Isolation (Book 1): Shut In

by Jones, Nathan

  For their own safety, no doubt, but that didn't change the fact that it meant dozens of cars Ellie could've used to get home were now off-limits.

  “Think that's just a fluke?” Hal asked as they walked away. “Or are all the dealerships going to be cordoned off like that?”

  At the moment they were passing a big chain grocery store that looked as if it had been abandoned for years: the lights were off, the parking lot was empty save for a single lonely car with its windshield smashed, and even more shockingly some of the big plate glass windows along the front of the store had been shattered.

  She shuddered and looked away from the sight, not wanting to imagine what sort of chaos had taken place there. “Even if they're not quarantined, you really think we'll find employees there to sell us a car?”

  He shook his head grimly. “We might find the locker where they keep the keys, leave some money on a desk and drive a car off the lot.”

  Ellie was ashamed to discover she was so desperate she actually didn't find the idea as appalling as she should've. “Let's save that for a last resort.”

  “So, like, in a few more hours of having guns pulled on us?” her friend muttered. But he reluctantly turned towards another residential neighborhood.

  Unfortunately, Hal's prediction of more hours of fruitless searching proved to be all too accurate. On the plus side they weren't menaced by any more guns, at least as far as Ellie knew, but even so the afternoon passed towards evening with nothing to show for their efforts but sore feet and ears ringing from a day of verbal abuse.

  They did find some sign that St. George wasn't a ghost town, although it was the last thing she wanted to see. They passed a hospital, not a bigger facility but one that looked to be an emergency room with maybe some of the more necessary equipment for basic medical tests. Ellie was no expert when it came to Zolos pandemics, but it seemed like mostly a place where patients could be processed and sent on to a bigger hospital for more specialized treatment.

  Maybe those hospitals were all overcrowded, or maybe they would've required too much travel. Either way, the place was literally overflowing with sick people; large tents complete with attached heating units had been set up on a nearby lawn, closed off by double layers of fencing and closely guarded by soldiers in hazmat suits.

  Ellie had a feeling they'd found part of the military convoy that had blown past them on the hike here. Looking at them now, she almost couldn't begrudge them leaving her and Hal to fend for themselves in a desert, since they obviously had their work cut out for them.

  Beyond guarding the quarantine area, they were occupied shuttling in personnel carriers full of new patients, then carrying them into the tents. Dozens of people just in the few minutes Ellie and Hal watched, as they skirted the hospital at a cautious distance; at this rate the relief workers would soon have to set up more tents, even if the existing ones were currently mostly empty.

  Even more troubling than that, soldiers were occupied carrying body bags out of the emergency room to a pile of over a hundred similarly covered bodies, all waiting for humane disposal at one end of the parking lot. And from the suspicious looking tarp-covered mounds near the pile, there might've been hundreds more.

  Ellie wasn't sure what troubled her most, the sight of human suffering on such a large scale or the fact that the soldiers moved with the plodding listlessness of men simply doing an unpleasant task, rather than a horrific one. As if they'd been at it long enough to have distanced themselves from the awful reality that it was dead human beings, by the size many of them children, that they carried to an ignoble resting place.

  How many people in St. George were grieving lost loved ones now? Were some, like Ellie, unable to contact close friends and family, with no way of knowing whether or not they were still alive?

  Was her mother in some pile of bodies in Kansas City? The thought made Ellie want to throw up.

  That human need to know seemed to overcome fear, at least for some. She spotted over a hundred people scattered beyond the perimeter set up by the soldiers, looking helplessly in at the hospital and tents as if searching for some glimpse of loved ones. They'd taken obvious precautions to protect themselves from Zolos, or perhaps to protect others if they feared they were carrying the infection. But in spite of the danger of being so close to a place with hundreds or even thousands of infected people, still they were there.

  Ellie jumped slightly when Hal put a hand on her arm, expression grim but determined. “Let's get out of here,” he said quietly.

  She nodded and joined him hurrying away from the hospital, more determined than ever to continue their fruitless search until they found success.

  Her friend seemed to feel that same resolve, which might've explained why he finally lost patience when they tried a more upscale house a few blocks away, with two cars in the driveway and one parked on the street in front.

  It started out depressingly familiar, with a resident cracking a window just enough to talk to them. “Get off my driveway!” he shouted, voice shrill with anger and fear. “Go away!”

  Ellie held up her hands placatingly. The guy might have a gun, after all, even if she thought he'd sound more confident if he did. “We don't want trouble, sir. I just want to talk about maybe renting one of your cars.”

  A woman's voice swore at them through the curtains, sounding more angry than scared. “Are you crazy, lady?”

  “Completely serious!” She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out her wallet, riffling through it. “I've got, um, two hundred and thirty-six dollars.” She held it out lamely, as if expecting someone to come take it.

  The woman laughed again. “You want to give us money all covered in Zolos? You are crazy!”

  “We're not infected, I swear!” Ellie fought down an unexpected wave of frustration, tossing the assorted bills towards the door. They went a few feet before fluttering pathetically across the lawn. “Listen! If you give me your info I can send you more, and I swear I'll do everything I can to get your car back to you. Please.”

