The Third Apocalypse: Together At The End: Book One, page 3
From behind, she wrapped her arms around Colin’s waist as he extinguished the woodstove’s fire. “So, when you said you would take me to Oregon…”
“I meant it.” He twirled within June’s loose embrace and lightly pecked her lips as he slung his arms across her hips. “I’m just being careful is all, and careful to me is letting this thing, this catastrophe, breathe for a couple of days while we pack up my place.” He cast his eyes away for a second, and when he matched her gaze again, his look was mournful. “What if I never get back there again?”
A wave of empathy washed over June. Colin had a home, possessions he cherished, and most likely, things they needed, like his extra outdoor gear. Yet she knew he would drive straight to Oregon if she pleaded hard enough. His past trauma made him blind to his own wellbeing, if it meant he got to make her feel safe. It wasn’t the worst character trait to have in the real world, but if they were living in a terroristic disasterscape, that caring attribute could turn into a full-blown addiction.
It was a relief knowing that she would never have to act like a damsel in distress to get her man’s attention. “I understand, Birdbrain. The last thing we want to do is rush anything. And I’m not worried about my family being safe, like poor Gil. I just don’t want them to worry about me.” She kissed Colin back, lingering on his lips until his cock twitched against her thigh. Keeping his mind on something pleasurable would be good for both of them. “There’s no one else in the world I would rather be with right now, but let’s get the hell out of this desert, hmm?”
Colin nodded resolutely. “Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.”
Chapter three
Colin
After a few miles, the cars started appearing. The dusty hardpack sandwiching the crackled asphalt was littered with them, many waving impromptu white flags. Shoe prints trailed away from most of the vehicles, creating a mashed trail of foot traffic that eroded itself into the natural shoulder of the road heading to Edinburgh.
The truck stops, fast food joints, and RV mega-campgrounds of the Arizona-California border town burling around the county highway were dark at a distance through Kimberly’s windshield. Tony’s repair shop was at the beginning of the village, tucked away behind a shuttered RV park. Neither of the campers in the lot had vehicles attached.
Colin swung wide-right around defunct caravans to be greeted with locks and chains keeping the giant gates of Tony’s junkyard and repair shop secured in their tracks. Past the shop was a football field of an RV sales lot. A billboard advertising available billboard space was the only thing on the other side of the road until blurry buildings began lining up further down the silent Main Street.
Footsteps padded up behind the driver’s seat once Kimberly came to a complete stop. “Can we give Garfield some of our gas?” June bent down and draped her arms across Colin’s chest, burrowing her face into his neck. “I cuddle when I’m stressed. It’s best just to let me finish.”
“Not enough. We’ve got five hundred miles in our tank, they have two hundred in theirs. We need eight, at least.” He kissed her forearm and added, “This is our best option.”
She moved back to her perch on the couch behind Colin in the cockpit. “We can’t call,” she said. “We’re just going to wait?”
“You and Jacob are. Gil and I are going to take their scooters down the street to see if anything’s open before we get out of here.”
“Feck off,” June cried, landing a jab into Colin’s bad shoulder. “Ohmygoddess, I’m sorry!”
He windmilled his arm to shake off the sucker punch. “The fuck was that for?”
“Did you seriously think I was going to sit here like Rapunzel?” she asked, twisting her hair into a ponytail. She sat on the couch and put her wrists between her knees. “If I’m coming with you, I’m coming with you.”
“It’s safer here, Lash. I’ll leave the keys. You can peel out if a horde of the undead chases the scooters.”
“No.” She shrugged at him to shore her stare. “Just… No. You’re… my bodyguard, basically.”
“Lovely,” Colin said, sitting beside her.
“I know you don’t like to talk about it.” A door knock stopped the conversation. She narrowed her eyes at him and began signing. It’s okay to use your tools. She pinched the bridge of her nose and continued vocally. “Why are we even going down this street?” She stood up to let in the boys.
“We need food, an idea of what we’re dealing with…”
Before their guests made it to the dinette, Colin lifted the bench seat nearest him and pulled his daypack out of the hidden storage box. He unstrapped the bowie knife lashed to the side of the pack and slipped the worn leather sheath loops through his belt as everyone settled in.
“Let’s pretend this is real. Worst-case scenario-type stuff. I have a few day’s food before things get banjaxed. Boys, I’m guessing that marigold fridge is mostly hard seltzer and s’mores supplies, yeah?”
Gil nodded with an impish grunt. “We were planning on supporting the food trucks. Worst-case scenario, trucking is down, ports are closed, everything runs through computers…” He sighed. “Or needs juice that isn’t there right now.”
“There might be a fire station somewhere. Or a town hall, something,” Colin said. He rose to find his keys. “News is good, too. We need to move these sore thumbs behind Tony’s shop for now.”
They disbanded to hide the vehicles from the main road. The matching orange vespas strapped to the utility deck on Garfield’s rear end were unloaded under a sparkling sky that had yet to feel fifty degrees. The silence was unsettling, broken only by grackles, their cries slicing through the atmosphere like rusty saw blades.
