by JJ Zep
“Well, that will come as a huge fucking surprise to the 5000 plus Chinese that live there,” Meegs said. “Lived,” he corrected himself.
“So you’re trying to tell me –” Fagan started.
“That’s enough Fagan,” Charlie said. Then to Meegs, “Where should we be headed? What should we be looking for?”
“Galerias del Valle,” Meegs said without hesitation. “They’ve got a Walmart Supercenter, one stop shopping.”
“Grocery?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Gas stations?”
“All along Lazaro Cardenas. That’s one turn off the 111. Easy in, easy out.”
“That’s where we’re headed then,” Charlie said. He scanned their faces. Some of them, those staying behind, looked disappointed. “I’m going to place another call to Pendleton this afternoon. Then I’m going to pay Senor Morales another visit and see if he won’t help us out. If none of those pans out we head out at first light tomorrow.”
thirty three
It was mid-afternoon by the time she reached Blythe. Now Skye had a decision to make, the second important call she’d had to make since leaving Messenger to rot on the tarmac outside of Glendale.
The first had been whether or not to return to the farm. She’d decided against that. A part of her still believed that Messenger would somehow rise from the road surface, put his lacerated black heart back together and come looking for her. That was ridiculous, of course, but it wasn’t the only reason she’d put her foot down and raced past the off ramp. The place held too many nightmares for her. The ghosts of her parents, of her husband, of her brothers, still lived there. So did the vile memories of the torture she’d endured at Messenger’s hands, God rot his soul.
She’d decided to push on, to try for Pendleton, where she believed the Pendragon Corporation still had a base.
Then, not long after she’d passed Buckeye, the radiator had begun to hiss. She’d slowed the pickup to a crawl, not knowing if it was the right thing to do. The truck had sustained minimal damage in the collision with the station wagon due to the bullbar it wore over its grill. She had hoped that it would carry her to within range of Pendleton, where one of the PenCorp patrols might pick her up.
But as she rolled through the ghost town of Blythe, devoid even of Z’s, she realized that the Chevy wasn’t going to make it. So the decision came down to this: Was she going to continue her run for the coast or was she going to make a left at State Road 78 and try to reach El Centro? She knew that there was a fortified town there. Back in the days when the Corporation had still ranged as far east as Phoenix, they’d tried to convince her father to move his family to the town. He’d refused. She wished now that he hadn’t.
Thinking about her father brought tears welling up in her eyes. She blinked and sent one of them cascading down her cheek. Soon another was chasing it down, carving a path through the blood and grit on her face. A cry escaped her, a primitive animal cry that caused her to temporarily lose control of the vehicle. She righted it, brought it to a shuddering halt along the side of the road. Tears were running freely now, sobs racking her small frame. Skye let them come, let them flow.
When eventually she was able to gather herself, she checked on Daniel. The last time she’d checked, half an hour ago, he’d been asleep. He slept still, his chest rising and falling in barely perceptible breaths. She placed a hand on his forehead and withdrew it immediately, alarmed. He was burning up.
She lifted him from the makeshift crib she’d constructed in the footwell, wiped his face, his abdomen, his arms and legs, with a damp cloth. “Come on baby,” she murmured as she held him and trickled a few drops of water down his throat. He swallowed hard and made a small gurgling sound, which caused fresh tears to spring up in her eyes.
She took a miniscule sip from the canteen and re-capped it. The canteen was barely half full. She had to make it last.
Returning Daniel to his nest of blankets, she carefully arranged the covers to keep the sun off his face. Looking at him, so frail and vulnerable, got her sobbing all over again. He was all she had left in the world. If she lost him, she didn’t think she could carry on.
She placed a kiss upon his fevered brow, sat up and slid behind the wheel. Her mind was made up. She was going to El Centro.
thirty four
Morales, as expected, had been a waste of time. The man had refused to see him, had sent one of his sons out to restate his position. “Hand over Jespersen and we can talk, otherwise we have nothing to discuss.”
Now Charlie sat in front of the radio set, listening to the series of squawks and squeals as he tried to raise Pendleton. Like everything else over the last few weeks, radio comms had been reliably unreliable.
“Center, this is listening post zero, come in.”
Nothing.
“Center, this is listening post zero, come in.”
The radio returned a high-pitched squeal, running through the registers.
“Fuck!” Charlie said.
“Let’s try another frequency.” Galvin reached over Charlie’s shoulder and spun the dial on the set.
“Center, this is listening post zero,” Charlie tried again.
“This is Center. Over,” a voice came back in a squawk.
“Thank Christ,” Charlie said. “Center this is Lieutenant Charlie Collins. I need to speak with the watch commander. Over.”
Another babble of feedback. Charlie was sure he’d lost the connection.
“…wait….over…”
The radio suddenly went dead.
Charlie turned in his chair, turned towards Galvin.
“Have we lost them?”
Galvin shrugged.
“Zero this is Center, stand by.”
Charlie was about to speak again when another voice came on the line, British-accented.
“Chuck? Is that you?”
He recognized the voice immediately. He and Colin Buckland had gone through Ranger training together. Buckland was a captain now, a solid guy.
