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Yellowstone

W. G. Sweet

Published by NetReadz, 2018.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

YELLOWSTONE

First edition. November 1, 2018.

Copyright © 2018 W. G. Sweet.

Written by W. G. Sweet.

YELLOWSTONE Copyright 2018 W. G. Sweet all rights reserved. Cover Art © Copyright 2018 W. G. Sweet This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your bookseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. LEGAL This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual living person’s places, situations or events is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, electronic, print, scanner or any other means and, or distributed without the author's permission. Permission is granted to use short sections of text in reviews or critiques in standard or electronic print.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN

YELLOWSTONE

PROLOGUE

Somewhere in the World Overclocking: SS-V2765 "Stay down next to the friggin' bank, Hunter!" Beeker yelled. Beeker could see that Hunter probably wouldn't be hanging around for much longer. He didn't have the wits that Simpson had had. And a fire fight was no fuckin' place to have to baby sit. Why was it that he always ended up with all the ass-holes any way? They had been pinned down in this particular position a sandy beachhead for four days. Sand and water in front of them, mountain and jungle behind them. They were on the other side of a river, and if the man upstairs the man that pulled all the friggin' strings, Beeker liked to think, didn't do something damn soon they might not see five. The fire was just as heavy as it had been on the first day. Non-stop. Round after round of machine gun fire, and mortar rounds that came so fast it was hard to tell when one ended, and another began. Hunter crawled over, eating some dirt as he came. But at least he had crawled. The numb son-of-a-bitch had walked the first few times; like he was out on a goddamn Sunday stroll. "Sergeant Beeker?" he whisper yelled over the sound of the gunfire. "Shouldn't we maybe take the shit now, sir?" "Hey, fuck you, if I say we lay low, we lay low. We take it like we’re supposed to, no deviations on my watch. Now, shut up and crawl your white-ass back over to your position, mister, NOW!" The shit was V2765. The thing was, Hunter had already had it at least once, the rest of them hadn’t and never would. But Hunter had come with the vial clearly marked as a booster shot... He didn’t need that yet. Hunter went, he didn't have to be told twice. Beeker was one mean bastard, and he had absolutely no desire to mess with him. Even so this whole situation didn't set well in his mind, and that was mainly due to the fact that it didn't make any sense. And how in hell could it? he asked himself. There was no answer, because there could be no answer at all. Fifteen days ago he had been safe and sound in... In... It wouldn't come. Someplace. He had been someplace, not here, and he had been... Whatever he had been, or where ever he had been it wouldn’t come. He

could almost , like it was right there, just beyond memories... He could waking up here with Beeker, Philips, and Ronson. In the middle of... Of... Where am I? He didn't know that either, and they weren't disposed to tell him. Other than waking up in the middle of this fire-fight, he couldn't jack-shit. He made the outside perimeter, and curled up into a near ball as he pressed himself into the dirt embankment. Jungle all around... Not the Middle East then... Where he had been... Had he been in the Middle East? Fighting... Fighting the... He couldn’t make the information come to him, but it seemed as though it was just barely out of reach like all the rest... Bluechip... Volunteer? For? Thoughts floating around in his head... They had given him a shot... Some sort of booster? Yes, booster... Booster shot... For, what? He asked himself, but he had no idea. "About fucking time," Beeker yelled above the roar of gunfire... ...They had been pinned down for the last several hours, with heavy fire. It had finally fallen off somewhat, and it was time to make a move: Beeker was no fool, he had every intention of getting his men the hell out, including that test case they had laid on him... He'd already lost four good men on this mission. He couldn't see losing any more. He looked across the short, smoky distance, directly into Ronson's eyes, and signaled left, away from the sand, towards the jungle that pressed in from behind them. A quick sideways flick of his own eyes told him that Hunter and Phillips had caught it too. Beeker signaled Ronson out first, then Phillips, and then Hunter. It was a slow go; belly crawl for the first few hundred yards. The bullets continued to whine above them, but they all made it one piece. Two hundred yards in they were able to stand. The jungle finally offering some protection. Beeker led the way quickly yet carefully, through the lush greenery. The others fell in behind him silently. Two miles further through the dense jungle, and they finally lost the distant sounds of gunfire, and the jungle fell nearly silent. They fell silent themselves, moving as quietly as they could from tree to tree: Aware of the noises that surrounded them. A short while later when the gunfire had completely fallen off, the jungle seemed to come back to life. Bird calls, and the ever present monkey chatter. That was a good sign to Beeker, if the jungle was full of soldiers, the birds sure as fuck wouldn't be singing. They

pushed on through the night, and morning found them in a small village with a main trail running through the middle of it. They walked quietly through the village end to end... Burned out... Empty... A good place to rest-up. "Oh, man," Ronson complained. "Fuckin’ cra-zee," Beeker agreed wearily. He was leaned back against the side of a burned out hut, smoking a cigarette he'd pulled from inside his jacket. Hunter didn't have the slightest idea where they were, let alone what they were talking about. Beeker had led them through the jungle and at first light they had come upon this village. They had crept in warily, ready for whatever lay before them. There had been no need, it was empty; a couple of dozen scattered bodies busy gathering flies: Burned out huts. The design wasn’t familiar to him. He had thought Beeker would move on. He hadn't. They were still here. But where here was, and how Beeker had found it, eluded Hunter. "Sure as fuck did thought we was done," Phillips agreed. "Yeah, well, we made it this far," Ronson said. He grinned, and then the grin turned into a full fledged smile, and he began to laugh. Phillips ed him, and a second later, when Hunter was sure Beeker was going to open his mouth to tell them all to shut the fuck up, he started laughing too. "Oh... It's good, look-athim," Ronson said, holding his side, and pointing at Hunter, "he don't have a friggin' clue." That seemed to drive all of them into hysteria, Hunter saw. Including Beeker, who was usually hard-nosed and moody. He was doubled over too. Holding his sides. Tears squirting from his eyes. "That true?" Beeker asked at last, once he had managed to get the laughter somewhat under control. "That your friggin' problem is it, Hunter, you don't have a clue?" he stopped laughing abruptly, and within seconds Ronson and Philips chuckled to a stop. "Do you have the slightest idea where your ass is?" Beeker asked seriously. "No... Well, a jungle, I guess," Hunter answered. "No... Well, it could be a jungle, I guess," Ronson mimicked in a high falsetto. "Is it?" Hunter ventured in a near whisper. "Look..." Beeker waited for silence. "Take a break, it's going to get worse. Why

don't you have a smoke and kick back... Enjoy the break?" "Well, the thing is that I don't smoke, bad for the lungs. I'm pretty careful about my health." "Really?" Beeker asked politely. He chuckled briefly, lit another of his own smokes, and then spoke softly. "I would like your complete attention, Hunter, do I have it?" "Yeah, sure..." He cut him off, his voice a roar. "In case you hadn't noticed, there's a fuckin' war goin' on, you pansy mother-fucker. A fuckin' war, Hunter, you understand that, you ain't gonna live much fuckin' longer anyway. Get with the program mister, now!" Hunter's eyes bugged out, but as Beeker finished he forced himself to speak. "I know that... I can see that... It don't mean I have to die though, not necessarily." "Man, Beek, don't waste your time, he hopeless, same old shit, like Simpson. Like all those friggin guys before Simpson," Ronson said. Beeker drew a deep breath, winked at Ronson, and then spoke. "Yes it does," Beeker said calmly. "It does because you ain't a regular. You ain't been here long enough, and you don't mean a fiddler's fuck to anybody. And that sucks, but that's life, Hunter," he paused and looked over at Ronson. "How long was the last one, fourteen days, am I right?" "As rain," Ronson replied coolly. "And where are we now?" Beeker asked. "Seventeen?" Phillips asked. "Uh uh," Ronson corrected, "eighteen, man, ? Simpson bought it eighteen days ago, and this ass-hole came into play. Replacement, supposedly." "Right!" Beeker said. "It is eighteen, and that's why nobody gives a fuck about you, Hunter. Eighteen's too far, you'll be done at twenty, it never goes past that, and I'll bet bullets to bodies you'll buy the farm long before we're done with

