by Joe McKinney
It used to make her laugh as a little girl. In the last few years, it had still managed to make her smile, but today she couldn’t even do that. It was getting late, and Uncle Reggie had been gone for a while now, since before noon. She was starting to get worried.
More than worried actually. She was downright terrified. They were a long way from Houston, nearly at the opposite end of the state, but that didn’t mean a whole lot when they were dealing with the infected. The infected spread at an alarming rate, and despite what the Deputy Director out of Shreveport was saying, she had already heard plenty of reliable reports of outbreaks as far away as Los Angeles and Seattle and New York. People screaming and dying in the streets made for pretty believable reports, confirmed or otherwise.
Come on, Reggie, she thought. I need you here.
She hoped he was taking this seriously. She hoped he was cleaning out the Walmart shelves, loading up the truck.
A noise made her jump.
She let out a small gasp, then froze, listening.
She could hear a scraping noise coming from outside her trailer, like somebody was dragging a stick along the wall.
Her hand went back up to her throat.
The sound stopped.
After a long silence, it started up again, closer to the window now.
Her mental map of the trailer was precise. She knew the exact number of steps it took to get from the kitchen to the front door, how many to get from her bedroom to the bathroom at the end of the hall. She could, with a surprising degree of accuracy, stand at the trailer’s front door and point out every piece of furniture in the living room. And she could do the same thing in the kitchen and her bedroom and the bathroom and even Uncle Reggie’s room, though she rarely went in there.
Now that mental map of hers was telling her she was standing right in front of the window that looked out onto the front yard. Whoever was out there would be able to see her through that window.
She stepped back and off to one side.
She waited, barely breathing, listening for the noise to come again.
From somewhere out in the yard she heard a moan, and her sightless eyes instantly went wide. There was no confusing that sound. She had heard it far too many times on the radio, that phlegmy rattling deep in the throat that was the calling card of the infected.
Her mind was humming. What was she going to do? She couldn’t go anywhere. She couldn’t defend herself. She was trapped inside this trailer. She wouldn’t even be able to see them coming. What in the hell was she supposed to do?
Come on, girl, she ordered herself, think.
Something thudded against the front door, a heavy, clumsy sound, a drunk stumbling up the stairs.
The door, she thought. Oh, Christ.
Moving quickly, she reached out and touched the edge of the counter. Gliding her fingers along the edge, she moved to the door, found the seam, then moved her hand down to the dead bolt.
It was open. Careless, she thought. Stupid. Stupid could get her killed.
Or worse.
She focused on the dead bolt and turned it as quietly as she could. She closed her eyes and cringed as the bolt creaked out of its seat and fell into place with a final and unavoidably loud click.
The noise outside her door stopped.
For a moment, the world was quiet. She could hear the wind whistling around the corners of the trailer’s roof. Outside, she knew, the late-afternoon winds off the desert would be filling the streets with driven dust. She had listened to the soft, gritty movement of that blowing sand against the windows of this trailer all her life, until it became a sort of soundtrack for her quiet, comfortable existence. But now it seemed more like an ominous prelude, the first notes of something terrible.
When the crash hit the door, she was not surprised, though she did jump backward and gasp. Kyra immediately silenced herself, but the damage was done. Whoever it was out there was now beating on the door, throwing their weight against it. She heard moaning and the sound of footsteps on the wooden stairs leading up to the door. A few seconds later, there were more hands beating against the door.
Uncle Reggie kept a pistol in his closet, she remembered. Maybe she could get it and use it, shoot through the door at whoever it was out there.
Yeah, she thought, and maybe you’ll even blow your own head off with it.
A crash against the door, and this time something gave. She could hear a crunch deep inside the cheap plywood. A moment later, there was another crash. The door burst apart, and Kyra could hear bits of wood falling to the floor.
She heard moaning, too.
She screamed as she turned and ran through the living room, crashing into the coffee table and Uncle Reggie’s La-Z-Boy recliner before finally stumbling into the hallway that led back to her bedroom.
Behind her, she could hear bodies clamoring through the doorway, falling all over themselves as they entered her home.
Her own bedroom was to the right, but she turned into Uncle Reggie’s room and slammed the door behind her. She tried to move his dresser in front of the door, but it was too heavy for her to do it by herself. Instead, she sat down with her back against the dresser and put her feet up on the door.
Fists beat against the door.
“Go away,” she screamed.
She was answered by moaning and a furious pounding on the door.
“Please,” she said. “Leave me alone.”
Then, from outside, a shotgun blast. The noise was followed by the sound of the shooter racking the spent shell from the breach, and then another blast.
“Kyra? Kyra, where are you, baby?”
Uncle Reggie, she thought.
“In here,” she shouted. “I’m in here.”
Kyra heard footsteps, Uncle Reggie cussing, then three more blasts from his shotgun.
She waited, her feet still pressed against the door with every bit of strength she had.
“Kyra?”
“In here.”
She heard the floor creak on the opposite side of the door.
He said, “Are you okay?”
