by Jeff Olah
Gripping the edge of the comforter, Frank pulled it away and laid his hand on Ethan’s left shoulder. Kneeling, he shook his friend and again called out. “Ethan, wake up. There’s someone outside.”
Whether his words had finally gotten through, or the jostling had spurred his friend awake, Frank wasn’t sure. But either way, Ethan shot up and fumbled in the dark for his weapon. “Frank, what time is it?”
“I don’t know. Two, maybe three in the morning?”
Ethan sat up, rubbed his eyes, and slipped the comforter off his legs. “What did you see?”
“A man. Six feet, maybe a bit shorter. He had a beard and carried a rifle.”
“What else. Where’d you see him, out in the street?”
“No, he was out on the patio, came right up to the back doors. Didn’t seem to care until I pointed my weapon.”
“Where is he now?”
“Out back, I think. He has a flashlight, but turned it off and backed away. He didn’t look like he was here to do any harm. Had a look on his face like he was curious. Like he didn’t understand why I was in here.”
“Okay, we’ll have to go find him. I’ll wake Griff and Shannon. You head to the back and see if you can spot him out there, but be careful and don’t open the door.”
“You want to go out there?” Frank asked. “It’s pitch black—you’re not going to be able to see a damn thing.”
“We can’t just stay here. We have no idea who that man is and what he’s doing. We need to find him before he comes back to us. And you said he has a rifle, so if we do find him, we need to treat him like a threat.”
“I don’t know Ethan, he didn’t look—”
“I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, but I’m going to wake Griff and get out there. You can stay inside with Shannon, but promise me you’ll do what you have to do to keep our friends safe.”
Standing on opposite sides of the door, their backs against the wall, Ethan and Griffin watched the patio and rear yard. Nothing had moved in the last sixty seconds and as the others began to wake, Ethan knew now was the time.
With his mother emerging from the darkened shadows of the lobby, Ethan unlocked the rear door, and followed Griffin out onto the patio. And then before swinging it shut, he turned to Frank. “If he comes back, you make damn sure he doesn’t get in.”
Ethan didn’t wait for Frank to agree. He turned and walked along the edge of the patio with Griffin over his right shoulder. “What do you think, same guy you saw back at City Hall?”
“I’m not sure what I saw earlier today. Part of me figured it was just a lack of sleep and my mind wanting to see something that wasn’t there, but now I’m not so sure.”
Following the outline of the building, Ethan swept his weapon over the yard. Nothing but green grass and desert landscape. Without speaking, he turned to Griffin and pointed toward the parking lot.
Griffin gave a thumbs-up and took one last scan of the patio and rear yard before following Ethan around the south side of the building.
A six-foot-tall shrub sat facing the street and was the last source of cover they’d have before moving out into the front lot. “Okay,” Ethan said, “let’s just make sure the perimeter is clear and then head back. Frank was right—I can’t see a damn thing out here. If the guy comes back, we’ll deal with him then. But for now, it’s probably safe to just secure the exits and wait till morning.”
“Ethan,” Griffin said, “what the hell is that?”
Leaning away from the shrub, Ethan followed Griffin’s line of sight out into the street. Fifty feet from the entrance to the hotel’s parking lot and against the opposite curb sat a newer model white sedan. The window was down and from where they stood, the man sitting in the driver’s seat looked an awful lot like who Frank had described as the bearded man with the rifle.
“So?” Griffin said. “Now what?”
Before Ethan could answer, he sensed that the man in the vehicle was also watching them. His bearded face was pointed toward them and his eyes were focused on the shrub they’d taken as cover.
“Come on out.”
The man’s voice was throaty and authoritative. Reminded Ethan of every sheriff in every single western he’d ever seen. The kind that you could trust to do the right thing in every situation, but for now Ethan felt a bit more comfortable having their first conversation from a distance.
Shouting from behind the shrub, Ethan said, “Who are you?”
The man laughed. “Who am I… who the hell are you? This is my town, not yours. I’ve been watching you since you pulled in earlier today, acting like you owned the place.”
“Listen, we don’t want any trouble. We didn’t know that there was anyone left here. We’ll be on our way—”
“No one left here?” The bearded man laughed yet again, this time it stayed with him a bit longer than was comfortable. When he finally quieted, he continued, “I’ll tell you what, you all head back in there and get a good night’s rest, what’s left of it anyway, and I’ll come back sometime around noon. Maybe we get off on the right foot, forget about you comin’ into my town and treating it like it was your own. Whatta you say?”
Ethan didn’t respond and the bearded man in the white sedan didn’t wait for an answer. He started the vehicle, shifted into drive, and sped off into the night.
122
Rolling into the underground parking, Dalton sat in the passenger seat, not wanting to converse. He’d made it the entire trip from the hangar to the offices of BXF Technologies without having to utter a single syllable. What he did have to endure for the previous ninety minutes was the graphic stories from Anton, Travis, and Red as they fought for Goodwin’s attention.
