by Jeff Olah
Before Carly or any of the others had a chance to jump in, Ethan quickly responded. “I think should shoot for Nevada. If everything Gil said is true, we should be able to pick up Interstate Fifteen in about two hours. From there, we have another three, maybe four hours to Vegas. If all goes well—”
Frank interrupted. “I’m not disagreeing with you—hell, I think it’s probably a good idea to keep moving—but how do we know we aren’t driving straight into more of the same?”
“We don’t,” Ethan said. “We just have to keep our eyes open and stay focused. But the bottom line is, we can’t stay here.”
Ben sat up and for the first time looked interested. He was holding something in his hand and glanced at it momentarily before turning to Ethan. “What about that man, Mayor Gil, does he want us to leave?”
“More or less. I mean he seems like an okay guy, if not a bit eccentric. But he’s still dealing with the loss of every single person that meant anything to him.” Ethan paused briefly. “But he wants to stay, thinks the military is coming back here with a cure.”
The room went quiet, as most had now resigned themselves to the fact that they’d again be moving on, and that the false sense of safety they’d momentarily felt was also quickly slipping away. And one by one, they showed their support for Ethan’s plan, either reluctantly, or with a quick nod and a short word or two of encouragement.
The last to voice his approval was Ben. He looked around the room, ended at Carly, and then turned to Ethan. He slowly pushed away from the sofa, walked across the room, and began raising his injured right arm. Biting through the pain, he handed something to Ethan that was just out of view of the others.
“I trust you, Ethan, and agree it’s time to go.”
Ethan reached out and took what Ben was handing him. “My phone?”
“Yeah, I’ve been watching it for you since we arrived. And it looks like we have a weak signal here. I figured you may want to—”
Ethan powered on the phone and moved to the message icon. Eyeing the first message, he called it up and read the only two words that mattered.
“Message Delivered.”
130
Standing outside suite twelve-eighteen, Emma and Tom waited as Patrick reminded them of the instructions his father had given them only minutes before. She was grateful for Cedric and his family, but was now less than enthusiastic about what the next few days would hold.
His voice was not unlike his father’s, deep for his age and without a hint of indecision. “Please stay low and only come out here if you need to use the bathroom. My dad will help you get out of the city. He’s smarter than anybody I know.”
“Thank you, Patrick.”
Before Emma finished, Patrick was gone. He’d sprinted off down the hall and toward the stairs, only stopping long enough to open and run through the door. The sound of his rapid footfalls against the metal staircase drifted away just as the door slammed closed.
“You ready?” Tom asked.
“As I’ll ever be.”
Dropping to their hands and knees, Emma and Tom crept through the doorway. They stared at the row of six windows and moved in a straight line toward the opposite end of the suite. She wasn’t able to see any of the surrounding buildings and hoped that was a sign that her and Tom were hidden from those structures as well.
Sliding her backpack along the ground, she hadn’t forgotten what her first priority was once she reached the corner of the suite. And as she and Tom moved away from the last window, Emma backed into the corner and fumbled to open the dirty orange bag.
Her hands shook, and although Emma’s current situation should have had her in another state of mind, a surge of joy shot through her as she pulled free her phone and powered up the home screen.
With a swipe and two quick taps of the backlit screen, she sat frozen in place. Her eyes drifted from one line to the next, the words being read in her mind as if her brother sat only feet away.
Emma, we are leaving Colorado and are coming there to get you. If you get this, please stay put and don’t do anything to risk your safety. I love you, Ethan.
As her eyes began to tear up, she turned to Tom. He was already staring at her and offered a thin smile. “Good news?”
“My brother, he’s alive and he’s coming here to get me.”
Tom looked back toward the windows. “You still have a signal?”
She knew what he was asking without him actually having to say the words. Checking the upper left corner, three of five bars were filled and she immediately moved back to Ethan’s message. Typing out a response, she hit send, and waited as the blue line sluggishly moved from left to right, finally disappearing with the sound of a swoosh.
Before she could look up, Tom acknowledged the sound. “Looks like you do have a signal.”
“I did… I mean, I sent him another message, but now the signal’s gone again.”
“Well,” he said, “it’s not like we’re going anywhere anytime soon.”
“Yeah, but what happens when we do, when Cedric comes back? I don’t think I can leave here now.”
The garage was empty as he stepped through the door and held his hand over his left eye. It had begun to throb and a trickle of blood had run from just below his brow. The massive headache he knew was coming was now just a dull ache at the base of his neck, wrapping around to the top of his head. He wasn’t looking forward to what was coming, but knew it couldn’t have happened any other way.
Wiping the small trail of blood across the front of his hand, Cedric began to run and within twenty yards was in a full out sprint. Passing a row of parking blocks, he shifted left and purposely let his right foot glance off the six-inch concrete wedge.
Going airborne, he held his arms out at his side and extended his legs. If he were going to make this believable, he needed to completely erase any questions Blake may have. Commit or don’t go. This rang through his mind as his body crashed chest first to the floor and then rolled into the three-foot retaining wall at the edge of the parking structure.
