Desolation (Book 2): Into the Inferno

by Lucin, David

  Carter shifted in his seat while Dylan scratched his nose. After three impossibly long breaths, Dylan answered her. “He took two with him. José Gutierrez and Tessa—Tess—Simpson.”

  “Who are they?”

  “José worked at the farm,” Dylan said. “Mostly in the greenhouse. He didn’t melt in there like I did. Had a fling with Val once upon a time, which surprised us because she always complained about Mexicans.”

  “She’s not Mexican?”

  Dylan let out a single laugh. “No, Colombian.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll do you a favor, Jansen,” he said, wagging a finger in the air, “and not tell her you thought she was Mexican.”

  “I didn’t think she was Mexican,” Jenn clarified. “I just didn’t know she wasn’t Mexican. There’s a difference.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Jenn leaned left again and directed her next question mostly at Carter. “What about Tess?”

  Dylan answered. Maybe Carter wasn’t paying enough attention. He seemed fixated on the screen, after all. “Kind of an on-again, off-again employee. Helps out a bit on the farm. Sometimes cleans up at Minute Tire. She spent a couple years as a cop up in Salt Lake before she quit and came down here.”

  “Why’d she quit?”

  Dylan drove around a stalled sedan in the right-hand lane. The driver’s side window was broken. “Got tired of having to crack skulls in modular housing every few days. She basically compared the whole establishment to government-sponsored ghettos. I dunno. She hated it, hated the city, so she tried her luck down here.”

  That made sense to Jenn. Police constantly monitored the modular housing development south of her house in Peoria. It was almost like a siege: residents usually needed a pass to leave, and all vehicles in or out were checked thoroughly for drugs and weapons. When she went to sleep at night in Flagstaff, she could sometimes still hear the sirens and thumping music in the distance as though she were sleeping in her own bed at home.

  Carter continued fiddling with the touchscreen. Dylan slapped his hand away. “Drop it, Vladdy,” he said. “I told you it won’t work.” He gestured to a rolled-up map on the dash. “That’s why we brought this.”

  “But I don’t like the paper one.” Carter folded his arms across his chest. “It’s not as easy as the computer.”

  “It’s all we’ve got, so we have to deal with it.” A short pause, then, “Actually . . .” Dylan snatched the map and passed it to Jenn. “Jansen, you’ve officially been promoted. Chief navigator.”

  She reached out to take it but hesitated. “What? Why?”

  “Sophie brought you along to be the guide, right? So guide.” He waved the map impatiently. She took it and laid it on her lap.

  “Okay. Thanks, I guess.”

  Carter huffed.

  As they continued southwest down the mountains, the landscape shifted. The bushes became squatter and sparser, replaced by sand, rock, and yellow grasses. No Ponderosas grew here. Soon, they entered a valley, the road flattened out, and a green sign reading “CAMP VERDE TOWN LIMITS” flew by on the right. Then an overpass materialized in the smoke, followed by signs of civilization: a water tower, trailers and mobile homes, the remains of tall, deciduous trees that, far from a creek or river, had died in the harsh desert environment without regular watering.

  Jenn wondered again what happened to Ed. Did he take the same route? The other day, Liam mentioned that the scouting party had left town, and he said it was headed to Prescott first. The fastest way was through Camp Verde.

  Maybe Ed had made it and was still there. Only three days had passed. Two was more than enough to worry Sophie, but it wasn’t really that long, was it? He could be engaged in serious diplomatic talks with Prescott’s mayor. Or maybe refugees were arriving there, too, and he was helping deal with them. If so, both teams could scout out Phoenix together.

  Or he could have driven into a trap and wound up dead. Jenn and the others could stumble upon his bullet-ridden truck any mile now.

  A radio crackled to life: “Dylan,” the disembodied voice said. “Sophie here.”

  Dylan took one hand off the wheel and retrieved the radio. “Dylan here. Go ahead. Over.”

  “You guys keeping an eye out?” she asked.

  He leaned forward and peered through the windshield. “All clear so far. Over.”