Colin familiarized himself with the simple hand controls of the scooter as June wrapped her arms around his torso. She wore his pack, sitting on a shoebox-sized storage compartment. Gil donned an expedition-sized pack Colin stored under his bed. It was a deflated red turtle shell on the diminutive man, but it could hold a week’s food if they found a grocer.
They cruised down the street, eyeing buildings for signs of life. There were no people huddling around any of the structures, no looters or cleanup crews. It was like a movie set that had yet to begin filming for the day. There may have been homes within the geographical definition of Edinburgh, but none stuck out, peering as far as he could down the dirt alleyways that divided the camper lots and fuel stations.
They passed a mom-and-pop restaurant that looked like it was emptied well before the rest of the truck-stop town closed down. A dollar store broke up the natural landscape on the left side of the highway. Most of the bright yellow plastic marquee above the sliding glass doors was in shards, scattered around the gated and chained doors.
Colin waved Gil into the parking lot to peer in the windows. Inside the food desert convenience store, the shelves were bare. They’d even taken the trouble to barricade the inner half of the entrance with industrial yellow shopping carts.
“They must have run cash transactions until they ran out of stuff or stopped caring,” Colin said. He stepped off the scooter to stretch his creaking knee and peek in the windows. “It doesn’t look like they’re getting a truck in anytime soon.”
“This town is nothing but a giant RV park,” June said, scanning the piece of highway turned Main Street. “There’s another gas station further down.”
“Other than a burger chain somewhere down there, the only other convenience store is inside the other fuel station at the edge of town,” Jacob said. “This dollar store was the only thing supplying all these empty RV lots.”
“This is not a long-term place,” Gil mused. “Everyone went home.”
Squealing tires rang out like sirens in the quietness of the newborn ghost town. “Not everyone,” said Colin. He cursed the bright orange scooters floating in the asphalt parking lot like buoys.
A windowless, white van was barreling up the desolated row, swerving down the middle of the street. A machine gun poked out of the passenger’s window as the vehicle increased its roar with all its speed for the last quarter-mile to the dollar store parking lot.
A light post jutted out of the parking lot an arm’s length from where Colin stood. Around the base, dead, knee-high grass sprang out, reclaiming the cracks in the buckled pavement. He undid his belt to slide the knife and its light leather sheath off his hip. He tossed it into the weeds, far enough into the thicket to be overlooked.
June wound herself around his arm, burying her face in his chest. Jacob and Gil stood motionless, holding onto one another like Hansel and Gretel watching the cauldron boil.
She whimpered as the van rolled to a dusty, sliding stop in the dollar store parking lot. The back popped open, springing two thugs wearing matching bandanas and faded blue flannels. They both held pistols and wasted no time pointing them at the foursome.
The front doors swung out, releasing the machine gunner and driver. With the air of a carnival barker, the driver started speaking before he rounded the hood.
“Hola, muchachos, turn your pockets inside out—” He dropped his shades when he turned the corner and saw June.
“Hola, Senorita…” He glanced over at his associates, three more of whom had spilled out of the cargo van. “Parece que tenemos una puta bastante nueva!”
June was sobbing before the gangbangers heard the punchline. A twitchy addict missing most of his teeth hustled toward them, gun raised on Colin for the twelve-step jog. He tried ripping the pack from June’s back, but the sternum strap and hip belt stayed cinched around her frame. She clung to Colin’s arm through the tornado.
“Solo trae a la puta!” Driver shouted.
June screamed. Toothless’s arm snapped back and brought the butt of his pistol across her cheek, dropping her to her knees.
“No golpeas en la cara, puta!” yelled Driver from the front of the van. He shouted further orders, leaning on the hood, sending minions to roll everyone else.
Toothless scoffed and grinned at Colin, like they were at the office water cooler. He waved his weapon like a magic wand before grabbing June by the hair. She stood, tears mixing with her cheek’s crimson gush. He backed up, using her as a shield, one hand ensnared in June’s hair, the other holding his gun flat against her chest. There were a half-dozen mismatched firearms pointed at the three remaining men besides Toothless’ threat.
I could fishhook that one before they hit me. June could run if she dropped the pack. Colin’s fists clenched as his feet rocked forward. The force it took to stop his legs running almost spilled him to the blacktop, but their tattoos held him back. MS13. Fuck. They’ll flay us alive if they figure out who I am right now. They’ll make it take a fucking week.
“Mete los scooters primero,” Driver barked.
Toothless stopped walking. He held onto June with his left hand, his right arm cocked at a ninety-degree angle, holding his pistol to the sky.
I’m gonna rip the rest of his fucking teeth out and shove them into his eyeballs.
Four calvary thugs broke the line and came at the men. One grunt, frizzy hair flying in the breeze, started patting Colin down. He obliged as Frizzy relinquished him of the keys and his wallet. He glanced at Jacob and Gil, who were being rolled as tearfully as June. Once Frizzy finished, he made a beeline for Colin’s ride.
They didn’t take the pack off her. Colin licked his lips and whistled a chickadee distress call. When he had her attention, he signed what he could with his hands loose at his sides, mixing in simple gestures.
Left hip belt mace. Rip gray nozzle off in van. Fog. Cover face. Wait. I love you. A scoff escaped his lips. He had been meaning to say that last bit for ages.