Cedric laid for a brief moment on the dusty concrete, before slowly moving to his hands and his knees. As the engine of the white luxury SUV roared to life from the street below, he crawled away from the wall and out into the center of the empty parking structure.
Craning his head right, he watched as the SUV cut through the intense morning sunlight that filtered in from beyond the retaining wall. It washed the white behemoth in an ominous glow, almost framing the luxury vehicle in a translucent halo. Although at this point, he couldn’t be sure if what he was seeing was real or a manifestation of his brutal self-inflicted injury.
As the SUV screeched to a stop only feet away, Cedric held out his right hand and turned his head away. Leaning back onto his knees, he straightened up and stared at the driver’s door. Mitchell Blake stepped out as well as two of his men, the younger man to the left he remembered as Blake’s brother Gerry. The group of three men checked the surrounding area and approached with caution.
“Cedric, where are they? Your wife said you were bringing them down.”
He didn’t answer. Instead he stared back at Blake shaking his head and looking confused.
“What the hell happened to you, old man? Those two get the better of you?”
Adding to his look of bewilderment, Cedric dropped backward to a seated position along the warmed pavement—his legs spread out in front—and stared back at the three men. He blinked rapidly, scanned their faces, and stopped with Blake.
“They’re gone.”
“Did you asked them to leave? Because you know that I wanted the chance to—”
Cedric lurched forward and spit out a mouth full of mucus. Looking down, he was only half surprised not to see any blood. “Uh… I don’t know. They… they ran out through the front.”
Following the path of Cedric’s wild eyes, Blake pointed toward the other end of the parking garage. “There?”
“Yeah.”
Blake
began to laugh. “Boy, you’re gonna have one hell of a headache later. But I gotta know, who was it, Tom or Emma? My money’s on Emma; she’s a spitfire.”
Cedric closed his left eye, pushed away from the pavement, and winced as he attempted to stand. “No, it wasn’t her.”
“Either way, you look like you lost. And I’m assuming since neither of your two new friends is anywhere around, that you did.”
“They couldn’t have gotten far,” Cedric said. “I’ll get cleaned up and go after them.”
He actually had no intention of going anywhere. He’d return to the garage later in the day and let Blake know that he’d tracked Emma and Tom to the edge of town, and was certain that they’d left for good. Cedric just hoped that since Blake had essentially gotten what he’d wanted, he’d simply drop it.
Cedric was wrong.
The smile on Blake’s face disappeared. “Do whatever it is that you need to do, but I want them back here in seventy-two hours.”
131
The group had returned the mattresses to their proper rooms, gathered their things, and repacked the SUV. Once they’d finished, Ethan made a quick trip through the kitchen, filling a few bags with snacks and room-temperature bottles of water. He followed Griffin out through the front doors, and pulling out into the street, noticed the white sedan now parked in front of City Hall.
Rolling slowly back down East Main, heading toward the interstate, Ethan checked his mirrors and watched the sedan pull away from the curb. There was no doubt that the bearded former mayor sat behind the wheel, and was doing what he thought necessary to keep himself and his town safe, although the real danger was less than two miles in the opposite direction.
By the time Ethan pulled the SUV to a stop at the on-ramp to Interstate Seventy, the others had turned in their seats and were watching the white sedan as it followed. Still keeping his distance, Gil Walker also stopped and from less than a quarter mile, stared back.
As the first to reach the SUV and take a seat, Shannon had won the privilege of sitting alongside Ethan. Gazing through the passenger window, she focused on the white sedan. “What do you think he’s doing? Why follow us all the way out here? It’s not like we’d go through the trouble of packing up and coming out here, just to try to head back into town.”
Ethan nodded. “He’s been alone here for the last seven or eight days. Hasn’t spoken to anyone other than me or Griff. And I’m sure he’s also had to see some things happen to his friends and family that screwed with his mind. He’s probably starting to slip a little.”
“Is that why there isn’t a single thing out of place in this entire town?”
“Not sure, but what else does he have to do? According to him, he’s just waiting for the military or government to come back through with a vaccine.” Ethan grinned. “Maybe he just wants the place to look presentable.”
As Ethan turned right and started down the ramp, Shannon reached for his right arm. She squeezed tight and then looked him in the eyes. “You think we’ll reach Vegas before sundown?”
Turning to look over his right shoulder, he watched as the bearded man pulled the white sedan out into the street and made a wide U-turn, heading back toward town. Ethan was fearful that the obsessive-compulsive former mayor was living the last of his days, but maybe that’s exactly what he wanted. Maybe the pressure of being alone, coupled with the unrelenting sorrow of losing everyone he’d ever known, was now too much. And maybe he simply wanted to die alone in the town he called home for his entire life. Either way, Ethan felt nothing but sympathy for the man who’d run them out of town.
Back to Shannon, Ethan had heard what she said; however, he was still stuck in Green Valley. The short detour on their way to Los Angeles hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but it had given most in the group a chance to rest, a chance that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. And as he pushed the SUV onto the interstate, he turned and said, “Vegas won’t be a problem, that is, as long as we can find somewhere to get some gas.”
