Hell Week

by Scott Medbury

  “The same parking garage where you burned the last truck, on the same level,” she said. “We’ve had the garage under surveillance since we tracked the GPS locator on the truck you dumped there. I will order the surveillance withdrawn at noon tomorrow. You can pick up the truck any time after that.”

  “What about the GPS locator on the new truck?”

  “Take this envelope; it has keys to the truck and instructions to disable the GPS unit. I already thought of that for you. When you’re through with the truck, park it out of sight. Without an active GPS unit, it should be a long time before they find it.”

  “I don’t suppose the truck will be preloaded with supplies?” Sonny asked, and I imagined the grin on his face.

  “The gas tank will be full, but that’s about the extent of what I can do safely. Once you get out of Worcester, stick to the more rural areas. The People’s Army is focusing on cities at the moment. They’re trying to get them ready for the first wave of repopulation; the government wants civilians to begin occupying North America within one calendar year.”

  “Damn them to hell,” Sonny spat.

  “I must be going; the longer I stay, the more danger there is I’ll be missed. I hope you and your students find a way to remain free and if in the future I can help you again, I will.”

  I moved away from the door and crouched behind a display case. It was dark in the hall, but the moon was bright outside and pools of light were cast through the frosted windows.

  I saw the owner of the voice, a tall attractive Chinese woman in a black uniform, come out of Sonny’s office. She glanced up and down the hall before hurrying off toward the academy’s lobby. If she saw me, her eyes betrayed no hint.

  A few moments later, a thoughtful looking Sonny walked out of the office and headed toward the kitchen. When he was gone, I hurried back to my sleeping bag.

  I wasn’t sure of what to think about the conversation I’d overheard. On one hand, I was excited about the prospect of a clean truck to escape in, but I was also worried it might be a trap. I pondered it as I tried to sleep. Why would the Chinese woman, Huian, create such an elaborate trap if she already knew where we were?

  I tried to think of everything I knew about China and Chinese history and, in the end, I decided the concept of logic was not foreign to them. Either she was genuine, or it was a trap for a bigger fish.

  Maybe there would be an extra GPS transmitter on the truck and Huian hoped we would lead her to other groups of survivors. Maybe she already knew about the safe haven and hoped to use us to find it.

  I decided to talk to Sonny about it, no matter how uncomfortable I felt about eavesdropping.

  Part Four: Death Comes Calling

  23

  The rest of the night passed uneventfully, and I awoke just as the first light of dawn came through the high windows overlooking the practice room. Brooke and Ben were already up and had left the room. Luke was awake but still lying snug in the comfort of his sleeping bag. I wondered if I should tell him about what I had heard the night before but figured it could wait until after I talked to Sonny.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t checked on Indigo already, man,” Luke said, grinning, as I struggled to extract myself from my sleeping bag. “I saw the eyes you were making at her last night.”

  I felt myself redden but didn’t bite.

  “She’s probably sleeping in till lunch,” I replied. “Sonny told Allie and Karen to stay with her last night and keep her up till at least midnight.”

  Luke yawned, making no attempt to get out of his own sleeping bag or to pursue his friendly ribbing.

  “Do you know where Brooke and Ben are?”

  “I think they had something to do with Arthur and John this morning,” Luke said. “Looking for supplies in the office building across the street or something like that.”

  “What kind of supplies do they hope to find there? Office buildings don’t seem like a good place to look for food or survival gear.”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” said Luke. “Anyway, I don’t have any plans this morning so I’m just going to lay here and sleep.”

  I stood up and stretched, working the kinks out of my muscles.

  “Enjoy,” I said to Luke, and headed out to find Sonny. I wanted to talk to him about his secret rendezvous well before noon when the woman had said the surveillance would be switched off.

