by Bolz, Stefan
The sound outside became louder for a moment as the rider revved the engine up a few times. Then it drove off. Not in the direction it came from but further up the street they were on.
Kasey realized at that moment that she hadn’t taken a breath in a while. She did now. One. Two. Another. Her heart rate gradually slowed.
“He’s gone,” Blair said. His voice sounded like he had fought his own battle during the last few minutes.
“What was that?” the woman asked.
“No idea,” Kasey replied. “We gotta get out of here.”
“I agree with you,” Aarika said.
“Where are you all going?” the woman asked.
For a moment it was quiet in the ambulance. Kasey became aware that everyone was looking at her.
“I need to try to get a friend back who was… taken… yesterday morning. I’ve got an idea where he might be, but I don’t know how to get him out. Then there’s an airport we could try to get to. Blair’s wife was on a plane approaching JFK when the blindness hit.”
“Blindness?” the woman asked.
“Yeah. Starting yesterday morning at about 10 a.m., nobody could see,” Aarika said. “Up until maybe an hour ago.”
“That’s not possible,” the woman said. “Neurologically speaking. There must be an explanation.”
“I don’t think there is one,” Kasey said. “If you add it all up, none of this makes any sense. But we should go.”
“I’m coming with you,” the woman said. “If you’ll have me.”
“You sure?” Kasey asked.
“Yeah. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that the unit’s chance of survival far exceeds the individual’s.”
“You are a soldier or something?” Aarika asked.
“Yes. 6th Communications Battalion out of Brooklyn.”
“You’re a Marine?” Kasey asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh thank God!” Blair fiercely hugged the woman who didn’t quite know what to do. “I’m so glad you’re coming with us.” He eventually let go of her. “I’m Blair,” he said. “That’s Aarika and Kasey.”
“Jennifer,” the woman said. “Jennifer Wang. Nice to meet you.”
Sunday, 3:25 a.m. to 4:30 a.m.
When Kasey turned the headlights on and they pulled out from behind the ambulance, they saw the fog. It covered the front of the vehicle and reached about thirty feet ahead and to the right, making the house there almost invisible.
“That’s odd,” Kasey said as they drove through it.
“Not weirder than the rest of it all,” Aarika replied. “You must be hungry,” he said to Jennifer.
“Starving,” she said.
“Here.” He handed her a power bar.
“How many of those do you have?” Blair asked.
“Um… About two hundred.”
“Two hundred?”
“Yes. Two hundred.”
“When did you—”
“I stole them, okay!”
“What?” Blair said.
“I’m sorry. I’m not proud. I just put one into a bag in the back room of the gas station now and then. And over time it filled up. And when we left I thought, what the hell, we can sure use them now.”
“You stole from your own uncle?” Blair asked.
“Well, you robbed a gas station at knife point!” Aarika said.
“True.”
“You almost killed me!”
“I wouldn’t have.”
“How can you be so sure? How can I be sure? You looked like you would.”
“That was just an act.”
“Guys,” Kasey said.
“An act? You were crazy and scary!”
“I know, right?” Blair answered with a smile.
“Guys!”
“Can I have one?” Blair asked.
“If you ask nicely—”
“Guys!”
Blair and Aarika stopped their quarreling when Kasey brought the Jeep to a halt. The noise of an airplane overhead got louder and louder until they could see it through the open windshield right above them.
“That’s a military plane,” Jennifer said. “C-130.”
“What’s it doing here?” Kasey asked.
“No idea. And it’s landing at a civilian airport.”
“MacArthur,” Kasey said.
“Yes,” Jennifer mused. “That airport hasn’t been used for military purposes since it was built in the forties.”
“What does that mean?” Aarika asked from the back seat.
“It can only mean one thing,” Jennifer replied. “Well, two, actually.”
“What’s that?” Blair asked.
“Either the plane is about to make an emergency landing at MacArthur airport or the governor of New York has declared martial law.”
“Shit,” Blair said.
“You can say that again,” Jennifer said.
“Why is it bad?” Kasey asked. “I mean martial law.”
“It’s bad because of what needs to happen before it can be declared,” Jennifer said. “Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution states something like, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended… unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”
“Rebellion,” Aarika said.
“Invasion,” Blair said.
“Let’s hope it’s an emergency landing,” Jennifer said.
But Kasey knew it wasn’t. It wasn’t anything close to it. When she looked at Jennifer, she knew that Jennifer knew as well.
“Let’s get to Jack,” Jennifer said. “And pray that there isn’t a curfew yet.”
“Or more motorcycles,” Aarika added.
“I know where to go,” Blair said.
Kasey started the Jeep and they drove into the night.
“We need to get to a police station.” Jennifer was finishing up her second power bar.
“Why?” Kasey asked.
At Jennifer’s suggestion, they had been driving with the lights off. In case they saw another bike or any suspicious looking vehicle, they could stop the Jeep right away and hopefully not be seen.
