Troop of Shadows

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  In a flash of army green and fiery red, he was gone.

  Sam and Dani stayed hunkered down behind the counter while bullets continued zinging through the broken glass in the front of the store.

  “They’re wasting a lot of ammo,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “Idiots. Why don’t they save their resources and just starve us out? That’s what I’d have done. It’s not like they have any pressing social engagements or meetings with their stock broker to hurry off to.”

  When she glanced at her friend, she was surprised to see his face twisted up, like he might burst into tears at any moment.

  “What’s wrong? Are you injured? Did one of the bullets hit you?”

  “If those bastards hurt my bike, there will be hell to pay the piper!”

  Dani bit her lip. She would not insult him by laughing when he was so distressed. She suspected that when Sam fell in love, it was forever. If the Pivot Mach 429 survived the gunfire, she hoped the two of them would have a lifetime of happiness together.

  The sound of tinkling glass came from the other side of the store.

  The next moment, two eardrum-assaulting explosions came in quick succession.

  “One, two, three...now!”

  They hopped over the counter and ran to the front, listening to the sound of voices yelling and chunks of debris hitting the pavement outside.

  Fergus was right behind them when they dashed through the broken glass and to their waiting bikes. Several bullets whizzed past as they pedaled out of the parking lot and onto the access road.

  In fifteen minutes, the small band of survivors had covered three miles; a reasonably safe distance away. They darted under an overpass, then came to a halt.

  “That was too close for comfort,” the older man wheezed.

  “No shit,” Dani agreed, breathing heavily. “We need to get some guns...pronto.”

  Sam nodded, already recovering from the exertion of their biking adventure. Dani felt mild resentment at his fitness level — he’d barely even broken a sweat, and she and Fergus heaved like two octogenarians after a sack race.

  “I’ve never shot a gun before and I’ve always been kind of against them,” Sam said. “But I do think we need them now. Do you know anything about guns, Dani?”

  “Only what I read about them on the web before the power went down. I can’t imagine they’d be that difficult to figure out though.”

  “What about you, Fergus?”

  The blue lasers targeted Sam’s face. He hesitated a few seconds before answering. Dani wondered if it was lack of oxygen or something else that caused his reticence. She thought about the ancient hand grenades he’d pulled out of his metaphorical ass ten minutes earlier.

  “I know a little.”

  Her bullshit detector kicked into high gear. Evasive. A guy that carries explosives probably knows a lot more than a little about firearms.

  “So what’s the story on the grenades, Fergus? You want to share with the class how you got your paws on those bad boys?”

  He cocked a hairy caterpillar. “How about a little quid pro quo, Clarice? What’s the scoop on this Isaiah character and the arm carvings you and Sam are sporting?”

  Dani scrutinized the small man, looking for a reason to deny sharing any more about herself and Sam than was necessary. She knew her friend possessed an uncanny ability to read people, much better than she; and he’d allowed this creature to join their party without hesitation. For the first time in a long time, Dani felt stirrings of self-doubt. Was she really the one still running the show?

  She sighed. She couldn’t see the harm in telling him about their Colleyville escapades if it forced him to reveal more about himself.

  “Quid pro quo, Doctor Lecter.”

  She took the next five minutes to paint a colorful, expletive-laden narrative of their evening with Isaiah and his not-so-merry band of creepy adolescents.

  “Interesting...” A grubby hand rubbed the furry red Brillo pad of his jaw. “Clever move, Sam. It sounds like you bought your lives with those carvings.” He indicated Sam’s arm bandage.

  “Your turn. What’s your story? Don’t skip over any juicy parts either.” Dani couldn’t deny an interest in this strange man’s history.

  “It all started back in 1965. It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child...”

  “Stow it, Fergus. I’ve seen that movie. My parents made me watch it along with a lot of other inane crap.”

  “Inane crap? You don’t love Steve Martin? How could anyone not love Steve Martin? ‘He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!’ That’s comedic genius!”

