. "I'll find a weapon to take with me. There have to be guns here. That'll help. We should grab them."
Alana cleared her throat. "Someone already took the weapons. Even the officer in the bathroom was disarmed. We checked. The thought crossed our minds, too. It looks like David has already been here."
"Great," I said, sinking back onto the couch. "Someone in this town has to have weapons. We need to check the trailers." I'd handled plenty of knives and even a BB gun when I was younger--Mom and Dad took me on lots of nature trips--but never a gun gun. The thought didn't bother me as much as it should have, not with David out there. I imagined him setting up shop in Colton.
He would probably be there unless he decided to go to the Oklahoma City point.
With guns.
David would kill us. He had that whole group under his influence. I had no doubt that Christina was going to be, too. She'd kill me in no time if she was capable of that sort of thing.
There were too many uncertainties.
"There are two left that aren't rubble," Jerome told me. "We checked both of them top to bottom. There wasn't much that was useful. One old guy had an old World War Two gun mounted on the wall that might have been his father's, but there wasn't any ammo that we could find. The other houses are so burnt to the ground that there's no point searching for anything. It would take way too long and we'd have to do it during the day."
"I see your point," I said. "Do the police have bulletproof vests? They must."
"We found one," Gina said. "It's too big for any of us, even Jerome. It must have belonged to the officer who ate too many doughnuts."
I laughed, even though I had just gotten the news that we might be headed down a slaughter chute. "So now what?"
Alana grabbed my arms and spun me around. "We skip Colton."
I could see the pain in her eyes. I'd wanted to walk past the funeral home so, so bad and pretend that it wasn't there. But at the same time, I had to go inside, because I knew that I'd regret the decision for the rest of my life if I didn't. "But your families are there," I said.
"We know they're gone," Jerome said. "No one has a basement in Colton. Even if they did, the radiation...the radiation was too much. There was no hiding."
"I thought you might want to, you know, say some last respects."
Gina shook her head. "If David is there, it'll be way too dangerous. He won't be going any huge distances with the Cat. We can go back there later."
"My guinea pig is there," I said, realizing how stupid that sounded. "I know he's gone. And you're right. David will be expecting us. He wouldn't have taken the guns if he hadn't."
"The thing is," Jerome said, "We're going to have to go through Colton if we're going to get to the expressway. Going around isn't an option. The truck only has a quarter tank of gas. The guy who took it to the mechanic must have been waiting for the price to drop or something. Or they don't drive much in this town. Either way, we have to go forward."
I gulped. "We leave now, I take it."
"Grab some supplies," Gina said. "Grab as much as you can carry."
* * * * *
Walking across town was the worst. We walked through smoking ruins and past blackened skeletons, both of homes and people. The light was almost gone as we moved, leaving just a rusty glow on the horizon. The flashlight's batteries had gone out and Alana had forgotten to look for some in the police station, which left us little reference to go on. I might have visited this town once or twice when I was little, to visit one of Mom's friends, but that was all gone now. Everything these people stood for was gone. Everything they had accomplished was ashes. I walked faster down a paved road, getting angrier the more I thought about it. The whole world might be like this now.
"You have the radio?" I asked Gina.
"Right here," she said. "I'm trying to conserve the power, so I'm keeping it off right now. We'll turn it on once we get into the truck."
The mechanic was opposite the police station, maybe a mile across town and on the outskirts. It stood apart from the rest of the buildings like the town misfit. Faded letters spelled out its name in brick. The road turned to dust again and we walked faster. The last of the light was vanishing, but I could make out the ancient, shiny pickup sitting inside. I was shocked David hadn't thought to check the vehicles. It was curvy and compact and pure black, shined to perfection probably by some old couple who took this to shows. Someone had left the hood up so I could see the handle of the crank inside.
"Prewar vehicle," Jerome said. "The EMP didn't kill those. No electric starters."
We loaded our armloads of chips and water bottles into space behind the two truck seats. "Someone will have to ride in the back," I said. "We need to duck as soon as we get into Colton."
"You think we should go through in the daytime?" Alana asked. "David will be less likely to come after us."
