Dream Sky

by Brett Battles

  What the hell was wrong with these people? They didn’t look sick. Shouldn’t they have been happy to find others alive?

  “Thirty seconds,” the man announced, “or I swear to God I will shoot him in the back of the head, and we’ll try to figure out how to sail this thing ourselves.”

  “I told you I can do it,” Pax said, his voice not quite as loud as the other man’s. “My friend’s long gone by now. He’s not coming back.”

  “Is that right?” The response was yelled so Robert could hear it. “You the kind of person who will just leave your friend to die?”

  Robert didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want Pax to get hurt, but who was to say these people wouldn’t kill both him and Pax if he did as they asked? Robert’s main responsibility was to those still on Isabella Island. Without him, they would never get off. Of course, without the ferry, getting everyone to the mainland would become infinitely harder.

  “Goddammit! Where the hell are you?” the man screamed. He grabbed the back of Pax’s shirt and shoved the end of the rifle into Pax’s neck. “I’m fucking serious! Show yourself!”

  One of the man’s companions came up and said something Robert couldn’t make out.

  “I know what I’m doing!” the agitated man shouted. “I know what I’m doing!”

  “I can pilot the boat for you,” Pax said, his voice surprisingly even.

  “Jacob, his buddy’s obviously not coming back,” the man who’d walked up said, his voice louder now. “We need to let this one try. What other choice do we have?”

  “Come on! Where are you?” the man holding the rifle—Jacob—yelled.

  “Let’s just go,” the other man said. “He’s not coming. We’re wasting time.”

  Jacob grunted in frustration and then lowered his rifle. After twisting Pax around, another conversation ensued, again too low for Robert to hear. When it ended, Jacob shoved Pax toward the Albino Mer.

  The only time in his life Robert had felt more helpless was when he realized Dominic had contracted the Sage Flu. From his hiding spot, he watched as Jacob led Pax onto the boat, while the other four retrieved several suitcases from the bus and carried them to the ferry.

  As the two women untied the lines holding the boat to the pier, the engine kicked to life. For a few moments, the Albino Mer simply drifted in place. Finally, the rumble of the motor increased and the ferry pulled slowly away.

  Robert noticed activity along the opposite side of the boat. He couldn’t tell what was going on at first, but when the ferry cleared the end of the dock and turned to the northeast, he saw two of the kidnappers repositioning the speedboat he and Pax had arrived in so that it could be towed behind them.

  Robert waited until the ferry disappeared behind the cruise ships before stepping out from the building. If he didn’t already have proof the world had changed, he had it now.

  Pax’s kidnappers had made a serious mistake, though.

  They had taken the boat Robert needed to help his people.

  Perhaps old-world Robert—the one who had to worry only about himself—would have done nothing.

  But, like the changing world, he wasn’t the same anymore, either.

  5

  SURVIVAL STATION, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF BELINDA RAMSEY

  ENTRY DATE—JANUARY 5, NOON CST

  SINCE MY LAST entry yesterday evening, three more people have been added to our waiting area. This is the fewest new arrivals since I got here. I’m not sure if that means there’s just no one else alive or what. Still, three more adds to our strain. There are already too many survivors here for the bunks we’ve been given. Noah pointed this out to one of the guards, but they basically told him to shut up.

  I don’t know how many additional arrivals may have been added to the other area. I tried to get a count, but since most everyone over there seems to be sick, they pretty much go straight inside their dormitory and only a few come back out. There were at least four, though. Could have been double that, I guess.

  It’s strange listening to the new people. They’re all excited and relieved. They can’t believe they made it. I remember feeling that way just a few days ago. How quickly things change, huh?

  The question they all ask is how long until they get vaccinated? They can’t believe it when we tell them that none of us has received the shot. They make up the same excuses we all have—that the vaccine hasn’t arrived at the station yet, or the supply is limited so the UN wants to make sure we’re healthy first to prevent wasting any on someone it won’t help.

  I still want to believe it’s one of these things, but it’s becoming harder and harder. Those who have been here longer than me have completely given up hope.

  This morning we had something new thrown into our usually dull days. As we were given our breakfast, we were each handed a packet. Inside were about twenty sheets of paper stapled together, a pencil, and a Scantron card like something one of my college professors would use for tests. Printed at the top of each page of the packet was SURVIVOR SURVEY, and below were several multiple-choice questions.

  The questions seem to be aimed at finding out about our backgrounds and skills. The multiple-choice aspect makes it a bit limiting, though, not letting you explain or elaborate on anything.

  For example, here’s one that annoys me. The question is, Which of the following do you consider best describes you? The choices (we’re only allowed to pick one) are: A. Broad technical knowledge, B. Focused technical knowledge, C. Non-technical. I mean, come on. There’s a whole range of possibilities between B and C. And then there are follow-ups, very specific questions, like if you answered A, please answer questions 14-19, if you answered B, please answer questions 20-27, and if you answered C, continue on to question 28. The specific questions are clearly meant to zero in on the exact nature of the test taker’s knowledge.