The signs went unnoticed by the gang as Colin repeated his silent emergency broadcast. June nodded through a wash of blood and tears and unzipped most of the clandestine hip belt pocket with her free fingers before the kidnappers finished loading the scooters. Toothless shook his prize and wrangled her inside.
The van’s tires started squealing before the doors swung shut. Rubber smoke and a half dozen rounds squeezed off into the air from the passenger side emphasized the exit.
Colin scrabbled in the weeds for his blades as the van gained speed. He bolted out of the parking lot and tore down the street. Jacob and Gil were shouting behind him, but losing ground. Adrenaline was the only stimulant available, but it was enough to ignore the knee that was being pulverized by the asphalt.
The van swerved a block away, hopping the curb in front of a laundromat and skidding to a halt. The rear doors burst open, spilling out a fog of peppered Cholos. Colin sliced into the first man he came into contact with, the blade pushing between the two bones in the man’s forearm. He flung the screaming attacker to the ground with the handle of his weapon.
He rushed into the back of the van, pushing his blade into Frizzy’s stomach. Wrenching the knife up and twisting, he pulled more flesh into its jagged back teeth. He gritted his jaw and closed his eyes against the capsaicin cloud. Throwing the slumping corpse off the hilt and onto the floor, he searched for June.
Breathing was impossible. He wiped away tears as the open doors cleared the air. The pepper spray had blasted into every crack and cranny of the vehicle’s occupants, leaving them exposed in chaotic misery. He filtered through the snotty wails to June’s flailing limbs. He slipped her left jab, but caught her right set of nails across his jawbone.
As the driver lurched the wheels to life, Colin bear-hugged her into an awkward barrel roll and jumped out of the closest door as the van gained momentum.
The air burst from Colin’s lungs when they landed on his back. Rolling three times before settling in the dust, he cradled June to his chest to absorb as much as he could. Rocking to his feet, he sucked wind and searched for Toothless, but there was nothing in sight save the kidnappers speeding away. A leg kick-shoved Frizzy’s corpse out onto the pavement from the rear of the van as it gained speed, heading toward the California border crossing.
A bullet whistled past them. An abandoned, half-blind gangster fired four rapid-fire rounds through stinging tears and streams of snot that each went wilder than the last. When the trigger dry-fired twice, Colin rushed, ducking his good shoulder into the man’s shins, letting his weight bring the knee-locked prick to the ground.
Colin swung. One right hook would have done, but rage conquered pain and reason. He smashed fight-hardened fists into his opponent, lightning ripping through his knuckles with every blow, filling him with energy and justification. When the twitches of the man's death subsided, he looked for the other fleeing jackals.
The first man he cut into had bled out, slumped against the laundromat, the bowie knife slicing through his wrist veins as easily as rope fibers. Ignoring June’s cries while listening for Jacob and Gil, he grabbed the dead man’s gun from its holster and slid out a loaded clip. Popping the weapon back together, he whirled around to find the last two vermin.
What he found was a bloodied June. Pulling her twitching shoulders into his arms was enough to start her body convulsing with sobs. He kissed her crown with murmured assurances as he scanned the area. Jacob and Gil were running up the street, gasping with the exertion.
“That was organized,” Colin said when they caught up. “They were MS13. I boxed against some of them in Boston. My guess is they’re sweeping the area. This pit stop town is nothing but tourists; it’s easy pickings. We need to go. Now.”
The van would be at the California border in minutes if its direction stayed true, but Colin wasn’t sticking to assumptions. He put the pistol in the back of his waistband, straining to hear an engine. The escaped trio hadn’t turned around. He searched for the two live thugs, but there was no one. At all. No one had come running when the screaming started or the shots were fired. No cops, no cell phone recording mob. No news choppers whirled overhead.
“We need to get to the buses, Lash, before they come back. Can you see? Can you walk?” He swept blood-soaked hair away from her face and flinched with rage. An inch-long gash crested her cheekbone, spilling life down her jaw and onto the ground.
“They didn’t—I pulled the thing, and it exploded—my hand burns…” June hitched her words to shaky sobs.
Colin pressed her unscathed cheek into his chest for the relief of her weight until Jacob reached them and began checking her over with pit crew efficiency.
The reunited foursome made their way to Tony’s shop with twitching ears and roving eyes. The buses were untouched, and there was still no noise other than what they themselves produced, scuffling the gravel underneath their feet.
“If they haven’t figured the rest of those keys go to something worth having, they might soon,” Colin said, reaching under Kimberly’s front bumper for one of his hidden spares. “Especially if they’re canvassing the area. We can’t wait for Tony.”
Whispers of black tea, woodfire, and weed washed over Colin when he opened Kimberly’s door, clearing his head of the rage clouding his senses. He poked his head back outside before Jacob was out of earshot. “Those jack-offs could circle back around for their buddies. The fucker that hit June is hiding somewhere.”
Gil had found his own spare key and started Garfield’s engine. The racket sounded like a marching band in the boggling stillness that could lead a parade right to them.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Colin hissed. “Tell him to cut that out and get back over here, Jacob. Bring your first aid kit.”
