Collapse (Book 1): Perfect Storm

by Riley Flynn

  Sprinting around the walls of the church, they reached the building where the car was stored. Not quite a garage, not quite a workshop, it had been perfect. They entered through a side door, Timmy leading with the rifle and then checking everyone in after him. Once the full complement was inside, he scanned the outside once more and tugged the door closed, slotting an axe handle through the latch.

  Inside, there was the car. Painted a pale green, they’d not been able to fix the color. But they’d changed plenty else. The bull bars fitted to the front, the jerry cans clipped to the roof, and the cooling holes cut roughly into the hood transformed the soccer mom aesthetics. The style was still there, underneath, but it had mutated into an entirely new beast.

  The interior of the car had been stripped. There were four seats left: the two front seats had been kept, but one of the rear seats had been ripped out. More space for supplies. As Joan clambered into the car, Finn sat on what was left of the middle seat and she held him tight.

  The changes under the hood were less visible. As Alex threw the bags into the trunk, tying them in place, he fished the keys from his pocket and hoped he’d done everything right. No testing. No second chances. It had to work perfectly right now. He’d turned every screw, tightened every bolt, just as Timmy had told him. Trust in the technique. He turned the key.

  The engine started. Just. It turned over but there was no monstrous roar. Alex remembered the first time he’d started up the motorcycle. It had felt like riding a thunderbolt. As Joan’s old SUV ticked over, sitting behind the wheel was like teetering on top of a pile of loosely tied together junk. He had to hold it all together.

  With the car alive, there was one barrier left to overcome. Clearing his throat, pausing for the ceremony, Alex reached up to click the switch which opened the garage door. Silence reigned supreme in the car, even the dog watching the finger press against the red switch.

  Nothing happened. He tried the button again and again, but the door obstinately refused to raise even a millimeter.

  “Chinese piece of—” Cussing to himself, Alex leapt out of the vehicle and slammed the door behind him. They’d ripped so many pieces out of the bodywork that it didn’t give a satisfying thud. After he searched for and found the local switch, the garage doors began to heave upwards. In crept the sound of gunfire, of shouting and screaming. People dying.

  Sliding back into the driver’s seat, Alex felt his grip on the wheel. The vulcanized rubber, the way the grip had been knotted to fit into the fingers. Fine for a leisurely drive about town. In sweaty palms, it felt slippery. No time to change it now, though.

  Foot hit pedal and the car lurched forward. Just as the door creaked open, the car slotted underneath. A second sooner and the roof would have scraped against the hanging metal. Instead, they slipped under the door, out of the garage, and into the yard at the rear of the chapel.

  Only a small chapel, the bodies were buried on the town limits. They had a proper graveyard out there. But the back yard was still home to statues and apple trees. Alex had to wrench the wheel this way and that to keep the car on course.

  The gate was shut. A wide wooden farmer’s gate, it lay between two stretches of waist-high wall. The gardener could drive his mower in and out; it made repairing the chapel roof easier. Today, it meant space to charge through, the steel bull bars chewing up the rotten beams and leaving only splinters and dust behind.

  Inside the car, the people bounced around. Joan held Finn tight. The bags stacked into the back acted as walls, barriers to stop the dog being hurtled around the interior. Seatbelts bit into shoulders, the stiffened suspension shaking bones and bodies as Alex hit every pot hole in the road.

  They were in an alley, speeding around the corner of the chapel and on to the main street. As they reached the top of the town, the car stopped. Alex watched through the windscreen. The battleground.

  The circle of Cadillacs was still there, now riddled with bullet holes. A few of the cars had been driven away, giving chase to the gang members. In the distance, the black Escalades rumbled through thin alleys. Even from a few football fields away, the professionals were still obvious. Short, clipped movements.

  But their opponents moved like scattered animals. Darting this way and that, arriving from every angle. The white shirts and bald heads they all shared stood out. Their own armored trucks crashed all over, trying to mow down the professionals and slam into their Cadillacs.

  Alex spied the big man again, often at the center, directing his men. The dirt bikes whirled around like dervishes, some with two men: one steering and one shooting.