  There are more questions like that, all focusing on tangible skills like engineering and science and medicine. I get it. The world’s a different place now, and people with those kinds of abilities are going to be in high demand, but the rest of us are still useful. My writing skills are useful, for God’s sake. Someone has to record what’s going on, don’t they?

  Be right back.

  Okay, this is not good. I heard some raised voices outside and went to check what was going on. It seems another five people were just put in with us. Noah and two other guys tried to block the gate so they couldn’t get in. The shouting I heard was them yelling at the guards that until we got some more beds, the UN needed to find some other place for the survivors.

  What happened next took us all by surprise. While the new survivors were held back, seven guards moved into our holding area and knocked Noah and the other two men to the ground. And by knocked to the ground, I mean they smacked the butts of their rifles into the men. The guy who hit Noah knocked him on the side of the head. Noah wasn’t exactly unconscious but he was dazed for sure, and there was blood all over his face.

  I was too far away to do anything, but a few of those closer rushed over to try to help him up. Before they could reach him, though, the guard flipped his rifle around and pointed it at them, telling them to get back.

  The guards then picked up the three men and carried them out the gate. I’m assuming they’re taking them to get medical attention but I’m worried that they aren’t. Needless to say, the new survivors were ushered in before the gates were closed again.

  I can’t lie and say no part of me wishes I had stayed back in Madison. I guess I could write everything off as tension created by the pandemic. I mean, how can anyone be expected to act normal?

  But as much as I’d like not to believe it, something feels wrong. Very, very wrong.

  CAMBRIA, CALIFORNIA

  11:10 AM PST

  NOREEN DROVE HER motorcycle slowly down Moonstone Beach Drive, looking into the motel parking lots that lined the right side of the road. To her left, she could hear the waves crashing on the beach just below
the short bluff.

  Noreen, Riley, and Craig had been searching for Martina for three days now. When their friend had sped off in pursuit of the red Jeep, Noreen, the closest one to Martina at the time, had immediately followed. For over an hour, she was able to keep Martina in view, but ten miles north of Paso Robles, her bike began to sputter as it used up the last of her gas. Rolling to a stop, she had watched her best friend disappear around a bend a half mile south.

  When Riley and Craig showed up ten minutes later, she sent Craig after Martina while she and Riley refueled Noreen’s bike. They found Craig on the bridge just north of Santa Maria waiting for them. He had never even caught a glimpse of Martina and wasn’t sure she had come that way. They had continued south, though, thinking that staying on the 101 made the most sense.

  When they reached Santa Barbara, they finally stopped. Any farther south and they would be encroaching on Los Angeles, where there would be a near infinite amount of routes Martina could have taken, and an equal amount of odds against them finding her. They decided their best course would be to check everywhere between Santa Barbara and where they had lost sight of her. That was what they had been doing.

  “Noreen?” It was Riley, her voice coming over the CB radio they had installed on their bikes the day before. Each came complete with a new helmet that had an embedded microphone and speaker.

  Noreen keyed the talk button. “I’ve got nothing over here.”

  “East end of town is clear, too,” Riley said.

  “Let’s check out the west end, then.”

  “Meet you there.”

  Cambria was a quaint tourist town along Highway 1 on the California coast. It was divided into several different areas, with most businesses either in east village or west village. Noreen entered west village from the ocean end and slowed again. Stores and restaurants occupied both sides of the street—gift shops and candy shops and antique marts and a barbecue place and a bar and grill. As she passed them, she had the sudden memory of being on this street before. It had been with her parents, some weekend trip God only knew how long ago, before high school, for sure, maybe even back when she went to Faller Elementary. They’d been in a magic shop, and she remembered being in awe of everything. But the shop seemed to be gone now.

  She pushed the mic button, not wanting to think about the past. “Where are you guys? I don’t see you.”

  “Not there yet,” Riley whispered back.

  Noreen stopped in the middle of the road. “Something wrong?”

  “There’s a grocery store between the east and west ends. We stopped to check it out.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “Someone’s there.”

  “Martina?”

  “Not Martina.”

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “We’ve seen two people, but there’s got to be more,” Riley said. “They’ve got a pickup truck and at least two motorcycles. And they don’t look friendly.”

  Immediately, the memory of the guy who had shot at them in the hills a few days earlier came back to Noreen. “They haven’t seen you, have they?”

  “Uh-uh. We parked our bikes on Main Street and snuck up the hill. Hiding behind a delivery van someone left here.”

  “Enough talking,” Craig broke in. “They’re going to hear us.”

  “You guys should get out of there,” Noreen said. “We don’t need to make any new friends.”

  “We’re okay here,” Riley said. “They can’t—oh, God.”

  “What is it?”

  “Shhh,” either Riley or Craig whispered.

  Noreen killed the engine to her motorcycle and wheeled it onto a side road, parking it at the curb.