  The radio remained silent for a moment. Then Sophie said, “We got a bridge about a mile out. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  Bridge. The roadblock outside of Payson flashed in Jenn’s mind. Her mouth went dry. “Stop the truck.”

  Carter twisted around in his seat and scowled at her. It was the same look he gave her at Minute Tire, and it made her uncomfortable.

  Dylan let his foot off the gas but didn’t hit the brakes.

  “Right now.” She heard the desperation creeping into her voice. “Pull over. We can’t cross that bridge.”

  Dylan said into the radio, “Dylan for Sophie.”

  “Sophie here.”

  “Jansen says we should avoid the bridge. Over.”

  Carter’s nose whistled, and the tires scraped on the asphalt. Dylan still hadn’t begun to brake. They needed to stop before they got too close.

  Jenn’s breathing became faster and faster. Her hand found the butt of her pistol. Carter had turned around again, so she leaned left to see through the windshield. Squinting, she searched for the bridge but couldn’t find it. From what she remembered of her drives between Phoenix and Flagstaff, the bridge was hardly recognizable as such: the highway mostly just extended across a river. It could be right ahead of them and they wouldn’t even know it.

  She fumbled with the map, trying to determine how far they were.

  “Copy that,” Sophie said. “Pull over and we’ll meet you.”

  A weight eased off Jenn’s chest, and she let the map down.

  “Why are we stopping?” Carter asked. “What’s wrong with the bridge?”

  No response from Dylan. The Nissan drifted right and came to rest beside a blue sign defaced with spray paint. When the Dodge pulled up behind them, everyone climbed out. As her feet hit the sand on the shoulder, she hacked into her arm. The smoke burned her throat, and she fought to take in air without coughing.

  Sophie wore a dust mask. So did Valeria, whose long hair, tied in a ponytail, blew in the light breeze.

  Dylan handed one to Jenn. It helped, but it smelled like paper. Better than ash. As she breathed in, her eyes wandered to a low hill beside the highway, then to a line of browning trees shrouded in haze.

  “The hell’s wrong with you?” Sophie asked. “Why are we stopped?”

  Jenn struggled to swallow the burnt taste in her mouth. “It’s not safe.”

  Sophie stood still, assessing Jenn, then nodded to Valeria, who made for the back end of the Dodge. Carter brought a hand to his forehead and scanned their surroundings.

  Armed with an assault rifle, Valeria returned to the group. The weapon resembled the one that the man at the roadblock used on the refugees. Unlike him, though, Valeria held it with confidence, as if it were something mundane like a toothbrush. “Val,” Sophie said. “Watch the perimeter.”

  Valeria brought the gun up and pointed it across the highway.

  “Okay,” Sophie said to Jenn. “I asked you to come along because you’ve seen what’s going on out here. The bridge spooks you. Why?”

  Jenn, feeling safer thanks to Valeria and her high-powered rifle, explained all that happened when she and Sam drove to Payson: the roadblock, the car thieves, the chase through the woods. She left out the part about the golf course. Telling Sophie could help press her case about avoiding the bridge, about how dangerous it could be, but she didn’t want to relive the experience again. It could make Yankees Hat appear.

  “She’s right,” Dylan said when he finished. “The bridge. It’s a natural choke point. If some gang wandered up here and wanted to set up shop somewhere and nab unsuspecting travelers, that’d be
a good place to do it. I’d do it there, anyway.”

  Sophie adjusted her mask. “So what do we do? I would really prefer not to backtrack and drive the long way to Prescott, if we can avoid it. It’d add two hours to our trip at least. Probably more.”

  “Scout it out,” Dylan said. “On foot. A lot easier to sneak up.”

  Fidgeting with her necklace, Sophie said, “Do it. Take a radio. The rest of us, we’ll get these trucks off the middle of the highway and wait for word. If there’s trouble, we meet up and go the back route. If it’s all clear, we drive for the bridge and pick you up there. Got it?”

  Dylan cracked his knuckles. “I’ll need a volunteer.”

  Carter stepped forward and puffed out his chest. “Me. I want to help.”

  “No,” Sophie said. “You know the rules. I let you come, but nothing dangerous.”