The exaggerated tales of survival had begun before Nicholas even pulled the black Humvee out of the hangar. Anton had labeled the last three days as the Seventh Level of Hell. He talked of marching toward the Las Vegas headquarters and how he and five others had battled no less than four hundred Feeders.
The story grew as Anton talked of reaching the doors to the building and having to fight through twenty-foot flames, only to be knocked back when they realized the entry was teeming with corpses that carried the ravenous flames to other parts of the building. He spoke about his group attempting to retreat back to McCarran, only to be forced back in the other direction again by the sheer number of Feeders moving through the south side of town.
When Anton paused to take a breath, Travis took the opportunity to add to the obviously overstated account of their time in the desert city. He spoke with the excited tone of a schoolboy coming downstairs on Christmas morning and finding the bike he’d wanted sitting beside the tree.
Unable to control his restlessness, Travis talked about how they’d run from the gates at the beleaguered airport, and about how they set about finding a safe house. He also gave an account of the wall of bodies they’d run across and the graphic nature of which the broken corpses were set to rest.
And as they pulled up to the building and waited for the automatic door to fully ascend, Red finally joined the conversation. He hung his head and told of the battle to get to the tiny wedding chapel and how they’d lost three of their own barricading themselves inside. He talked about losing one of his best friends and how he and the others wouldn’t still be here if it wasn’t for those men and their sacrifice.
Pulling into Goodwin’s marked parking stall, Nicholas turned off the engine and waited. He was running on autopilot and had stopped making any decisions on his own just after putting the G280 down in Burbank. He’d let the man in charge dictate every move the group made from here forward. He had to watch as Goodwin made his friend a martyr, and figured that sooner or later, he’d leave this world in much the same manner.
From the rear seat, Goodwin reached for the door handle, but before pushing the door open, he leaned forward in his seat. “Dalton, did you check the cameras?”
“Yes, we’re secure.”
“Are you sure
, all the way up?”
“Yes,” Dalton repeated. “The building has been on lockdown since day one. I’ve checked every video feed multiple times.”
Goodwin pushed his door open and stepped out. Starting toward the elevators, he stopped and turned, his focus now on Nicholas as the pilot slid out from behind the driver’s seat and locked the door. “Forty-eight hours…”
“Yes?”
“I’m going home,” Goodwin said. “I’ll need you to have the chopper ready and on stand-by. There are a few things I’ll need from the house before heading to Blackmore.”
“I’ll be sure to have everything ready to go.”
“Good.”
The five men strode the short distance to the bank of elevators and waited as Dalton called the car from his handheld device. Anton, Red, and Travis stood just behind Goodwin and faced out away from the doors, as if preparing for another attack. They’d been running for the last several days and finally having the ability to relax seemed foreign to them.
Nicholas was the last to enter the corridor leading to the elevators and stood at the rear of the group. With his hands in his pockets, he looked down at his feet, kicking the toe of his right shoe against the polished concrete floor.
Dalton stood at the edge of the group, positioned at the center of the four elevators. He stared at his tablet, avoiding eye contact with Goodwin as well as the conversation he figured was coming. At this point, he simply wanted to be left alone. Head up to his suite, burn what remained of his clothes, and take a much needed shower.
Watching the green icon of elevator car number four descend past the lobby, Dalton briefly looked up. “Okay, it’s here.” A half second later, the speaker above car number four—Goodwin’s private elevator—sounded.
The men piled in one after another, with Dalton squeezing in last and punching in the four separate destinations. The twenty-first floor saw Anton, Travis, and Red depart. They marched out into the hall and moved in separate directions, each using a former office as their new home.
Next, Nicholas stepped off at the thirty-seventh floor. Before he was out of sight, Dalton reached out and held the door back with his left hand. “Grab some sleep and then come on up when you have a minute. There are a few things we need to go over before you head out again.” Nicholas only offered a half smile and then walked toward his suite at the end of the hall.
Pulling his arm away, Dalton allowed the doors to close as he took a deep breath. Just he and Goodwin remained. Glancing down at his tablet, he just prayed the next twenty seconds would pass without incident. That Goodwin was as exhausted as he was, and that the discussion that was bound to happen would at least be shelved for another twenty-four hours.
As the awkwardness of the moment intensified, Dalton broke first. He felt the need to jump first and not give Goodwin the chance to drag him into the conversation he was determined to avoid. “Mr. Goodwin.”
“Yes?”
“The power to the lower floors and the parking garage?”
“Yes, you’re right. Let’s take everything below where Anton and the boys are down to three percent. And any other unoccupied floors down to two percent.”
“Okay, and do you foresee the need to head back to Burbank? Any other travel besides your home and then Blackmore?”
“No,” Goodwin said. “I have a few other things that need tending to over the next three days. When we hit Blackmore, I’ll need every single one of you on your game, so go get some rest.”
Back to his device, Dalton watched as the green icon slowed just below the fifty-fourth floor. The numbers flashed across the screen and then the doors opened with a burst of cool air. Confirming the next destination—Goodwin’s penthouse on the sixtieth floor—Dalton stepped back and waited as the doors began to close.
