Last Pandemic (Book 2): Escape The City Page 13

  But it wasn’t enough. Faking it wasn’t enough. Simply trying wasn’t enough. After all, she hadn’t been in the least bit prepared, either physically or mentally.

  She tried to prepare herself now, searching through the house before she left it.

  The whole time, Sara felt like she wanted to vomit. For some reason, the knowledge of Will’s corpse being there was too much for her. Almost worse than being around the corpses of her family.

  She rushed through the house, frantically grabbing things, hoping that something would be of use.

  Sara found herself in the kitchen, looking through the cupboards, through the dark refrigerator.

  Taking some cans of soup, she stuffed them into a grocery bag. She tucked a kitchen knife in her waistband, but, not liking the fact that it might easily cut her skin, she put it in the bag along with the cans of soup. It just stayed there, loose, rattling around against the metal.

  Nothing about the house made sense. Nothing seemed like it would have belonged to the huge man that had grabbed her and taken her inside.

  She glanced over at him in the other room. His skull was still bashed in. The knife was still jutting out of his shoulder.

  There were no more tears in Sara’s eyes. Otherwise, she would have cried.

  It couldn’t have been the massive man’s house. It simply could not have.

  The windows had frilly shades on them. The kitchen had fancy tiles. The decoration had a distinctive feminine touch to it.

  On the kitchen table, among fancy candles, there was a book. It was hardcover. Sort of flat and thin. On the front, there was a painting of a young woman. The title read, The Short Reign: Queen Sara’s Nine-Day Reign Over England.

  “Queen Sara,” she said, repeating a portion of the title. She’d never heard of a Queen Sara and her hand brushed over the cover of the book, as if she was about to open it up and investigate the subject further, as if the world hadn’t gone mad and the city hadn’t dissolved into chaos.

  Accidentally, she caught another glimpse of the two bodies in the other room. She leaned over, clutching her stomach, as if she was going to vomit again.

  She couldn’t stand the sight of it. Or the idea of it.

  Without grabbing anything more, without even looking for something to store drinking water in, she dashed out the back door into the yard.

  Not able to stop there, she continued, finding her way into the driveway and then out onto the street.

  Sara barely noticed that the sun was going down. Darkness was settling around Albuquerque.

  “There’s another one!”

  “A good one!”

  “Yee-haa!”

  “Get her!”

  “It’s my turn this time. Give me the bat.”

  The raucous laughter scared her. There were shouts and there were whoops.

  Male and female voices. All fairly young.

  They’d been out in the street and now they were around her.

  There were dozens of them. Dozens of teenagers. Dozens of people in their early twenties.

  It felt like getting caught up in the middle of some kind of parade.

  It was a parade that she didn’t want to be a part of.

  They jostled her. They crowded around her. They didn’t ignore her.

  “We got another live one!”

  “She looks like a fun one.”

  Jeers and laughter came at her.

  Something swung at her and hit her in the stomach. But it wasn’t serious. It hurt, but didn’t incapacitate her.

  They were just toying with her. Now they formed a circle around her in the street. She was the centerpiece. She was the pièce de résistance.

  Faces came close to her. It was as if the kids were dancing, rushing toward her and then stepping back. They were moving wildly, swinging their bodies around.

  She saw the backs of some hands. The veins were clearly enlarged. Not everyone. But enough of them.

  Then she caught a glimpse of one of the faces that had looked strange. She now saw why. There was blood all over it. Blood coming from the nose. Blood coming from the mouth.

  It was a young man who had the blood on his face. He was clearly infected. His veins were comically large. His eyes looked wild. But he was laughing. Laughing and jeering and cheering along with his peers.

  Something struck her legs. Hard. Something metal. Maybe a baseball bat.

  Sara’s legs suddenly felt weak, the strength dissipating rapidly.

  Collapsing to her knees, she pleaded, “Don’t. Don’t.”

  A girl about her age stuck her face right into Sara’s. Nothing but cruel laughter on her features.

  “Help you?”

  They all jeered at her, repeating the words back to her.

  “You’re all sick. You’re going to die.”

  “Don’t you see? This is what we deserve. Society is sick. This is what happens.”

  The boy or man who’d spoken seemed to be the leader. He had a bare chest and ragged jeans with tears in them.

  There was blood all over his chest. No blood yet on his face. But if some of them were infected, soon they all would be.

  “You’re all going to die!” she yelled in pleading tones. Her words didn’t make sense. Did she think they would let her live if they knew that they themselves would die?

  “We know!” came the reply.

  And it was a happy reply.

  The people were around her. They were close now. Hands were grabbing her. People were pulling her. They were going to kill her. They were going to do it up close and personal. They were going to actually tear her limb from limb.

  Fingers clutched her. Fingernails tore into her.

  Someone bit her. Hard.

  She felt the fingers being pulled from her hand. One by one. The pain was tremendous. She wanted to fight, screaming out. She didn’t want to give them the enjoyment they were after.

