Isolation (Book 1): Shut In

by Jones, Nathan

  “Finally,” Ellie said as they approached an off ramp that led to a town called Watkins, which a couple of cars up ahead had turned onto, their taillights splitting away from the line.

  Hal frowned and looked to either side of the Interstate, which appeared to be completely dark in the night, no sign of anyone living nearby. “You can go another thirty to fifty miles when the gauge hits empty in most cars,” he offered. “This looks iffy, and there's still time to find something farther on.”

  Ellie shook her head. “It's still worth a shot, to get gas before our situation becomes dire. Let's at least check our options.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Her friend followed the taillights disappearing off the Interstate, which led them to a main street that in the dark looked identical to what you could find in dozens of little towns all over the country. Aside from the fact that all the lights in the businesses were off, including the places that should've been open 24/7.

  In fact, Ellie was pretty sure that even the closed businesses should've had lights on all night; she had to look far down the street to find a streetlight that still worked, as if the nearby ones had been shattered by some punk and nobody had bothered to repair them. That left her more disquieted than she'd expected, and she wondered how wise it had really been to insist on checking this place out.

  Hal turned the car into a gas station lot that was as dark and deserted as the rest. “We can at least try the pump,” he said, not sounding very confident.

  And for good reason. The convenience store looming on the far side of the lot looked more than just empty and abandoned: even in the darkness it was obvious looters had been through, breaking the windows and cleaning the place out. She had a feeling that every single edible thing in there, and most items that could be considered valuable or useful, had already been carried off.

  “Well, at least this place doesn't look highly frequented enough to have had some infected person using the pump,” Hal said as he climbed out and stepped up to the pump, pulling his card out of his wallet.

  Ellie looked between him and the unpowered screen he was staring at. “The pump's dead, swiping a card's not going to do anything.”

  “So you want to go back to walking?” he demanded. “I'm going to at least try it.” She shook her head, but kept her peace as her friend ran his card.

  It did nothing, of course. Hal pulled a pump off its holder and fiddled with it, trying to see if he could make any gas come out. It didn't take long to confirm that the idea, an obvious long shot, wasn't going to happen.

  Ellie stared doubtfully through the shattered glass doors into the convenience store. “What if we could turn the pumps on in there?” she said. “The employees have a bunch of switches to control them, right?”

  Her friend looked silently at the pitch black interior, expression unreadable in the darkness. She wondered if he was picturing Zolos virus drifting around inside, ready to kill anyone who approached. Then he sighed and leaned into the car. “All right, hand me a flashlight.”

  She gave him one of the ones Brock had bought and Hal flicked it on. It was still bright even after a few nights of use, revealing the trashed interior of the convenience store as he cautiously approached.

  Cheap shelves had been tipped over, displays of keychains and toys and souvenirs smashed and scattered everywhere. As she'd guessed, there was no food to be seen anywhere; even the drink and slushee machines looked to have been torn open, the packs of syrup inside taken.

  Hal stepped gingerly through the broken glass of one of the doors, picked his way across a floor strewn with nicknacks and more broken glass, and edged behind the counter. He was there for several minutes, flashlight beam bobbing this way and that as he fiddled with things. Then he disappeared deeper into the store, through a door that had been kicked open.

  A minute later the lights in the store flickered on, so abruptly that Ellie jumped in spite of herself. Hal emerged and hurried back behind the counter, either nervous about breaking into the place now that the lights were on to show what he was doing, or that having the lights on would draw more looters.

  After another minute or two of fiddling he called out the broken windows. “Anything?”

  She glanced at the dark screen of the pump. “Nope!”

  Her friend let out a blistering stream of curses, picked his way into the back room to shut off the power again, then made his way outside. “That's it, then,” he said as he slumped into the passenger's seat. “If there's a way to turn the pumps on, I can't figure it out.”

  They both stared hopelessly at the gas gauge, hovering on empty. “What now?” Ellie finally asked. “Look for other gas stations?”

  “No guarantee they'd be any better than this one,” Hal said, shaking his head. “There's an alternative, though. I saw hoses and gas cans in the store . . . we could find vehicles to siphon gas from.”

  Ellie immediately hated the idea. She wasn't a thief, and the thought of skulking around stealing from people made her feel sick.

  But that was technically how she'd got this car in the first place, wasn't it? Not even theft, but arguably extortion. Besides, her children were waiting for her. “Maybe we can find people willing to sell us the gas in their vehicles,” she said heavily. “Or even another person willing to rent us their car.”

  He snorted, as if also thinking of the lengths they'd gone to get the green sedan, and sagged back in the seat. “We're not convincing anyone of anything if we wake them up in the middle of the night. I know the plan was to drive until we got home, but I'll admit I wouldn't mind a few hours of sleep. Should we get some rest, see what we can do in the morning?”

  That was a more than reasonable suggestion. Ellie chafed at the constant, frustrating delays, but whining about them wouldn't change anything. “You want the backseat?” she asked. With his longer legs he'd be more comfortable if he had room to stretch out.

  Her friend shook his head and lowered the passenger seat. “I'm already settled in here, you go ahead.”