  Much to her surprise, he began to laugh — deep, gravelly, resonating laughter that rumbled from the depths of his belly. Sam smiled, always happy to see others happy, even though he’d never seen The Jerk and didn’t understand the reference.

  Dani couldn’t help but be amused. The Jerk was sophomoric humor at best, but it did have some classic moments.

  “I don’t need you. I don’t need anything...except this ashtray...” she said, surprising herself by recalling the dialogue after all this time. The movie was already old when she watched it with her parents, but that scene had cracked her up.

  “Yes! See? That’s brilliant! So funny, so many great lines.”

  She smiled until she realized what was happening.

  The smile changed to an accusing scowl.

  “You’re stalling. Quit sandbagging and give us your stats. The Man, the Myth, the Legend: The Story of Fergus.”

  Blue eyes studied the underpinnings of the overpass as the newest member of their elite club gathered his thoughts.

  This will turn out to be more bullshit or the most interesting life story I’ve ever heard, Dani thought. Or a bit of both.

  “How about the Reader’s Digest condensed version? We don’t have time for the unabridged Story of Fergus.”

  “That’ll do, Pig. That’ll do,” she said in a challenging tone.

  “Ah, Babe. Another fine film. I suspect you and I have more in common than you might think, girly. Tell you what, let’s get a few more miles down the highway and set up camp for the night. My memoirs demand a crackling fire, a shared flask of whiskey, and an industrial-sized box of tissues, for all the tear-jerking scenes. Does that meet with your approval?”

  “Is this another stalling maneuver?”

  “No, I swear it. My gut tells me it’s time to get moving and to put more distance between your hooligans back there and our pretty backsides. You have my word that all your pressing Fergus questions will be answered tonight in graphic, occasionally pornographic detail. Deal?”

  “Okay, but you’re not getting out of it.”

  “My word is as good as gold. You can take it to the bank and draw two percent annually.”

  “More like take it to the pot on the other side of the rainbow.” Dani snorted at her own joke, as they mounted their bikes and pedaled back out into the late afternoon sunshine.

  “Death by a thousand paper cuts,” Fergus hollered at her back. “That’s your diabolical plan. I can see it now!”

  She smiled, glad the strange little man couldn’t see her amusement.

  ###

  “Look, guys!” Sam pointed at another retail strip off the I35 service road. Dani estimated they’d covered another fifteen miles, and because Sam’s fancy mountain bike sported a Garmin GPS, he would happily confirm their progress if she wanted to know. For as long as they could find fresh batteries and the navigational satellites stayed in orbit, they were golden.

  Dani’s gaze followed his outstretched arm to a small sign at the far end of the upcoming shopping center on their right: Bill’s Guns. Bill had either been a man of few words and zero imagination, or he’d had to pay by the letter for the signage.

  The storefront glass was still intact, which was surprising. The trio rolled to a stop at the curb in front of the store.

  “You’d think a gun shop would have been one of the first to get ransacked
,” she said, pressing her face against the pane. “It looks empty. Maybe Bill hauled ass with his merchandise before the shit hit the fan.”

  Sam tried the door, confirming it was locked.

  “Should we bother breaking in?”

  “Yes, I think we need to give it a shot. We also need to consider businesses where the owners would have kept a firearm on the premises: jewelry stores, convenience stores, check cashing places. That’s if Bill’s here doesn’t pan out.”

  She trudged back to her bike and was digging around in her backpack for something suitable for breaking glass when Fergus spoke.

  “Um, no sudden moves, people.”

  The strange tone in Fergus’s voice evoked a feathery stirring of tiny hairs at the top of her spine. Her backside was toward the store, him, and Sam. When she turned around, would she see that machete of his next to her friend’s throat? She knew she shouldn’t have trusted the little bastard.

  “I mean it. Slow as molasses, girly.”