  But it was no use. She screamed, and they laughed.

  Soon, it would all be over.

  25

  Matt

  Going another way would have cost them hours, if not another day. And time meant survival, at this point.

  “Shit,” muttered Judy, as she surveyed the scene in front of them. She didn’t curse much, so the word seemed especially impactful, coming from her.

  Up ahead, there was a little gas station on the left. Matt vaguely remembered having stopped there, years ago on a trip to Santa Fe. There were the typical two pumps and a squat little faux-adobe store. Hell, it was so old it might have really been adobe.

  Across the street, there was some kind of a bar.

  Just a little beyond there, there was an intersection. A slightly smaller two-lane road crossed route 14.

  The carnage was all over. At the gas station. At the bar. At the intersection.

  “What the hell happened?” said Jamie.

  Matt was speechless. Actually speechless. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  It didn’t matter much, as he had nothing to say. Absolutely nothing.

  “It looks like he just took them all out...” said Jamie, surveying the scene.

  “How many dead do you think there are?”

  “Dozens. I don’t know.”

  “What kind of vehicle is that?”

  “No idea. Something homemade.”

  “Maybe he was in the military.”

  “I doubt it. More like one of those doomsday prepper types.”

  “Not one of the sane ones, though. He must have been off his rocker.”

  “Well, that’s obvious. But, on the other hand, it worked, didn’t it?”

  Matt still didn’t know what to say. He closed his eyes and opened them again, almost as if to make sure the scene in front of him was real.

  Perched in the middle of the intersection, there was a very strange-looking vehicle. Originally, it might have been a pickup truck or full-sized van. It was difficult to tell.

  What was quite apparent was that it was a heavily a
rmored vehicle. And it was also obvious that the armor was homemade to some extent. Really, it looked like corrugated pieces of metal that had been affixed somehow to the vehicle.

  There were various windows, which were really nothing more than slits. Various gun barrels stuck out of these openings.

  What was more astounding than this strange vehicle was the number of dead in the streets surrounding it.

  There were so many dead that, in fact, it seemed that Matt, Jamie and Judy were the only living humans in the immediate area.

  There were plenty of others that could be seen, but they were all dead.

  Not just dead, but shot. Obviously killed by gunfire.

  And it wasn’t hard to tell where the gunfire had come from, or what had happened.

  People had come to the intersection and been shot by whoever was in the homemade armored vehicle. There was no other way the scene made any sense at all.

  There were cars, SUVs and trucks that were riddled with bullet holes. Drivers and passengers alike sat dead in the vehicles.

  Then there were the dead who appeared to be pedestrians, people walking along the side of the highway like Matt, Jamie, and Judy. They were dead where they lay, blood all around them.

  “That Spanish-speaking guy wasn’t kidding,” said Matt, finally finding some words to speak.

  “No, no, he wasn’t.”

  “Where did all those people come from? We’ve barely seen anyone.”

  “Well, you could say they all died here.”

  “Also, we’re not that far now from Santa Fe. And there aren’t that many roads heading south from the city. A lot of traffic would have come through here.”

  “I think a lot of people from Santa Fe would head north. More water. More trees. More places to hide.”

  “You think he’s still in there? The gunman?”

  “In the armored car?”

  “It’s more of a tank, really.”

  “Well, whatever it is, there might be more than one person in there.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Just the number of dead.”

  “One gunman could have an automatic weapon.”

  “The Spanish-speaking guy did say he had an AK-47.”

  “I figured that might have been a figure of speech. That term they use, cuerno de chivo, or something, I thought it was just...”

  “Sort of a general term for a gun? Maybe. Who knows? I mean, even a semi-automatic might produce this much damage, if you knew what you were doing.”

  “So the question is,” said Matt, “what do we do?”

  The three of them had moved further back, since they wanted to be very sure that they were well out of range of whoever the shooter was.

  They huddled together, not far off the road, and not far from a mass of dead bodies.

  “We’ve got to just go around this all,” said Judy. “In all the years I’ve been alive, this is just the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “How are you feeling?” said Jamie.

  Matt shook his head, trying to indicate that this wasn’t quite the time to discuss matters of personal health.

  But Judy did it for him. “Fine,” she said curtly. “No sense in worrying about me.”

  “Right,” said Matt. “Now I’m with you on heading around all this nonsense, but I just can’t help thinking that we’re missing something. Surely others would have seen the same thing we’re seeing. Why didn’t they just go around the intersection?”

  “Probably a host of as-of-yet-unseen obstacles, or particularly difficult terrain.”

  “It’s going to have to be really difficult terrain to prevent us from going around a maniac with an automatic rifle and a fully armored car.”

  “Well, we’re in agreement on that.”

  “So let’s go.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yeah. What else should we do? Go say ‘hi’ to the gunman first?”

  Jamie shook her head.

