by Lukens, Mark
“Look,” Max whispered to Kate, pointing out through the windshield at the top of the building.
Kate saw what he was pointing at—there were people up there with guns, snipers on top of the flat roof of the Super Bea’s building.
“There’s a lot of them up there,” Kate said.
“We keep a constant rotation of spotters on the roof,” Crystal said. “They’ve got walkies and rifles. But most of those you see up there are mannequins with clothes from the store. They’ve got cargo netting and tarps over them. Some of the guns are just metal barrels poking out from the tarps to make it look like they are rifles. We move the mannequins around every so often. It makes the Dark Angels and any other survivors think we’ve got a lot more people up there.”
“Sun Tzu’s The Art of War,” Petra said.
Crystal didn’t seem to know what she was talking about, but Kate recognized the reference. She’d read the book a long time ago, and she remembered something about an army lighting hundreds of fires at night to make the other army think there were more of them than there were.
Lance was back in the van. He shut the door as Crystal drove across the parking lot, then raced alongside the building. Most of the parking lot was empty of cars. There was trash and a few overturned shopping carts. Crystal drove toward a chain-link fence that ran off the back of the building. There was a box truck parked in front of the huge gate, but someone was already backing the truck out of the way as they got closer to the gate. Another man inside the fence pushed the gate open for them. He wore thick black rubber gloves that came up to his elbows, the kind of gloves used for cleaning fryers.
“The fence is electrified with wires hooked up to car batteries,” Lance explained. “We unhook the wires from the terminals when we go in and out, but we don’t want to take any chances.” He nodded at the man with the rubber gloves. “But the current keeps the rippers away when they get close.”
They drove through the opening, passing the man with the gloves. The two pickup trucks followed them inside the huge area behind the store that was completely fenced in with rolls of barbed wire on top. Kate looked out the back windows of the van. The box truck had been parked back in front of the gate and a man was sliding the gate shut and locking it with a chain and padlock. One of the pickup trucks had waited for the two men, and they jumped into the back when the gate was secure.
“That’s quite a barricade of cars you’ve got there,” Max said with a smile.
“Yeah, you see that semi-truck that was out there in front?”
Max nodded.
“That was Jackson’s truck. He made a delivery here right before the Collapse. It’s the main reason Jo had so much stock here right before she closed the doors on a Thursday.”
“She closed the doors a day before the Collapse?” Max asked.
Lance just smiled. “I’ll let her tell you about it.”
Crystal drove down the back of the building, heading toward a long concrete ramp. She pulled onto the ramp and drove up to the building as a large garage door opened up. She pulled inside the building, the van’s headlights splashing across stacks of boxes and crates on the other side of the vast loading area. There was only enough room for the van in the space with all of the stacks of boxes—the two pickups parked outside next to the concrete ramp that they had just driven up into the loading bay.
Lance was out of the van, pulling the side door open. Kate and Max were out first. Kate helped Brooke out while still trying to hold the cardboard box Tiger was in.
“Here,” Crystal said. She came up to them with a plastic carrying case for an animal. “We had a lot of these. You can put the cat in here so it will be easier to hold him.”
“Thanks,” Kate said, not really sure how they were going to do that.
“I’ll help,” Crystal said as if sensing Kate’s reluctance. “We had a lot of cats growing up. A lot of all kinds of animals.”
Lance was at the open garage door, barking orders at the men in the pickup trucks. “Get those wires hooked back up to the batteries.”
Kate let Crystal take over the transferring-of-the-cat duties. She walked over to where Max stood, watching the men from the pickup trucks scrambling into action. There were some boxes and plastic tubs in the backs of the trucks—supplies they had gathered from other places before coming across them and their stranded SUV. Dale and Zak worked quickly, handing the boxes and tubs to the other two men from the pickup truck, the spotters. The man in the long rubber gloves crouched down on the other side of the loading ramp, hooking series of wires up to four car batteries attached to a wooden pallet. The whole contraption was hidden under the long eave of the edge of the roof, protected from rain and snow.
The whole operation only took a minute or two. Lance grabbed boxes and tubs from the edge of the loading bay, and Max jumped in to help.
The roar of the rippers from beyond the chain-link fencing and the barricade of cars was getting louder—they were coming this way.
“We need to hurry, guys,” Lance yelled.
A few minutes later the rest of the guys were inside and the metal garage door was pulled down, then the locks on each side were engaged.
It was suddenly dark inside the loading bay, but Kate’s eyes were beginning to adjust to the gloom. She realized that there were a few battery-powered lanterns lit on the other side of the room and two dingy skylights in the ceiling of metal beams. Lance clicked on a flashlight, pointing it across the large room at where the lanterns were.
The room was huge. Stacks of boxes, tubs, crates, and bags swam into view from the darkness, edges of the monoliths of supplies. A forklift was parked in front of one of the tall stacks of supplies.
“Most of this stuff is just extra stuff we brought out from the store,” Lance said. “Stuff we really don’t need, so we could make more room inside the store.”
“We stacked it up with the forklift until it ran out of juice,” Crystal said. “No way to recharge it now.”