  Watching the chaos, Alex tapped a hand on the wheel. A conductor before the orchestra settles. Baton beating the rhythm.

  “Are we all ready?” he asked.

  No answer. The silence was all the agreement he needed.

  36

  There was one route out of town and the only way out was through. Through the gunfire, through the fighting. No one had spotted them yet. The car began to move down the street, the tires warming. Hit the end of the road, take a few turns, and they’d be on the highway. It sounded so simple.

  The car picked up speed. The digital needle skipped numbers as it arced upwards. Twenty miles an hour. Thirty. How fast was fast enough? If he had to ask, Alex decided, it wasn’t fast enough. Out the window, the sights along the Rockton high street began to blur. Home for weeks, blurring into the background.

  “Spot the gap, spot the gap,” Timmy shouted, taking hold of the handle above his door.

  The space between the remaining Cadillacs was limited. Aim for the excavated spaces. The circled wagons were porous, so find the spot when the cars had left. There were two. One on the right, one on the left. The left was larger, but the right seemed to have no one nearby. Right it was.

  Faster and faster in the quickening car, they were just thirty feet from the first Cadillac. A face turned. And another. The professionals switched their attention from the gang members, turning to face the car careering down the road. Alex felt the wheel twitch in his hands. He didn’t trust it to react quick enough even if he wanted to turn. Hold the course. Drive straight into the space.

  The first bullet chimed against the roof. Finn barked. Timmy shouted. Alex began to bellow, leaning down over the dash and tightening his grip. Another chime. The professionals were shooting at them. But the car was moving too fast.

  They made the gap. A mirror cracked and smashed as it hit against a Cadillac. Adjusting the wheel, Alex straightened them out. The scrape of metal on metal meant the car was just about getting through. Pedal farther to the floor. Faster. The only way. The bellow continued, rising in volume.

  Level with the professionals, Alex could see straight into their eyes. Not wearing sunglasses anymore. They were sweating. Worried. Not expecting this car. Trying to figure out whether it was even a target. One wasn’t thinking, his gun raised. The muzzle flashed. More bullets chimed against the car. But all along the roof. Too fast to hit.

  Passing, through the gap, Timmy waving, Finn barking: they were out the other side. Halfway down the Rockton street and heading for the horizon. The car picked up speed, more gunshots echoing around them. One caught the rear window, cracked the glass. Another followed it up, smashing its way through and burying deep in one of the heavy black bags.

  A sitting duck heading in one direction. Alex turned left and then right, snaking the car. Harder to hit. Still a quarter of the road to go, still a distance before they could turn off the main street, the car was cornering sideways, the contents leaning one way and then the other. Almost there. Time to take back control. Time to slow down, make the turn.

  A dirt bike broke out from an alley and into the road. A gang member, leaning forward over the handlebars had no chance. His friend, perched on the rear, firing backwards, never looked. The hood caught the front wheel, knocking the bike up into the air. It almost floated, caught like a plastic bag in a windy moment. No time to wait.

  Alex hit the brak
es. Behind them, the dirt bike fell back to earth. Joan was looking out through the smashed rear window.

  “Are they okay? We hit them!”

  “Drive! Drive!” shouted Timmy. “We’ll mail them a check.”

  No need to say it twice. Alex wrenched the wheel to the right, easing off the gas. The car slowed but took the corner flat, feeling its way around the bend. Straightening the wheel, he saw that their route ahead was blocked. The road had one lane on either side, leading right out of town.

  Away from the main street, the lots were bigger. On the edges, gardens stretched out in either direction. The porches of ranch houses with white crosses on the door. Like this all the way to the turnpike.

  But the road was packed with people. Cadillacs on one side; torn out, stripped-down SUVs on the other. They circled around, skidding and shooting. There must have been three of the gang’s cars and a single Cadillac, like lions trying to pull an elephant to the floor. The gang were quicker, the professionals better armored. Alex felt his own car twitch, switching into a higher gear.

  “Timmy, give them some warning,” he shouted to his friend.