  “Ma'am, we're not giving you a car!” the man shouted. “Just go away!”

  “You seriously saying you can't spare a single car when you've got three, man?” Hal demanded. “What're you even going to do with these things while you're hiding in your house?” There was no answer, and the young man flushed angrily. “Hey, you know what? We'll leave your cars alone. After we rub our filthy, sweaty bodies all over them!”

  As her friend shouted the threat he shrugged off his backpack and peeled off his shirt, revealing a surprisingly muscular chest and washboard abs that must've been much admired by the girls in Kearney. Then he suited his words by rubbing himself on the driver's side door of the forest green sedan parked in the driveway. “There, it's all yours!”

  “Hal, you're not helping!” Ellie snapped, looking away from him with her cheeks flushing.

  Holy cow, he was built. Fond as she'd been of Nick, her ex-husband had always been more of a runner and swimmer. When he was able to tear himself from his work, that was, and wasn't stressed to his limits and gorging on junk food in the middle of a project; he'd been more dad bod than stud in the last few years.

  In the house the couple were both swearing a blue streak at the young man. “What's wrong with you?” the woman demanded. “Why are you doing this? What did we ever do to you?”

  “We need the car!” Hal shouted back. He took a threatening step towards the house. “Maybe I'll rub myself all over your doorknobs next.”

  Ellie put a hand on his arm, gently pulling him back, then stepped forward to face the window. She could see two pairs of eyes peeking at her through the blinds, wide with fear and anger. “Please,” she said as quietly as she could and still be heard. Hopefully. “I've got two children at home. They're trapped in the middle of an infected city, and they need their mother. I'll pay you back and return your car, I promise. Just please, help us.”

  There was no reply.

  Hal, panting angrily, retrieved his shir
t and dragged it back on, then picked up his pack and came to stand beside her staring at the house. “This is pointless,” he said quietly out of the side of his mouth. “Let's just leave these guys alone, keep searching.”

  “Maybe next time without the threats of biological warfare,” she agreed, tone not completely joking. His cheeks flushed, obviously ashamed of his behavior, and with a sigh Ellie prepared to crouch to pick up her money, useless as it seemed at the moment.

  Before she could, a click sounded from the front door as it was unlocked. It abruptly opened a crack and a man's arm emerged, holding something that glittered. He hurled it awkwardly onto the lawn with a merry jingling noise.

  Car keys.

  Ellie stared at them, feeling her eyes fill with tears. “Thank you,” she said as the door slammed shut, the lock clicking again. “I promise, as soon as I can-”

  “Just get out of here!” the man shouted through the door. “I don't care about any promises of payment, just go!”

  Fair enough. She stepped forward to grab the keys, but it was Hal's turn to grab her arm. “Wait!” he hissed. “These guys were so scared of us having Zolos, did we ever stop to wonder if they might?”

  She gave him a confused look. “If they did, why would they be so scared about us having it?”

  “I dunno, maybe they have it and don't know it.”

  “While they've been closed up in their house?” Ellie shook her head and stooped, grabbing the keys before she could think better of it. “We need the car, so we'll just have to chance it.”

  Hal stared at her in consternation. “We could've at least used gloves. Maybe tried to find wet wipes or something to clean them with. Hannah wasn't completely insane.”

  She felt her face flush; in the moment she hadn't considered either of those options. “Well, too late now.”

  Keys in hand, Ellie made her way over to the driver's side door of the sedan, while Hal hurried to gather their stuff and waited by the back passenger side door for her to unlock it. She felt like a thief as she did so, even though the owner had technically given her the keys willingly.

  But she couldn't let that stop her from using this chance to get home to her babies that much faster.

  “Thank you!” she called. There was no response, so she slipped behind the wheel and turned the ignition. She wanted to cry when it started immediately; even though the car looked new and it couldn't have been idle for more than a few days, she'd half expected it to not work.

  Hal tossed their stuff onto the backseat and threw himself into the passenger seat, almost as if he expected the owners to come bursting out of the house to chase them down. Maybe Ellie subconsciously feared the same, because she wasted no time putting the car in reverse and backing out of the driveway.

  Then she put it in drive and they were once again on their way.

  Hopefully all the way home to Kansas City, where their families waited for them.

  ◆◆◆

  The thirty or so miles that had taken them the better part of three grueling days of hiking took around a half hour in the car. Ellie wasn't sure whether to be depressed about all that wasted time, or elated that they were finally in a vehicle again and could laugh at such a paltry distance.

  During that time she called Nick to let him know she had wheels and was once again zooming towards him at a responsible speed. It warmed her heart to hear her kids cheering in the background, Ricky yelling for her to be home soon and Tallie promising to draw a picture as a welcome home present.

  She hadn't been planning to stop for anything until she had her children in her arms, but that was an extra motivation.

  Which was why after some internal debate and agonizing, she decided not to waste the five or so minutes it would take to pick up their things at the campsite and come back. Maybe part of that was an almost superstitious fear that their car might be stolen again, but at that moment she valued getting home that little bit sooner over the expensive clothes and personal items she'd left behind.