eighteen, see?" "No," Hunter said slowly, "I don't see." Seventeen? Eighteen? What the hell was that all about? he wondered. Ronson chuckled. "I think he's confused, again, Beek." "I think he was fuckin' born confused," Phillips added. "Seventeen? Eighteen?" Hunter asked aloud. He didn't get it, not completely anyway. "Have a cigarette," Beeker told him. "I told you, I don't..." "Yeah, right, fuck that noise, there's a pack inside your jacket... Check it... See if I'm right." Hunter fumbled with the jacket snaps, and finally pulled the jacket open. A half pack of smokes resided in the inside pocket. A silver Zippo tucked in beside them. He looked up with amazement. "So?" Beeker asked, smiling widely. "One of you guys stuck them there, while I was sleeping, has to be," Hunter said. "And when was that?" Hunter thought about it. He Looked over at Beeker. Beeker just smiled. "Don't you get it yet, Hunter? Don’t you feel like an extra in a play.” “Bluechip? Volunteer for SS-V2765? ... Wow, they must have zonked your brain, man... "Look, it was hard for Simpson too. He was with us for twenty days, and you know, I liked that sucker. He was all right for a white dude. All you guys show up... Combat ready... Except you’re all fucked up in the head... No idea what to expect or even where you are... It aint supposed to be that way, so we always have to lay it out... You are one of them, Super Soldier, we call it over-clocked...

You’re gonna get dead, and you know what? Then you’re coming back... Don’t ask me what the fuck is in that shit they give you, all I know is you’ll get dead and then you’ll come back from it and they’ll ship you out... That booster shot? It ain’t exactly a booster shot. I don’t know what exactly it is, but once you’re gone I know this, it’ll bring you back.” “Yeah, back... In the beginning some didn’t come back, it don’t matter though, ‘cause they come and got them too... But the last several months they, all of you, come back... Dead and then you’re not... And then they’re here and you’re gone and then in a few days some other dick-wad shows up in a supply drop...” “What? A supply drop?” Hunter asked. “Oh yeah... Supply drop... Wrapped up like a... Like a douche, man..” “Uh uh, Beek, man, that line was really Revved up like a Duece,” Ronson said. “Okay, bad analogy... I hate that fuckin’ song anyways... Always did, but you guys come wrapped up, like a package, man. We unwrap you and you’re alive... We leave you be for awhile and next thing you know you’re sitting up... Walkin’ and talkin’.” “Yeah, boy... Fuckin’ freaky shit,” Phillips said. “Mucho freaky!” Hunter swallowed hard, lit up one of the smokes from his jacket, and leaned back against the side of the hut. The silence held. “So,” Beeker finished quietly, “you gotta deal with it man... You just got too... It won't be long...” Stateside: Project Bluechip Complex C: Patient Ward Test Subject: Clayton Hunter Compound SS-V2765 Gabe Kohlson moved away from the monitors. “Heart rate is dropping, don't you think...” He stopped as the monitor began to chime softly; before he could get

fully turned around the chiming turned into a strident alarm that rose and fell. “Dammit,” Kohlson said as he finished his turn. “What is it,” David Johns wheeled his chair across the short space of the control room. His outstretched hands caught him at the counter top and slowed him at Kohlson's monitor. “Flat lined,” Kohlson said as he pushed a button on the wall to confirm what the doctors’ one level up already knew. Clayton Hunter was dead. “I see it,” Doctor Ed Adams replied over the ceiling speakers. The staff called him Doctor Christmas for his long white beard and oversize belly. “Bertie and I are on the way.” “Lot of good that will do,” Johns muttered. Kohlson turned to him. “Go on in... Do R if you want... They don't pay me enough to do it. I don't know what that shit is. Look at the way the Doc suits up. Clayton Hunter will be in rigor before anyone gets in there at all.” “No argument,” Johns said. He wheeled back to his own monitor, called up an incident sheet and began to type. “Me too,” Kohlson agreed. “Preserve the video, med and monitor data.” He punched a few buttons on his console and an interface for the medical equipment came up. He saved the last 48 hours of data, and then began to fill out his own incident report. These reports might never be seen by more than one person, maybe two if you counted the person that wrote it, Kohlson thought, but it would always be there. Classified: Top secret for the next hundred years or so, and he wondered about that too. Would it even be released after a long period? He doubted it. The shit they were doing here was bad. Shit you didn't ever want the American public to know about. He had made his delivery a few weeks before. Whatever this shit was, bad people had not only come to know about it, but had come to have a need for what it did. It didn't matter to him, not really. There were rumors, a few things he had seen while monitoring test subjects. Nothing he considered concrete. Maybe it extended life, that was the strongest rumor. From what he had seen though, as far as test subjects, it did its fair share of ending life pretty effectively too. And here was another one to add to the growing number of failures... If that's what they were.

This incident report, along with the one Johns was doing, would probably get buried deep under some program listing that no one would ever suspect to look into. Or maybe it would get burned right along with Clayton Hunter's body. He glanced up at the clock and then went back to typing. “Uh... Call it 4:32 PM?” He asked. “Works for me,” Johns agreed. “I got 94 for the body,” Johns said. “Yeah... Yeah, me too. That's a fast drop, but we both got the same thing. 94 it is... No heart, no respiratory, dead as dog shit.” “Dog shit,” Johns agreed. They both fell silent as they typed. A few moments later the doors to the observation room chimed, the air purifiers kicked on with a high pitched whine, and they could both feel the air as it dragged past them and into the air ducts. The entire volume would be replaced and the room depressurized and then re-pressurized before the doors would open. And that would only happen after the air was tested and retested. A good twenty minutes away before anyone would step foot into the room with Clayton Hunter. Complex C, Autopsy Room Ed Adams and Roberta Summers had dissected Clayton Hunter's body methodically. The autopsy had been painstaking. It had to be, it was recorded in detail and some General somewhere, hell maybe even the president, would be looking that video over in the next few days. Maybe even watching live now, Ed Adams thought. They had that capability. There was nothing to see. He had suffered a major heart attack. The heart had a defect. No history. One of those things that just came along and fucked up your two billion dollar research project all at once. “Coronary Thrombosis,” He spoke in a measured voice. “Appears to be after the fact. The artery looks to be mildly occluded... The myocardial infarction appears to be caused from a congenital defect... Specifically an Atrial Septal Defect... Bertie?” “I concur. Easily overlooked. The lack of sustenance put a higher demand on the subject's heart, the defect became a major player at that point... Bad luck for us.” “Uh, bad luck for Clayton Hunter,” Ed Adams added.

