“Those are the $64,000 questions we’re all trying to answer,” Dante said.
“The what?” Fiona said.
“The $64,000 questions.”
“Why $64,000?”
“Uh, it’s a game show my aunt likes to watch sometimes.”
“Oh.”
Cole smiled to himself. Listening to a teenager like Dante talk about TV shows while a twenty-something like Fiona had no clue what he was going on about made Cole amused for some reason.
He got up, walked across the room, and leaned against the wall across the window from Zoe. “Anything?”
She shook her head but didn’t look back at him, as if she were unwilling to take her eyes off the streets for even a second. “No, but they’re still out there.”
Cole looked out. He saw a quiet street that would have been empty if not for all the bodies and abandoned cars. The remains of Joe the plumber were where Cole last saw him, on his back next to his van. Cole could only make out glimpses of the other corpses; there were too many for him to focus on any single one. Not that he wanted to, anyway. He had a feeling he was going to run across more of them in the coming days as he got closer to Bear Lake.
“Better them than us,” the Voice said.
Cole glanced down at his watch. Fifty-two minutes past two in the afternoon. In a normal day, the city should have been brimming with people and noise and smoke and the stink of gasoline. Some of the people were still there, along with the vehicles that made all the noise and emitted all the fumes, but the activity was missing—
A head of short black hair peeked out from an alleyway across the street, about two buildings down. Cole couldn’t be sure if it was the office drone in the suit and tie, because the man vanished just as quickly.
Cole scanned the rest of the buildings and alleys and parked cars, but if there were other crazies out there, they were doing a hell of a good job staying low.
“You saw him?” Zoe asked.
“Depends. Who are we talking about?”
“The one in the suit, in the alleyway. He’s been moving around out there, staying in the shadows.”
“For how long?”
“Since I’ve been standing here.” She might have shivered slightly, and wrapped both arms around her chest. “I can feel them watching us.”
“How many have you seen so far?”
“Just the one I can confirm. But…”
“…you can feel the others.”
“Yes.” She glanced across at him. “Can you? Or am I crazy?”
“You’re not crazy. They’re out there. And I don’t think it’s just the two that survived this morning. I think there’s more.”
Zoe didn’t say anything, but she looked even paler than before.
“You’re supposed to comfort her, not freak her out even more,” the Voice said.
She knows I’m right.
“She’s a woman. Like the girl and her kid. And the boy in the wheelchair. Speaking of which, what are you doing still standing here with them?”
What do you mean?
“What the hell do you think I mean? The priority is Emily and the baby. These four aren’t going to get you to Bear Lake any faster. If anything, they’ll just slow you down.”
What are you saying?
“What do you think I’m saying, genius?”
Cole didn’t answer the Voice. He knew exactly what it was implying, but the thought of abandoning Zoe and her daughter, along with Fiona and Dante…
He glanced back at them. Dante was playing with the ham radio, trying to reach someone on it (to no avail), while Fiona was helping Ashley fix up another turkey sandwich in the kitchen. At the rate they were eating, Cole figured they’d run out of the delicious meat pretty soon. Then again, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea; without electricity, there would be no way to keep the opened containers fresh, so they might as well eat all the contents before they spoiled.
“Or you could take them, and everything else the kid has, and split,” the Voice said.
I can’t do that.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
Can’t.
“Or won’t?”
Can’t, Cole thought again, but he wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince—himself or the Voice.
“You do know that you’re just talking to yourself, right?” the Voice said, laughing.
Cole ignored the laughter, and focused on Zoe as she said, “The gun’s a nice find.”
“The bullets, too.”
“You know how to use that thing, right?”
“It’s a gun, Zoe, not brain surgery. Pulling the trigger makes it go bang.”
“Ah, is that all?”
He smiled. “Just about.”
“I have a feeling you’ve used one before.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Just a hunch.”
“Once or twice,” Cole said.
“Or a few hundred thousand times,” the Voice chimed in.
He said out loud, “Anything happen while I was away?”
“Not much,” Zoe said. “I think that as long as we don’t make too much noise or attract attention to ourselves, we should be fine in here.”
“We can’t do that.”
“What?”
“Stay here.”
“Why not?”
“The bodies,” Cole said. “By the end of today, we’ll be drowning in the stink of rotting corpses. The day after that, it’ll get worse. We bury or cremate bodies for a reason, Zoe.”
Her face paled noticeably. “You’re right, now that I think about it. It’s already starting to smell.”
“It’ll get worse. Even if I wanted to, we don’t want to still be hanging around here—or anywhere in the city with all those corpses—by the end of the week.”
“You want to be in Bear Lake.”
“That’s right.”
“What’s her name? Your wife?”
“Emily.”
“Do you have a picture of her?”
He took out his phone and handed it over to her.
Zoe looked down at Emily’s wallpaper. “She’s pretty.”
“Thanks.”
