by Lukens, Mark
“I’m just glad you’re okay. I had visions of looters running your truck off the road.”
“Yeah. I had that in mind too.” He opened his coat and revealed a small handgun holstered to his belt. “That’s why I brought protection with me. Ever since a buddy of mine got robbed at a truck stop a few months ago, I started carrying one.”
“I need to go and help those guys.”
“I can help too,” Jackson said. “Just tell me what to do.”
*
An hour later, they had all of the refrigerator and freezer food put away and they were working on the last of the dry goods.
After they were done, they gathered at the deli near the bread and vegetable section. Betty served up some sandwiches and Jo let everyone pick out whatever they wanted to eat. They grabbed a few plastic chairs and set them up in a circle with a cooler of drinks in the middle. They weren’t too far away from one of the two main entrances to the store. The glass doors were still unbroken and locked, and the steel hurricane shutters were still pulled shut in front of them. They had the OUT OF FOOD and CLOSED signs taped to the windows. They had also hung as many dark drapes and sheets over the mesh doors so the looters couldn’t see in, and then they had pushed a lot of the shopping carts in front of the doors. They were as secure as they could be, but Jo felt that maybe they could do more. They kept most of the lights off as the skylights began to provide some morning light—enough to see by. But they still heard pounding on the glass doors every so often.
By noon their cell phone service had been out for nearly twenty-four hours. Rodney checked his phone constantly. They had a battery-powered radio in their little circle, but most of the radio stations were either static, unending music, or the loop of the president of the United States declaring martial law.
“Well, I guess that means it’s official now,” Jackson said. “The shit has definitely hit the fan.”
After martial law had been declared, Nick and Marie left, both of them leaving out the back door. Rodney and Cam went with them so they could unlock the gate and keep an eye on them as they hurried to their vehicles. Nick was worried about his parents and his younger brother, and Marie was worried about her husband. Jo let them pack some food in a duffle bag to take with them.
“If you need to come back,” Jo told them, “if you need to bring your family, then come back.”
They nodded and then they were gone.
Neither one of them ever came back.
By early afternoon the electricity went out, plunging most of the store into gloom and the back rooms and loading bays into near-darkness. Jo hadn’t expected the electric to go out, but she should have thought of it, and she chastised herself for it.
They collected lanterns, batteries, and even a few candles—but Jo didn’t want any unattended candles; a fire right now would be catastrophic.
Everything had collapsed. They had no electricity, no internet or cell phone access, no radio or TV stations, no information at all. If help was coming, it might be days or even weeks away. Jo knew then that she needed to start thinking of long-term preparations.
She asked Rodney and Cam to get as many coolers as they could find, then get the bags of ice from the ice machine. They would take a lot of the cold food from the refrigerators and keep them on ice for as long as they could, at least until the ice melted. They would leave the freezer stuff alone—they would probably lose all of that, and much of the refrigerated food. The vegetables, eggs, and breads would be okay for weeks, and the dry goods would be okay for months or even years.
God, she was thinking weeks into the future now. Months. How long was this going to last?
The afternoon turned into night. They ate their dinner from the deli foods at their circle of chairs. Each of them carried a flashlight in case they needed to go to the restrooms. There were public restrooms up front and employee restrooms in the back.
“Eat as much of the food as you want,” Jo told them. “It’s not going to stay good much longer.” They already knew the dry and canned food and drinks were off-limits for now. They drank milk and orange juice to conserve the canned and bottled drinks.
Jo wondered if she was going to extremes with her planning, but she couldn’t help it. With what she’d seen yesterday—Ruth attacking her, other rippers wandering around, police losing control of order in the streets, all utilities being shut off—she knew this wasn’t going to end anytime soon. And she felt a little guilty being locked here inside this store with all of this food and water while others out there ran out of supplies. But what could she do about it? She couldn’t open her doors to that madness again; she couldn’t risk the safety of her employees.
*
They slept in watches. Around three a.m. Jo and Jackson sat on watch, farther away from where Rodney, Cam, and the others had set up sleeping bags they’d gotten from the sporting goods section. They sat on the floor, both of them leaning their backs against the deli counter.
“This is bad,” Jackson said in a low voice.
Jo nodded in agreement.
“You’ve done a lot here,” Jackson said. “You’ve done an amazing job organizing everything. Planning everything out.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a great leader. And a great manager. I can tell that.”
Jo just smiled in the dark. “Well, thank you, Jackson.”
“But I think we’ll need to do more.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“We need to set up some kind of defenses,” Jackson said.
“You have something in mind?”
“If we could get up to the roof, get up through one or two of the skylights somehow, then we could have a few people up there with rifles and binoculars. Like soldiers in turrets guarding a castle.”
Jo had an idea of how they could get up there. They had two scissor lifts Al and the maintenance crew used to change lightbulbs and do any other repairs, even to load heavier items up on the top shelves.
“You’ve got more rifles in the sporting goods area,” Jackson said. “And plenty of ammo.”
