by Tate, Harley
Colt scrubbed his face and hurried past the door. The second half of the warehouse mirrored the first, leaving nothing but the front for him to inspect. From his vantage point at the front corner, a series of four windows, two on the right and two on the left, flanked a main entry door. Although they used to let in plenty of morning light, the windows had been long since painted a dull red on the outside to match the brick.
He couldn’t see in even with the Jeep’s high beams for lights.
Damn it to hell. Backtracking to their meetup spot, Colt hurried to a shivering Dani and Larkin.
“Took you long enough. Two more minutes and we were coming after you.”
“It’s definitely occupied. But I can’t see a damn thing inside.”
Larkin fixed him with an experienced stare. “So what do you want to do? Wait until morning?”
“Not a chance.” Colt glanced at Dani. He hated to put her in danger after all she’d been through. “We’ll have to go in.”
Larkin’s shoulders sagged. “Blind. With no information.”
“Seems that way.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” He swung the shotgun off his shoulder and exhaled. “Then let’s get on with it. At least once we’re inside I’ll stop freezing my balls off.”
Dani snickered beside him and readied her own shotgun, falling in step beside Colt. In no time, they were standing outside the rear door.
Colt took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Eight
TRACY
Clifton Compound
Near Truckee, CA
8:00 p.m.
Every time Tracy snuffed back a frustrated bout of tears, the freezing night air stung her nostrils. She pushed her hood back and absorbed the cold smack across her cheek.
First Madison, now Walter.
Her daughter could be dying and her husband already dead. She’d gone from secure and stable to upended and on the verge of losing the two people who mattered more to her than anyone or anything else in the world.
Icy wind watered her eyes and dulled the panic threatening to rend her useless. Somehow, despite everything she had endured, a part of her believed it would all stop. Surely, the little voice in the back of her mind argued, the country will struggle back to its feet. The horror of the past nine months will disappear into a worn and faded memory. It will all end sometime.
Tracy shuddered. I should take that voice out back and shoot it.
The EMP wasn’t a stumbling block that caused initial riots and unrest followed by crackdowns and order. Nothing got better. Everything just devolved. After the initial run-ins with the National Guard, neither Tracy nor Walter had seen any sign of aid workers nor any branch of the military. The government had been as silent as the radio.
Without electricity, the lights weren’t the only thing to never work again.
Tracy wondered about the larger cities. Were they burnt husks of their former selves? Empty apart from a few stragglers who managed to scavenge to survive? Truckee certainly wasn’t clawing its way back. The town was a burnt-out shell of humanity. Give it five years and it probably wouldn’t exist at all. The forest would claim the tumbled bricks and concrete blocks and erase the American footprint on the land.
The collapse of the grid might as well have been a biological attack or a zombie invasion. From the way Walter talked about downtown Sacramento and Colt described Eugene, they suffered even more. She couldn’t imagine what New York City must be like. Was that where the government focused their efforts? Did the major population centers scoop up all the attention and aid?
Tracy stepped off the porch and stalked out into the snow. With nine months of no light pollution, the fear of a pitch-black night no longer kept Tracy inside. The moon and stars—too many to conceive of—reflected off the snow and turned an electric-free winter into a natural night-light. With no neighbors for miles, they were alone. Ten people in a handful of cabins, working together and pooling resources for the greater good.
Could small towns where everyone knew everyone else be thriving? With so much of the country used for animal herds and crops, there must have been pockets of resilience. The Clifton compound couldn’t be the only working farm this side of the Sierra Nevadas.
Tracy stopped walking and pressed icy fingers to her eyelids. I’ve got to stop this line of thought. She couldn’t do anything about the collapse of the United States. She couldn’t change the trajectory of the country or the downward spiral of even her own family into mere subsistence living.
All she could do was concentrate on their immediate needs: shelter, food, water. It was the best anyone could hope for now. Walter’s absence tugged at her heart. Not hitting the road to search for him drove her practically insane. Combined with Madison’s injury and the threat of rabies, she wanted nothing more than to accomplish something.
But Colt, Larkin, and the rest of the group were right; she couldn’t leave Madison now.
What if something happened to her? What if Walter was already dead? Leaving her daughter alone because she tried to be the hero and failed would be worse than losing Walter. Tracy had to hope her husband was alive and that Colt would find him.
But it wasn’t like Walter to disappear or to leave something as meaningful as his watch behind. That watch had survived everything from the emergency landing in Oregon to the escape from Sacramento and the years of ordinary life beforehand. He wouldn’t let it slip off his wrist. Something bad had happened. She knew it.
Tracy exhaled.
She had to have faith things wouldn’t get worse. It was the best she could do.
As she turned to head inside, a disturbance in the snow caught her ear. Was it an animal? An intruder? Visions of snarling mountain lions or bobcats filled her mind and Tracy dug out the flashlight in her pocket. She clicked it on and pointed the beam at the edge of the tree line thirty feet ahead.
A patch of reddish fur wriggled in the snow bank. Fireball? Could the little cat be out in the elements? If he were outside, then he was at risk of being caught or injured. Tracy stepped off the porch and hurried toward the animal.