  Hal seemed to agree; when Ellie brought up stopping he insisted they drive on and not tempt fate. “It's just stuff,” he said. “Aside from getting gas, I say we go nonstop.”

  It was good to know they were both on the same page.

  On the subject of gas, the car they'd, ah, rented only held a bit more than half a tank. So around sundown, well after they'd moved from I-15 onto I-70 headed east, they began searching for a gas station in a small town called Salina. The first they passed was empty and abandoned, but to her relief the second had a sign out in front that said in large bold letters:

  “CASHIER IS ARMED

  PAY AT THE PUMP OR

  KEEP DRIVING!”

  It didn't seem to be an idle threat, either. The front window of the gas station that looked out from behind the cash register was shattered, and not far from the front doors a suspicious patch of dried crimson stained the pavement, fading to a trail of spatters moving away towards one of the pumps.

  “I, um, think the dude in there shot someone who was trying to come inside,” Hal said nervously, staring at the older man perched on a stool behind the register glaring out the window at them. “Looks like he just injured whoever it was, and they were able to drive off.”

  “I was planning on paying at the pump anyway,” Ellie replied, picking one that didn't have a trail of blood leading to it. And not just because of the risk of Zolos.

  She paid with her emergency credit card, handling the pump through one of the plastic grocery bags the food from the convenience store near LA had come in, then throwing it away. For once she found herself missing Hannah, if only for the woman's seemingly endless supply of latex gloves and wet wipes.

  Then they switched drivers and were on their way again, fully intending to drive nonstop until they reached Kansas City.

  On the way out of Salina Hal grunted, staring at a squat building near the on-ramp onto I-15. The wall facing the road had been crudely painted with the words:

  “U.S. POPULATION

  293 MILLION

  AND COUNTING”

  Ellie didn't know when the announcement had been slapped on there, but at some point the number had been crossed out and now “277” was scrawled above it. Her friend swore softly.

  If the sign was correct, that meant tens of millions of people had already died. Ellie's thoughts immediately turned to her mom, wondering if she was one of them. From Hal's expression he was obviously thinking the same about his mom and siblings stuck in their infected apartment complex.

  “Your family still doing okay?” she asked him. He'd been making his own calls as she drove, with them trading off using the car charger for their phones, and while she'd overheard a bit of his conversation with his mom she hadn't gotten the whole picture.

  Her friend nodded distractedly, thoughts obviously torn between his driving and his worries for his loved ones. “No signs of Zolos so far. The family in the apartment next to theirs is sick, though. Mom's talking about trying to sneak past the cordon and get to my place anyway.”

  That didn't seem like a great idea, although she didn't feel like it was her place to say so. Besides, from what she'd overheard Hal had seemed to have been arguing against it as well. “Any word from your dad?” she asked instead.

  He shook his head. “Just a text he sent before his flight took off for the States. Hopefully no news is good news.”

  There wasn't much to say to that. Ellie rested a supportive hand on his shoulder for a moment, and noticed when they got back on the Interstate that he drove faster than she had been, blowing past the speed limit with no apparent worry for highway patrolmen.

  Which was probably a safe bet, since they'd barely seen half a dozen cars coming the other way since leaving St. George, and only one on their side of the highway, which had passed them at reckless speeds an hour or so earlier. She resisted the temptation to urge her friend to go even faster; they'd be home soon enough, no sense taking foolish risks.

  Around one in the morn
ing, they crossed through Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado and began the long descent out of the mountains towards Denver.

  They'd made good time, although their gas tank was starting to get uncomfortably low. Hal was looking tired as well, so they agreed that they'd stop at the first open, safe-looking gas station they found and switch drivers after they refueled. Preferably some place in the suburbs of Denver, or better yet some small place well outside it where there wouldn't be many people.

  When they got closer, however, after battling through over an hour of bumper to bumper traffic, they realized they wouldn't have to worry about the danger of a gas station in Colorado's capitol because it wasn't even an option. In fact, the heavy traffic was due to the fact that like St. George, travelers along I-70 had been redirected around the city.

  They had the option between circling north around Denver, or south. Ellie didn't care either way, although she and Hal both agreed that out of the diverging streams of taillights up ahead more seemed to be heading north, so they might have better luck going south.

  She had her first hint of what might've motivated the people headed north when, looking at the gauge quickly dropping to empty, they began searching for a place to fuel up.

  She wasn't sure if the people going the other way knew something she didn't, or if it was just pure bad luck, or maybe north didn't have any good prospects for buying gas either. Either way, their redirected stream of traffic's slow, meandering route south around Denver showed no good options.

  “Should we try leaving the road?” Hal asked, glancing worriedly at the gauge. “This close to a population center there has to be something.”

  “There's no guarantee of that,” Ellie argued. “Let's keep going until we're back on I-70. There has to be a gas station along there.”

  He didn't disagree, although his furrowed brow suggested he had his concerns about that.

  It turned out that being in a global pandemic didn't make traffic jams any better. It took twice as long as it should've to circle around Denver and get back on the Interstate, and this late at night with both of them tense and exhausted it was hard not to snap irritably at each other as the gauge finally settled on empty.