“She’s also pregnant?”
“Yes.”
Zoe gave him the phone back. Cole sneaked a peek at the reception—still nothing—before putting it away.
“I don’t mean to sound crude,” Zoe said.
“What is it?”
“How do you know she’s okay? Your wife?”
“She called me after everything happened. She wouldn’t have done that if she was affected like the others.”
“You sound very sure about that.”
“I am,” Cole said, and thought he sounded pretty damn convincing.
“Okay,” Zoe said, though he couldn’t tell if she actually believed him or not. “She must be going crazy wondering what’s happened to you.”
He nodded, even though he thought the idea of Emily “going crazy” was farfetched. Emily would be worried, yes—just as he was worried about her—but she was more than capable of dealing with this, whatever this turned out to be. But she would be much more capable if he were there, beside her.
“So get home already,” the Voice said.
I’m working on it.
Cole looked across the street at the bookstore and its destroyed front window display. The den of buzzing flies had grown around the bodies lying in the open, sweltering heat. That was a problem. A big problem. The dead brought diseases, and in a city this big…
“I don’t understand how it’s possible that everything’s down,” Zoe was saying. “The power, the cell towers, even Dante’s ham radio… Shouldn’t something be up? Shouldn’t there be someone out there broadcasting? Trying to make contact with survivors? How could the world just go dark in the space of one day?”
“I don’t know,” Cole said. “I just know that I need to get home.”
“So what’s the plan?” Zoe asked.
“What
makes you think I have a plan?”
“Don’t you?”
“Maybe…”
“Let’s hear it.”
Instead of answering her, he looked over at the others.
Dante, in his wheelchair, showing off to Fiona and Ashley...
“They’ll just slow you down,” the Voice said. “You know I’m right.”
As if she could hear his thoughts, Zoe said, “I know you think we’ll slow you down, but I promise that we won’t. Ashley and I are faster than we look.”
He remained silent, looking back out at the streets below and focusing on the cars. A lot of them. They were just sitting under the sun, waiting for someone to claim them. He’d need just one of them to get to Emily. Any one would do.
“Cole,” Zoe said.
He finally looked at her, watching him intently across the window as if she could read every single conflicted thought that was flashing across his mind right now.
“We won’t slow you down,” she said. “I promise.”
“You’ll have to be fast.”
“We will.”
“You’ll need to take care of Ashley.”
“I will. She’s my responsibility. I’m not going to let anything happen to her. If that means I have to run faster than you, then I’ll run faster than you.”
He could tell she believed that, even if he didn’t. Cole wasn’t in the best shape he’d ever been in—“retirement” had its downsides—but he’d kept in good shape nonetheless since adopting this new civilian life. Certainly, he was fitter than most people at the office.
“What car are you thinking about?” Zoe asked, peering out the window and scanning the rows of vehicles.
“The Dodge Grand Caravan,” Cole said.
“The minivan?”
“Yes.”
“It’s big.”
“We need something big.”
“For Dante’s wheelchair.”
“That, too. But mostly we might need to barrel through a traffic jam or go up the sidewalk and over whatever obstacles we encounter up there. I can’t see any obvious damage; looks like the owner just stopped it in the street and jumped out. That probably means the key’s still in the ignition.”
“You can see the key from here?”
“No.”
“You’re hoping…”
“I’m making an educated guess.”
“And if it’s not there?”
He shrugged. “The van…”
“The plumber’s van?”
“Uh huh.”
“Next to the body…”
She hadn’t said “Next to the body of Joe, that you brained with the bat, and had trouble stopping,” but that was what he heard anyway.
“Yeah,” he said.
“So we go for the Dodge first. Then the van if that doesn’t work out.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Get in and make the drive to Bear Lake. That’s the plan?”
He nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“I guess it’s better than mine.”
“What was yours?”
“I don’t have one. Which is why I said yours sounds a lot better.”
They were exchanging a smile when they both heard a clinking noise and glanced back. Dante was now showing Ashley and Fiona how he could spin in a tight circle with his wheelchair. The noise was coming from the two smaller wheels up front.
Cole exchanged a look with Zoe.
“We can’t leave him,” she said quietly. “He saved our lives earlier.”
He didn’t answer her, and instead looked out the window.
The Dodge was less than fifty meters away from the front of the apartment building. Not too far, but not exactly a cakewalk, either, especially if there was more than just the office drone out there waiting. And Cole was pretty goddamn sure that was the case. The fight this morning would have drawn attention from others in the area. Right now, they were being pretty damn sly about hiding from sight, but that would all change when Cole showed himself.
“Not exactly a minefield, but pretty close,” the Voice said.
Definitely pretty close.
He scanned the bookstore across the street again. Then there were the other buildings, the other stores and alleyways, to worry about.
Too many hiding spots. Too many possible dangers.
“Cole,” Zoe said.