“Of course, bad luck for the subject, Clayton Hunter. I simply meant bad luck for a research volunteer to be defective in such a way that in effect it would compromise a project of this magnitude so badly.” She turned her eyes up to one of the cameras she knew to be there. “This in no way paints a true picture of V2765. We should proceed, unsatisfying as these circumstances might be, we should proceed with subjects 1120F and 1119X... Same compound.” She turned back to the corpse on the table. “You want me to do the brain biopsy,” She asked Ed. Ed frowned as he made eye with her. They had decided, at least he had thought they had decided, not to mention brain biopsies. Three times now he had discussed the importance of not focusing on the changes that V2765 made to the brain. Anything that altered the brain could alter financing, funding, lab time. Even the government didn't like changes to brain matter. “Are you thinking there could have been an embolism?” He asked. “Well I,” she sputtered away for a second before Ed rescued her. “I think all we would see is evidence of the embolism that occurred near the heart. We could search out areas of the body and most likely find more than one occurrence of embolism. Well thought, Bertie, but I believe we will take a look at the brain later in the week. Right now I want to focus on the enzymes, proteins, blood work and readying the other two for a conclusion of this trial.” “Yes. I agree entirely, Doctor Adams.” “You have your samples?” “Yes of course, Doctor... Rex?” Ed frowned hard and shrugged his shoulders in the direction of the thick glass. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “None in here. That was stupid, Bertie.“ “What was that,” Kohlson asked Johns in the control room. “What?” Johns asked. “That... Whisper, I guess,” Kohlson said.

“Oh... That. You know those two got it bad for each other. Probably making little remarks you don't want to hear. Besides which, you make a report on that and we all have to deal with it: Them, sure, but us too because the bosses will be pissed off about it. Best to let that shit slide: If the boss wants to know, he will. He looks at all of this shit in depth.” Kohlson looked about to say more when Doctor Christmas began talking once more in the autopsy room. “Let's close him up,” Ed Adams said. He stepped on a switch set into the floor, paused, and then spoke again. “Lower the air temperature in here. We intend to keep him a few hours while we attend to other parts of the autopsy... No one in here for any reason.” Out in the control room Johns keyed his mic. button. “Will do... How low, Doc.?” “I guess about 34 Fahrenheit will do... Just to slow it all down for a while.” “Done,” Johns agreed. He adjusted a temperature graphic on a nearby monitor via his mouse. Kohlson leaned over across the short distance. “So we got to look at that shit for a while? Great.” “They're going to sew him up, so it won't be so bad.” “Yeah... That's like, I got a mild case of flu. It's still going to suck, because every time I look anywhere I'm going to feel compelled to look at it.” “Yeah. Me too. It's there. Draws you to it. Like the Bunny on the Playboy Cover. You look at the rest of the magazine, but you know you're going to end up looking at her. She's the reason you bought the magazine after all.” Kohlson nodded and smiled. “And I'd rather look at Miss January than a dead guy with big stitches across his belly and over his chest, sewing him back up again. That is some ugly shit.” Johns laughed. “But you look anyway... Human nature. Why do you think people slow down and look at accidents?”

“Because we're morbid mother-fuckers,” Kohlson agreed. “Well, that too, but it is that fascination with death we have. Look,” He pointed at the monitor. Do you think Clayton Hunter knew he'd be laying on a steel slab this afternoon, dick hanging out, with Doctor Christmas shoving his guts back in and stitching him up with his nursey assisting?” They both laughed and turned away. “She ain't half...” A scream cut off the conversation and both men turned quickly back to the monitor. Clayton Hunter was sitting up on the steel table. Arms drooping at his side. Mouth yawning. Doctor Christmas had backed away until he had met the wall behind him. Nurse Bertie was nowhere to be seen. “What the fuck... What the fuck. Get a camera on the floor... Maybe she fainted,” Kohlson said. “Got it,” Johns agreed. He stabbed at the keys on his keyboard and a view of the table at an angle appeared. Nurse Bertie's leg could be seen, angled away from the table, skirt hiked high. The camera paused briefly and then the view began to shift as Johns manipulated the camera angle. Her face came into view. Mouth open, blood seeping from one corner. “Doctor,” Kohlson called over the speaker system. Outside the airlocks had clicked on and the air was cycling. Good, he thought, in twenty minutes the Calvary would be here. “Doctor Adams?” The doctor finally took his eyes off Clayton Hunter and turned toward one of the cameras. On the table Clayton Hunter leaned forward and tumbled off the edge of the table. At the same instant the air purifier quit cycling and three armed men in gas masks stepped into the airlock. “Jesus,” Johns sputtered into his headset microphone, “You guys can't do that shit. That air has to be worked?” Three more men stepped through the lock and the door to the autopsy room opened as well as the door to the control room. A split second later the rifles in their hands began to roar. The sound was louder than Kohlson expected in the enclosed space. He clasped his hands over his ears,

but it did little good. The soldiers, he saw, were wearing ear protection of some sort. Noise canceling headgear. The remaining three soldiers had stepped into the control room, he saw as he looked back up from the floor. They had their rifles leveled at them, the others were still firing within the confines of the small autopsy room. A small gray cloud was creeping along the floor and rolling slowly into the control room. The stench of gunpowder was strong in the enclosed space. The air purifiers were off. Kohlson knew there was another control room outside this one that controlled this space, and possibly another outside of that space that controlled that space: Built in redundant protection; it was clear that they were in a very bad place. Kohlson saw Clayton Hunter lurch to his feet and stumble into the soldiers who were firing at point blank range in the tight confines. A series of bullets finally tore across his chest and then into his head and he fell from view. A second later the firing dropped off and then stopped completely. Johns was listening to the sound of his own heart hammering for a space of seconds before he figured out it was his own. The smell of gunpowder was nauseating, and he suddenly lunged forward and vomited on his shoes. As he was lifting his head he saw that the soldiers were retreating back through the airlocks and into the outer spaces of the compound. “Jesus,” Kohlson managed before he also bent forward and vomited. They heard the air filtering kick back on as both of them rolled away from the puddles of vomit and quickly disappearing low, gray vapor from the gunfire. The doors into the autopsy room suddenly banged shut and then their own door whispered closed as well: Once again they were isolated in their small space. They both sat silent for a moment, and then Kohlson left and returned from the small bathroom with a mop and bucket from the utility closet there. He left again and returned with a bottle of disinfectant and sprayed down the vomit and the balance of the small room. “That won't do shit,” Johns said solemnly. “We're infected. Whatever they infected that guy Hunter with, we got it now. Kohlson ignored him, waited the ten minutes for the disinfectant to work and then cleaned up the mess. Neither spoke while he returned the equipment to the small closet and then came back and sat down.

“You heard me, right?” “I heard you,” Kohlson itted. “I just don't give a fuck... It's too fresh... I can't believe it right now.” He looked up at the clock. “Mother fucker... I was off duty in twenty minutes... Twenty goddamn minutes!” He spun and looked at Johns, but Johns was looking up at the monitors that were still on in the autopsy room. The smoke was being drawn out by the air exchange, and the horror of the room was slowly coming into focus. Doctor Adams lay sprawled in one corner, a line of bullet holes stitched across his back. The back portion of his skull was missing, jagged bone and gray-black hair clumped wildly around the fractured bone. Johns gagged and looked away. “Jesus... They killed everybody,” Kohlson said as he continued to watch. Nurse Bertie lay where she had fallen. Only her legs visible in the shot they could see. Clayton Hunter lay against the end of the stainless slab, his head a shapeless mass. The stitches across his chest and stomach bulging. Kohlson finally turned away too. “They're coming back for us.” Johns said. Kohlson spun to the door. “Not now, stupid ass, but you can't think we get to live after that. They contaminated our air. We're dead. No way are we not dead.” Kohlson said nothing.

