by Tom Abrahams
Using the cases like sacks, he raided the bathroom of toiletries, toilet paper, medicine, first aid items, and anything else he could find. He was squatting in front of an under-sink cabinet when Palero joined him.
Justin stopped pilfering and glanced at his partner with a furrowed brow. “Where are the others?”
“Chill,” said Palero. “They’re keeping an eye out front. You made a lot of noise breaking that window. I told the guys to stay put.”
Justin nodded and then rose to his feet. He moved to the master bedroom closet, dimly lit by a window at one end, and shuffled through the racks of clothes.
Palero followed him into the closet. “You find a safe?”
“Not looking for one.”
“Why?”
“We need stuff to keep us alive,” said Justin. “Food, clothes, medicine, stuff like that. Cash ain’t gonna do us any good right now.”
“You think?”
Justin stopped and faced Palero with an incredulous look. “Where you think we’d spend it? Ain’t no stores open. Ain’t nobody taking cash. We need commodities. Got it? Now head upstairs and look for diapers. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
Palero nodded and disappeared beyond the closet door, his footsteps loud as he stomped his way up the stairs.
“Idiot,” Justin mumbled and ripped a couple of women’s blouses from their wooden hangers. He stuffed them into the pillowcase and slung the sack over his shoulder. He stepped from the bathroom into the bedroom and scanned the furnishings.
The bed was unmade. There was a half-empty bottle of water on one of the bedside tables, perched on top of a paperback book. He read the name of the book, HOME, printed largely on the side of the dog-eared copy, the cover curling upward toward the edge of the bottle.
His eyes moved to a mahogany chest of drawers on the wall opposite the king-sized bed. There was a flat-panel television and cable box on top of it. He counted six drawers, two smaller ones in the top row and four larger ones beneath them. Justin dropped the bag onto the floor and crossed the room to the dresser. He opened the top drawers and fished through them. In the bottom of one, underneath remote control instructions, a package of batteries, and some iPhone power cables, he found a box of nine-millimeter ammunition. He fished through the rest of the drawer, the other one, and then rifled through the other four drawers.
He cursed and kicked the chest of drawers. He kicked it again in frustration and his ears pricked. He heard a noise, like a squeak or a chirp.
“Palero?”
No answer. He could still hear the oaf’s heavy footsteps upstairs as Palero presumably clunked from room to room.
Justin stood still and closed his eyes. He held his breath and listened. It took a moment, but he heard it again. A muffled squeak. It was coming from underneath the bed.
Suddenly he was aware of the thickness of the stale air inside the house. He felt the beads of sweat populating his temples and on the back of his neck. He swallowed hard. His eyes were focused on the floor where it met the bed.
“Hey, Palero,” he called. “I’m coming up there.”
Keeping his eyes on the same spot, Justin reached over and took the pillowcase. He heaved it over his shoulder and backed out of the room and into the short hallway that led to the family room.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and found Palero on his way down. He held his finger up to his lips and then pointed into the bedroom.
Palero squeezed his brow with confusion. He stepped quietly to Justin and whispered, “What do we do?”
“We hit the kitchen and then we get out of here,” said Justin. “We don’t need a confrontation. It could draw too much attention and bring the neighbors running.”
Palero nodded. “Should we leave now, then?”
Justin shook his head. “No,” he said. “Let’s get as much as we can from the pantry and bolt.”
The two soft-shoed their way to the kitchen and into the large walk-in pantry. It was a gold mine. Both men began filling their cases with canned vegetables and soup, dry ramen, and bags of chips and nuts.
In his excitement and haste, Justin didn’t hear the woman behind him until she cleared her throat. He spun around and saw her standing feet from him. She was in baggy pajama bottoms and a loose T-shirt. Wisps of her long brown hair were strewn across her face and she had a handgun leveled at Justin’s chest. Her wide eyes darted between Justin and Palero. Her lower lip and chin were trembling. Both hands were wrapped around the weapon, her arms extended, elbows not quite locked.
