Chasing Echoes (The Fallen Republic Book 3), page 34
“I’m going to fucking—” he started to say, but as he didn’t have a gun she ignored him and checked around the other side of the vehicles, making sure no one else was there. Everyone else seemed to have chased her and Susan into the building.
The minivan was running as well, and Raquel jumped in it and backed it up, out of the way into the side street. Then she jogged back to the Honda, holding a hand up to Susan for the woman to stay there. Raquel tossed her rifle in, then got behind the wheel of the Honda SUV, reversed it past the pickup, then drove across the median through a gap in the palm trees, south down the northbound lanes of Las Vegas Blvd., and screeched to a stop next to Susan. The woman ran around the SUV and scrambled in. Raquel took off with a chirp of tires before Susan even had her door closed, racing away from the scene.
Susan watched out the back window until Raquel took a turn, ignoring the speed limits and the traffic signals. She pushed Raquel’s rifle out of the way, cursing as she touched the hot barrel, put on her seatbelt, and traded a shocked look with Raquel. They sat in silence for a minute, then Susan started laughing hysterically, burst into tears, and hugging herself and rocking in the seat.
Raquel glanced at her, then at the back seat. The groceries were still there. But they wouldn’t last long, not split among five women and seven kids. They wouldn’t be nearly enough. And there was, apparently, no more food to be had in the city. As bad as it was, it was only going to get worse.
She had no job. No mother. Nothing tying her to the city anymore. She and Ricky had to get out. She didn’t think it would be too hard to find a working car. The only question was…where would they go?
People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.
Stephen King
The Stand
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Indiana
They’d been attacked by zombies—by an entire zombie horde, actually—and seemingly had narrowly evaded being murdered by a government hit squad, and yet still, somehow, shopping at his local Walmart with Elena felt more surreal than any of that. Larry kept looking around as they trudged up and down the mostly empty aisles with wide eyes, wondering if he was somehow dreaming. Walmart—except for batteries—was a bust. After Walmart was ALDI, Meijer, Kroger, a local Asian market, and the Save A Lot on the north side of Terre Haute. Shopping at six stores should have taken a long time, if any of them had anywhere close to properly stocked shelves, but between the six of them they were able to find nearly everything they wanted and needed and were heading back to his house in under three hours.
Larry had his Springfield XD in a holster on his hip, and tried to tell Elena that would be enough, but she resolutely did all of her shopping with the Honey Badger slung across her chest. They were far from the only shoppers visibly armed, but she got more than a few looks. Maybe because she was a woman, but Larry thought it was more likely the people in rural Indiana were somewhat knowledgeable about guns, and were goggling at the Honey Badger’s silencer. In Terre Haute, a basic black AR-15 was considered half-exotic—although he saw a few of those, slung over the shoulders of customers. He wondered what they would have thought if they’d known the Honey Badger was a full-auto machinegun.
On the way back they passed a farmer’s stand on the side of the road. Larry stopped and bought a number of pumpkins and a bit of corn on the cob that looked old but had apparently been stored properly. He wasn’t interested in celebrating Halloween, which he realized was rapidly approaching, but he knew there were a lot of carbs in pumpkins, and the seeds had some protein. He also bought a dozen fresh eggs—two bucks an egg, but he figured they were worth whatever people were willing to pay, and likely they’d be a lot more expensive the next time he drove down that road.
He parked his Jeep Liberty in front of the house and Rizzo came running out on his tiny toothpick legs as Jack opened the door. “That took a while,” Jack said. “Problems?”
“Beyond having to go to six stores and a roadside stand to buy what I used to be able to find just in Meijers?” Larry said. He bent down to pet Rizzo, who was dancing around and wagging his rat-like tail so fast it was a blur.
“Six? Shit. I thought maybe you ran into some zombies.” Jack and Leslie came out and helped them unload the vehicle and carry the groceries inside.
“Heard one gunshot, I think, off in the distance when we were loading the car at Meijer, but the Meijer’s on the edge of town, with fields all around; it could have been someone shooting a deer.”
“Is it deer season?” Leslie asked.