“Yeah. Some.”
“Guns and lookouts up there on the roof would help a lot. And there’s another idea I had.”
She waited for him to continue.
“I was thinking we could block the entrances and exits off to the parking lots. There are a lot of trees and shrubs around, and a big ditch on the one side, so just getting those entrances blocked would help keep vehicles out of here. It won’t keep a gang of looters on foot out. Or a pack of rippers. But it will keep the vehicles out.”
“How are we going to block the entrances?”
Jackson smiled. “I’ve got an idea how to do that.”
CHAPTER 36
Jo
The next morning, just before dawn, Al worked with Jo and Cynthia to get the scissor lifts in place, lifting them up to two of the skylights. Al got the skylights opened, rigging them so they could latch them shut again. The scissor lifts weren’t going to move much longer, and when they ran out of juice they wouldn’t be able to be charged back up. They used extension ladders tied to the sides of the lifts to get up and down to the skylights. Not the safest thing in the world, but the best they could do.
Cynthia, Tina, and Al went up to the roof with binoculars, a walkie-talkie, and a rifle. Al had been in the military for four years when he was much younger and volunteered to shoot if he needed to.
Once the lookouts were in place on the roof, Jackson, Rodney, and Cam went out to block the entrances to the parking lot. Jo didn’t think this was such a good idea, and she told Jackson as much, but the three of them wanted to do it. She told them the air could be infected out there; she gave them construction respirators, dust masks, and latex gloves (she’d also given the same personal protection gear to the lookouts on the roof, but Al refused to wear the “damned silly” things). But Jo knew deep down inside, as well as the others, that they were all most likely infected already.
Jo knew it more than the others—she’d been in an infected person’s apartment.
Jackson used his semi-truck to push the cars and pickups that were left in the parking lot to the entrance and the exits. Some of the abandoned vehicles still had keys in them and Rodney and Cam moved those that would start. They both had handguns with them and Rodney also had a rifle. Jo had let them take the weapons from the sporting goods department. It didn’t take them too long to move the vehicles in place, but the sound was so loud even inside the store that Jo was sure it was going to draw every looter and ripper around.
Rodney saved the last running box truck to park in front of the gate to the fenced-in area in the back of the store, keeping the keys to the vehicles that still ran. And then they were back inside just as Cynthia called down that she had spotted a large group of people running toward the store from the street. She wasn’t sure if they were looters or rippers, she just told them to get their asses back inside the store.
*
Hours later Jackson and Jo were on watch again, letting the others catch some sleep. Cam and Rodney were up on the roof, taking their watch.
“I’m sure you smashed up your truck doing that,” Jo told Jackson as they sat in the same place as last night, this time with pillows behind their backs.
“A little.”
“You gonna get in trouble?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything to go back to.”
They were quiet for a long moment, but Jo could tell that Jackson had something to say, something he was mulling over, trying to find the right way to say it.
“I’m not feeling too well,” Jackson finally said.
She didn’t say anything, but she knew what he meant; she saw it in his eyes. He was scared that he was infected now, scared he was turning into a ripper. He had been in a hurry to shore up their defenses because he’d known for a while now, maybe even for the last twenty-four hours that he didn’t have a lot of time left.
“You don’t know for sure,” she finally whispered.
He just nodded and smiled at her. “I know.”
Jo didn’t know what to say to that. He was being brave about it; she just hoped the rest of them could be that brave when the inevitable came.
“There’s something I always wanted to tell you,” he said. “I always had a crush on you.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
He shrugged. “Who would want a guy like me? My wife left years ago. She couldn’t handle me being on the road all the time, being alone so much. I don’t blame her.”
“I would’ve liked to have known you liked me,” Jo said.
“Maybe we could’ve made it work,” he said. “Even with the long distances.”
“I would’ve liked that,” Jo whispered, and she meant it.
“I would’ve liked knowing someone was there waiting for me when I got home,” Jackson said.
“I wish you would’ve said something sooner.” She leaned toward him to kiss him.
He held up a hand, smiling at her. “Better not. You know I’ve got whatever’s going around out there.”
“If you’re infected, then we’re all infected.” She almost admitted that it might have been her who had brought the plague inside the store to everyone. And if she turned into one of those monsters out there, then it served her right. “I think we’re way past that now.”
They kissed, hugged, and then kissed again.
It was nice holding Jackson, a big bear of a man. It was nice having a little comfort in these dark days. It was nice having human contact, knowing what was coming.
CHAPTER 37
Kate
“Jackson started turning a few hours later,” Jo said.
Kate stared at Jo. They were all silent, all of them watching her as she told her story.
“Jackson took himself out about six hours after that. Shot himself in the loading area. We all heard the gunshot. We all ran back there and saw what he’d done. And we all knew why he had done it. I took his gun and kept it. I knew when we began to turn we would have a choice: we could either shoot ourselves like Jackson had done, or we could leave the store, banish ourselves so that we wouldn’t be a danger to everyone else. We had all agreed on those choices. We swore to each other.”