“Drop my stuff and get out of here,” she said in a voice more forceful than Justin expected. “Get out or I’ll shoot.”
Justin raised his hands. He could feel Palero next to him, following his lead. Both kept the bags in their hands.
“Whoa,” Justin said with a smile. “No need to shoot us. We’ll get out. Not a problem.”
“Go, then,” she said. Her eyes narrowed. She bit her lip. “Now!”
Justin, still holding the stuffed pillowcase, moved cautiously from the pantry. He kept his eyes on the woman’s. “Just walking toward the door.”
The woman took a step back but held her ground. “Drop the bag,” she said. “Leave my stuff. I’ll shoot. I’m not kidding.”
There was an almost imperceptible warble in her voice. Justin sensed she doubted her conviction.
Would she really pull the trigger?
“C’mon, dude, stay with me,” he said to Palero. Then he talked to the woman. “We’re going, okay? Like you asked.”
Her jaw tensed. “Drop the bag,” she said through her teeth, spittle spraying from her mouth. “I’m serious. I’ll kill you.”
Justin kept moving toward the door, one deliberate step at a time. He nodded and blinked past the salty perspiration pouring from his head and into his eyes. He tightened his grip on the twisted neck of the pillowcase.
“I hear you,” he said, “but you’re not gonna shoot us. You’re not gonna—”
The woman squeezed her eyes shut at the moment she squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flashed and a single round shot from the chamber. It zipped past Justin’s head closely enough for him to feel the sting of it on his ear.
A second shot exploded from the nine millimeter. It wasn’t as close as the first and crashed through a window at the far end of the kitchen. He dropped the bag and dove to the floor. He looked back over his shoulder and up at the woman.
Her chest was heaving. The weapon was shaking in her unsteady hands. Her eyes were wild. “Get out!” she screamed. “Drop my things and get out!”
Justin scrambled to his feet, gripped his baseball bat, and struggled to the door. He fumbled with the handle and spilled out of the house into the backyard. He rounded the corner and dragged his hand on the grass to maintain his balance. Palero sprinted past him toward the street.
He was instantly out of breath, his pulse racing from a combination of anxiety and anger. He’d been punked by a woman and she’d nearly killed him. If she were a better shot, he’d be bleeding out on the floor.
He was still running, sucking in what little air he could, when he bolted past the gang standing watch at the front of the house. They were shouting questions at him, but he ignored them and kept running until the house and the armed homeowner were well out of range.
Justin reached a playground a quarter mile from the woman’s house. It was a couple of blocks from his apartment. He tossed the bat onto the mulch and gasped for air, bending over at his waist. He rested his hands on his knees and worked to slow his breathing, only looking up when Palero called his name.
“Dude,” he said, “that was too close. She almost capped us.”
“What happened in there?” asked one of the other gang members. “We heard the shots and thought you killed somebody.”
Justin worked up a ball of saliva in his mouth and spit it onto the mulch that covered the playground. He shook his head and stood upright. His heart was still racing and the tingle of sudden exhaustio
n crept through his extremities.
“You had the gun,” he said to Palero. “Why didn’t you use it? She got off two shots and you never did anything. We could both be dead.”
Palero tugged on his jeans, pulling them up over his hips. “Seriously?” he snapped. “My hands were full. I mean, one was full. I was holding the bag. The other was above my head. I didn’t want to get shot.”
Justin reached out his hand. “Give it.”
“What?”
“The gun.”
Palero pouted. “Seriously?”
“What happened?” interrupted one of the others. “We thought you were shooting.”
Justin shook his head and motioned again to Palero. “No,” he said. “A woman got the drop on us. We got nothing now.”
Palero reached into his pants and pulled out the handgun. He reluctantly slapped it into Justin’s outstretched hand and then pointed his finger at him. “I wanted to leave,” said Palero. “You wanted to stay. I can’t believe you wanna put this on me. If we’d left, we’d have the loot. It’s your fault. You picked the house. You wanted to stay.”