  Ellie nodded and climbed back behind the wheel long enough to drive them over to the side of the gas station's lot, in the shadow of an overhanging tree. Then she pulled their sleeping bags out of the trunk, tossed Hal his, and squirmed into hers on the backseat.

  Maybe tomorrow would be better than today. Although given how things had been going lately, she didn't hold out much hope.

  Chapter Twelve: Notice

  Nick jolted awake at a loud thump that came from somewhere outside his room.

  As a parent his first inclination was to check his kids, see if one of them was up and wandering around way past their bedtime. And possibly, judging by the racket, having broken something or even hurt themselves. At least he hadn't heard any screams or cries for help, so it couldn't be too bad.

  He crawled out of bed and padded out into the hallway, looking around. He was about to open his mouth to call to his kids, quietly in case one was still asleep, but before he could the loud sound of glass shattering came from his office.

  Ricky and Tallie knew not to go in there unless they were looking for him, and they especially knew not to go crashing around breaking things in there. So unless one of them was really acting out of character, that wasn't them.

  Which left a far more alarming possibility.

  Nick threw open the door, flipping the light on at the same time, and was both shocked and unsurprised to find a scrawny kid in his late teens crouched near the window leading out to the fire escape. The glass had been broken inwards, shards scattered all over the carpet, probably by the bigger thug outside on the metal stairs holding a crowbar. Both wore black, outfits that practically screamed “I'm out committing crimes”.

  “Are you crazy? This house is quarantined!” Nick shouted at the intruder crouched frozen in the corner, blinking in the sudden light. Jeez, cowering like that the teenager looked closer in age to Ricky than to an adult.

  But young or not, the thug seemed to hear the fear Nick tried to hid
e beneath his anger. He straightened, looking more confident as he glanced at his buddy hanging back on the fire escape, although the second guy wasn't trying to climb through the window while it was blocked.

  The punk out there was older, probably just out of his teens, voice full of cocky contempt when he replied. “Yeah, we saw from the signs you put up. Thanks for the heads up, by the way.” At Nick's blank look he laughed mockingly. “Haven't you figured it out yet, dude? The quarantined houses are the only place you're guaranteed to not find sick people. They're the ones who were smart enough to lock up and hunker down before things really started getting crazy, and they're the ones with the food and other goodies.”

  Nick hadn't bothered to think of it before, but now that he did it made a sort of horrible sense. The very act of quarantining his apartment from the deadly disease had made it an ideal target for criminals looking for isolated, helpless, safe victims.

  And with the government fully occupied dealing with Zolos, and his neighbors all too scared to so much as peek their heads outside for fear of infection, there'd be no help coming if he called for help.

  He was on his own. He'd never been in a real fight in his life, was probably in the worst shape of his life, and was outnumbered by younger, physically fit criminals who'd likely been involved in their share of violence. Who wouldn't blink at leaving Nick bleeding to death on the floor to get what they wanted.

  On the other hand, just down the hall from the office his two children were sleeping peacefully. Or more likely after all the noise, cowering in their beds trying to figure out what was going on. Even assuming these thugs wouldn't hurt them, that they were all bark and no bite, if they'd been exposed to Zolos they could infect this entire apartment without meaning to and kill his family.

  Which left only one option.

  Nick lunged across the room to where Ricky kept some of his sports gear, including a kid's version of a baseball bat. In spite of its size it was made of solid wood, heavy enough to knock a baseball out of the park if swung correctly. He snatched it up and held it ready to swing, moving to stand protectively in front of the door.

  If he was hoping to intimidate the intruders he was disappointed; they seemed to find the little bat hilarious, to the point where the guy on the fire escape actually fell over onto the stairs laughing.

  Well, they might think this was all a joke, but Nick didn't. He was willing to die, or kill, to protect his children. And if they didn't realize that they were in for a rude awakening. He stared at the intruder in the corner, making his voice as low and hard as he could. “I've got children in the other room.”

  The thug smirked. “You trying to appeal to my better nature when half the people in this city are dying of Zolos, and the other half are starving to death? Nice try, dude.”

  “No.” He hefted his bat. “I'm telling you that if you don't get out of my apartment, I'm going to bash your head in to protect them.”

  “Hardcore!” the teenager said through a peal of raucous laughter. “Too bad it's coming from a fat computer nerd who probably gets his wife to squash roaches for him.” He waved contemptuously at the laptop on the desk. “If you really want to prote-”

  Nick almost missed the kid's other hand moving, yanked out of the pocket of his black hoodie with a fancy little flick that caused a blurring flash of metal. Just that suddenly the punk was holding an open butterfly knife, held low in preparation to stab.

  The intruder was still speaking casually as he lunged forward, driving his knife towards Nick's gut.

  Surprise should've frozen him like a deer in the headlights, but somehow Nick found himself slamming the bat down onto the punk's hand. It hit with an audible crack of breaking bone, sending the knife skittering away under the desk as his attacker fell backwards with a scream of shock and pain.

  He wasn't laughing anymore.

  There was a clatter from the fire escape as the other thug began to climb through the window, snarling a stream of blistering curses. Nick threw himself towards the window and swung the bat down at the thug's head. He missed, hitting the guy's shoulder instead, but the force of the solid impact shivered up his arm and nearly made him drop the bat, and the punk's curses ended with a strangled grunt.