  Nothing dangerous? What was Sophie talking about? This whole trip was dangerous. Plus, Carter was the largest person here by forty or fifty pounds.

  The big man crossed his arms and pouted. “But I—”

  “Not an option,” Sophie interrupted.

  Jenn could do it. By helping Dylan, she could prove that she wasn’t a coward who hid and cried in the face of danger. At this point, she’d do anything to show Yankees Hat that he hadn’t won, that he hadn’t destroyed her.

  “I’ll go,” she said.

  Dylan squinted at her. “You sure?”

  She touched the gun on her hip. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  She didn’t sound very convincing, not even to herself.

  7

  Jenn and Dylan had left the interstate and now trekked through what was once a mobile home park. On Jenn’s right, one of the long, narrow structures had collapsed in on itself. The porch, ringed with faded blue latticework, remained mostly intact. A red toy firetruck lay on its side beside a toppled-over charcoal barbecue. It made her insides swirl.

  She hadn’t stopped in Camp Verde before, but she’d driven through it several times on her way to and from Flagstaff. Like other small Arizona towns and the outlying areas of Metro Phoenix, the depression wrung this place dry, leaving behind only an empty husk.

  Maybe she was overreacting about the bridge. There probably wasn’t anyone there. The thieves who stole the Tesla could have been a fluke. Even if they weren’t, those two, or some others like them, wouldn’t stand a chance against the team Sophie cobbled together. Neither would junkies such as Yankees Hat. The journey to Payson would have been a wash if Jenn and Sam had a second vehicle, three extra bodies, and enough guns and ammunition to take on the Flagstaff Police Department.

  “So that stuff about your boyfriend getting his brakes done at Minute Tire,” Dylan said, carrying an assault rifle. He referred to it as an AR-15. Jenn had heard the name before but had never seen one in person.

  “What about it?”

  “That was BS. Sophie brought you on because you went out in this mess.”

  “So she says.” Jenn stepped around a pothole in the pavement. “Don’t ask how she found out about it, because I have no idea. I swear she’s got a network of secret spies.”

  “Secret spies, eh? I think you give Sophie too much credit. Ed’s the brains behind the operation.”

  They turned left at the skeleton of a tree. “What’s he like?” Jenn asked.

  “Ed?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I get why Sophie’s going after him, since he’s her husband. But you, Val, and Carter are here, too. He must mean something to you.”

  “Of course he does.” Dylan touched the paper mask on his face and nose. “He found me sleeping in his shed. Whenever that happened with anyone else—and it was more than once—I got kicked to the curb. Not Ed. He brought me inside, fed me breakfast. The next day he offered me a job and a place to stay.”

  “Wow. That easy?”

  “Yeah. That easy.”

  They passed another mobile home. This one was still intact, though the windows were shattered and the front door was missing.

  “So what’s Carter’s deal?” Jenn asked. “I introduced myself at the shop and he grunted like a caveman. When I tried talking to him in the car, he pretended I wasn’t even there.”

  Dylan dried his forehead with a sleeve. “Vladdy?”

  “I think he hates me.”

  Lines formed around Dylan’s eyes. He could have been smiling, but thanks to the mask, Jenn couldn’t tell. “Nah, he just doesn’t know you.”

  “That’s it? He could at least acknowledge my existence.” She considered telling him about the first time she and Carter met at Minute Tire, about him holding up a metal rod and almost hitting her with it, and about Sam tackling him to the ground. Before she made up her mind, Dylan spoke again.

  “Vladdy’s a little . . . different.”

  “Different how? Like, different in that he can’t figure out GPS?”

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure what the proper term is,” Dylan said. “Slow, I guess. Ed calls it mild intellectual disability, I think. Low IQ. Basically, he’s an eleven- or twelve-year-old in a thirty-five-year-old’s body.”

  Jenn scratched her temple to hide her face. It all made sense now: Carter’s trouble with the computer in the Nissan, what Sophie mentioned about not doing anything dangerous, why Dylan put Jenn in charge of reading the map.