  Sonny’s office was empty, so I wandered to the kitchen to find myself something for breakfast. Samara and Mark were already there, eating bowls of cereal moistened with condensed milk from a can. At 14, Mark and Samara were Sonny’s youngest students. They could hold their own on the mat, but Sonny chose to not take them on missions because of their age and smaller size. They were nice kids.

  “Is there any milk left in the can?” I asked, grabbing a bowl of my own from the countertop.

  “Yeah, maybe a quarter of the can,” Mark replied. He pushed the can of milk toward me as I sat down. Samara did the same with the box of cornflakes.

  “Thanks,” I said, fixing myself a bowl. The condensed milk had a much stronger flavor than the two percent milk I was used to putting on my cereal at the Foster’s house, but it was still edible.

  “Have you seen Sonny?” I asked.

  “He went up into the attic early this morning,” Samara said. “That’s where we keep the training weapons. He goes there for alone time.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and shoveled another spoonful of cornflakes into my mouth.

  I found Sonny sitting in the lotus position, meditating in front of a stand holding a pair of nine ring broadswords of Chinese make. He looked up at me as I entered the room, his face placid. I looked around, taking in the racks of ancient weapons lining the walls.

  Samara said the academy stored its training weapons here, but all of the weapons in the attic looked frighteningly real to me. There were long staves, short fighting sticks, spears, strange pole arms, nunchaku, daggers, and an assortment of Asian-style swords. A large corkboard on one wall held dozens of throwing stars and other shuriken.

  “I’ve decided,” Sonny said. “We should go with you and, in my mind, the sooner we leave, the better.”

  “Okay,” I said, sitting opposite him. “I know about Huian. I overheard part of your conversation with her last night.”

  I half expected him to be angry at my spying and braced myself for an argument, but he just stared at me expressionlessly before nodding. Perhaps there is something to that meditation stuff after all.

  “Did you overhear the offer she made to me? About the truck?”

  “Yes. Do you think we can trust her?” I asked. “I’m worried it might be a trap, but it seems overly elaborate if she already knows where we are.”

  “The same thought crossed my mind,” Sonny said. “That’s why I came up here to think. I find meditation brings clarity when my mind is clouded. In the end, it seems to me we have to trust her. We have very little choice in the matter – stealing a truck is impossible with the army on alert.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” I said. “When are we going to go get the truck?”

  “We’ll go this evening, as soon as it gets dark,” Sonny replied. “We’ll bring it back to the alley and load it tonight with the supplies we’re bringing. I’ll drive, wearing the Chinese uniform while the rest of you stay in the back. We shouldn’t have many problems if she was being honest. We’ll try and head off by noon tomorrow.”

  “That timeline sounds good to me,” I said, going over it mentally. “I’ll let Luke know. We’ll come with you when you go to get the truck.”

  “You know, it could be dangerous,” Sonny said. “Even if it’s not a trap, that parking garage is in Tiger territory. After what you did when you found Indigo, they’ll be on the lookout for you.”

  “I know, but everything is dangerous now. We won’t let you down.”

  “Alright, you can come,” Sonny said, nodding his head. “I want to bring at least one more person with us th
ough. I think Arthur.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “I might head down and try to get more sleep. I didn’t sleep too well last night, and it sounds like we’re going to have another long night ahead of us.”

  “Okay, I’ll try to come up with something more resembling a plan,” Sonny replied. “I’ll wake you up around noon and fill you in on the details.”

  24

  Allie woke me around 11:30 to tell me that new girl, Indigo, was asking to see the guy who had rescued her. I said thanks and yawned much more nonchalantly than I felt. As soon as she had left I jumped out of the sleeping bag and ran to the bathroom to make myself presentable. This consisted mostly of patting down my sleep-tousled hair and shaking my head at the bruising around my eyes which had now faded to an ugly yellowish green.

  I decided that I had done all I could and walked the short distance from the bathroom to the supply closet Sonny had given Indigo as a room. Strange, I felt more nervous than I had when we faced off against the gangbangers.

  I knocked on the door.