IT WAS SIX HOURS BEFORE the soldiers came. They had finally taken a better look at the room, Johns moving the camera around as Kohlson watched. “Dave... Tell me I'm wrong, but that fucker came back to life, right?” He was unsure even as he said it. Johns shrugged. “I think what happened is they missed something... We missed something. Maybe a lead came off, you know... And the lead came off and so he seemed dead and he wasn't dead at all, not really, he was still alive... Just that lead was off.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. I mean... I mean the alternative is that he came back to life... You don't think that do you? I mean, do you? ‘Cause that's fucking crazy, Gabe. Crazy.” “No. No, I can see what you mean. I can see where that could be... But I've heard rumors...” “Same as we all have,” Johns agreed. “But come on, that's...” The air lock cycled on and six soldiers stepped into the hall like space that was actually just an airlock between the control room, the autopsy room, the former patient ward and the outside world. Johns tensed, waiting for the door to their space to cycle on, but it didn't. The soldiers were dressed head to toe in army drab-green plastic coveralls. Respirators, big units, sat on their backs and a full face shield and breathing apparatus covered their faces, somehow ed into the coveralls. Tape was wound around the elastic cuffs of the legs and the plastic boot covers that ed there. Flexible olive-green gloves covered their hands, also taped where they slipped under the plastic coveralls. They never looked their way at all, just waited for the air lock to cycle and then stepped into the autopsy room. A second later the monitors went dead in the control room. “Fuck,” David Johns said. “That is not good at all.” Kohlson got up and left the room. A minute later he was back with two diet

colas. He handed one to David Johns and then sat back down. Johns glanced down at the cola. The top was open already. He looked at Kohlson and Kohlson stared back unblinking. They kept the supply of the virus compounds they were testing in there, but the med supplies cabinet was also in that closet. They had talked it over once. They had decided that... He pushed it away and focused on the low whisper of the air exchange “You think they will outright kill us,” Kohlson asked after a few long minutes of silence. “Gabe... I think they will, Gabe.” Johns said after a hesitation. He tried to stop himself, but he glanced down at the cola in his hand. It was half full. White powder floated on the surface. Clumped and drifting like tiny icebergs across a cola sea. “Probably... No. They're listening in right now, I'm sure. Listening to see where our minds are at: As soon as those flunkies in there are finished with that job they'll be in here to finish up the clean up.” He swallowed hard. “Yeah. I guess that's how I see it too,” Kohlson agreed. He raised his can and tapped the side. “Been good knowing you, Dave.” Johns stared him down for a few moments and then sighed. “Yeah, same here.” He raised the can in a salute and then downed it. Kohlson followed suit. Silence descended on the control room. Project Bluechip: Subterranean base Commanding: Major Richard Weston Major Dick Weston read the report slowly. This was not the first hitch in SS. Last year they had lost a whole ward, three test subjects compromised, two doctors, and three control rooms, six enlisted personnel there that had to be terminated because of it, and three civilian employees. He rocked back in his chair and pulled at his lower lip as he read the report. So it had some drawbacks, but there was too much focus on the problems, and not enough on the positives of V2765. Of all the compounds they had tested, this one did exactly what they needed it to do. It prolonged life far past the point of termination. Grave wounds, starvation, dehydration, nothing mattered. This compound changed the cells and made them able to adapt to the consequences of war. The only drawback was that it did its job a little too well. It continued to

allow the subject to live after death. Everything stopped and then everything started up again. Usually with a much diminished capacity for understanding. Just the basic low end survival instincts any animal had, eat, protect, eat. And it did those things very well. Some doctors at the third level, men whose reputations would be on the line very shortly when V2765 was released on a squadron of troops bound for the Middle East, in fact, wanted a brain biopsy. They had studied the video and decided that good Old Doctor Christmas might have been hiding something with the secrecy he had afforded the previous brain autopsies. On top of that one full reiteration of this virus was missing. Four pieces total: two virus, one antidote and one Rex, the compound that ended life within the dead. He suspected Doctor Christmas had taken the samples for his own use. Maybe they would turn up, but it was little or no consequence if they didn't. There was no way they could have made it off the base. Security, his security, was too tight. No, if they really ever existed they were right here somewhere and he would find them. As for the virus itself, he had what he needed. He could deliver what was expected of him to deliver. That was what really mattered. He stopped pulling at his lip. Leaned forward and fed the paper sheaf from the incident into a shredder. The thing is there was a secret. Major Weston had no idea what it signified, he was no doctor, but he had found the good doctor's private files and brain biopsy reports on the previous candidates. Significant structural change to the brain cells. Not just slight modifications as the virus did when it infected the host, no, something deeper. A mutation. That file lay nearby on his desk too. He reached for it. If that information got out there would be a fast end to SS, and he could not have that. SS was not his baby, some General he had never even met had that honor, but Bluechip was his base, and SS was a feather in his cap. It meant jobs. It meant growth. It meant over a mile of top secret base three miles below ground. These were things that could not be compromised. If, in the field, there were incidents, so be it. They could be isolated. Tests so far showed that very few came back after actual death. Destroy the brain and it destroyed whatever life had kicked back in. And if there were a large outbreak, they had spent the last fourteen months working on an antidote to kill the V virus itself, Rex. REX34T could easily take care of a large outbreak. REX34T took it all back to normal. The doctors had nicknamed it Rex. Rex, like a trusty dog that could get the job done, but what sort of job did Rex do? He didn't know. Rex seemed to

reverse the process that V2765 started. It could not undo the cell changes, but it did not leave a single trace of the V virus when it was finished. The dead died. According to this report, there was a counterpart to REX34T that was meant specifically for the living: The antidote. Release it in the air, same as Rex, and it affected only the living, reversing the changes that the V virus had made, and the living went on living, maybe. The testing insinuated that the longer the process that V2765 initiated had gone on the more of a shock to the human body it was when it was removed. It suggested that some might not survive the withdrawal of the V virus. He glanced down at the three containers that sat on the edge of his desk. Evaluation units. Below, in one of the storage areas, there was enough of each to reverse the entire world population ten times over if need be. If, he reminded himself, if. He looked down at the three containers where they sat on the desk. One small vial filled with dark red liquid. The other two were small aluminum cartridges that reminded him of small inhaler refills of some kind. They looked so innocuous, so everyday ordinary. He beat out a nervous tempo with his fingers on the desktop and then picked up the three vials and slipped them into a plastic bag. He set the bag on the desktop, withdrew the test results from the drugs from the thick file and then placed the bag into the file itself. A second later he placed the file into his personal file cabinet and locked it. He called up the same report on his monitor, excised the three pages of reports, and then saved the file. He pulled a fresh file folder from his cabinet before he closed and locked it, and then dropped the pages into the empty folder. He hesitated and then fed that smaller file into the shredder too. No problem, no liability, because if there was an acknowledged problem that was preexisting in this lawyer happy atmosphere, every ex-soldier would be suing when the first x-ray showed the alteration in brain cell structure. No higher climb up the ladder for Major Richard Weston, and probably General whoever he was too. And that would be a long stop from where either of them wanted to be. “Alice?” He looked over at his secretary. “Major?” “I want you to take this out and burn it.” He pulled the wastebasket free and slid it across to her. “I guess I've thought it out. Those two fools who took the

overdose on morphine?” He waited for her eyes to meet his. “I think it was a mistake to try to save them. I would like you to take care of that personally, Alice... Doesn't matter how. Let me know if you need anything.” He held her eyes for a moment. “That will be all,” he finished. “Sir,” Alice said. She picked up the wastebasket and started to leave the office. “Oh, Alice?” She stopped and turned back. “Have that med closet removed. Stupid to put it in an interior control room... Have it moved to the very outside. From now on when they need something like that they can damn well get it walked in by our boys.” “Sir,” Alice nodded. She turned and left the office. Route 81 rest-stop 1:00 am A black truck pulled into the rest stop and two men climbed out; walking toward the rest rooms that sat in from the road. Concrete bunker looking buildings that had been built back in the early seventies. They had been closed for several years now. In fact the Open soon sign was bolted to the front of the building; rust streaked the sign surface. It seemed like some sort of joke to Mike Bliss who used the rest stop as a place to do light duty drug deals. Nothing big, but still that depended on your idea of big. Certainly nothing over a few thousand dollars. That was his break off point. Any higher than that, he often joked, you would have to talk to someone in Columbia... Or maybe Mexico, he told himself now as he sat waiting in his Lexus, but it seemed that since Rich Dean had got himself dead the deals just seemed to be getting larger and larger. And who knew how much longer that might last. He watched the two men make a bee line for the old rest rooms. “Idiots,” he muttered to himself. He pushed the button, waited for the window to come down, leaned out the window and yelled. “What are you, stupid? They're closed.” He motioned with one hand. “You can't read the fuckin' sign or what?” Both men stopped and looked from him to the sign.