Dale had pushed up his paintball mask revealing his boyish face. He spoke into the walkie-talkie he had in his hand as they all walked across the room toward a large set of double doors.
“Come on,” Lance said. “Let’s get you guys inside the store.”
CHAPTER 29
Kate
Kate held Tiger’s carrying case that Crystal had gotten the cat into and she held Brooke’s hand with her other hand. Petra was right behind her and Max was in front of her when they walked through the open double doors into a wide, dark hallway.
“Sorry,” Lance said. “We don’t keep many lanterns on back here. Trying to conserve the batteries. Batteries are something we’re always looking for.”
Kate didn’t respond. She just walked along with the group down the dark hall. It felt like she was in a castle now as the savages raged outside, like they were working their way deeper into the castle, deeper into the dungeons.
No, they’re not going to hurt us, she told herself. If they were going to hurt us, they would have done it by now.
From seemingly far away, Kate heard the pops of gunshots. The spotters on the roof shooting at the horde of rippers coming toward the building.
“The bathrooms are back here,” Crystal said. “Down that hall there. We use the rainwater we collect to wash up and to flush the toilets.”
“You have toilets that work?” Max asked. His voice echoed slightly in the dark halls.
Lance’s flashlight beam bounced around at the front of their group. It provided just enough light for Kate to see Max right in front of her, his broad shoulders and wide back blocking a lot of her view.
“They work so far,” Lance said. “We keep flushing them with buckets of water, let gravity do its work. I’m sure the sewers will eventually back up, but we’ll use the toilets until that happens.”
“We only go number two in the toilets,” Crystal said. “We use buckets for number one.”
“We’ll go over all of the rules here soon enough,” Lan
ce said as he led them through another set of double doors opening up to the light. “We all work together here. We all have jobs and we all help each other. That’s all we ask.”
“You got it,” Max said.
The doors opened up to the store. For just a second Kate thought they had electric lights working inside the store, but then she realized that the light was coming from skylights in the ceiling far above them among the rafters, all of the metal painted white. Even with the cloudy light coming down through the skylights, it was still gloomy inside the vast store. And maybe it was only her imagination, but the light shining down from the skylights made it actually feel warmer inside the store.
“We’ve cleared out a lot of the unnecessary stuff over the last few weeks,” Lance said. “All of that stuff you saw stacked up in the loading bays. We took it all back there, and we dismantled a lot of the shelves, consolidating stuff to make a big living area right over there.”
“Yeah,” Crystal added. “There’s a lot of stuff we don’t really need at this time: toys, car accessories, at least half the clothing, jewelry, vacuum cleaners, lawn equipment, office supplies, most paper products, DVDs, computers, printers—anything that needs electricity to run. It’s surprising how much room we made.”
Max nodded in agreement.
“We reorganized the things we needed into different areas,” Lance continued. “Food and drinks over there.” He pointed at the far end of the store where cases and boxes were stacked up like monoliths in the distance. “It’s over there by the deli and the freezers. We’ve also got all the bathroom supplies, laundry and cleaning supplies, and medicines over there. On that side over there, we’ve got the camping supplies, clothing we’ve kept, other cleaning supplies, tools, and any battery-powered devices.”
“What about the weapons?” Petra asked. “They used to sell guns here?”
“Yeah, they did,” Lance answered. “Mostly rifles and shotguns, a few handguns. A lot of ammo. Some other things like bows and arrows, knives, things like that.”
“We keep the weapons and that kind of stuff in the back by the offices,” Crystal said.
Petra didn’t seem to like that idea. Kate thought she was going to ask about their weapons, but she didn’t.
Lance walked over to the cleared area of the store where several tents and temporary housing had been set up. The area was the size of at least three houses.
“We call it tent city,” Crystal said.
The tents were in a big circle, close to each other, but not too close. Some of the flaps of the tents were open, sleeping bags inside. Some people slept in the tents now, but others were outside of the tents, some of them sitting in plastic chairs or lawn chairs.
Beyond the tent city there were two scissor-lifts raised all the way up to skylights with ladders attached to the sides of them with rope.
“Those skylights are removable,” Lance said, noticing that Kate was staring at them. “That’s how we get up and down off the roof.”
“The spotters are up there,” Max said.
Kate could hear the gunshots more clearly now that they were inside the main rooms of the store.
“We collect rainwater up there,” Crystal said. “We have barrels and buckets up there, whatever we can collect water in. They’re all over the roof. We lower a few buckets down at a time with ropes.”
Crystal had hardly said anything when she’d been driving the van, but Kate noticed that she was much more talkative now, much friendlier. Maybe she’d been stressed while driving the van, focusing solely on that task. She found herself liking Crystal—she seemed to be a friendlier version of Petra.
“We’ve also got some potted plants growing up there,” Crystal added with a smile. “We’re trying to get some tomatoes growing before the weather gets too cold.”
Kate saw a young woman and a boy in front of one tent. The woman sat in a lawn chair and the boy was right beside her on a blanket, an open children’s book in his lap. The boy stared at them, but Kate realized his eyes were on Brooke, transfixed by her.
“That’s Rebecca and Patrick,” Lance said. “We found them in a house about a week ago.”