“We’ve got one handgun and eight rounds. If we want to get even close to freeing your friend, we need more substantial weaponry.”
“There’s a state trooper station next to the community college,” Kasey said. “Less than five minutes from here.”
“Okay.”
“They might still be there,” Blair said. “I mean, they might have at least one guy guarding the place. Right?”
“You got suggestions?” Jennifer asked.
“Yes, I do,” Blair said. “There’s a Walmart. It’s two miles up the road and it’s got everything we need.”
“There might be looters,” Aarika said. He had been quiet for a while, trying not to touch any of the pieces of dried human flesh on the back seat.
“We gotta be quick,” Jennifer said. “In and out. You know this particular Walmart, Blair?”
“Like the back of my hand.”
“Not sure if that’s a good sign,” Aarika said.
“Where are the guns and stuff?” Jennifer asked.
“Hunting and fishing supplies are on the left and toward the back. I can show you.”
“Shouldn’t someone stay in the car?” Aarika asked.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Jennifer said. “Kasey, why don’t you and Aarika stay. Me and Blair will go inside. Leave the car running unless somebody shows up.”
“Okay.” Kasey wasn’t sure if she’d rather go inside with Jennifer or stay in the car. Both options seemed equally undesirable.
As they drove through the night, too slow for Kasey but necessary, she was haunted by images of her mother as she lay in her own blood on the kitchen floor. She didn’t want to give into crying but came close to it a few times. Her other concern was for Jack. He had been missing for almost sixteen hours. Who knew what they’d done to him by now.
Besides the fact that
he was a human being and Kasey wanting to help him, there was something in the way he’d held her last night, the way he touched her hair and how he let her sink into his arms without wanting anything back. Thinking of that throughout the day had kept her going, kept her sane.
“That’s it. Make a right,” Blair’s voice brought her out of her thoughts. “We’ll be coming in from the back.”
“Probably best to park the car in back, too,” Jennifer said.
Kasey drove the Jeep toward the back of the building. Several garbage dumpsters lined the wall next to a delivery entrance and a ramp.
“We should try that one first,” Jennifer said.
“Flashlights,” Aarika said as he handed Blair and Jennifer one each.
“What didn’t you take from the gas station?” Blair asked.
“You are a funny man, Mr. Blair,” Aarika replied.
“Let’s go,” Jennifer said as she climbed out of the car.
She and Blair disappeared into the night. Aarika climbed up front and sat next to Kasey. They watched the dark parking lot through the nonexistent windshield.
“I hope this wasn’t a mistake, Kasey said. “I’m sure there are people inside the store. Once the blindness hit, they probably waited in there. It’s got food and water and a bathroom.”
“I think it all depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether or not people who were in the store had watched the news. Imagine if someone went crazy in there in all the darkness. Maybe the guy who works behind the counter in the fishing and hunting supply department. He’s got all the ammo he can possibly need. And he knows exactly where it is.”
For a while they were quiet. Aarika ate yet another power bar. A few cars pulled into the parking lot but none so far had pulled out.
“How did you get here?” Kasey said, mostly to keep her mind occupied. “To the States, I mean.”
“That is a long story.”
“Is there a short version?” Kasey could see his smile in the dark. She grabbed her backpack from under the driver’s seat and took out her boots. She decided that it would be best to put them on now.
“I was eight when I got here…”
“And?” Kasey asked when he didn’t continue.
“And… I came with my dad. My mother had to stay behind. We didn’t have enough money. They saved up for a few years to buy two tickets. They wanted… they wanted me to have a better future than they had.”
“Where’s your dad now?”
“He went back to India.”
“They gave you up for adoption?”
“Yes. It took three years for the papers to go through. I lived in my uncle’s apartment in Long Island City. He already had five kids so one more, I guess, didn’t make much of a difference. At least for a while.”
“Have you seen them? Your parents?”
“I get letters from my mother every week.”
“You haven’t seen them?”
“No. I have one more semester in the fall. After that I can go back and get a good job there.”
“You did good.”
“I don’t think so,” he said after a while.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m stealing from my uncle. I’m lazy. I’m doing the absolute minimum that’s required.”
“I stole from my parents. You shouldn’t beat yourself up over it.”
“Yes, but I’m sure your parents had money. My uncle has a gas station.” Aarika’s voice cracked. “But the worst thing is, I don’t want to go back. I haven’t seen my parents in twelve years and it was hard in the beginning but now I’m not… I don’t miss them anymore. I want to stay here and work here and get a girlfriend and an old car and drive cross country and listen to John Denver.”
“John Denver?”
“Yeah. You got something against John Denver?” Aarika wiped his eyes. Kasey could barely see him but she heard his soft weeping.
“This one guy in my class always played his songs on the guitar,” Kasey replied. “It was the most annoying thing you could possibly listen to. But it wasn’t John Denver singing it so I don’t really know.”
Aarika smiled.
“Who knows,” Kasey said.
“Who knows what?”
“Who knows what’s gonna happen. John Denver might be the least of our problems.”