Goodwin paused for a moment and then placed his foot over the path of the closing door. The two sides quickly came to a stop and then pushed back into the walls. He held up his index finger as if he’d forgotten something. The billionaire with an ego bigger than the building they fought to return to never forgot. He never forgot anything.
“Say, Dalton…”
“Yes Mr. Goodwin.”
“You’ve powered down most every other non-essential part of the building?”
“I have.”
“And what does that leave us with?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“How much time do we have left on the generators at our current rate of consumption?”
Dalton again powered up the tablet and moved through four screens before tapping out a command and doing a quick estimation in his head. “Somewhere between six and seven days.”
“Okay, and if we decide to utilize the drone… send it on ahead to Blackmore, what does that do to our capacity?”
“You want to send an armed drone into the facility that you’re looking to occupy in less than a week?”
“I want it as an option.”
123
California Coastline - Day Nine…
The previous twenty-four hours had gone by in the blink of an eye. Emma again sat at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the third-floor lobby and stared down at the crowded streets as the sun made its way into her world. Scanning the city below and following the path to where Tom had left his vehicle two days earlier, she couldn’t imagine attempting a return trip.
Alone with only the sounds of the outside world for company, she slowly sipped the cup of lukewarm coffee. Veronica had made the uncontested decision that today would be the day that they used what little solar power they had left to heat a single pot of black coffee. The others agreed to forgo showering and a heated lunch for one morning of bliss.
The day before, after being educated about the other group that occupied the city, she and Tom had the opportunity to see the rest of the building. After a marginally acceptable lunch of canned green beans and prepackaged salami, Cedric and Patrick escorted her and Tom to the parking garage. They were only able to make it as far as the southwest corner—the one nearest the stairs—due to the sheer number of Feeders surrounding the building. The scene was mind blowing, as not a single inch of asphalt was left empty.
From there, the pair was handed off to Veronica and were given a tour of the first-floor restaurant that was to be their one true savior in this new world, where starving to death was a real and true possibility. She explained that the restaurant had received a shipment the day before the infection, and that most everything was nonperishable, having an expiration date well into the future.
By nightfall, she was more familiar with her new surroundings than she was with her former home. Although something about this new place and her new friends felt a bit off. Not that they appeared insincere or untrustworthy, but maybe a bit too agreeable, and overly accommodating.
Emma had been around genuinely good people in the past. She had friends that would do anything for her at the drop of a hat. But this felt different, almost as if Cedric and Veronica were fearful of them, or maybe it was someone or something else. She didn’t know, but now wondered if she also needed to be fearful… of whatever it was.
Tilting her cup back and finishing what remained, Emma pushed away from the table. She and Tom were to give Cedric ten minutes before heading down to the garage. He said he needed a few minutes with the man he referred to as Mitchell Blake before their introduction. And as Tom came through the door, she assumed it was time to go.
He was alone and moved more quickly than he had in last few days. “You ready to go?”
“Sure, but why are we even doing this?”
“I’m getting a weird vibe too, but it’s not really our place to question what they’ve asked us to do. They took us in when they didn’t really have to.”
Emma bit at the side of her lip. “I get that, but something about them seems different.”
“Yeah, almost like they owe us something.”
“That’s it,” Emma said. “You think we have anything to worry about?”
Standing behind the door leading out into the garage, Emma knocked three times. As Cedric had asked, she and Tom stepped back against the stairs and waited. A pair of muted voices could be heard on the other side; however, the words were lost to the steel-reinforced security door.
Twenty seconds had passed before the door finally opened. Cedric now stood on the other side of the threshold with the door pinned back. He waved Emma and Tom into the garage and motioned toward the two men standing in front of a white luxury SUV.
Clearing his throat, Cedric began. “This is Emma—”
The taller of the two men stepped forward and held up his hand. He looked as though he’d forgotten that the world had ended. From the perfectly tousled blond hair to the almost translucent blue eyes, he looked out of place in this new reality. His neatly pressed jeans and fitted long-sleeve t-shirt only intensified the already awkward situation. And although the man with the jaw chiseled from granite stood right at six feet, his obvious sense of self made him appear much larger.
Stopping Cedric mid-sentence, the blond man held his hand toward Emma. “Let her tell me.”
Narrowing her eyes, Emma stared back at the aggressively handsome stranger. “What is it you want to know?”
He smiled. “Let me guess, your name is Emma Runner, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, now that I know your name, how about you tell me about yourself. You know, from before all this.”
She couldn’t see any harm in it and turning to Cedric, his look hadn’t yet indicated otherwise.
“As you are already aware, my name is Emma Runner. I grew up in a small town in Colorado, and transferred to California for work. I left my home the morning the infection broke out and was in a car accident. I was—”
Interrupting yet again, the tall blond man said, “Okay, I think I get the point. How about you step back a bit and tell me a little about Colorado, specifically your family.”