“This is amazing,” Max said, turning around in a slow circle. “You guys have thought of everything.”
“Not everything,” Lance said. “There’s always room for improvements.” He smiled at Max. “Come on. Let’s go meet everyone else.”
CHAPTER 30
Max
Max couldn’t believe what Lance and the others had created in this superstore. And the manager. Lance and Crystal gave the manager most of the credit for what they had done here.
Max had hoped to find somewhere safe—that had been his plan ever since he’d left his home in Virginia. That had been his plan ever since he’d met Petra on the road. And Kate’s parents’ home had provided a little safety, some rest for a few days to collect their thoughts and to let their bodies recover. But he never would have dared to believe they’d ever find anything like this place, something so organized like this, a fortress, like this place seemed to be.
Kate still held Brooke’s hand and carried Tiger’s carrying cage that Crystal had given to her. The cat let out a few meows, but he didn’t seem to be freaking out too badly yet; maybe even Tiger could sense that they were safe here in this building—the store, as Lance called it.
Yet, as amazing as this was, Max could sense Kate’s unease. He’d seen the suspicion in her eyes when Lance and Crystal told them that the Dark Angels had attacked a few times and then retreated. He had to admit that he hadn’t been buying their story while riding in the van. But now that they were here at the store, he could see how it could be defended quite well. It was like a fortress. But it wasn’t impenetrable. And if the Dark Angels eventually brought enough forces here, they could set up camps in the distance, wait them out and pick them off when they went out to look for supplies, killing those scouts or abducting them, using them for ransom or to draw the others out.
The Dark Angels might even try to burn this place down and smoke them out. No, they would want the supplies in here, the food and water, so maybe they wouldn’t do that. Maybe that made them safe for a little while in here.
Maybe Lance was right. Maybe the Dark Angels were saving this place for later, collecting the easier food and supplies, knowing this place was always going to be here, like it was their savings account. Or maybe, if Max wanted to be truly hopeful, Lance, the manager, and the others here could strike a truce with the Dark Angels, develop some sort of trade with them in the spring. Warring tribes and nations had done the same thing countless times throughout history. Why not here? Why not now?
Because the Dragon wasn’t going to let that happen. He wanted it all.
A man with a bandage wrapped around the top of his head walked up to them from his tent. He was short and skinny with long dark hair cascading down from under the white bandages. He had a pinched, weasel-like face, small dark eyes, and a small slit of a mouth curved up into a humorless grin. Even though he wore new clothes (they all wore new clothes here—obviously procured from the nearly-endless supply in this store), he still seemed to be dirty and grimy.
“Name’s Neal,” the man said, offering his hand to Max first.
Max accepted the man’s greeting, the man’s hand swallowed up inside of Max’s hand.
“These guys saved my life,” Neal said, the sneering smile never leaving his face. He turned to Petra and proffered his hand to her.
Petra took Neal’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze and a pump, even though Max could tell she didn’t want to touch him. She didn’t smile at him or say anything to him.
Neal turned away from Petra’s cold reaction to Kate. She set Tiger’s carrying case down on the floor beside her so she could shake his hand.
“Pleased to meet you,” Neal told Kate.
“Me too,” she answered.
He seemed to hold on to Kate’s hand a second too long.
He looks like a petty crimi
nal, Max thought.
“And who’s this?” Neal asked, leaning down with his grubby hands on the knees of his new tan pants, new work boots on his feet.
Brooke shrank back from Neal, still holding Kate’s hand.
“She’s a little shy,” Kate said, and then added: “She’s been through a lot.”
Neal straightened back up and the smile was gone from his face, a serious look replacing the grin that lacked sincerity, like a bad actor trying to pull off a performance. He gave a solemn nod. “Yes. We all have.”
“That’s Sophie over there,” Lance said, hurrying the introductions along.
Sophie was a tall, thin woman in her mid-thirties. She had big blue eyes and a severe overbite. Her blond hair was stringy. She wore new jeans and a pink hoodie, her hands shoved into the pockets of her jacket. She pulled one hand out and waved at them, not bothering to come forward or to shake hands as Neal had done.
“That’s Jeff,” Lance said.
Jeff was a pudgy, middle-aged man with light curly hair and glasses. His cheeks were fleshy and red. He reminded Max of some kind of office worker. Jeff gave them a warm smile and a weak wave. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, constantly adjusting them—it seemed to be some kind of nervous habit. “Welcome, guys,” he said.
Max nodded at Jeff.
“That’s Fernando over there,” Lance said.
Fernando was as tall as Max and looked like he used to be heavier, just like Max had been. He looked like he had lost some of his fat over the last few weeks, losing most of it in his arms and legs first, just like Max had done.
“Pleased to meet you,” Fernando said in a deep, heavily-accented voice. He gave them a wave.
“Tina Yang,” Lance announced, pointing at a small woman.
Tina smiled sheepishly and waved at them, remaining beside her small tent.
“There are others in the tents,” Lance said. “Some work the night shift up on the roof or in other areas in the store. You’ll meet the ones in the tents and up on the roof eventually.”