“Col?” Charlie said. “You the watch commander? Fuck they really are scraping the barrel these days.”
“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Ke-mo sah-bee. What’s up Chucky?”
“I could ask you the same question. What the fuck’s going on up there? We haven’t been supplied in over two weeks.”
A series of beeps and burps accompanied Buckland’s reply, all Charlie caught were the words, “Shit storm.”
“Say again, Col.”
“… shit storm, mate. Harrow’s got the labor force in a tizz. Half of the shack people …refusing to work… He’s…martial law.”
“Didn’t catch that last part, Col. Did you say Harrow’s declared martial law?”
No reply.
“Col?”
“Chuck?”
“I’m here. I didn’t catch that last part.”
Buckland came back, his voice now as clear as if he were standing in the room with Charlie. “Not sure how much you did hear, but here’s the quick version, before this fucking thing cuts out again. The shack dwellers took exception to Harrow’s little forced labor initiative. We have us a full-scale riot on our hands here, mate. Buildings being torched, people being shot. The upshot of it all is, don’t expect a supply truck any time soon.”
“Fuck!”
“Fuck indeed. Listen, before we lose the signal again, you take care of yourself, Chucky.”
“You too, you Limey son of –”
The radio went dead.
thirty five
It was late afternoon when the truck eventually gave up the ghost some fifty miles southeast of Blythe. Skye allowed the vehicle to drift across a low bridge spanning a mostly dry creek. She angled it towards the soft shoulder, heard the tires crunch in the dirt as they lost momentum and brought the vehicle to a stop in the meager shade of a desert ironwood. The road had angled east on her journey, so the sun was now shining directly into her eyes, its glare amplified by the spider web of cr
acks decorating the windshield.
She got out of the truck and rounded it, opened the passenger door and leaned in. The bundle of blankets lying bunched on the floor looked so pathetic and grubby that she felt suddenly incredibly sad and guilty. She pulled the top sheet away, revealing the sleeping face of her son, his complexion an unhealthy flushed red. He looked so small, so fragile, so …still.
Panic bubbled instantly to the surface. “Danny?” Skye said, as she reached and laid a hand on the baby’s forehead. He was burning up. “Danny,” she repeated, now running her fingers across his face to his mouth. She detected no breath.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Skye said frantically as she placed a hand on his chest then on the side of his face.
“Danny!”
She pulled him from his makeshift crib. Held him to her. Panic was now a runaway train. She scanned frantically in every direction, as though doing so might miraculously produce some form of aid. She saw nothing but scrub grass, stretching forth in every direction, running on to the blue hills in the distance.
C – P – R.
The letters popped into her head like a huge, flashing neon sign. She had to give him CPR, had to try and revive him. Skye had never performed the procedure in her entire life, but somehow her brain got the neurons firing on some first aid book she’d flipped through eons ago, somehow she knew what to do.
She grabbed the blanket from the cab, tossed it down in the dirt, laid Danny down gently on his back. She tilted his head slightly, pinched his tiny nose between her thumb and forefinger. She drew a deep breath of dusty, desert air, lowered her mouth to his and blew. She dropped her ear to his chest and listened.
Nothing.
“Come on, Danny,” she whispered.
She tried again, this time blowing and then pressing softly against his diaphragm with her palm.
“Come on!”
She was losing her son, she knew that, but for some reason Skye felt an incredible calm descend over her. She fetched another breath, leaned in, blew into his lungs, massaged his breastbone. Then, just as she was about to place her ear to his chest, Danny spluttered and coughed and began crying.
“Oh, my boy,” Skye whispered, scooping him up in her arms, hugging him to her. She sat down in the dirt and held him, rocking back and forth as he cried. Soon her wails joined his in a cacophony that was blissful agony.
Skye wasn’t sure how long she sat holding her son. Eventually she got to her feet, hobbled back to the bridge and slid down the low embankment to the creek. The water was little more than a trickle and she knew not to drink it. Still, she stripped Danny down and bathed him, then got him to take some water from the canteen, which was now only a quarter full. Exhausted by his ordeal the baby soon fell asleep.
Skye laid him down on the soft, shaded sand under the bridge then crouched beside the stream and washed the blood from her face and hands. She tended to her injuries, blotting at her scraped knees and pulling her dress aside to inspect the gorge on her thigh. It looked inflamed and angry and without treatment was probably going to turn septic. She found a sharp stone and used it to hack a hole in her evening dress, around mid-thigh. She inserted her fingers and tore the lower part of the dress away. Then she cleaned the wound as best she could, using a damp strip of fabric from the dress.
With the shadows lengthening, she crept in beside Daniel, cuddled him to her and closed her eyes. She was asleep almost immediately.
thirty six
She woke in darkness. For a moment she was unsure of where she was and panic welled briefly. Then she felt the gentle tickle of Daniel’s breath against her face and it all came back to her, the escape from Messenger, the drive eastward, the car breaking down, the scare she’d had with Danny. Had that all really happened? Right now it had the gauzy character of a dream.
The hurt from her throat, where Messenger’s crushing hands had throttled her, was no dream though. Neither was the dull agony that assailed her from her knees and thigh.