  Dani initiated a languid pivot — a Hollywood scene where the actor turns at half-speed to face his demise.

  Fergus’s empty hands hovered above the colorful head. Sam stood in a similar position. On the other side of the glass was a man holding an assault rifle with the barrel aimed at her.

  She lifted her arms too, empty palms facing the gun-wielding man. Her firearms knowledge was lacking, but she knew that a bullet coming from that thing would have no trouble finding its way through the window pane and into her chest.

  Chapter 25

  Palo Alto, California

  Julia knew Steven wouldn’t be happy about Logan, but she hoped the sight of seeing his long-lost sister would lessen his displeasure at gaining an unexpected mouth to feed.

  If she planned to maintain her personal integrity, her sense of honor and decency in this new world, it had to start with not abandoning a mentally-challenged young man who’d sustained a recent gunshot injury and who had just helped her get her vehicle started. It had been a pivotal moment for her — her gut had told her to leave him behind — but that spark of civility and kindness shared by most humans wouldn’t allow her to abandon this kid. Yes, he seemed to have done all right for himself, but the shoulder wound needed to be cared for with a degree of hygiene the young man didn’t understand.

  Something else factored in her decision; an emotion she barely acknowledged to herself. Best not to even go there, she thought, after identifying the instinct as maternal in nature.

  A lot of shifting had to be done to make room for Logan in the front passenger seat. The feline made no secret of his annoyance at being banished to his crate, wedged in the back seat between research binders and equipment. He’d hissed nonstop for thirty minutes at the usurper.

  “Stop it, Brains. I mean it,” she hollered, as they meandered through an obstacle course of vehicles and junk on Highway 101 south of Palo Alto.

  “I don’t think he likes me very much.”

  “Don’t take it personally. He’s used to being free to come and go, and his kitty survival instincts are railing against being in that cage.”

  “Why is his name Brains? Mr. Cheney’s cat was named Mittens because his paws were white, like mittens that girls wear in the winter.”

  Soon after meeting the young man, she realized she’d need to speak on his level, which was that of a nine or ten-year-old child. It didn’t come naturally, having interacted with few children during her life.

  “It’s because when he first started coming around, I called him ‘Shit for Brains’ because I wasn’t much of a cat lover before. Then he kind of grew on me. He kept showing up at my lab, so I brought him inside and made him a bed. At some point he became my pet, so I shortened his name to just Brains.”

  “I like that name. It makes me think of zombie movies.”

  She laughed. “Yes, I can see that it would.”

  “Where are we going, Julia?”

  “We’re going to my brother’s house in Kansas. His name is Steven. I’m hoping he and my nephew Jeffrey are still doing okay there. We made a plan when the plague started that I would travel to his house when I got finished with my work at the university.”

  “Is Kansas far?”

  “Yes, it’s about sixteen hundred miles, and I have no idea what we’ll have to deal with on the way there. We have plenty of food and water, but we’re going to have to siphon gasoline after what I’ve brought runs out. Do you know anything about siphoning gas out of cars?”

  The strange golden eyes looked up at the headliner of the Land Rover, as if the answer to Julia’s question might be found there. This behavior seemed necessary when the young man struggled with complex thoughts.

  “I’ve seen it on television, but I’ve never done it myself. Do you know how to do it?”

  “I understand the basic principles, but I’ve never done it either. Guess we’ll learn together.” She smiled, realizing she was pleased to share this odyssey with someone, despite the intellectual disparity.

  “Too bad we don’t have a Harry Potter wand.” Logan’s sly smile implied he was joking, but she wondered if he might believe in magic wands, as any child would.

  “Wouldn’t that be great? We wouldn’t even need to drive, we could just wizard ourselves to Kansas.”

  His expression became serious. “I don’t think I’d want to do that. I like driving, and also I worry about what would happen to my molecules.”

  Julia had to stifle a snort. He whispered ‘molecules’ with the same fearful reverence as when he’d talked about ‘infection.’ It was a word he didn’t understand and which seemed to hold some mystical power.