Jack snorted. “Like anybody cares about that, you narc. When people are starting to go hungry? If there are any cops still working, they’re not going to give a shit about that.”
“We did see one zombie running down the street at the Asian market downtown, chasing a barking dog, but that was about it.”
“I tell you, I think dog was playing with it,” Elena told him.
“Yeah, you might be right.”
Larry had just about finished putting away the groceries when Disco appeared in front of him. The bearded man looked apologetic. “They say fish and houseguests start to stink after three days, and we’re there,” he admitted.
“These aren’t quite normal circumstances,” Larry said.
“And Jack is stinking from minute one,” Elena said offhand, putting cans on a shelf. Jack, Disco, Larry, and Leslie all traded a surprised, wide-eyed look, then burst out laughing. Larry saw Elena hiding a smile.
Disco shrugged. “Yeah, well, we still can’t stay here forever.”
“We’ve got a working vehicle,” Jack pointed out. It was far from the first time.
“Yeah, a working vehicle missing a couple windows and with a bunch of bullet holes in it. Even if we swap out the plates it kind of sticks out, especially in the Midwest. Chicago, maybe not so much. And they probably know that it’s missing, and might suspect we took it. They’re looking for that Suburban if they’re looking for anything at all.”
“Well, we can’t stay here and we can’t walk the rest of the way home,” Leslie said. “And we’ve still got—” She jabbed a finger over her shoulder at Richardson, who was dozing on the couch. Between the gunshot wound and depression at being an enemy of the state he was sleeping a lot.
“Well, technically, we could walk home,” Matt said. He looked at Jack. “Isn’t that something you’d say? People walked all over this country, back in the day.”
“Well, more likely rode wagons or horses, but I get your point.” Jack looked at Larry. “‘The longest journey begins with but a single step’, as they say. You got any neighbors who are looking to get rid of any vehicles big enough for all of us? I guess it’d be five, not seven anymore, so we’d all fit into a regular car.”
Larry shook his head. “Not that I know of.” He caught Disco’s eye, reached into a grocery bag, and pulled out a prepaid cellphone. “I got two, one for you, one for me, since you had me throw out my goddamn cell phone.” He pulled out a second, identical phone, and handed it to Disco.
Disco took one. “These are prepaid? I was expecting drug dealer flip phones, not smartphones. I guess I’m getting old.”
“Pain in the ass,” Larry said. “Spent ten minutes talking to the clerk, but at least she knew what the hell was up. Most of the phones, you need to set up an account online, onto which you load the minutes that you buy. But you can’t go online with the phone, because wi-fi doesn’t work. With most of the phones. So what I had to do was buy cheap phones, then buy AT&T SIM cards. You plug those in, and they send you direct to the AT&T site if you’ve got wi-fi—which I do here, but you’ve got me paranoid, so I drove to the Starbucks on Wabash. They’ve been closed for at least a week, but they’ve still got their wi-fi turned on, and we spent fifteen minutes sitting in the car in their lot fucking with the phones, getting them activated.” He glanced at Elena. “But we should be good to go, both phones have fifty bucks of service loaded onto them. Data, text, phone calls.”
Jack gave Disco a dirty look. “If only we had somebody to call. You know Jack Carr, George Peterson, great. You know what would help? You knowing Tucker Carlson, Bill Codell, Bill Maher, fucking anybody in the media.”
“You’re the New York Times bestselling author,” Disco shot back, feeling more than a little discouraged. Disco nodded thanks at Larry, then looked at the TV. It was shut off now, but they’d had it on a lot since they’d arrived, watching the various cable news networks. There’d been no mention of the huge gunfight in St. Louis, missing USAMRIID contractors, or even the giant zombie attack in Kansas City which was now most of a week old. They’d had a lot of arguments about what that meant—some people (Leslie, Matt) thought it meant whatever news media still operating was clueless about how bad things really were. Others (Jack, Disco) were pretty sure that meant their content was being censored.
“Only guy I met who might be up for this is Bill Codell, and I think he’s off the air. Sick, dead, or more likely shut down, word is the government shut down anybody critical of them.”