“I think so.” She said it so quickly that the words came out as one syllable.
“Baby, I’m gonna open the door, okay?”
“Okay.”
A pause.
“Baby?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you blocking it with something?”
“Oh.” She took her feet off the door and crawled into a ball in the corner where the dresser met the wall.
She heard the door open slowly.
“Kyra?” he said.
“Right here.”
She felt his hands on hers, and a moment later, she was on her feet, Uncle Reggie’s arms around her.
“Don’t leave me again,” she said. “Please, Uncle Reggie. Oh, my God, I was so scared.”
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
CHAPTER 20
The acid started to work while they were on the road between L.A. and Barstow. Jeff Stavers was sweating. His mouth felt dry. Splotches of heat seemed to move across his face. He was disoriented, but oddly, it wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. He actually felt kind of giddy.
He got up and walked to the rear of the bus, where they had set up a full-service wet bar. The bus was swaying under his feet. He grabbed the headrests on either side of him and closed his eyes and imagined himself floating. This was how he used to feel, walking past Widener Library in the early morning, the only sound the snow crunching beneath his shoes. The whole world had been at his feet in those days, ready for the taking. Now, his skin was tingling with the memory of snow. Colin always bought the best drugs money could buy, and time hadn’t changed that.
He passed Colin and Katrina Cummz on his way to the bar. They were both high. Colin was squinting, eyes beet red and drowsy. His clothes and hair somehow managed to combine a look of tousled unconcern with immaculately tailored elegance. Katrina, wearing a flimsy white blouse with a black lacy bra clearly visible th
rough the fabric and a faded and alluringly shredded blue jean skirt, was curled up in the seat next to him, her big blue eyes fixed on Colin. A strappy sandal hung seductively from her toes.
She was asking him what he thought about the riots. When they left L.A., the news was breaking in on all the channels, talking about the street fighting, about how the LAPD was getting overrun and whole areas of the city had devolved into anarchy.
“It’s like Rodney King all over again,” Jeff heard Colin tell her. “It gets dull, if you ask me.” He patted Katrina Cummz on her tan, well-muscled thigh, his fingers lingering at the hem of her skirt. “Don’t you let it worry you. It’ll be long over by the time we get back.”
“You think?” she said. She was responding to his touch, and her own hand was sliding up Colin’s thigh to his crotch.
It almost sounded like she was purring, and Jeff thought, She’s perfect for him, completely vacuous. Or at least she seemed that way. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was a freaking rocket scientist. Maybe she had a natural gift for recognizing what men want from a woman, and for giving it to them. Talent was a sort of intelligence, wasn’t it? If it was, her intelligence certainly came across in the movies she made.
He continued back to the bar and opened the little personal-sized refrigerator for some ice cubes.
Colin’s two other groomsmen let out a whoop. One of them was an investment banker with some big Japanese bank. The other was some kind of executive with Paramount. Jeff couldn’t remember which was which.
One of them was sliding a black bra off the shoulders of one of the blonde porno queens they’d brought with them. Another blonde was sitting reverse-cowgirl style in the other guy’s lap, her head back and mouth open as his hands moved over her breasts.
Beyond them, toward the back of the bus, was Bellamy Blaze. She was watching him, stirring her drink with a fingernail that was as red as candy.
She smiled at him and he quickly looked away.
She made him nervous.
There was a sink next to the bar, and Jeff made an exaggerated show of dumping ice into his drink. Anything to keep from meeting her gaze. Then he took a cold can of Coke and mixed it with a heavy shot of Grey Goose.
He took one last look at her, saw she was still smiling at him, and quickly wandered back to his seat. He closed his eyes and let the drugs take over again.
When he opened them again, Bellamy Blaze was French kissing the two naked blondes. Colin’s other groomsmen were watching, hooting and hollering like a bunch of frat boys at a strip club. The girls had pretty much been interchangeable during the trip, fucking and sucking at the wink of an eye, all except for Bellamy Blaze. Jeff wasn’t sure if Colin had declared her off-limits for the other guys, but it was possible. Colin knew Jeff was infatuated with her. The subject had come up a few times in their e-mails. And it was just like him to spend forty thousand dollars on a week’s worth of drugs and reserve a porno star for his old best friend from school.
Now that she wasn’t watching him, he was watching her. The warm, sultry chords at the beginning of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” came over the bus speakers, and Bellamy Blaze disentangled herself from the naked blondes and drifted forward, her hands in her hair, eyes closed, lips barely parted in a gesture of obvious arousal. She was wearing a loose pair of faded blue jeans that were barely holding on to her hips. Her white camisole showed a lot of midriff and stretched around the fullness of her breasts.
The drugs were playing with Jeff’s senses now, creating an odd sort of visual synesthesia he could feel in his groin. The air became an almost liquid blur around her face. He watched the slow roll of her hips, and it seemed the song had taken physical form. Everything seemed so right about the way she moved, so effortlessly graceful.
His eyes rolled up to her face. She was looking at him again, watching him as she danced.