She heard the sound when it was still far away and before she could see anything. Two engines. “They’re coming,” she said quietly.
Kasey couldn’t explain her fear. It was nameless and irrational but it took over her mind and she was unable to do anything about it.
“I gave Jennifer my gun.”
The two light beams cut into the night as the bikes turned into the parking lot. For a moment, Kasey thought they were heading for the Jeep but they went straight toward the entrance and disappeared from her field of vision.
“We gotta warn them, come on!” Kasey said, already opening her door.
“Are you sure? I don’t even know where to go in there.”
“We gotta try anyway,” she said and took the bat from under her seat. “See if the backdoor’s open.”
They ran past the containers to the door. The beam of Aarika’s flashlight led the way. It was locked.
“Can only be opened from the inside,” Kasey said. “We have to go around.”
They heard a muffled shot from inside. Then another, and a third.
“We should hide,” Aarika said. Kasey could hear the fear in his voice.
“I know,” she said.
They ran along the wall and toward the front of the building. Kasey felt silly armed with only her bat, but waiting was not an option anymore. When they entered through the glass door, another shot went off. It sounded like a shotgun. Someone screamed in pain. The shot was answered by several individual shots fired in rapid succession.
“Come this way,” Kasey said as they went through the door. The glass panel had been broken and lay shattered on the ground.
They went left along the meat aisle. Kasey’s plan was to stay as far as possible toward the outside walls and approach the hunting and fishing department from the back. That would give them easy access to the exit door and the car outside. The bikes’ headlights were enough for Kasey and Aarika to see where they were going. The sound of the motorcycle engines echoed through the large store. It was loud and relentless and Kasey could smell the fumes. It was as if the sound was connected to the fear and the further they went, the louder it got and the more terrified she felt. Every fiber of her being wanted to run, jump into the Jeep and get out of there.
When they reached the back corner, they could see the light as it broke through some of the shelves in fragmented beams. The fumes from the exhausts created a fog that sat there, making it difficult to breathe.
Then the engine sound became louder and one of the light beams shifted, no longer straight ahead but moving. One of the bikers drove slowly through the aisles.
“They’re looking for us,” Kasey said. Part of her knew that the thought might have come out of the fear she felt. For a moment, Kasey saw the biker as he passed the aisle they were in. The bike was a pale color. Neither silver nor white but something in between. The rider — she only saw him for an instant before he disappeared — wore rough leather pants and a vest of the same rough leather. He was bald headed. A sword, possibly a Samurai sword, was sheathed in a scabbard on his back. He held a shotgun in one hand. But that wasn’t what was disturbing about his appearance.
For a moment, she thought it was a trick her mind played on her, for what she saw was not possible. The skeleton of the spine, extremities and head, down to the fingers of his hands glowed red under his skin and clothes. The red was pulsating as if permeated with some kind of life force. The rider disappeared behind the next aisle. The terror stayed with her. She started to shake. It was as if her body was no longer under her control. The urge to end her life swept over her. It was similar to when she was driving in the dark thi
s morning. But this time, if she’d had Officer Carpenter’s gun, she knew she would have ended her life. There was no other option in her mind.
She saw the same pain and horror in Aarika’s eyes. It cost her every bit of will power to move, to remember why she was here and what she needed to do. And while she stood there pushing herself to a point where her limbs would be her own again, two words appeared in her mind’s eye. She didn’t know where they came from but she knew with absolute certainty what they meant. With them came an aura of an ancient evil, long since forgotten but deep in the recesses of her mind, they evoked a memory of a different place and time — a memory that had haunted her before. They were warning and prophecy at once.
Blood Riders.
She grabbed Aarika and pulled him behind a large shelf of laundry detergent. Thankfully, all the shelves in this section of the store were easily ten feet high. But she knew that the closer they got to the hunting and fishing department, the lower the shelves would be. She followed the headlight beam of the second bike with her eyes while they ran along the aisle, trying to move away from the biker and at the same time go in the direction of the hunting section.
A shotgun went off and the cleaning products next to Aarika and Kasey exploded. She let out a scream and dove down, hitting the ground hard. They heard the bike accelerate to their left.
“Get up!” she said, pulling Aarika with her. They crossed an aisle, passed another large shelf and stopped. Kasey saw Jennifer crouching behind the counter of the fishing area. She used a rifle to shoot at the biker who sat on his bike not more than fifteen feet away. From here it looked as if Jennifer’s bullets hit the biker each time she pulled the trigger. It didn’t seem to do anything to him as he kept firing his shotgun into the counter.
From her left, Kasey heard the second biker coming toward them. He would arrive at her spot in a few seconds and from there would have a clear shot at Jennifer and Blair behind the counter. Hiding behind the tall shelf, she waited for the biker to approach. When he was about to pass, she swung the bat at his head. She hit it dead on. His head snapped backwards and for a moment, it looked as if the biker lost control. But he simply raised his head again and continued on his path toward the others.