Ten feet away, she froze. The pricked ears and black paws weren’t attached to a fluffy cat with a penchant for field mice. It was a fox.
With a bloodied right rear leg, it had to be the one that bit Madison. Tracy stared at it. The animal bobbed and weaved like a drunkard, stumbling forward and back and never getting anywhere. Was it delirious? Weak from the injury and pain?
Tracy eased closer. The animal snarled and Tracy jumped but it didn’t advance. Instead, it flattened its ears and pounced at the snow bank, attacking nothing.
A shiver rushed down Tracy’s back. An erratic and discombobulated animal could be more than injured. It could be sick with a latent infection or Tracy’s worst fear: rabies. She fluffed her parka up in the back and eased a handgun from the appendix holster clipped to her jeans.
Cold and unforgiving, the steel frame of the handgun slowed her frantic heart. Taking aim, Tracy steadied her breath and her hand and pulled the trigger. The crack of the shot echoed through the snowy woods as the fox fell in a lump in the snow.
Tracy closed the gap between her and the dead animal before crouching at its feet. Ice crystals melted into the burnt orange fur as blood from the chest wound spread out in a half circle. Tracy poked at the animal’s shoulder with the muzzle of the gun until the carcass rolled over.
She pushed up the fur around its snout and used the flashlight to inspect the fox’s mouth. No obvious foaming, but plenty of spit and spittle.
“Tracy!”
A familiar voice called out from the dark and Tracy turned around to see Brianna standing in the light of the cabin door with a rifle in her hands.
“It’s okay. I’m over here.” Tracy waved the flashlight and Brianna hurried down to join her.
“What’s going on? I heard a shot?”
Tracy pointed at the furry heap in front of her. “It’s the fox from Madison’s
trap.”
“You killed it?”
“It was injured.” She shined the light on the mangled rear leg. “It was stumbling around in a circle, disoriented and out of sorts.”
“From the blood loss?”
“That or a sickness.” She glanced at Brianna. “It could have rabies.”
The younger girl stood up with a start. “Do you really think so?”
“It’s possible.” Tracy pulled the gums back again. “See all this? It could be some foaming.”
“Was it super aggressive? Did it try to attack you?”
“No. It was confused. It snarled at the snow.”
Brianna pressed a palm against her forehead. “I knew we needed vaccines.”
Tracy swallowed. “Why don’t you have any?”
“They’re hard to acquire. I was hoping to get some from UC Davis as I advanced in the vet program, but I was only in the intro classes. I didn’t get access to the lab until senior year.”
Tracy chewed on her lip. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. “What do we do? Wait to see if Madison shows any symptoms?”
Brianna stared at the fox for a moment before shaking her head. “Once she shows symptoms, it’s too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rabies is incurable once it presents itself.”
“Then what’s the point of the vaccine?”
“Rabies is a virus that’s only manageable if caught before it reaches the nerves. With a bite like Madison’s, it will take a while for the virus to get into her bloodstream and reach her central nervous system. It’s that in-between time when the vaccine does its job.”
“So if it’s caught early, it’s curable?”
“Yes. The symptoms we think of as rabies are end-stage manifestations, when the virus has reached the brain. That’s why animals and people act aggressive and crazy. Their brain is being attacked by the virus.”
“Before then?”
“Generally asymptomatic.”
“So the fox…”
“Could be infected even without presenting symptoms.”
Tracy swallowed. “How long do we have?”
“I don’t know. A few days, maybe.”
“Is there a test for rabies?”
Brianna exhaled. “Yes, but we don’t have one.”
Another bit of Tracy’s hope crumbled. If they couldn’t test the fox, then they would have to assume the worst: it was infected. “We’ll have to find a vaccine. Where are they kept?”
“Hospitals, mostly. Some vet offices.”
Tracy closed her eyes. They were miles from the nearest hospital and the chances that it had any medicines at all was slim to none. “What if Madison doesn’t get the vaccine?”
“She could be fine.”
“But there’s no way to know for sure?”
“Not unless we test the fox and it’s negative.” Brianna glanced back at the cabin. “I’ll get a jar and we can scoop some of the spit into it.”
“But you don’t have a test.”
“Any vet office will.”
“Say the fox is infected. How long do we have?”
“The rabies virus can spread very slowly. People can not present symptoms for months.”
“But once they do—”
“It’s too late.”
Tracy nodded. “Then I don’t have a choice. I have to find a vaccine.”
“It won’t be easy.”
Tracy managed a tight smile. “Nothing worth doing ever is.”
Chapter Nine
COLT
Warehouse District
Truckee, CA
7:00 p.m.
The screech of rusted metal-on-metal set Colt’s teeth on edge. So much for the element of surprise. They were exposed. He fell back against the icy brick beside Larkin and Dani as the door swung open.
Half expecting shots or a grenade, he held his breath and counted to twenty. Nothing. Where were the bastards? Whoever took Walter wouldn’t just let them waltz in and rescue him. They must be hiding.