And then she was standing next to him. He had zoned out, he realized. But now he could smell her, and her scent was like some warm, wonderful blend of sandalwood and cloves and tarragon, only more delicate and distinctly feminine. There was a thin sheen of sweat on her belly.
He swallowed hard. Then he looked up.
“Your friend is quite a bullshitter,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Colin,” she said, and nodded back over her shoulder toward the rear of the bus. “You should hear him talk.”
“I have,” Jeff said. He laughed. “All four years we were at Harvard together.”
“Oh, God,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re one of them.”
“One of what?”
“You went to Harvard? You’re one of those guys?”
“Yeah,” he said. He wasn’t quite sure why he felt embarrassed about it, but he did. “But don’t worry. None of it rubbed off.”
She smiled. “You mind if I sit down?”
“No,” he said. “That’d be okay. I mean, sure. Yeah. That’d be great.”
He winced. He sounded like a jackass.
But she didn’t seem to mind. She squeezed around him, her breasts passing only inches from his eyes. Her nipples were erect, and for a moment he thought he could actually see them through her camisole.
Or maybe it’s the drugs, he thought.
“I like the way you dance,” he said.
“This is one of my favorite songs,” she said.
“Really?” Again, he sounded too eager. Jesus, he was handling this badly. He looked for something to say, something brilliant to keep her attention, but his mind was a blank.
“I love seventies folk rock,” she said. “It’s cheesy, I know, but I still love it. Always have.”
“I don’t think it’s cheesy.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of cheesy,” she said, and laughed. “Fun, but cheesy.”
He started to ask her about music, but stopped himself. It would just end up sounding dumb. Jesus, why was he having such a hard time talking to her? He usually didn’t have this problem. Was it the drugs?
“Robin Tharp,” she said.
That brought him back into the moment. “What?”
“That’s my name,” she said. “My real name.” She rolled her eyes toward the two plastic blondes getting passed between Colin’s groomsmen. “I’m not anything like them, Jeff. No more than you and Colin are alike. I get the feeling neither one of us fits in here.”
A slow smile formed at the corner of his mouth.
“What do you suppose we do about that?” he said.
“I like to be treated like a real girl, Jeff. I like to hear guys call me by my real name. Will you do that for me?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Sundown” faded away. Static took its place. And then, a moment later, he heard a man’s voice talking Spanish.
Jeff cocked his head to listen.
“Is something wrong?” she said.
“Listen.”
He closed his eyes and tried to focus. The radio was spitting out static again. The man’s voice was coming in brokenly, but Jeff was getting enough of it to pull the sense out of the rapid-fire Spanish.
The man was talking about the collapse of the quarantine zone around the Houston area. Wave after wave of the infected were pouring out of South Texas, but apparently there were other problems farther east. Outbreaks had been reported in Florida, up the Atlantic seaboard, and out West. He said Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix, anywhere with a major airport, were reporting devastating outbreaks. The border states in Mexico—Baja, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas—were in anarchy, the people there in a mad flight south, away from the infected pouring out of the United States.
Jeff opened his eyes. He looked at Bellamy Blaze—at Robin, he reminded himself. She had a hand over her mouth. Her face was stricken, her eyes wide.
“You speak Spanish?” he said.
She glanced at him and nodded.
“What are we gonna do?” she said.
Jeff
looked back down the length of the bus. The others were partying at top volume, rubbing up against each other like alley cats in heat. For two days they had been like this, too high to notice the country was experiencing a full melt-down. Colin and the others still didn’t have a clue.
Jeff scrubbed a hand across his face and tried to think clearly. He couldn’t focus, and the more he tried, the faster his heart beat. His fingertips were trembling. Robin was saying something, but she sounded like a bird singing, the words pleasant but indistinct. Were they slowing down?
He leaned forward and looked out the window. The desert sands were the color of ripe wheat and dotted with innumerable green balls of sagebrush. Off in the distance, a low line of chalky black hills hunched up to the cloudless sky. Here and there, industrially drab block-shaped buildings shimmered in the heat. Traffic was forming itself into knots. And they were slowing down. He could feel it.
They stopped.
“What’s going on, Jeff?” Robin asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Something’s wrong,” she said.
All he could do was nod.
Then the driver put the vehicle in reverse and backed up as fast as he could go, sending everything in the bus rolling forward. The bus rocked violently from side to side as the driver struggled to control the wheel. Jeff was thrown from his seat. Robin had to catch herself by grabbing onto his shoulder. There was a stuttering bark of tires. Brakes squealed. They hit something, and the bus lurched violently to a stop.
For a moment, Jeff felt his whole body go limp. Then, after a long, disoriented moment, he looked up at Robin.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“What the goddamn holy fuck is that asshole doing?” Colin shouted from behind them.
Colin’s other groomsmen echoed his angry shouts. One of the girls was crying. Jeff couldn’t tell which of them it was. Colin, still zipping up his pants, headed for the front.
“What are you going to do?” Jeff asked him.
“I’m about to put my boot up the fucking driver’s ass is what I’m going to do.”