  She hung her head. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “No worries,” Dylan said sincerely. “He doesn’t have any family—not in town, anyway—but he lives on his own and he’s pretty independent. Been working at the shop since before I moved here. He never drives but can swap tires like a beast and apply a mean coat of wax. Takes pride in his work and is damn good at it. Coming down here’s a big deal. Change isn’t very easy for him. When Ed was getting ready to leave, Carter asked if he could go. Ed told him no, obviously. After he got wind of this team, he volunteered again. Hard no from Sophie, but he kept at it. Finally, she said yes, but only if he stayed out of the way. Add a new face to the mix?” He whistled. “That’s a lot.”

  Ed must have been like a father to Carter, even though Ed couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen years older. A part of Jenn admired him for leaving his comfort zone and doing something brave to help those he cared about. Surprisingly, she and Carter had that in common.

  “Anyway,” Dylan continued. “He’s good people. Just give him some time and he’ll come around.”

  They walked in silence after that. Dylan insisted they avoid the roads and take back alleys. Most were flanked with trees. They were dead but nonetheless offered some degree of cover. The mobile home park had given way to expansive lots with large single-story houses. Boards covered the windows of one. Another beside it had an old pickup truck on the sparse yellow lawn out front.

  He led them through the neighborhood, and soon, Jenn found herself among trees with green foliage. The river was close.

  At the base of a rusty swing behind an abandoned home, he tapped her shoulder and fell to a knee. The grass, brown and wiry, grew tall here and scratched Jenn’s elbows as she knelt beside Dylan, who pointed to a wooden fence ahead.

  “How much farther?” she asked.

  He brought a finger to his face and held it against his mask. Keep quiet, it said. Jenn answered by pulling out Gary’s gun and chambering a round. Dylan, staying low, darted for a gap in the fence. Beyond were dozens of bushy trees that made for attractive cover.

  Dylan never hesitated or changed direction. He looked more like a soldier than a potato farmer or someone who had traveled around the country, searching for work and living in modular housing. Jenn followed closely behind, her gun in hand. Carrying it felt natural, as if she and the weapon had grown up together. To some extent, they had.

  The trees thickened. Above, their leafy branches blocked out much of the sky. Smoke settled in the woods like fog, limiting her line of sight to a hundred yards at most. Jenn could hide here, but so could anyone else. She felt imaginary eyes watching her and swore she heard voices
in the distance.

  The river appeared. Greenish-brown, it flowed lazily from right to left. Beneath the mask, Jenn ran her tongue over cracked lips. There was a water bottle in her backpack. She doubted Dylan would let her pause to take a drink.

  Pointing, he indicated toward the highway and the bridge. They dashed from tree to tree. At each, they would stop, wait, and listen. Jenn would hold her breath and anticipate Dylan’s next move.

  Finally, concrete pillars emerged in the smoke. “See anything?” Dylan whispered, his words barely audible.

  Jenn’s eyes stung. She blinked to ease the burn. It didn’t help. Moisture collected around her lips, and the paper mask made her skin itch. Only a sliver of the bridge was visible; the canvas of trees and the haze was too thick.

  “We should try to get closer,” she suggested. “I can’t really—”

  Dylan held a finger to his mouth again, then shifted into a fighting stance.

  “What?” Her pulse quickened. “You see something?”

  No reply. He remained stone still. That was answer enough for Jenn.

  She focused on the bridge some more and caught movement: a figure carrying a military-style rifle.

  A cold sweat broke out on her forehead. The carjackers near Payson didn’t have guns like that. The one who chased her and Sam carried a pistol. Not even Yankees Hat had a weapon. His accomplice had a knife, but that was it.

  Another figure appeared. He had a rifle, too.

  This was something different. These people were organized and armed with heavy weapons. Who were they? If Ed took this route south, he must have run into them. She assumed there were more than only the two she’d seen so far on the bridge. Would Ed, José, and Tess be a match for that? Their bodies could be dumped somewhere in these woods.

  Dylan signaled for them to fall back. Jenn followed, expecting to trip on Ed’s body with every step, when she heard a voice in the trees. Initially, she thought she was imagining this one as well, but Dylan came to an abrupt stop.

  She dried her left hand on her pants and tightened her grip on the gun with her right.