  Nodding, Timmy found one of the pistols. One of the larger ones, Alex noticed, which they’d not yet touched. If he’d been standing up, the kick would have knocked him right across the floor. But as he leaned out the window, watching down the barrel and holding tight to the roof of the car, Timmy prepared himself.

  The crack of the gun filled up the car, the smell of cordite passing through and out the space where the rear window used to be. Again and again the gun fired. The road ahead shrank. Squinting to see, Alex saw faces dropping, hiding, and people hearing the gunshots from an unknown source. The Cadillac pulled to the side of the road; the gang’s cars sat still in the middle.

  They couldn’t take a frontal collision. Alex had fitted the bull bars himself, and he knew the welding wasn’t great. Hit hard square into the side of a car, even these lightened models, and they’d be in trouble. Three of them? They might as well get out and surrender now. Pulling to the right, heaving the wheel all the way, another route beckoned.

  The suspension held firm as the car hit the curb. One clunking sound and then another, both sets of wheels passing over, and then a loud smash as the car hit a white picket fence.

  Timmy jumped inside as the flying pieces almost caught him in the face. “Warn me when we’re going off road next time, man.”

  They ploughed through the yard, the heavily-loaded car churning up chunks of the once well-manicured lawn. Righting the steering, Alex saw the gang members watching from the road, raising their weapons.

  “Timmy!” he shouted. “We need a bit of cover.”

  His friend obliged. Whatever was left in the clip, he emptied it into the roadside. They were travelling too fast, no way of checking who was hit. But Alex saw every bald head duck down behind the cars. And then, like that, they were away.

  The uneven yard was felt in the tires, then the suspension, working its way up to the seats, where everyone strained against their seatbelts. With a twist of the wrist, Alex turned them back toward the road, riding off the grass, over the curb, and onto the asphalt. The sign for the highway loomed large ahead. Now leaving Rockton.

  “Exit, exit,” shouted Joan, clinging to the dog. “It’s up ahead. Get on there.”

  It was there; Alex could see it. That familiar green sign, leading them up and on to the highway. It must be deserted. Just like before. Once they were on the right road, it’d be easy to cruise straight through to Virginia. It wouldn’t be easy at all, Alex knew. But he had to believe the lie. Even before they’d hit the road, he could see the problems which would slow them down at every turn.

  Stopping for gas; stopping to administer medicine; stopping to sleep; stopping to eat; stopping to dodge around a turn-of-the-century Ford truck which had skidded across the road and taken up both lanes; stopping when it snowed or a storm hit; stopping to double back when a road was blocked; stopping anywhere that might possibly provide essential supplies, whether it was a gas station or a lumber yard; stopping to let the dog run free; stopping when Joan felt nauseated or when Timmy had to vomit; stopping when Alex’s eyes were heavy and he couldn’t drive another mile; stopping for every tiny reason. The road to Virginia was beset by a hundred hurdles, all adding hours and days to the drive.

  With such a big car and all the extra gas, they could probably do it in a couple of days. If they were lucky. Alex allowed his imagination to run free and unfettered. Just driving with his mind on autopilot.

  A flash of color in the mirror. Movement. Probably the gunfight back in town, Alex reasoned, watching the road ahead. The last thing they needed was to crash now or to hit a barrier. It caught his eye again. Quick. Flitting. Finally, he looked up. A gun muzzle flared, the bullet catching the brake light, sending chips of red plastic flying out behind the car.

  A rider, chasing them down. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. So close, Alex could almost see him grin, late morning light catching off the skin of his head. As they approached the on-ramp to the freeway, short concrete walls lined the road. It would be like that all the way. Nowhere to dodge and weave. Sitting ducks. The sound of metal on metal. Timmy was loading another clip. Holding the barrel, he passed the gun backwards to Joan.

  “Your turn, Joanie. Take ‘em out.”

  Even in the rearview mirror, Alex could see her eyes widen. As she was about to open her mouth, about to lash her tongue in every which way, the snap of a shot and the fizz of another bullet overhead stopped her. Timmy motioned with the gun again, passing it across.