"That's just a little dangerous," Gina said. "Laney has to drive. The windows have to be clear. That means sun."
"We'll blow through town as fast as possible," I promised. "Two of us will have to duck in the back."
"I'll ride in the back," Jerome said. "I used to when my dad would take me to school sometimes, even though it was illegal."
"Why did he make you ride in the back?" Alana asked.
"He liked to put his stuff on the front passenger seat. His beer and his work boots."
"What a jerk," I said.
"He's out of my life now," Jerome said. "I don't know what part of the country he's in. He might still be alive."
"You're not going to find him, are you?" I asked.
"I don't know," Jerome said. "He's potentially my last living relative. Who has relatives on the other side of the country?"
Alana raised her hand. "My mom's parents are in Baltimore. I was thinking, if we could get over there, I might be able to find them. The radiation didn't get over there that bad. And Grandma cans stuff. She'll have food supplies for if...for when supplies start getting short."
I faced Gina. "Do you have anyone?"
"My dad liked to call his sister who's in Florida," Gina said. "She might still be alive."
We all might have someone to go to. "My dad said he was staying in a Holiday Inn," I said. "In New York."
"Then we all have a common goal," Alana said.
"We're going to have to split up," I said. "It might be better that way."
"We can't," Alana said. "We have this truck. We should go place to place if we can. I say we go past the Oklahoma City checkpoint and start by going right to Florida. Then we can drive up the coast."
"We don't know what's happening there," I said.
I was scared. Dad might be gone. There could be riots. Panic. People like David taking over.
Anything could have happened.
New York was a huge city and I didn't want to take Alana and Gina and Jerome with me if the place was burning. I wasn't going to drag them into death.
"Look, you don't need to be going off by yourself," Alana said.
"I don't want to, either," I said. "It's just that...there's a good chance some of us will die."
"We're going to have to take the risk," Alana said. "You're scared of seeing it again, aren't you?"
"You've never seen someone close to you die. It's different when it's someone you don't know." I sounded like such a horrible person. I wanted to abandon my friends just because I couldn't bear to see them take their last breaths. The horror lurked there deep inside of me, pulling my strings and making me want to do these stupid things.
Alana went to hug me, then hesitated. "It's better if we stay together," she said. "Trust me. Strength in numbers. We can come up with ideas together. Think about it. Would you have made it this far if you were by yourself? I'm not insulting you, but think about walking across that desert alone."
I paused
. "I don't know."
Alana smiled. She faced Jerome and Gina, who were waiting for her to speak. "We promise you won't have to watch us die."
Jerome raised his hand. "I promise."
"Me, too," Gina said. "If I'm going to die, I'll go somewhere else to do it."
"You don't have to," I said. I hated the idea of trekking across a ruined landscape alone. But I hated the idea of losing anyone even more. Some things were better if you didn't have to see them. "We'll see how things go once we get to Oklahoma City."
Alana grinned. "That's better. And I'm not saying I don't get it." She turned away and climbed into the passenger seat of the truck.
I got in, started the truck, and watched the headlights illuminate the world in front of us. The light fell on a nearby, blackened brick building with hollow windows that reminded me of dead eyes. They were full of nothing. Everything inside that building had been scooped out, leaving just a hollow, pointless shell in its place.
I took a breath.
Jerome and Gina were becoming my friends. You couldn't survive together and not become friends with someone unless they were David. But we hadn't been surviving with David.
I was taking a risk.
But for now, it was a risk I needed to face.
Jerome cranked the engine to life with a ton of effort. He and Gina climbed into the back of the truck and held onto the sides of the bed. "Ready?" Gina asked. "This is an even sexier ride!"
I laughed. We were getting out of here.
I changed gears (which took me a few minutes to figure out how to do right) and hit the gas pedal. It took some getting used to the way the truck moved and turned. It was stiffer than the sedan Dad had taught me in. But after a few turns, I got it and found myself driving us through roads that didn't make any sense. I'd heard people on the news say that they couldn't find their way around their own town after a tornado whipped through and now I could understand where they were coming from.
"We're out of here!" Jerome shouted, holding a large blanket over him like a flag.