Shannon offered a crooked smile. “I’m not sure we’re going to find any gas stations that take cold cereal as payment.”
“Yeah, real funny. But luckily we don’t need a gas station, just another vehicle.”
“Siphon?”
“My dad always carried a pump. It’s in the back where the tire jack is. We just need to pull alongside another car and hope it has fuel.”
“How soon?”
“We should probably start looking within the next hour or so. If we can get a full tank, we won’t have to do this more than once before we get to the coast.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Anything that has a tank facing out toward the road.”
Nearly three hours had passed and the group was growing restless. Ethan had begun to nod off more times than either he or Shannon could count and their only focus had become finding a suitable vehicle or two from which to pull the thirty-one gallons of unleaded fuel that they’d need.
Frank sat along the back row with Helen and Ben as Griffin and Carly occupied the second row. Reaching Interstate Fifteen, they’d all picked a color and now watched the roadside for the next grouping of motionless vehicles.
Griffin had picked first and chose black, while Carly went in the opposite direction and took white. Frank couldn’t initially decide, but after much peer pressure, asked if navy blue was too precise for the color of a car.
Griffin quickly chimed in from one row up. “Hey Frank, how about we just give you every shade of blue?”
From the driver’s seat, Ethan rushed his answer and was met with a round of laughter as he decided on green. He argued that it was as good a color as any, and that the odds of finding a green vehicle had to be within a few percentage points of the others.
Unable to control her laughter, Shannon quickly chose grey and seemed pleased with herself as she continued to ridicule Ethan over his justification of why he took the color he did. “Since when did you get so analytical? I mean before you never use to—”
Ethan yawned hard, rubbed at his eyes, and cut Shannon short. “There are tons of things you didn’t know about me, and vice versa. You know, like the fact that in all the time we worked together, I don’t think I’d ever seen you smile, let alone laugh. Who knew you had a sense of humor?”
“Emma did.”
Ethan turned quickly to her, taking his eyes off the long dusty highway that stretched out before them. He wasn’t upset. It just felt weird to again hear his sister’s name coming out of Shannon’s mouth. They were still nearly five hundred miles from the coast and he had been trying to avoid thinking about things he had no control over.
Ben was next, and noticing that Ethan struggled to respond, decided to jump in. The youngest of the group, decided on a color that seemed to reflect his own personal style, as well as being an obvious choice that no one else had claimed. “Are you all serious? Doesn’t anyone know that twenty percent of all cars manufactured are red?”
From two seat away, Frank shot back, “Sorry kid, it’s only like ten percent, same with blue. And Ethan, just so you’re aware, I believe green is like three or four percent.”
“Yeah,” Ethan said, “I’d never doubt you when it comes to numbers.”
The SUV fell into silence as the group waited for Helen to chime in. She didn’t appear to be paying attention, and instead had been staring out the window for the last several minutes.
“Mom,” Ethan said from the front seat.
She only half turned away from the window. “Yes Ethan?”
“How about you? What color car you think we’ll end up getting gas from?”
Giving a slight grin to the others, she said, “I think I’ll go with green.”
Ben leaned to his right and whispered, “Ethan already took that color.”
Helen pointed out through the windshield at the single-file line of vehicles pushed to the left shoulder at the side of the highway. “Yeah, but he was right.”
132
The air was warm and dry as Ethan lowered all four windows of the dirty black SUV. Before cutting the engine, he made note of the remaining fuel and the time. Closing his eyes, he sat quietly in the driver’s seat and breathed slowly in and out. He listened to the sounds from beyond the cab, waiting for something other than the rustling foliage to move.
After sixty seconds of nothing but warm wind kicking through the truck stop parking lot, Ethan opened his eyes and looked around. The line of twelve vehicles his mother had seen now sat a hundred yards away, on the opposite shoulder. The suspicious grouping faced the wrong direction and had their passenger doors open to the road.
The last in line, a large dark green military transport vehicle, had its front bumper pushed up against a blue pickup truck. In front of that, another ten random vehicles, all end to end. Ethan imagined that there had to have been a purpose to the odd grouping, but at present, nothing logical was coming to mind.
Reaching for the handle, Ethan opened his door and stepped out. He carried the same two weapons he had since leaving the city, and with two additional magazines, he closed the door and began to move away from the SUV.
“Wait,” Griffin said, as he fumbled to open the rear driver’s door and then stepped out. “Where in the hell are you going?”
“Probably best if I do this alone. Less chance to be seen, less of a target.”
“That’s not how this works. No one goes anywhere alone anymore, you know that. It was something we all decided together. I don’t understand your fascination with the lone wolf thing.” Griffin leaned in close. “These people need you.”
“Okay, then who stays here with them?”
Griffin turned back to the SUV and eyed Frank. “Can you drive this thing?”
Frank nodded and then moved from the last row into the driver’s seat. He slipped in next to Shannon and decided to offer his opinion. “Why don’t we all just go?”