  “Come on, just like we trained.”

  She accepted the gun in her hand, weighing it while Alex wrestled again with the wheel. The road into the turnpike was long and curved; he had to be careful not to push the car too hard, not to flip it on the side. But the bike didn’t have this problem. The man was levelling his arm again, taking aim.

  “Hold the dog,” Joan ordered, turning in her seat.

  Timmy grabbed hold of Finn’s collar just as the dog felt a moment of freedom. He snapped his hands over the dog’s ears. Watching in the mirror, Alex could see Joan turn in her seat, kneeling with an arm either side of the headrest. She held her arms out long, stretching, and looked down the barrel. She fired.

  Missed. The bike trembled. The rider righted himself, taking aim again. His shot missed, taking a chunk out of the concrete barricade twenty feet ahead. The rubble crashed against the windscreen. They were travelling fast. Joan aimed again.

  The backlash nearly knocked her into the driver’s seat, the hot casing falling into Alex’s lap. He didn’t have time to watch the biker, trying to fish the metal from underneath his crotch. He threw it out the window, turning to see it go. The biker was still there, getting ready to fire again.

  “Slow and steady, Joanie.” Timmy shouted the instruction, trying to make himself heard over the gunshots and engine noises. “Take a breath.”

  The car had nearly reached the freeway. Nearly there. Once they were out of the bend, the biker would have even more space to chase them down. With all these bags and all these people, they were too heavy to outrun him. Joan took aim again, and Alex lifted off the gas just for a second.

  Crack. The shot barked through the car. The dog whined. The casing flew. Joan shouted, her elbows in pain from the recoil. The biker, in the mirror, sat up. He slowed. He fell away, body falling off the saddle and onto the road. The car continued around the corner and soon he was out of sight. The road opened up. Only the freeway ahead. Timmy laughed and waved goodbye to Rockton through the smashed glass of the rear window. They were free.

  37

  Never slow down. Alex repeated the words to himself. Never slow down. An open road and a tank full of gas, the car hit a high gear and began to fly. Never an off-road vehicle, not built for the fight, it knew how to handle a flat stretch of asphalt and ate up the road ahead.

  The rear window, smashed and left back in Rockt
on, whistled. The air swirled around in the car, their own private gale force winds. The dog bounced across Joan’s lap as she passed the pistol back through to Timmy. Eyes on the road, hands on the wheel, Alex refused to turn. Focus. Drive. Get to Virginia.

  “Slow down, man. Let’s pull over and fix this,” Timmy said, pointing to the whistling space at the rear of the car.

  “We’re not free yet,” Alex shouted back. “We need to get further away.”

  The two others began to rumble back and forth, about conserving fuel and which turning to take. The right route to freedom, the right way to get out of here. But they didn’t know everything. They were just along for the ride. Alex tuned them out, his attention glued to the road and the wheel.

  Too many cars. Far more than there had been before. When they rode into Rockton, getting off the freeway by chance, they’d been on the bikes. Occasional vehicles had pulled up on the side of the road, some collided with the central barriers which separated the opposite sides. But they had been few and far between. Two every mile, maybe three. Alex remembered the cars, not the bodies inside.

  But now, weaving between the stationary cars, he was counting. There’d been at least ten in the last half mile and there were more on the horizon. Had the world changed while they’d parked up in the small town for a few nights? How long had it been?

  Maybe the entire world had tried to take to the road and had faltered. The road to Virginia was littered with failed attempts. The sick and the unsuccessful.

  Alex didn’t want to join them. Joan and Timmy argued while Finn had the pleasure of being able to fall into a deep sleep in the center seat. They squabbled over nothing much. Where to stop, where to eat, where to spend the night. Another world.

  With the wheel between his hands, Alex didn’t feel a part of the conversation. Since the car had burst through the gate at the church, he’d been in charge. Driving, directing, pushing harder and harder toward the farm, fixed in his mind. Now, winding between abandoned cars, he felt like Steve McQueen. Steve McQueen with a secret, striving to get home.