He looked back at her. “We have to be fast.”
“We will be,” Zoe said, with all the certainty in the world.
“You have to be.”
“We will be.”
“You have to be.”
She nodded, and gritting her teeth, said, “We will be.”
Chapter 16
“Ditch the woman and the kids, and get back to Emily.”
I can’t.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
We already went over this.
“You still haven’t answered the question.”
Both.
“Bullshit. You know this is the right call.”
Doesn’t matter.
“Doesn’t it?”
No.
“Why not?”
I’m an asshole, but I’m not a fucking asshole.
“Tell that to Emily. She’s back there by herself. Alone. With a baby in her belly. And here you are, lollygagging with a woman and her kid, a girl you didn’t know existed until a few hours ago, and a kid in a wheelchair. This is the wrong move.”
Shut up.
“You know I’m right.”
Yeah, well…
“You know I’m right,” the Voice repeated.
Cole didn’t respond the second time.
“You don’t have to, because you know I’m right,” the Voice said.
Whatever, Cole thought as he watched Dante, Fiona, and Ashley absorb everything he and Zoe had just told them about the plan. A part of him was hoping Dante would buck at leaving the sanctuary of his apartment and fridge full of turkey slices, not to mention giving up on his aunt ever coming back. Because if Dante said No, then it would spare him the guilt of leaving a crippled kid behind.
Unfortunately for Cole, Dante was too smart for that.
“When are we leaving?” the kid asked.
“Soon,” Cole said.
“Maybe we should wait,” Fiona said. She sat on the sofa next to Ashley, rubbing her fingers nervously. “Help might be coming.”
“Help’s not coming,” Dante said.
“You don’t know that.”
“Pretty sure help’s not coming.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“If help was coming, it’d be here already,” the teenager said. “Look outside, Fiona. There’s no help coming. This is TEOTWAWKI.”
“What?”
“The end of the world as we know it.”
“Yeah, but what’s that thing you said? Teet-something?”
“T-E-O-T-W-A-W-K-I. The end of the world as we know it.”
“Oh,” Fiona said. She looked from Dante to Cole, still leaning against the window across the room. “You agree with him?”
Cole shrugged. “I don’t know. What I do know is that I have to get to Bear Lake. I can’t waste any time. Whether any of you go with me or not is entirely up to you. Each one of you. Everyone has to make their own decisions.”
“Is Bear Lake safe?”
I have no fucking idea, Cole thought, but he said, “I don’t know. I just know that I have to get there.”
“Bear Lake is outside the city limits,” Zoe said. “It’s a residential enclave next to a lake and surrounded by heavy woods. It’s as close to the city as you can get while still being technically not a part of all this.”
“But is it safe?” Fiona said.
Zoe shook her head. “Like Cole said, we don’t know. But I’m taking Ashley there because I think it’s the safer option to staying here. And”—she looked over at Cole—“I think it’s safer to stick close to Cole.”
“Why?” Fiona said. She g
lanced from Zoe to Cole. “Why is it safer with him?”
“It’s not,” Cole said.
“It is,” Zoe said.
“Zoe…”
“It is, Cole.” She pursed her lips, and he could tell that he wasn’t going to convince her otherwise. “I’m betting my life, and that of my daughter’s, on it.”
He sighed, but he didn’t try to dissuade her. Instead, he focused on Fiona and Dante. “It’s your choice—”
“I’m in,” Dante said before he could finish. The kid spun in his wheelchair back to Fiona. “What about you, Fiona?”
The twenty-something shook her head and looked from Dante to Cole to Zoe. Then, for some reason, to Ashley sitting next to her.
Like she did to Cole earlier this morning, Ashley saluted Fiona.
Fiona forced a smile and turned back to Cole. “I guess I’m in, too.”
“You need to be sure,” Cole said.
“I am.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
She didn’t answer the third time quite as quickly.
Finally, Fiona said, “Yeah. I think I am.”
Dammit, Cole thought even as he heard the Voice laughing hysterically in the back of his mind.
After the meeting, he escorted Fiona back to her place to get what she needed, while Dante and Zoe, along with her daughter, did the same back at the teenager’s apartment. The hallway was as empty and eerily still as the last time he was out there. Neither he nor Fiona said a word until they were back in 509, and she reflexively closed the door and locked it. An odor that reminded Cole of a dead rat permeated the walls and floor. It wasn’t coming from Fiona’s apartment but the ones flanking it. Her neighbors.
He waited at the front while she hurried across the living room and disappeared into her bedroom. She came back out faster than he’d expected—just short of three minutes—with a ragged backpack that looked like it might bust at the seams if she pulled too hard or at the wrong spots.
“You live here alone?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It’s my brother’s. I’m just bumming with him until I can get back on my feet. He was a great—” She stopped in the middle of the living room and looked toward the window in silence.
Fall of Man (Book 1): The Break Page 12