  “What’s going on?” she said.

  She heard nothing, not even static.

  “Hello? Are you there?”

  She looked at the radio to make sure she hadn’t accidentally switched the channel. The power light was off.

  What the…

  Crap.

  The CB was a handheld model with a charging cradle that, with the help of an instruction manual, they had wired into the bike’s electrical system. She snatched the radio out and switched it from external power source to battery.

  “…there? Noreen?”

  “I’m here. I’m here. What’s going on?”

  “Hide! Now!”

  Noreen looked toward Main Street, almost expecting to see a horde of the undead staggering toward her.

  “What’s going on?”

  Nothing for a second, then Riley said between rapid breaths, “One of them saw us. He…ran back inside to get his friends…and we took off.”

  “Where are you?”

  “No place to hide…getting on our bikes…”

  In the distance, Noreen heard their motorcycles roar to life. Then, as their engines idled a bit, a bang.

  “What was that?”

  “It’s okay…we’re all right,” Craig said.

  “Were they shooting at you?”

  “Missed us,” Riley said.

  Hearing motorcycles roar down Main Street, Noreen shot a look at the intersection and was just in time to see Riley and Craig race by. As the sound of their engines began to fade, she heard more bikes coming from the direction of the market.

  “They’re following you,” she said.

  Knowing she couldn’t be standing there when the other bikes came by, Noreen ducked around the rear of the nearby shop and crouched behind a Dumpster. She could hear three motorcycles race past back on Main Street. A few moments later, a vehicle she guessed was a truck followed.

  What was wrong with these people? Why did they care about Riley and Craig?

  Staying hidden, she spent the next ten minutes trying to reach her friends.

  Finally, Riley answered. “We’re okay.”

  “What happened?”

  “We cut up a hill into a residential area. They must have thought Craig had taken the highway north. They sped off that way. We watched them for a few minutes, but can’t see them anymore.”

  “Why did they chase you?” Noreen asked.

  “Maybe because we were spying on them?” Craig suggested.

  “I guess, but why shoot at you?”

  The only reply was silence, but Noreen suspected she already knew the answer.

  The rules of life they’d grown up with no longer applied.

  RIDGECREST, CALIFORNIA

  12:36 PM PST

  BEN BOWERMAN HAD checked everyplace he thought Martina might be.

  When he had arrived in her hometown two nights before, his intention had been to head straight to her house. He had been there only once and that had been the previous summer, so he had just a vague idea of its location. If Martina had lived in one of the housing tracts within the city limits, he was sure he’d have no trouble finding her house. But the Gables’ home was down a dirt road west of town, where everyone had his or her own few acres of desert.

  It turned out there were a lot of dirt roads in that direction, and Ben’s search wasn’t helped by the sun going down. It took him until almost ten that night before he finally found the house, recognizing it by the large, detached three-car garage with asymmetrical sloped roof.

  He felt a rush of hope when he saw Martina’s Toyota Corolla parked out front. He jumped out of his car and ran to the front door of the house. It was locked.

  “Martina, it’s me!” he yelled, knocking loudly.

  Nothing. Not even the creak of a floorboard.

  He raced around to the back door, but it was also locked.

  “Martina! Are you in there?”

  He looked up at the darkened second-floor windows but sensed no movement beyond them.

  He remembered Martina had said her family kept a spare key in the garage, but for the life of him he couldn’t recall where. So he grabbed a log off the firewood pile on the side of the house and smashed it through the window next to the rear door.

  “Sorry!” he yelled through the opening just in case someone
was there. “It’s me. Ben Bowerman. Martina’s boyfriend.”

  He reached inside, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.

  “Hello?” he called. “Anyone home?”

  No answer.

  Reluctantly, he stuck his head a few inches inside and sniffed the air. Stale, but no smell of death. Relieved, he stepped all the way inside.

  The house was quiet, the same kind of undisturbed silence he’d experienced pretty much everywhere he’d been the last several days. He felt along the wall until he found a light switch and flicked it up. Nothing. He hadn’t really expected it to work. He had seen no lights on anywhere else in town. So he returned to his car and retrieved a flashlight from the bag of things he’d been collecting to replace the stuff he’d lost when Iris Carlson stole his Jeep.

  Back inside, he methodically worked his way through the house, hoping to find a note or some other indication of where Martina went. It was clear from the open drawers and closets in the bedrooms that the Gable family had left in a hurry, but he discovered no clue about their destination.

  He slumped down on Martina’s bed, tired and frustrated and depressed. He had been so sure he’d find her here that he hadn’t considered what to do if he didn’t.

  He hadn’t intended on falling asleep right there in her room, but that’s where he found himself late the next morning when he woke. Still unsure what he’d do, he headed downstairs to see if there was any food left in the kitchen. As he crossed through the living room, he looked out the row of east-facing windows. In the distance, he could see the hill with the large white B painted on it.