“And everyone else turned?” Max asked.
“Almost everyone,” Jo said. “Everyone except me and Tina Yang. After Jackson it started happening quickly.”
Kate tried to imagine Jo stuck in the store with the others as they turned.
“Betty showed signs right after Jackson killed himself,” Jo continued. “We all saw the signs. And she saw the signs too. She couldn’t shoot herself—she told us that. She was afraid she’d screw it up somehow, shoot herself and not kill herself. She was afraid the gun would jump in her hand and throw the aim off. She begged one of us to do it for her. Al offered, but I wouldn’t let him do it. So we banished her. Took her out the back, walked her to the gate, unlocked it for her. She was sobbing the whole time. I watched her walk away.”
Jo paused while she wiped at tears for a moment. She took a sip of water and then kept talking. “The others started turning more quickly. Rodney didn’t want to believe he was turning, didn’t believe his symptoms were real. Cam panicked too. They fought with each other. Al had to shoot them both. Then he killed himself. Cynthia and Tina helped me clean up all the blood. We used the pallet jack and pallets to take their bodies outside beyond the fence early in the morning. The next day their bodies were gone, just a blood trail left from when they’d been dragged away.”
“Rippers got them,” Petra said.
Jo nodded.
“But the others,” Max said, looking at Crystal and then at Lance.
“Lance was Cynthia’s friend. He and Dale came to the fence when we were getting rid of the bodies. They had their guns out, but they didn’t aim them at us. They asked for help, and they asked if they could help us. Their families and everyone they knew had turned or were turning. They didn’t have the symptoms, and neither did we. We figured some of us might be immune, or even carriers. It had gone too far by then. If we were going to be infected, I figured there was no stopping it, then. We let them in and went over the rules with them.”
“They were immune like us,” Max said.
Jo nodded. “I couldn’t help thinking that some of us were carriers of the disease, that I was a carrier, that I had brought this Ripper Plague into this store. If I hadn’t gone home to pack a bag, get clothes I didn’t need, papers that don’t mean anything anymore, money that’s useless now, maybe some of them wouldn’t have gotten sick.”
“You couldn’t have known that then,” Kate said.
Jo wiped at her eyes and nodded. “I know. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“If they weren’t immune, they were going to get infected one way or another,” Petra said in an emotionless voice—her attempt at comforting Jo.
“Petra’s right,” Max said. “It seems like nothing can stop this plague from infecting people. Maybe it’s airborne. It has to be.”
“Well, after a few days of just the four of us,” Jo said, “after Cynthia started turning and chose to leave, we knew we needed more people. Sophie happened along, but we couldn’t wait for people to come find us. We knew we had to go out and look for more survivors—make ourselves stronger. Lance and Dale agreed to go out and look. They had rifles and handguns from the sporting goods department, and they had the keys to the pickup truck in back and a full tank of gas. They found Crystal on their first run. Then they found Rebecca and Patrick on the next run. And then they found all of the others here. Neal and Tamara are our newest, besides you four, of course.”
“We also found Dark Angels,” Lance said. “We battled with them once, got away and they followed us here. We shot at them from the roof until they finally went away. We saw that they were grabbing up anything they could find of value, shoving supplies and canned food into their vans and box trucks. T
hat’s when we knew we needed to do the same. We had a lot here, but we still couldn’t let them have everything. Let them control everything. So we got maps out and started going on runs. We took two vehicles at first, and then three, using one as a spotter. We knew the dangers out there, but we had to do it. The supplies, that’s the new money. The new power.”
“We do have a lot here,” Crystal agreed. “A lot of what most people need, but we were still lacking some things. Like gas. We siphoned all the gas out of the vehicles into the gas cans we had, but we knew we would need more. And more weapons. And any ammo we could find.”
“And now you found us,” Max said. “You saved us. You helped us, and we’d like to help you in any way we can.”
“You’re welcome,” Jo said. “We’re all survivors now, and we all need to help each other.” She looked at Petra. “Speaking of help, we need to get the doctor to take a look at that cut on your head.”
“I’m fine,” Petra said.
“It might need stitches,” Jo said. “Or it might get infected.”
“She’s right,” Max said, turning to look at Petra. “You should go.”
Petra blew out an annoyed sigh.
“I’ll take her to see April,” Crystal offered, already standing up.
CHAPTER 38
Petra
Petra felt fine, but she knew Max wasn’t going to stop bugging her until she went to see this “doctor” of theirs.
“She’s really a nurse,” Crystal explained as they walked down the wide hall, walking away from the meeting room they’d just been in. Crystal used a flashlight to guide their way.
Petra remembered Lance mentioning something about a nurse when they’d all been in the van on the way to this store.
“But she knows a lot more than any of us about medicine. We all have our talents, our ways to contribute and help.”
“What about you?” Petra asked. “What are your talents?”