She needed to drink something. Rooting around, she found the canteen, pulled the stopper and took a small slug of tepid water, rinsed it around her mouth and swallowed. It did very little to slake her thirst, but she had to preserve what little water they had. Meanwhile, the creek bubbled merrily away just feet from where she sat, mocking her. She wasn’t drinking from there. The last thing she needed was a bout of diarrhea and projectile vomiting.
Gathering up her precious bundle she climbed out from under the bridge and scaled the embankment. On the road surface she stopped and dribbled some water into Danny’s mouth. Her son’s head lolled alarmingly when she did so. He needed to eat, needed proper hydration. Unless she made it to El Centro tonight, he was probably going to die.
That thought got her moving. She had no idea how far it was to her destination, only that it lay to the east of her. She’d been driving east when the car had broken down, so she continued on that path.
At first, each step was agony, as though her knees were full of broken glass. Eventually though, she found a rhythm, gritted against the pain until it dulled.
The night was moonless, a milliard stars ablaze in the heavens. Skye traveled on, the double yellow lines running down the middle of the road serving as a guide. It was warm and before long, she was drenched in sweat and her arms were aching with Danny’s weight. She stopped in the road and shifted the load before continuing on. She was thankful at least for the Reeboks, thankful that Messenger hadn’t made her change them.
The miles ticked by, slowly working tiredness into her bones. She passed a distance marker that said ‘Brawley, 5 miles,’ and walked the next while in trepidation. Where the hell was Brawley? Was she even on the right road?
Then she came across a direction arrow indicating a right turn onto the 111, and the name she wanted to see, ‘El Centro.’
Elation drove her on for the next half mile before tiredness again put lead in her shoes. She wanted nothing more than to stop, to lie down and sleep, even if just for a few minutes. But the occasional buildings she saw were dark and more than likely dangerous. She had to go on, had to.
Somewhere a coyote called and one of its brethren replied from alarmingly close by. Skye stopped in her tracks and scanned the brush to either side. She turned and looked behind her. Nothing.
She was just about to step off again when a pair of yellow lights flickered on in the darkness up ahead. Not lights she saw now, eyes.
A low rumble sounded to her right. Skye squinted into the dark and saw an identical pair of ochre eyes perforating the blackness. So there were two of the things. No, not two, three. Another of the creatures appeared beside the second.
She tried to recall everything she knew about coyotes. They didn’t attack humans, did they? Except, she wasn’t sure that was true. Was certain, in fact, that it wasn’t true.
As if to confirm that notion, the coyote in front of her took a couple of paces and showed its teeth. At that moment, the moon decided to put in an appearance, peeking over the horizon like a wedge of rancid, yellow cheese.
Skye stood rooted to the spot, aware that she should run but unable to do so.
The coyote advanced by another pace. A rustle of bushes to Skye’s right told her that the two on that side were also closing.
thirty seven
The only path open to her was to the left, but one panicked glance in that direction told her it was no use. There was no cover, no concealment, no trees to climb. The coyotes would run her to ground before she’d made more than a dozen paces. She was going to have to stand her ground. Hadn’t she read somewhere that coyotes were spooked by noise?
She opened her mouth to scream but her damaged throat delivered nothing more than a dry whisper. The coyote edged forward, fur bristling, lips drawn back from canines that appeared yellow in the moonlight, its growls echoed by those of its companions.
Running, futile though it might be, was her only option. She shifted her gaze furtively to the left, tried to pick out a path. A yelp fro
m the fore drew her attention back to the road.
For a moment, Skye was unsure of what to make of the change she saw there. The coyote had stopped growling, stopped stalking. It was hunched down, shrinking away like a dog anticipating a slap. Its tail was curled between its legs, its ears were flat.
Then one of its companions issued a yapping bark and the creature exploded across the tarmac and disappeared into the brush.
Skye looked into the dark after the fleeing coyotes. What the hell had just happened here? Why on earth had they…
A smell reached her, then a sound.
“Oh shit,” she said. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”
The zombies came out of the blackness, a horde of decaying corpses redolent with the stench of an abattoir. Their maddening buzz seemed to fill the air with static electricity before the first of them staggered from the brush onto the road, a nightmare made flesh.
Were they left or right of her, or both? She couldn’t tell, that zombie hum was in her head disorientating and confusing her. More of the things staggered onto the blacktop and shuffled towards her, moving with surprising swiftness now that they sensed a meal. She spun round, looked back the way she’d come. They were there too. She was surrounded.
“No!” she screamed and this time her vocal chords actually did respond.
The coyotes, having gained a respectable distance, answered with mournful voices. Those voices triggered something in her brain, the inkling of an idea that collapsed instantly into a fully formed escape plan. The zombies were mere feet away. Skye clutched Daniel close to her breast, then sprinted from the blacktop, following the path the coyotes had taken. If they’d run this way, the path was likely to be free of Z’s.
Moonlight lit the trail she was on. Only it wasn’t a trail, not really. Rocks and clumps of scrub grass placed obstacles in her way. She vaulted them, driving hard on exhausted legs that were running on pure adrenalin. When she thought she might have left them behind, she slowed to a walk, looked back the way she’d come.