Justin felt the others staring at him and a boiling anger bubbling up in his gut. He couldn’t be disrespected.
He turned his back on Palero as if to walk away, took the gun by the muzzle, and quickly spun back to swing the weapon hard at Palero’s face. He connected with a thud, the handle catching Palero on the jaw with a loud pop.
Palero’s neck jerked to one side and he dropped to the ground, grabbing at his face. Justin dropped to one knee and pistol-whipped him again, hitting his friend on the side of his head. Then he delivered a pair of punches to Palero’s ribs.
“That ain’t gonna happen again,” said Justin. “You ain’t gonna talk like that and we ain’t leaving somewhere empty-handed. Even if somebody’s gotta take a bullet.”
Palero curled his knees to his chest as he held his head with both hands. He was in the fetal position, whimpering in the mulch. The others stood wide-eyed, not sure whether they should help Palero or watch him writhe in pain.
Justin adjusted his shirt and stepped back from Palero. He pointed at the boy with the butt of the weapon. “Don’t doubt me,” he said to the group. “I know what I’m doing. I’m gonna keep us fed. You understand?”
He paced, feeding off the adrenaline coursing through his body. He needed a new plan. He needed a new target. And this time he’d be the aggressor. There was no way a woman was stopping him again.
CHAPTER 8
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2020, 10:18 AM CST
CLEAR LAKE, TEXAS
“Hold this, please.” Rick Walsh handed a coiled green garden hose to his son, Kenny. “Unroll it a little bit and then hold the hose out straight so I can cut it.”
They were in Jackie Shepard’s garage. Nikki was holding a flashlight. Mumphrey stood off to the side, his arms folded across his chest, and he was scratching them with his fingers. He’d been a ball of nervous energy all day.
Kenny held a section of the green rubber hose with his arms extended. He winced as his dad used a pair of clippers to snap off the threaded fitting on the end of the hose.
“All right,” said Rick. “Unravel it and give me about six feet.”
Kenny uncoiled the hose, held out a section, and shrugged.
“Yep,” said Rick. “That’s good. Hold it there. “Rick snapped the hose with the blades and then took the six-foot section from his son and handed it to Mumphrey.
The old man took the hose and ran his fingers across the snipped edges on one side. He held the hose up to one eye and tried peeking through the round, half-inch opening.
“One more,” Rick said to Kenny. “Give me a foot.”
The boy extended a short section of hose and held his hands wider than the requested length. He shrugged again.
“Nice.” Rick winked at his son and cut the smaller section of the hose. “Nikki, have you seen the gas can?”
Nikki aimed the light toward a far corner of the oversized two-car garage. “Over there,” she said. “See it?”
Rick’s eyes followed the bright blue beam LED light to the red canister. There were actually three five-gallon canisters. He took the smaller section of hose in one hand, tossed the clippers onto a worn workbench, and stepped over to the cans. He picked up one in each hand and then moved back to the group, setting the cans at his feet like pieces of luggage.
Nikki bounced the beam between the cans and the side of Jackie’s car. “Have you done this before?”
“No,” said Rick. “But I’ve watched it on YouTube.”
“Like I said,” Mumphrey offered, quick to involve himself in the discussion, “I’ve done it. It’s not too difficult. Simple physics is all. I’ve never tried it with two hoses. How’s that gonna work?”
“Yeah,” Nikki said, smirking. “How’s that gonna work?”
Her puckered lips were twisted to one side and one eye was narrowed in a near wink. Rick read the doubt as a flirtatious challenge. She knew he could do it, she just wanted to mess with him. He did owe her his life.
His mind flashed to the truck-stop bathroom and the clerks who might have killed him. He’d hesitated too much. He should have acted. He would act next time. He suspected there would be a next time if the power didn’t come back soon. There was no indication it was coming back soon.