  “That’s a good thing since I left my Harry Potter wand at home.”

  He nodded, then continued to stare at her with an intensity she found disconcerting.

  “I think people with magic probably don’t need a wand anyway,” he said, then turned his attention back to the freeway.

  She felt a sense of relief that his focus had shifted away from her.

  “There sure is a lot of junk on this road. Maybe we should take-an-alternate-route,” he continued, parroting every traffic reporter in California.

  “Yes, we might have to do that.”

  She’d pondered the wisdom of staying on the 101 but was hoping her Land Rover’s off-road capability would get her around any obstacles. She’d mapped out her journey from Palo Alto utilizing secondary highways, which would take her through Yosemite, all of Nevada, and half of Utah before accessing Interstate 70. From there, she would follow it all the way through the Rocky Mountains. Snowfall could occur in October, so the timing was important.

  “Do you know how to read a road map?”

  “Yes, when my mom and I went places, she let me hold the Mapsco. She said I was a good navigator.”

  The pride in his voice was unmistakable, just as it had been when he spoke of the compliments from his friends at the gun range. Julia suspected all the positive reinforcement he’d received in his lifetime was cherished and revisited often, like an art collector admiring a pricey acquisition. She found herself wondering again about his life — it couldn’t have been easy.

  “I bet you’re an excellent navigator. Why don’t you get the map out of the glove box and take a look at the route I’ve marked. Let me know what you think.”

  “You got it, Julia!”

  She smiled at the joy on the young man’s face. Yes, she’d made the right decision to bring him along. Surely they were both safer together than on their own.

  ###

  Six grueling, nail-biting hours later, they arrived at the entrance to Yosemite. They’d driven around countless abandoned (and not-so-abandoned) automobiles, which had blocked much of the highway system through San Jose, Modesto, and Oakdale. Julia had sent a silent message of thanks to her brother for insisting she buy a four-wheel-drive vehicle as part of their plan; she and Logan would never have made it this far otherwise. She’d forced herself to gaze upon the remains of a few of the occupa
nts in the vehicles they passed. Insulated in her lab for much of the past year, she’d been spared from seeing the worst of the ravages of Chicxulub. She’d watched the news stories on television until the main power went out, but seeing it happening on a small screen was nothing compared to witnessing the gruesome aftermath in person.

  The world she’d known was gone forever.

  Late afternoon had morphed into evening. Per Steven’s suggestion, she would stop for the night. Nothing good would come from adding the challenge of night driving to the already adverse conditions. Besides, she knew Logan would enjoy Yosemite, and it needed to be experienced during the daytime.

  He was ogling the iconic sign with obvious enthusiasm when they pulled off the road and stopped.

  “This place will be as good as any to stop for the night. That okay with you?”

  “Yes, this looks great to me!”

  The crisp air was tinged with the scent of wintergreen, which wafted from the shrubs clustered next to the park entrance. There were fire-making supplies in one of the plastic bins she’d retrieved from her attic — another of her brother’s directives — but she doubted it would get cold enough for a campfire tonight.

  As if reading her thoughts, the young man spoke.

  “Can we build a fire, Julia? I think that would be fun. Sort of like camping.” His boyish exuberance made it impossible to say no.

  “Of course we can. Go gather an armful of sticks in different sizes and some rocks to make a ring for a pit. I’ll get the food and camp stuff out of the back. I also need to let Brains out to do his business. How does that sound?”

  “Yes!” He scurried off toward the line of Ponderosa pines.

  “Be careful. There may be wild animals out there.”

  “It’s okay. I have my guns.”

  Guns? There was more than just the rifle?

  “Just be cautious. You should probably go to the bathroom while you’re at it.”

  Even in the dwindling light, she could see his embarrassed expression. Maybe she was taking this surrogate mother role a bit too far; he’d survived this long on his own, after all.