  “Come in.”

  “Okay,” I said, and opened the door. I found her sitting on the folded mat that was her makeshift bed, warm blankets gathered around her legs. She looked up at me and smiled.

  “Isaac, right?” she said. “I just wanted to thank you again. I say ‘again,’ but in all the hustle and bustle of last night I’m not sure I even managed to thank you the first time.”

  “Don’t mention it, Luke did more than me. He even carried you back. Besides, we make a habit of rescuing damsels…” almost as soon as the flippant words were out of my mouth I thought of Sarah.

  “Yeah, I know, I thanked him too,” she said, and then, perhaps noticing the sadness on my face: “One day you’ll have to tell me about these other damsels you’ve saved.”

  “Does that mean you plan on sticking with us then?” I asked, trying to not sound too desperate. The last thing I wanted to do was come across as some sort of lecherous weirdo.

  “Yeah, if no one minds,” she replied. “This place seems safe and comfortable ...” she paused as she saw me bite my lip. “What is it?”

  “You probably haven’t heard yet, but we’re kind of planning to leave the academy tomorrow morning some time, it’s getting too dangerous here, we ... we found out something and it means we have to get out, and quick. You can come with us, of course.”

  “Um ... okay,” she said, puzzled. “I guess I’ve got nothing keeping me here in Worcester.”

  I blabbed. I couldn’t help it. Her attentiveness and soft nature just put me at ease. I ended up telling her about Huian’s warning that the Chinese Army was sending a division to Worcester. I also told her about the offer of the truck and my fears it might be a trap. I even talked about travelling to the safe haven.

  She seemed as excited as I was about the safe haven, especially as it was as close as just a hundred miles or so north of us. In the end, I talked to her for over an hour that day, about the future, but also about the past.

  I found myself opening up to her and telling her about my life before the Flu. It seemed I wasn’t good at keeping secrets from pretty girls, but it wasn’t just that – even though I’d only known her for a few hours, I felt I could trust her with my life … and after what I’d already told her, I probably had.

  She told me about her life, as well. She was born and raised in Worcester. Like myself, Indigo had just turned 15-years old; in fact, her birthday was two days before mine. While she had not been a total loner in school like me, she hadn’t been one of the popular kids either.

  From our talk, I began to realize just how smart she was. It became obvious that she was way more book smart than I was, yet she didn’t seem to have that in-your-face smarty-pants attitude so many smart people have. She told me she had grown bored of school and had let her grades slip, despite the fact that she was perfectly capable of doing the work.

  Too many missed days and late assignments had torpedoed her marks to the point where her near perfect test scores were not able to compensate.

  Her family had been a large, tightknit family, with many aunts, uncles, and grandparents, along with a dozen or so cousins, all living in the same neighborhood. Despite this, Indigo was like myself, an only child ... and now, she too was all alone in the world. She began to cry as she told me how close she had been to her cousin, Chloe, and I realized just how deeply it affected her when she was murdered by the Tigers.

  It must’ve felt a lot like losing a sister.

  I asked her what happened. I saw hot anger dry the tears in her eyes. They were gathering food in a small supermarket when three Tigers happened upon them. The Tigers were rude and suggestive to the girls, and Chloe, always the sassier of the two, had smart-mouthed the ringleader. He shot her. Just like that.

  Indigo and the other gang members had stood frozen in shock before she took off and ran for her life. He shot at her as she escaped but missed, and she had managed to elude them until the day before. I felt a seething anger at the dumb cruelty of the gang.

  Talking about it seemed to help, but I was relieved when the subject changed. Speaking of loved ones made me think of my own sister, Rebecca. I almost had trouble picturing her face in my mind now. Even the memories of my Mom and Dad were slowly vanishing in the same way, like old photographs fading to sepia in a forgotten shoebox.

  For some reason, I even told her of Amy, my foster sister, and how she had tried to be like a big sister to me that last Christmas Day. I felt a hot rush of guilt about how unfriendly I had been on what was probably her last day alive.