Rick smiled at her and motioned toward the car with his head. “Just watch,” he said. “You could help by popping the gas cap.”
Nikki popped the cover and Rick uncapped the first of the gas cans. He dragged it over to the car and then ran the longer section of hose from the can and into the gas tank, making sure to drive the hose deep into the tank. Then he pressed down on the hose and maneuvered the second, shorter section into the tank. He pulled a rag from his back pocket and wrapped it around the smaller section of hose. He bent over and blew hard into the hose. Then he lifted the longer hose from the gas can and found a steady stream of gasoline flowing from the car and into the tank.
“Nice,” Nikki said. “I’m impressed.”
“The second hose prevents me from having to stick my mouth onto the hose carrying the gasoline,” he said. “Just a safer way to do it, I guess.”
“It’s a good idea,” said Mumphrey, running his hand along the hose. “Like I said, I’ve never tried that. One time I did manage to get a nice splash of diesel on my face. Nearly got into my eyes. Wasn’t any fun.”
“I can imagine,” said Rick. His eyes were still on his handiwork. He was secretly relieved, uncertain it would actually work until it did.
“So what’s next?” asked Nikki, aiming the flashlight in his direction.
“Yeah, Dad,” said Kenny. “Are we really leaving?”
Rick was squinting at the bright blue light. He shielded his eyes and nodded. “It’s our best bet.”
“Are you sure it’s not safer to stay here?”
“For now it is,” said Rick. “But this is a populated area. When the food runs out, or when people think it’s running out, it won’t be pretty.”
Nikki stepped closer to Rick and lowered the flashlight. “How can you know that? For all we know the power will be back on any second.”
Rick shook his head. “Nikki, c’mon. You saw the panic in everybody we came across on our way here. The cult, the truckers, the fake cops…”
Kenny put his hand on his dad’s arm. “You don’t think the lights are coming back on?”
Rick took a deep breath. He could lie. He was good at lying. He pressed his lips together and thought better of it. His son deserved the truth.
“I don’t know anything for certain. None of us do. I do know how people are reacting to the fear of the unknown. That’s what worries me. That’s why I want to get you and your mom to a safer place, somewhere away from people.”
Rick checked the gas can. It was nearly full. He told the group to step back, readied the second gas can, and quickly moved the hose from the full can to the empty one, only spilling
a few drops as he made the transition. He wiped his hands on an old beach towel and looked over at Nikki.
“What do you think?” he asked her.
“I know I’m not going home,” she said with a nervous chuckle. “There’s no point in that. I’m sticking with you guys. If you think it’s best to go, then we go.”
Rick pushed himself to his feet and nodded at Mumphrey. “What do you want to do?”
Mumphrey shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think there’s a right answer here. I also don’t think there’s a wrong one. I mean, if we stay, we could be in for a world of hurt in a few days. If we leave, we gotta brave whatever deteriorating situation lies between here and that compound. Like I said, I could go either way on this.”
“I want to do whatever you do,” said Kenny. “Even if Mom wants to stay, I want to go.”
Rick smiled at his son. “You’re sticking with your mom, son. No matter what. I can promise you, for now she’s coming with me.”
“Even though she doesn’t like Nikki?”
Nikki’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“Son,” said Rick, “you—”
“I’m repeating what she said,” Kenny said. “She said Nikki looks like your type.”
Nikki aimed the light at Kenny. “And what’s his type?” she snapped.
Kenny raised his hand above his eyes and looked away. “Young and beautiful.”
“Oh.” She lowered the light. “All right then. I can live with that.”
“Your mom will get over it,” said Rick. “Plus, Nikki’s not my type.”
“Oh really?” Nikki shot the beam at Rick again.
“Th-that’s not what I m-meant,” he stammered. “And could you please stop shining that in my eyes?”
“Apparently you’re blind anyhow,” Nikki said. “What does it matter?”
Rick took a step toward the light. “I didn’t…that’s not…really?”