Leslie shook her head. “You don’t think it more likely the virus shut them down?” Leslie said. “Thirty percent or so get bad symptoms, and maybe a tenth of them go zombie. I think probably people just aren’t showing up for work because they’re scared or sick or dead.”
“We’re dodging death squads and you still take the government’s side?” Jack said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.
“Fuck you, Jackass,” Leslie said. She stomped off in one direction.
“How is it that every network still on the air just parrots the White House’s talking points, huh? You think that’s coincidence?” Jack shouted after her, then headed out the front door. They could see him through the windows, pacing back and forth.
Larry and Disco traded a look but didn’t comment. Tempers had been flaring, and the longer they stayed there, the worse it was getting. Plus, everyone was dealing with PTSD and the stress of having nearly died in combat and/or to zombies, multiple times. Larry was having nightmares every time he went to sleep. So was Elena, she’d woken him up shivering once. He was actually surprised nobody had come to blows inside his small house. But the day was still young…
Disco asked, “And you’ve got aluminum foil, right?” and looked over at Larry, only to see he was making a call. He frowned, and Larry held up a finger as the phone started to ring.
“Hello?”
“Dan? Hey.” He couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “Holy shit, man, it’s glad to hear your voice.”
“Yeah, you too. Is this a new phone?”
“Yeah, a pre-paid drug dealer burner I had to buy at Walmart. Lost the other one. Zombies, if you can fucking believe it.” He moved the phone away from his lips and mouthed ‘brother’ at Disco, who nodded. “How are you doing? Are you okay?”
“Laid off and running out of food, and I had to threaten to shoot someone who was trying to break into my garage three days ago, but I’m good. I’m not sick. I had the sniffles last week, don’t know if it was the bug or just a cold, but I didn’t try to claw out anybody’s eyes. You got attacked by zombies? On the road?”
“Yeah. Lost my phone, lost my fucking truck. Well, I didn’t lose it, but it got wrecked…”
Disco caught his eye. ‘No details’ he mouthed. Larry nodded. He held the phone tighter to his ear, and walked into his bedroom for a little privacy.
* * *
Five minutes later Larry walked out of his bedroom and set the phone down on the kitchen counter. “Hey. Hey!” he said loudly, trying to get everyone’s attention. “Jackass!” he called out, seeing him pass by the front window. Jack heard his name and came inside.
Larry lifted up the prepaid phone and waved it around. “I just talked to my brother. Scared. Laid off. Wondering what he’s going to be eating next month. But I mean…alive.” He shrugged. “Dan maybe had the bug, but for him it wasn’t much more than a cold. His next-door neighbors—the Nelsons—I know them. Dan bought my parents’ old house, and the Nelsons have been living there since…maybe Reagan? Forever. Mrs. Nelson caught the bug and died. Mr. Nelson…” Larry’s face fell. “Apparently he didn’t think he could live without her, and he shot himself. Dan found them because Mr. Nelson let their dog out in the backyard before…doing it, and Dan heard it barking. Walked over, found it barking, went inside…gruesome, he said. So Dan’s got a new dog. New old dog, Sparky’s gotta be fifteen.”
“Is there a point somewhere here?” Richardson asked. He frowned and winced. He’d slept on his injured arm and it was throbbing. Plus, he was running out of painkillers and was dreading having to deal with a gunshot wound on nothing but aspirin and ibuprofen.
“Yeah,” Larry said shortly, frowning at the man. “Dan’s got a new dog, because the Nelsons never had any kids.” He looked from Disco to Leslie to Matt to Jack. “But they’ve got a Toyota Camry. Gotta be at least ten years old, but it looks brand new, because they never drove anywhere. Low miles, has to be.”
“Working?” Jack asked.
Larry nodded. “Dan saw them driving it after the shutdown. House is all locked up now, but he can let you in. Car’s in the garage. Keys are hanging on a peg.”
“He doesn’t mind…?” Matt asked.
Larry shrugged. “I told him I had some friends who needed a car. Badly. He told me, ‘It’s the zombie apocalypse. Don’t sweat the small stuff.’” It was the best talk they’d had in a long time.