  Showing far more agility going the other way, the older intruder threw himself back out onto the fire escape and out of sight. Nick heard a series of shockingly loud clangs and rattles as the would-be burglar clumsily fled or even fell down the metal stairs, and for the moment dismissed him, turning back to the remaining thug.

  Not soon enough. He grunted as the intruder slammed into him, ramming a shoulder into his gut with enough force to drive the breath whooshing out of him. They both went down hard, the bat flying out of Nick's hand as he hit his head on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf along one wall.

  Through the stars exploding in his vision he saw the teenager scrambling for his dropped knife, moving on two legs and his uninjured hand. With a curse Nick lunged after him, getting back to his feet as the intruder's head and shoulders disappeared beneath the desk.

  He desperately sought for a weapon, decided the bat was too far away to go for before his attacker retrieved his knife and got back out from underneath the desk, and scrambled for anything closer. His office chair was too heavy and unwieldy, the mug Ricky had given him last year was probably too small, his laptop too light.

  The thug snarled triumphantly and started to back out from beneath the desk with a violent lurch, none of his weight on his arms with one broken and the other now holding his knife.

  Time was up.

  Nick leapt forward and grabbed his spare monitor with both hands, yanking cables with it as he raised it high and slammed it down on the intruder's emerging head. His attacker went down with a strangled grunt in an explosion of glass, then started to rise again with his knife flashing toward's Nick's lower stomach.

  Somehow Nick let go of the destroyed monitor in time to catch his attacker's hand, pushing back with all his strength. Then the thug's shoulder hit his legs and he found himself falling.

  He'd spend a long time afterwards trying to figure out exactly what happened in the blur of the next few moments. Whether in the desperation of wrestling for the knife and rolling on top of his attacker, he meant to put all his weight behind his arms until he'd sunk the blade to the hilt in the guy's chest.

  When his attacker finally stopped moving Nick almost couldn't bring himself to acknowledge that the danger was past. He kept him pinned for who knew how long, before a tiny, terrified voice in the doorway made him jump.

  “D-dad?”

  “Shut the door, Ricky!” he snapped, voice harsher than he'd meant it to be. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his son flinch, but he didn't obey. Taking a shuddering breath, he calmed his tone. “Please, shut the door and go check on your sister. Calm her down if you can.”

  Ricky continued to stare at the body with huge eyes, and somewhere in the hall Nick heard Tallie sniffling. He forced himself to his feet and crossed to the door, closing it firmly in his son's face before speaking through it. “It's going to be okay. Take Tallie back to bed and stay with her until she calms down, okay?”

  To his relief, after a few seconds he heard his children's voices move away on the other side of the door, then the sound of a door shutting.

  Nick turned back to the body, forcing himself to look at it, to see it in all its horrifying reality. It was only then that he felt the trickles of wetness on his face, soaking through his shirt, and abruptly staggered to the window and emptied his stomach onto the fire escape.

  It wasn't just the horror of having to take a life, although he was sure the memory of it, the guilt, would haunt his nightmares for as long as he lived. But more importantly to himself, to his kids, he'd just got exposed to a bunch of blood from some stranger off the street, when half the city was infected with Zolos.

  Even worse, a stranger who'd openly bragged about raiding quarantined houses before trying to stick a knife in his che
st. The cooling blood on his skin, dampening his clothes, burned like acid and left him so sick with fear he wanted to curl up into a ball.

  Instead he stripped off his shirt and scrubbed his face and hands clean on the back of it, then flung it out the window. His pants were next. Then he grabbed the curtain and scrubbed at his skin some more, his breath coming in frantic gasps that sounded unhinged to his own ears.

  Nick was just about to bolt for the bathroom and shower off, with plenty of soap and maybe even rubbing alcohol, when his eyes snagged on the body of the intruder. He froze with a violent shudder, realizing he'd wasted his time cleaning himself off.

  He couldn't leave the body there, a possible source of infection for his children. In fact, he couldn't go into the rest of the apartment until he knew whether he'd been infected himself. Which meant he was going to have to trust Ricky to take care of himself and Tallie, while Nick stayed isolated in this room and ideally did his best to disinfect it all.

  Had he thought watching Kansas City fall apart on the TV was a nightmare? This was his worst dream come to life, and if he turned out to be sick . . .

  His stomach churned, his strength leaving his legs so he collapsed onto the carpet, rolling himself weakly into a sitting position against the wall as the horrific possibility loomed. If he was carrying Zolos and died from it, Tallie and Ricky would be all alone until Ellie got back. Which he hoped now more than ever was soon.

  But if she was delayed again, or something happened to her as well, his only option would be to try to find a neighbor willing to care for their children. And who'd want to risk letting in two kids whose dad was dying from a deadly disease?

  If the unthinkable happened to him and his ex-wife both, their kids would be left alone in a world going insane, death and violence and hardship on all sides. It would only be a matter of time before starvation forced them outside and they were exposed to the pandemic too, or some hoodlum like the body by his desk came after them and they were helpless to defend themselves.