“Yeah, closed. You can read right? Closed. That's what it says. Been closed for years. Go on into Watertown; buy a fuckin' burger or something. Only way you're getting a bathroom at this time of the morning.” He had lowered his voice for the last as he pulled his head back into the car, and turned the heater up a notch. The electric motor whined as the window climbed in its track. He looked down at his wrist for the time, 1:02 A.M., where the fuck was this dude. He was late, granted a few minutes, but late was late. A sharp rap on the glass startled him. He had been about to dig out his own supply, a little pick-me-up. He looked up to see the guys from the truck standing outside his window. “Oh... Fucking lovely,” he muttered. He pushed the button and the window lowered into the door, the motor whining loudly, the cold air blew in. “And what can I do for you two gentlemen,” He asked in his best smart ass voice. The one in back stepped forward into the light. Military type, Mike told himself. Older, maybe a noncom. A little gray at the edges of his buzz cut. With the military base so close there were soldiers everywhere, after all Watertown was a military town. It was why he was in the business he was in. It was also why he succeeded at it. “Did you call me stupid,” The man asked in a polite tone. “Who, me? No. I didn't call you stupid, I asked, what are you, stupid? Different thing. The fuckin' place is closed... Just doing my good deed for the day... Helping you, really, so you don't waste no time,” Mike told him. “Really?” The man asked. Mike chuckled. “Yeah really, tough guy. Really. Now, I did my good deed, why don't you get the fuck out of here 'cause you wore out your welcome.” He opened his coat slightly so they could see the chrome 9 mm that sat in its holster. “Really,” the first guy repeated. “Okay, who are you guys, frick and frack? A couple of fucking wannabees? Well I am the real deal, don't make me stick this gun in your fuckin' face,” Mike told them. He didn't like being a dick, but sometimes you had to be.

“You know what my mother always said about guns?” The second guy asked. “Well, since I don't know your mama it's hard to say,” Mike told him. He didn't like the way these two were acting. They weren't cops, he knew all the locals. If it had been someone he had to worry about he would have handled this completely differently. These guys were nobodies. At least nobodies to him, and that made them nobodies to Watertown. If he had to put a bullet in... His thoughts broke off abruptly as the barrel of what looked like a .45 was jammed into his nose. It came from nowhere. He sucked in a deep breath. He could taste blood in his mouth where the gun had smashed his upper lip against his teeth. “She said don't threaten to pull a gun, never. Just pull it.” “Mama had a point,” Mike allowed. His voice was nasally due to the gun that was jammed hallway up to his brain. “Smart lady.” “Very,” the man allowed. “Kind of a hard ass to grow up with, but she taught me well.” He looked down at Mike. “So listen, this is what we're gonna do. You're gonna drive out of here right the fuck now. And that's going to stop me from pulling this trigger. Lucky day for you, I think. Like getting a Get Out Of Jail Free card, right.” “This is my business spot... You don't understand,” Mike told them. “I... I'm waiting for someone.” “Not tonight, Michael.” “Yeah, but you don't.” He stopped. “How do you know my name?” he asked. There was more than a nasal quality to his voice, now there was real fear. Maybe they were Feds. Maybe. “Yeah, we know you. And we know you use this spot as a place to do your business. And I'm saying we couldn't care less, but right now you gotta go, and I'm not going to tell you the deal again. You can leave or stay, but you ain't going to like staying,” The guy told him. “Listen... This is my town... If you guys are Feds you can't do shit like this... This is my town. You guys are just...” The guy pulled the trigger and Mike jumped. He fell to the right, across the front

seat. Both men stepped away from the car, eyes scanning the lonely rest stop from end to end, but there was no one anywhere. The silence returned with a ringing in their ears from the blast as it had echoed back out of the closed car interior. The shooter worked his jaw for a moment, swallowing until his ears popped. He lifted his wrist to his mouth. “Guess you saw that,” he said quietly. “Got a cleaner crew on the way up. You'll them in the elevators. The boss is waiting on you guys.“ The voice came through the implant in his inner ear. No one heard what was said except him. He nodded for the cameras that were picking him up. “In case you didn't hear it, someone is supposed to meet him here so your cleaner crew could have company.” “Got that too... We'll handle it.” He nodded once more, and then walked off toward the rest rooms as the other man followed. Once in back of the unit they used a key in the old rusted handset. It only looked old and rusty, it was actually an interface for a state of the art digital system that would read his body chemistry, heat, and more. The key had dozens of micro pulse sensor implants that made sure the was human, transmitted heartbeat, body chemistry, it could even tell male from female and match chemical profiles to known examples in its database. Above and to the sides of them several scanners mapped their bodies to those same known profiles. Bone composition, old fractures, density and more. All unique in every man or women. The shooter removed the key and slipped it into his pocket. A few seconds later a deep whining of machinery reached their ears, the door shuddered in its frame, and then slipped down into a pocket below the doorway. A second later they stepped into the gutted restroom. Stainless steel doors took up most of the room; the elevator to the base below. They waited for the cleaner crew to come up, then took the elevator back down into the depths.

THE BLUECHIP FACILITY stretched for more than five miles underground. Most of that was not finished space, most of that was connector tunnels, and storage space bored from the rock. The facility itself was about three thousand feet under the city of Watertown in a section of old caves that had been enlarged, concrete lined and reinforced. The rest area was one of several entrances that led into the complex. An old farm on the other side of Watertown, an abandoned factory in the industrial park west of the city and a few other places, including direct connections from secure buildings on the nearby base. John Pauls and Sammy Black had Alpha clearance. Both were ex-military, but most likely military clearance was no longer a real matter of concern this late in the game, Sammy thought as they made their way down the wide hallway. The word coming down from those in the know was that in the next twenty-four hours the human race would come very close to ceasing to exist at all. No confirmation from anyone official, but regular programming was off air, the news stations were tracking a meteor that may or may not hit the Earth. The best opinions said it didn't matter if it hit or not, it would be a close enough that there would be massive damage. Maybe the human race would be facing extinction. The government was strangely silent on the subject. And that had made him worry even more. The was estimated to be right over the tip of South America. So maybe formalities like Alpha clearance weren't all that important any longer. If only Mike Bliss had given that some thought before he had pissed him off. The halls were silent, nearly empty. Gloss white s eight feet high framed it. It had always reminded Black of a maze with its twists and turns. Here and there doors hung open. Empty now. Always closed any other time he had been down here. So it had come this far too, Black thought. He stopped at a door that looked like any other door and a split second later the door rose into the ceiling and Major Weston waved them in. Alice, he had never learned her last name, sat at her desk, her eyes on them as they walked past her. One hand rested on the butt of a matte black .45 caliber pistol in a webbed shoulder holster that was far from Army issue, and Sammy had no doubt she would shoot them both before they could even react. Alice was etched into one of those name pins that the Army seemed to like so well, but oddly, just Alice, no last name, rank or anything else. She wore no uniform, just