The group traded looks. “Camry, that’s the big one, isn’t it?” Disco said.
“Big enough,” Leslie said. “For five.”
“Where does he live?” Jack asked Larry.
“Irvington. It’s a neighborhood on the far side of the city.”
“What city?” Disco asked.
“Oh, sorry. Indy. Indianapolis. It’s maybe an hour and a half drive. And you won’t need to get on an interstate.”
“What’s Irvington like?” Disco asked.
Larry thought it was a weird question to ask. He shrugged. “Middle class. Used to be nicer, but so did the whole area. Now it’s still okay, but it’s surrounded by utter shit. Dan would have sold the house years ago, but we grew up there, so…”
Disco was nodding. “That’ll work.”
“And after Irvington, then what?” Richardson asked.
“Then we’ve got a fucking car that’s not on America’s Most Wanted,” Jack said.
“And we dump the shot-up G-wagon somewhere obvious, in one of those ‘utter shit’ areas, with the keys in it,” Disco said. “Hopefully it gets stolen sooner rather than later.”
“So we’ve got a car. Then what?” Richardson said.
“We’ve got a car and we’re an hour and a half closer to home,” Disco said. “The rest of it…well, I haven’t figured that out. Unless you came up with a plan while you were napping?” Richardson just glared at him. Disco turned to Larry, then glanced at his watch. It was already afternoon. “Tomorrow?” he said to Larry, but it was more a question than a statement. “That will give us time to try and think of…something.”
Larry nodded. “Absolutely. I can make dinner.”
In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to our past, a bridge to our future.
Alex Haley
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Rodrigo
Chris stumbled out of the back bedroom, still dead tired, when he heard the baby fussing. He had no idea what time it was, as his phone had died the week before, and he’d never worn a watch. Still the middle of the night for sure, there wasn’t a hint of light outside the windows, past the blinds and thick curtains.
The crib was in the corner of the living room, which was lit by one flickering candle. It was enough light, once your eyes adjusted, to navigate the room without breaking toes on furniture. And he saw his grandfather, dressed in boxers and a saggy undershirt, holding DeShawn in his skinny arms, rocking him back and forth. The six-month-old was already quieting down, and his grandfather waved a hand at him. “Go on back to bed,” he murmured. “I’ve got this.”
“You sure?” Chris asked.
“I was already up,” the skinny old man assured him, talking very quietly. “Can’t sleep worth a darn these days.”
“Grandpa…” Chris said, feeling guilty.
The man, rocking the infant in his arms, wiggled his fingers at him again. “Go,” he whispered.
Chris yawned, nodded, and trudged back to the bedroom. Rodrigo, humming softly to soothe the baby boy, listened, but didn’t hear anybody else in the house stirring. Dark, and peaceful. A definite contrast to how things were once everyone was up.
There were five of them sharing his small house. Rod. His sister Jordana who was dealing with bad rheumatoid arthritis. His daughter Ella, named of course after Ella Fitzgerald, and who was a real piece of work. Always complaining about everything, although now that she actually had serious things to complain about her mouth seemed to be shut more often than not, which was a welcome change. Chris, his grandson, who before everything had been clueless and aimless. Then DeShawn had been born to one of the girls he was going to high school with. The girl had been in poor spirits ever since, that postpartum depression all the doctors and ladies on daytime TV were always talking about. The birth of the baby had seemed to focus Chris, but Michelle, she’d slid further and further down, and then the President announced the bioterror attack and things just wholesale went to shit, and the girl had killed herself. Chris had stepped up, and was doing everything he needed to to take care of the baby. But things were tough all over, and getting tougher.
Rod had lost contact with his son Maurice, who was in Philadelphia. They hadn’t had phone service for a week, but before that Rod had been unable to get through for days, and didn’t know what that meant. The only mention he could find of Philadelphia online was some videos about arson and zombie attacks in that city, but that was no different than any other city. Atlanta, where Rod lived, was something out of a disaster movie. No police, and fires everywhere, people running wild. More than half the neighborhood was abandoned, although maybe some of the people hadn’t moved out but rather died from the virus instead of being killed by burglars or whatnot.