  Then I told her about Sarah.

  Strangely, the loss of my real family and the Fosters didn’t come close to feeling as fresh or painful as the loss of Sarah and I wondered if something was wrong with me, or if it was just the fact that, for the first time in my life, I had lost someone that was in my care. Someone who had looked up to me ... trusted me with her life.

  “I think that’s it exactly,” said Indigo, putting a hand on my arm.

  I felt a jolt of electricity at her touch and wondered if she did too. A knock on the door ended our intense conversation and Indigo withdrew her hand as the door opened and Karen stuck her head in.

  “Sonny would like to see you in his office, Isaac,” she said. “I already told Luke and Arthur. They’ll meet you there.”

  “Thanks,” I said, as she rushed off. I turned to Indigo. “I’ve got to go, but I’d like to talk to you some more sometime, if it’s okay with you?”

  “Sure,” Indigo said. “I enjoyed our talk. It feels so good just to be talking about what happened and remembering the people we lost. It feels ... cathartic? I think that’s the word.”

  I smiled. One thing Indigo and I had in common was a love of words. I even remember reading through a dictionary for fun during the seventh and eighth grades. It sounds nerdy I know, but it’s a fond memory, especially given there are no schools now and won’t be for a long time. No teachers, no students, nothing except survivors and invaders.

  I got up and paused at the door.

  “I don’t know if Sonny has told the others about Huian yet, so maybe not mention that to anyone yet.”

  “No worries,” she said, and gave me a wink.

  I headed to Sonny’s office with a skip in my step, her touch still tingling on my arm.

  When I got to Sonny’s office, I knocked and then walked right in. Arthur and Luke were already there. Sonny sat behind his desk, glanced up as I entered, motioning. Luke gave me a little salute, but Arthur didn’t look up as he intently studied a spiral notebook open on Sonny’s desk.

  “So, I take it you came up with a plan?” I asked.

  “Yeah, most of the details are written down.”

  “It looks solid to me, man,” Luke said. “I just hope we don’t run into any unforeseen trouble.”

  Arthur slid the notebook in my direction and I looked over the plan Sonny had outlined. It seemed simple enough, barring any trouble from th
e Tigers or a Chinese patrol, and getting the truck should be a piece of cake.

  “So, what do you think, Isaac?” Sonny asked.

  “I agree with Luke. It seems solid.”

  “So, when are we going to do this?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah, I’d like to get it done and over with as soon as possible,” Arthur said.

  Sonny checked the watch on his wrist.

  “We will leave here at 1600. Make sure you have your stuff ready.”

  “Want to head over to the kitchen and grab some lunch?” Luke asked, as we left the office. “There are a couple of cans of chili con carne back there with our names on them.”

  25

  After a relatively hearty meal of cold chili con carne with beans, I grabbed a couple of mixed fruit cups and a spoon to take back to Indigo’s room. I still had a couple hours to kill before we went to retrieve the truck, and everything I planned to take with me was already in a pile next to my sleeping bag.

  With that in mind and remembering how good our earlier conversation had been, I was keen to talk with her some more.

  Unfortunately, I found her already deep in conversation with Brooke and Karen. Not wishing to intrude, I gave Indigo the fruit cups and said I’d catch up later.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you Isaac,” said Brooke with a wicked glint in her eyes.

  I felt my face heat up a few notches and shrugged before closing the door on them a little too quickly. The sound of their cheeky laughter followed me down the hall.

  Not knowing what to do with myself, I decided to go find Ben and ask him what they had been searching for in the office building. I figured if Brooke was back, he would be as well.

  I found him in our sleeping area, playing chess against Luke and looking very frustrated. I settled in to watch the end of the game silently as Luke slowly dismantled Ben’s defenses. After four moves, Luke declared checkmate and sat back with a satisfied smirk on his face.