a black coverall. The kind with the elastic ankle and wrist cuffs. No insignia there either. He had noticed that months before. Her eyes remained flat and expressionless as they ed her desk. “Alice,” Sammy said politely. She said nothing at all, but she never did. “Sit down, boys,” Major Weston told them. He spoke around the cigar in his mouth: Dead, but they always were, and there was never the smell of tobacco in the office. They took the two chairs that fronted the desk. The Major was looking over a large monitor on the opposite wall that showed the north American continent. This map showed small areas of red, including the northern section where they were. The rest of the map was covered with green. “Where we are, and where we need to be,“ he said as he pushed a button on his desk. The monitor went blank. He turned to face the two. “So here is where we are. You know, as does most of the world, that we are expecting a near miss from DX2379R later on tonight.” He held their eyes. John shrugged. “I've been doing a little job, must have missed that. It's not gonna take us out is it?” “Saw that on the news a few days back. Guess we dodged a bad one,” Sammy said. “Right... Right,” Weston said quietly. “But that cover was nothing but bullshit.” “It's going to hit us?” John asked. “Maybe... The fact is that we don't know. One group says this, another group says that, but it doesn't matter because it will probably kill us off anyway. Direct hit, near miss, it is going to tip over an already bad situation with the Yellowstone Caldera.” He raised his eyes, “Familiar with that?” “Yellowstone Park?” Sammy said. John nodded in agreement. Weston laughed. “Put simply, yes. Yellowstone has always been an anomaly to us. Back in 1930 the Army did an exploratory survey of that area. What we came

up with was that there was a section of the Rocky Mountains missing. Looked at from the top of Mount Washburn it was easy for the team to see that the largest crater of an extinct volcano known to exist lay before them.” “I guess that's about what I thought,” Sammy agreed. “Yeah. We all think that. Except it is not true at all because the Yellowstone caldera is not extinct, it is active. Active and about to pop. There have been several warnings, but we took the recording stations off line quite some time ago, so there has been no mention of it in the news. Budget cuts,” he shrugged. “So everyone is focused on this meteor that may or may not hit us and instead this volcanic event is going to blow up and when that happens the rest won't matter at all.” He clicked the button on his desk and the monitor came to life. “All the red areas are spots where the surface pressure has increased. There were, at one time, many active volcanoes on the north American continent.” He clicked a button and the map changed to a view of the European continent with many of the same red shaded areas. “All over the Earth... Higher pressures. Up until a few days ago the brainiacs were still arguing over whether this could even happen.” He laughed. “It is happening and they are arguing over whether it can happen. Well, we had our little debates and then we realized that history shows clearly that this has happened before. Several times. Call it the Earth's way of cleansing itself.” “But it's not an absolute, right?”Sammy asked. “Don't start sounding like the scientists.” He reached below his desk and came up with six small silver cartridges. Each had a red button mounted on the top with a protective cap over the button itself. He clicked a button on his desk, and a picture of destruction appeared on the screens. It was obviously an aerial shot, looking down at a chain of islands. Smoke hung over the chain, reaching as high as the plane itself. As the plane dropped lower, rivers of red appeared. “That picture is an hour old. That is... Was, the Hawaiian chain.” Sammy twisted further to the side, staring at the monitor. “How can that be... I mean everyone would know about it.” He turned back to Weston. Weston nodded. “And that would be true except the satellites are out because of the asteroid. Shut down to avoid damage. That is the official word.” He clicked the button on his desk and the monitor went dead once more. “I started this out

saying that none of it matters and that is true. The Yellowstone caldera is going to erupt sometime in the next few days. Not a maybe, not an educated guess: If the satellites were up you would know that the park is closed. It has already started. We have had a few small quakes, but the big stuff is on the way. He rolled the cartridges across the desktop; Sammy and John caught them. “Super volcanoes... Earthquakes that modern civilization has never seen... The last super eruption was responsible for killing off the human population some seventy-four thousand years ago. Reduced it to a few thousand. And that is not the biggest one we have evidence of.” He lifted his palms and spread them open, sighing as he did. “So it is a double whammy. If we survive the meteor the volcanoes get us, or the earthquakes because of them, or we'll die from injuries. And I think those of us who die outright will be lucky. The rest of us will have a hard time of it... Staying alive with nothing... We will probably all starve to death.” He paused in the silence. “Those cartridges are a compound developed right here in this complex for the armed forces. Project Super Soldier. SS for short. That kept people from looking too deep, they assumed it was something to do with the Nazi youth movement here and abroad. We let that misconception hold.” He waited a second for his words to sink in. “SS is designed to prolong life past the normal point of termination. It allows a soldier to survive longer without food and more importantly without water. Does something to the cells of the host, I don't pretend to know what. What I do know is that the people above me made the decision to release this...” He picked up a mug of coffee from the desk and sipped deeply. His eyes were red road maps, Sammy noticed now. Like he hadn't slept in a few days. “So this is it for us. I guess you realize that you probably won't get paid for this. No money is going to show up in your . I will run it through before I pull the plug, but I truly believe the machinery will be dead by the time payday rolls around. So this is something I'm asking you to do.” He pointed to the cartridges that both men were looking over. Sammy held his as though it might bite him. “Those babies are really all we have to hope with. Most people will die outright. They will never make it past the quakes, eruptions, and the resulting ash clouds and gases. Up here we should be okay as far as gases go, eruptions, but there are fault lines that crisscross this area. This whole facility is bored from limestone caverns. Probably won't make it through the quakes, although it is a good eighty

miles from the closest line,” he shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. My point is there should be a good chance for survivors here.” “So we do what with these? Can they harm us?” John asked. “Harm you, kill you? No, but you will be infected the minute you push that button. It will protect you the same as anyone else. There is enough in a single cartridge to infect about five hundred million people,” Weston said quietly. “Whoa,” Sammy whistled. “Why infect... Why not inoculate? And why six cartridges... Three Billion people?” “Minimum, three billion. That is before those infected it along themselves: After a while it won't matter. As to the question of infected, this is a designer virus. You catch it just like the flu. We infected whole platoons by releasing it in the air over them. Eighty-Nine point seven percent infection rate, but that doesn't really matter because it infects people close to you and those people will infect you... Sneezing, waste, sex, water, food, it gets into and on everything. And once it is in you, either orally or via bloodstream you will be infected. The human body has nothing to fight it, no reason to be alarmed or believe it's anything more than a virus. And that same response will help to carry it to every area of the body as your own defenses manufacture white blood cells to fight it. So you may as well say a one hundred percent infection rate.” He paused and rubbed at his temples. “Be glad they decided on this. They have some others that will kill everybody in the world in a matter of days.” Weston nodded at the raised eyebrows that greeted his remarks. “I don't doubt that the merits of which way to go were hotly debated,” he finished gravely. “The virus is designed to live within the host, but it can live outside of the host. It can stay alive in a dead body for days, even if the body is frozen. In fact that just freezes the virus too, once the body is thawed it will infect any living person that comes along. So those,” he pointed to the silver cartridges, “are overkill. Same stuff is being released across the globe. Great Briton... ... Australia... West coast just a few hours ago. Manhattan has already been done, all the East Coast in fact. I want the two of you to head out from here. One vial here, then one of you head west, the other south. Go for the bigger cities... Water supplies... Reservoirs... Release it in the air or water, it doesn't matter. There are