  “Come on,” said Judy. “We’ll try to go to the east first. See if we can get around that way.”

  “Let’s take the really long way around,” said Matt. “Or at least try to. I have a feeling that there’s something there that prevented others from going that way.”

  “I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Me too. The really long way around could prove too long.”

  The three of them had separated now and they were individually lost momentarily in their own thoughts, casting furtive glances here and there, handling their weapons, thinking in general of survival.

  They hadn’t even taken their first steps when the noise of an engine became apparent.

  They all looked.

  “Sounds like a...”

  “Motorcycle,” said Jamie, finishing his sentence before he could.

  It did sound like a motorcycle. It had that characteristic high-pitched whine.

  The motorcycle was in view now. One of those crotch rocket–type of bikes, where the rider is slung low over it.

  “Someone trying to escape the city, I guess.”

  “Or out for a joy ride.”

  “He’s headed right toward the intersection.”

  “Doesn’t he see the tank?”

  “Or the bodies?”

  “Not sure. Not exactly easy to miss.”

  It was true. It would have been difficult to miss.

  The motorcyclist did apparently finally notice the tank, because while approaching the intersection, he made a sort of strange wobbly swerve, as if he were contemplating slowing down and doing a U-turn.

  “There’s nowhere for him to go.”

  “Looks like he’s going to turn into the gas station.”

  “What’s that going to get him?”

  Apparently nothing was the answer, which was what the motorcyclist had also decided.

  “He’s going for it.”

  Sure enough, the motorcycle continued straight toward the intersection, heading toward the homemade, tank-like vehicle.

  “This is our guinea pig,” muttered Matt.

  Sure enough, soon they’d know whether there was an active gunman at large or not.

  The motorcycle was traveling fast. Not far from the intersection now.

  The driver seemed to be taking an all-or-nothing approach, heading in a straight line for the intersection, obviously intending to blow through the now-useless stop sign that had previously, for years, directed and controlled traffic.

  For a long moment nothing happened. The motorcycle engine whined and there was nothing but silence echoing from the homemade tank.

  Perhaps whatever lunacy had motivated someone to park their vehicle in an intersection and indiscriminately slaughter dozens had also motivated them to commit suicide.

  Or perhaps not.

  Suddenly, gunfire erupted from a slit in the side of the homemade tank.

  The motorcyclist fell off the motorcycle, almost instantly.

  The motorcycle kept going, veering off to the side, headed toward the edge of the road.

  In a moment, it was bouncing off the road, falling over. The riderless bike was now lost.

  The rider moved momentarily, and then was still. There was blood around his belly. His helmet was still on, his face hidden, never to be seen.

  “Well, that answers that question,” said Jamie.

  The three of them exchanged a look.

  What was next?

  There was no choice but to try to avoid the gunman. After all, they had no chance against him.

  But what were they missing or forgetting? What had prevented everyone else from avoiding the gunman’s path? Was it mere desperation? Just trying to rush?

  Or something else?

  26

  Joe

  She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Or at least that’s what it seemed like.

  “Well, hello there,” she said, her voice changing from apparent anger to one that he interpreted as seductive. Of course, he might have interpreted
anything coming out of her mouth, including a string of curses, as seductive.

  Joe had sworn off women long ago. He’d been burned more than a few times, but truth be told, it had probably all been his fault. Realizing that he didn’t want to work on himself, he’d abandoned the whole project, settling in to be alone. That was what he’d wanted after all.

  He would have struggled for the words to say to this woman in the best of circumstances.

  Now, he was completely tongue-tied.

  He said nothing.

  “Cat got your tongue?” she said, a mischievous look in her eye, as if she was toying with him, as if she were making fun of him.

  Did she not know about the virus? Did she not know that society was collapsing around her?

  Was she really that isolated, in her cute little house here, away from everything?

  Finally, Joe remembered to speak.

  “They’re after me,” he said, his words sounding just as frantic as they needed to be.

  “What?” Shock on her face. Real shock.

  “The virus...don’t you...” he was about to launch into it, but he didn’t know how to explain everything. There wasn’t enough time.

  “Oh,” she said. “The virus? Is that still going on? I heard something about it on the radio when I was coming back from the grocery store.”

  Her accent was distinctly East Coast. Sounded like the type of person he’d met here and there.

  Some people had a problem with those types coming into New Mexico. Joe didn’t care. There was more to a person than where they were from.

  “Let me in,” he said. “There’s someone coming for me. Many people.... You’re not safe here either.”

  Finally, he found the words that he’d needed to say all along.

  “What?” she said, her eyebrows raising. “You’re not one of those crazy people, are you?”

  “I’m not crazy,” said Joe, deadly serious. “Not at all. There are men and women with guns who are chasing me. My land is that way,” he pointed with his hand, “and they’ve run me off of it. They’re coming this way. They’re going to slaughter you if they find you. I’m sorry to put you in danger, but now we’re in this together, whether we like it or not.”