Had he been spotted hours ago with Lottie? Were they made before Colt even saw the steam? He thought they’d been careful: no cars, no loud voices, no obvious recon. As soon as Lottie picked up the scent, Larkin trundled her back to the Jeep and they’d gone in quiet and close to the buildings.
It wasn’t active-duty Navy SEAL-level of stealth, but they weren’t bumbling around without a clue, either. That left one of two options: the operation inside the warehouse was sophisticated and organized, or so badly run no one heard the door.
Colt’s finger quivered on the trigger of the Sig as he motioned with his free hand. Larkin nodded in the moonlight. It was now or never.
With a quick jerk, Colt ducked around the door, squinting as his eyes struggled to focus. Thanks to the lack of windows and thick concrete walls, he couldn’t see jack. He eased back and cursed beneath his breath. “It’s a black hole.”
Larkin fished out a flashlight. “I’ll light it up. You scope it out.”
“Are you sure?” Dani voiced her concern with a puff of breath. “We’ll be sitting ducks.”
Colt gritted out a response. “We already are.” Whoever was inside either already had them dead to rights or didn’t know they were there. There wasn’t an in-between. “We need to see what we’re up against.”
Larkin eased closer to Colt and held the flashlight high. On the count of three, Larkin clicked it on and Colt leaned forward enough to see. Disappointment dragged his shoulders low and he holstered his weapon. “It’s all right. They’re gone.”
Dani and Larkin hurried in and shut the door before filling up the space with more light. Folding tables in organized rows occupied the rear of the space, all empty apart from a handful of empty Styrofoam cups and wadded-up paper towels. Empty cardboard boxes big enough to stand in butted up against each other in the middle. The front of the warehouse held a row of cots, neat without bedding beneath the papered-over windows.
“What is this place?” Larkin spun around in a circle, shining his flashlight at everything in turn.
“It’s a staging area.”
“For what?”
Dani chewed on her lip as she walked through the tables. “I’ve seen this kind of setup before.”
Colt turned toward her. “When?”
“One of my mom’s dealers made his own meth in a place just like this.”
Colt’s eye twitched. “You think this is a drug lab?”
“It probably used to be.” Dani scratched behind her ear. “But I can’t imagine they have enough supplies these days.”
Larkin held up an empty ramen noodle wrapper. “Looks like they’ve changed from dealing drugs to dealing food. I bet there’s a fair number of people who would do anything for a cup of soup about now.”
“Why would they take Walter? It doesn’t make any sense.” Colt walked up and down the aisles, shining his own flashlight beneath the tables and inside the empty boxes. “He didn’t have any food on him.”
“We don’t even know if they took him. Lottie could have been wrong.” Larkin kicked at a cot near the windows.
“I don’t think so.” Colt approached the far wall where a radiator stretched ten feet across the concrete. He ripped off his glove and held his hand above the metal. “The radiator’s hot.” He spun around. “The EMP hit in March. There’s no way this thing has been running since then. Someone got it working.”
“Propane?”
“Or the natural gas line. This building is a hundred years old.” Colt peered at the ancient tubes flecked with rust. “It might not be hooked up to electricity at all.”
He pulled off his other glove and warmed his hands. “Either way, a person turned it on.”
Larkin hustled up beside him and bent to check the knob jutting out from the wall. “And turned it off.”
“But it’s still warm in here.” Dani’s flashlight beam bounced as she shook her head. “No way they’ve been gone more than an hour.”
Larkin a
greed. “Whoever was here cleared out in a hurry. We must have been spotted.”
Damn it. Colt hated to admit it, but they were right. If Walter was in that warehouse and they missed him because of their inefficiency, Tracy would never forgive him. Hell, Colt would never forgive himself. “That means we’re not far behind. If we can pick up the trail—”
“We don’t even know if Walter was in here.”
“I think we do.” Dani stood in a doorway tucked into the front corner of the building. Her flashlight beam bounced around the interior walls of the room. “Come check this out.”
Before Colt could say a word, she ducked inside and disappeared. He hurried to catch up. As Colt rushed into the room, he almost tripped on a short set of stairs. They led down to a dirt subfloor and a room noticeably colder than the rest of the warehouse.
Dani held up a white rag stained in blood. “See?”
Colt hesitated. “That could be anyone’s.”
“Or it could be Walter’s.”
“What is this place?” Larkin eased down the steps and shivered.
“It’s got to be a cellar. This whole area boomed at the turn of the century. Grain and cotton mills, mostly. They used the Truckee River to power grists and spinning wheels.”
“So what’s with the cellar?”
“Good place to store cotton and grain and prevent spoiling. It’s cold now, but you remember the summer. A room like this would stay comfortable through all the hot months.”
“And you think whoever was here turned it into a prison?”
“Or a holding cell.” Dani showed Larkin the bloodied rag. “We can take this back to Lottie. See if she recognizes it.”
“If they drove off, we’ll never find them.”
Colt crouched in the dirt, looking for any sign of Walter’s presence. Tracking the flashlight beam up and down in uniform rows, he stopped at the corner closest to the door. “Come look at this.”
He hurried to the corner, holding his arm out so Dani didn’t walk over the words.