men heading out from the south, the west coast. The Air Force will be dispersing the same stuff via cargo planes tomorrow or the next day... As long as they can fly, if we can even make it that long, and that isn't looking really good right now...” He rose from the desk. “I'll see you out.” He turned to Alice. “Alice... Pack us up.” Alice nodded as Sammy and John got to their feet, but her hand remained on the butt of the pistol. Rubber grips, Sammy noticed as he ed her. “Alice,” he said. “Um hmm,” Alice murmured. Sammy nearly stopped in his tracks, but managed to hide his surprise as he ed by into the hallway. The Major fished two sets of keys from his pocket. “Parked in the back lot. A couple of plain Jane Dodge four-bys. Drive 'em like you stole 'em. Leave 'em where you finish up. Hell, keep 'em if you want 'em. Nobody is going to care.” The three stood in the hallway for a few seconds longer. Sammy's eyes locked with the Major's own, and he nodded. The major walked back into his office, and the door rose from its pocket behind him. Quiet, except the slight buzzing from the fluorescent lights. John shrugged as his eyes met Sammy's, waiting. Sammy sighed. “You heard the man... West or south?” “Flip for it?” John asked. His mouth seemed overly dry and he licked his lips nervously. Sammy pulled a quarter from his pocket and flipped it into the air. “Call it, Jack.” “Tails,” John said just before the quarter hit the carpet. Sammy bent forward. “Tails it is. You got it, Jack.” John looked down at the carpet. “West, I guess.” John said. Sammy nodded, looked down once more at the quarter and then both men turned

and walked away toward the elevator that would take them back to the surface. New York: Rochester John Simons The sidewalks below him were crowded. John stood at the apex of the steps that led up to the old court house. It was impressive. He looked down at his hands, shifting the small silver canister from hand to hand, rolling it across his palm, treating it as though it were just a small fascination to occupy his mind, when in fact he knew it was something more. He didn't know what, exactly. He wasn't paid to know what. Maybe someone up the ladder knew what, he didn't, and it was likely he never would, but it was something more than just a shiny little object to occupy his mind. He had done hundreds of these small jobs. Little things. Little things that probably meant nothing in the scheme of things, at least that's what he had always told himself. A little mental salve to prevent an infection of the larger truth. Little things he never heard a single thing about later on. Little things, but he suspected this time, this job was not a little thing at all. He suspected this was a big thing. He suspected he would hear about this one down the road. He suspected this one would come back to bite him in the ass. The trouble was, in for a penny, in for a pound. It all mattered. He had taken job after job where he might leave an item on a park bench. Drop off a set of wheels in the middle of the desert. Switch a suitcase at an airport. Little jobs. Little jobs and he had never said no. Never complained about them. Never turned one down. And so here he was about to press the activator on a small, silver canister that might do anything. Anything at all. And was he worried about that? Yes, he was. It was not so much worry for himself. He didn't really believe the thing would blow up. He didn't truly think they would take him out that way, if there was ever a reason to take him out, that was. He quickly shut down that line of thought. He had too much to worry about right now without starting a whole new avenue of doubt. So, no, he did not believe it would blow up. He believed it would hiss and release a giant cloud of some sort of toxic gas, gases even, he amended. Waste, poison, something, but, if that were the case, how could he safely set it off and

not be contaminated himself? The instructions were to walk to the top of the courthouse steps, depress the red button, and then toss it away. No specific direction, just away. It apparently didn't matter. And, he thought now, wasn't this exactly the way some terrorist would do it? Do an attack? A poison gas attack? An unclassified viral attack? He had seen a few movies, this was the way he would do it if he was writing the script. The girl beside him spoke. “If this is going to take much longer you're gonna have to pay more. I know I said it would be cool, a fifty, I mean, but standing around here is wasting my time. I got places to be. I got...” He cut her off. “And you ain't got no money yet. And if you do want the money then you need to shut the fuck up.” He went back to his self observation. A second later he looked back at her. “Hey, hey,” he soothed. She had begun to pout. Just another street girl with a habit and too much time on her hands to feed it. “Look...” He waited for her to look at his hand. He held the small vial upright. “Do me a favor, okay? I was looking around because, well because, I want a picture right here. Now all you have to do is push this little red button... Aim at me, it's got a little camera in there...You can't see it, it's one of those new ones, like them spy ones? So all you got to do is point it at me and then press the button.” He held the canister and looked around. She tried to take the canister from his hand and he snatched it away. “Goddammit, Dude, You want it or not?” She stamped her foot exactly like the spoiled child she was and was destined to always be. “Yeah... Yeah I do. Just... See that corner over there? The top of the stairs? That little what-do-you-call-it hollow between those two pillars? Wait until I get there and take the picture.” He handed her the silver canister and started away. “Hey! How the fuck am I spos'ed to tell? There ain't no screen thingy, what-thefuck-it-is?” He turned back and smiled. “Just face it to me and do it. It's not supposed to have a thing, screen, just do it.”

She turned the canister to her face. It was only about four inches long, maybe an inch thick. It didn't look like a camera at all. She turned it back to John and clicked the button. Nothing, not even a click. It didn't work. It was bullshit just as she had thought. John froze when he saw her push the button, but nothing happened. Nothing at all. She had pushed it just a few inches from his nose. No odor. No vapor he could see. No anything. He pulled it from her fingers and flipped it back and forth. The red button was depressed now and although he tried to work a thumbnail under it to pull it back up he couldn't do it. He bought it closer to his nose, nothing. No odor. He pressed it to his ear. No hissing. It was a dead. A dud. Whatever it was it did nothing at all. Maybe it had even malfunctioned. He hefted it a few times and then let it drop from his fingers. It hit the stone step below him with a small metallic click, and then rolled away to the edge. It dropped to the next step, but it didn't have enough momentum to find it's way across that step to the next. He turned back to the girl. “You broke my camera,” he told her. “Did not, and that ain't no fuckin' camera anyway. You think I'm just stupid?” “I do think you're stupid. You broke it. You broke it and so I ain't paying you. Fact, you should pay me for breaking my camera! Besides which, you pressed it before it was time. You fucked the whole thing up. I shouldn't pay you shit. Not a fuckin' dime.” “Yeah?” she asked. Her eyes were wet, but they were also hard. She looked around at the crowd. “That's okay, because you know what?” “What?” John asked. He smiled. She was stuck and he knew it. “What is, I'm fourteen. Fourteen. And I bet you if I was to start yelling right now, oh, something like rape. If I was to say Rape!” She raised her voice a little and a nearby couple flashed their eyes at the two and slowed. John flinched and drew back from her. “Yeah, see? So, now if I was to do that I bet your tune would be different. I just bet it would.”

“Twenty,” John said. His smile was gone. “You said fifty. Fifty is what you said, and it should be eighty.” She picked eighty out of a hat. It was three more dimes, and three more dimes was a lot better than five. “It is eighty. It's eighty because you tried to rape me!” She raised her voice once more and John's hand plunged quickly into his back pocket. He flipped a fifty and three tens at her from the wallet he quickly pulled free, and she had to scramble to catch the money. Two of the tens fluttered to the stone step below her and she flashed a hard smile at him. The couple that had cut their eyes at them were now stopped and staring at the two of them. A cell phone appeared in the woman's hand and when John met her eyes there was something there he didn't like at all. The girl scooped up the money, muttering as she did, and John headed down the stairs two at a time. A few minutes later he had blended into the crowd and was making his way away from the downtown area. 10:00 PM The first quake had been minor, the last few had not. The big one was coming, and Major Richard Weston didn't need to have a satellite link up to know that. He touched one hand to his head. The fingertips came away bloody. He would have to get his head wound taken care of, but the big thing was that he had made it through the complex above and down into the facility before it had been locked down. He laughed to himself, before it was supposed to have been locked down. It had not been locked down at all. He had, had to lock it down once he had made his way in or else it would still be open to the world. He had spent the last several years here commanding the base. He had spent the last two weeks working up to this event from his subterranean command post several levels above. All wreckage now. He had sent operatives out from there to do what they could, but it had all been a stop gap operation. The public knew that there was a meteor on a near collision course with the Earth. They had assured the public it would miss by several thousands of miles. Paid off the best scientists in some cases, but in other cases they had found that even the scientists were willing to look past facts if their own personal spin put a better story in the mix. A survivable story. They had spun their own stories without prodding.

The truth was that the meteor might miss, it might hit, it might come close, a near miss, but it wouldn't matter because a natural chain of events was taking place that would make a meteor impact look like small change. The big deal, the bigger than a meteor deal, was the earthquakes that had already started and would probably continue until most of the civilized world was dead or dying. Crumbled into ruin from super earthquakes and volcanic activity that had never been seen by modern civilization. And it had been predicted several times over by more than one group and hushed up quickly when it was uncovered. The governments had known. The conspiracy theorists had known. The public should have known, but they were too caught up in world events that seemed to be dragging them ever closer to a third world war to pay attention to a few voices crying in the wilderness. The public was happier watching television series about conspiracies rather than looking at the day to day truths about real conspiracies. The fact was that this was a natural course of events. It had happened before and it would happen again in some distant future. So, in the end it hadn't mattered. In the end the factual side of the event had begun to happen. The reality, Major Weston liked to think of it. And fact was fact. You couldn't dispute fact. You could spin it, and that was the way of the old world. Spinning it, but the bare facts were just that: The bare facts. The bare facts were that the Yellowstone Caldera had erupted just a few hours before. The bare facts were that the earth quakes had begun, and although they were not so bad here in northern New York, in other areas of the country, in foreign countries, third world countries, the bare facts of what was occurring were devastating: Millions dead, and millions more would die before it was over. And this was nothing new. The government had evidence that this same event had happened many times in Earth's history. This was nothing new at all, not even new to the human race. A similar event had killed off most of the human race some seventy-five thousand years before. There was an answer, help, a solution, but Richard Weston was unsure how well their solution would work. It was, like everything else, a stop gap measure, and probably too little too late. It was also flawed, but he pushed that knowledge away in his mind. While most of America had tracked the meteorite that was supposed to miss earth from their living rooms, he had kept track of the real event that had even

then been building beneath the Yellowstone caldera. And the end had come quickly. Satellites off line. Phone networks down. Power grids failed. Governments incommunicado or just gone. The Internet, down. The Meteorite had not missed Earth by much after all. And the gravitational pull from the large mass had simply accelerated an already bad situation. Dams burst. River flows reversed. Waters rising or dropping in many places. Huge tidal waves. Fires out of control. Whole cities suddenly gone. A river of lava flowing from Yellowstone. Civilization was not dead; not wiped out, but her back was broken. Maine Carl Freeman rose from his couch reluctantly, and walked to the front door. He clutched the thick book, which to him was his Bible, in his hand as he walked. There had been some shooting, and quite a lot of panic in the last several days, but none of it had touched him. He had locked himself inside the house after the first earthquake had hit, calmly finished the thick tattered book, and then had begun to re-read it again. He was once again at the good part, not the same good part he had been at, but every part of the book was a good part to him, and so it mattered not at all which part he was in. But he was at the part where he might be able to help. He knew now that the book, The Book, was not just a book. It was real. It had to be he reasoned, it just had to be. The author must have been like a God or something, maybe even was God, or something, and so he had written the book not simply to be read, although that had definitely been intended, but as a warning. Something to point the way. The Book was, well, The Book was a Bible, he had decided, and thank God he had been able to figure it out in time, thank God, praise God, because if he hadn't, he knew, there would be no hope at all. He worriedly pressed his fingers to the flesh of his neck. Okay, good, he thought, all's cool on the western front, no problem, wonderful, great, grand and glorious. He opened the thick steel door and peered out. The ground, indeed the house itself, he thought, had been shaking for the last several minutes. A lesser shock than the others. It was winding down. Maybe over, as far as the earthquakes were concerned at least. He stepped cautiously out the front door into what

should have been darkness, but somehow was not. In the distance he could see that the sun was beginning to rise. He glanced down at his watch. Well, he thought, it must have stopped, or something. He stared at the horizon for a few seconds longer and then calmly walked off down the street clutching the thick book under one arm, leaving the door standing open behind him. It was time to leave, he told himself, and if he ever intended to reach Stovington in time, he had better hurry. Kansas Wendell Smith edged the thick concrete door open slowly. Everything seemed fine, he thought. The ground wasn't burned, the houses were still standing, most of them, he amended as he saw some that had fallen and a few that were leaning precariously. Tommy Switzer's body was still laying where it had fallen at the base of the stairs, he noticed, and, although it was none too appealing, it was not burned either. He hesitated briefly, and then quickly ushered his family out into the early morning air. Kansas City, never looked so good, he thought, and the air had never smelled so sweet. He had ushered everyone down into the shelter just after the first earthquake had hit. They had already lost the television feed by then and had been down to the radio broadcast. That had been difficult to follow, but he had understood that maybe, just maybe, the meteor would hit them after all. Tommy had shown up after he had bolted the door. Too late, or it should have been too late. He had reluctantly opened the door back up only to find that Tommy had collapsed just outside the door, and as he had bent to help him to his feet he had seen the large wound on his back; what looked like a bullet wound to Wendell. He had seen bullet wounds before on a crime show he had once liked to watch. Someone had killed Tommy. He had slammed the door, shot the bolt, and they had ridden the next few days out in the shelter. Yesterday had been completely quiet, and today there had been nothing more than a slight tremor. Maybe the end wasn't now, he reasoned, maybe the end was yet to come. Either way it didn't matter, the kids were safe, Lucinda was too, and he had a sudden urge to strike out for Oklahoma, which he fully intended to follow.

The children filed out one by one, wide eyed, followed by Mrs. smith, who peered cautiously around as Wendell had done. “Wendell,” his wife asked, “you sure?” “Yep. Honey, it's time to get on with life,” he paused and drew her into his arms, as the children flocked around his feet. “What do you think of Oklahoma, 'Cinda?” he asked. “What'za Okahoma, Daddy?” little Jasmine Smith asked, as she tugged at his pants leg. Wendell bent and took his youngest daughter into his arms. “Well, Baby, Oklahoma's a state, or was...” Wendell said with a smile. “How about we go there and find out for sure what it is, Baby girl, Huh?” She giggled, as he tickled her chin and set her down. He reached over and took Lucinda back into his arms and kissed her. “You must be nuts, Wendell,” she said with a smile. “Nope, just happy to be alive, honey,” he said through a large smile. Between them they herded the children into the back of their aging station wagon, cranked the motor to life, and backed slowly out of the driveway, as they held hands across the split vinyl of the front seat. USGS Alaska: 10:15 PM GMT “What is that?” Mieka Petre asked. He planted one hand on the back of the chair and then leaned forward, staring at the monitor harder. “The Yellowstone Caldera... That's what I've been trying to tell you. It wasn't there when I left for my break... Uh,” he looked up at the clock. “Fifteen minutes ago,” David Jones said. “That can't be. Has there been any activity from...” He stopped talking as David called up the log from ten minutes prior. He watched as a small counter measured the sudden change in ground level. He watched the elapsed time. “Christ, Jesus. Eleven inches in twenty one seconds. That's impossible.”

“Started about five seconds before that... At least on my readout...” David sighed. “The point is it wasn't there, and it is now.” Other people wandered over from where they had been, zoning in on the hurried conversation, and the edge of excitement it carried. “I can goddamn well see that, David.” Mieka motioned for David to move, and took his seat, rolling closer to the monitor and watching the counter. “It has to be an error.” He caught a flash from the corner of his eye and turned away from the monitor and faced David. “Who knows?” His eyes rose and took in the half dozen men and women standing around listening to their conversation and watching the monitor. Three of them had their phones in their hands. “Did any of you make a phone call, snap a picture? I'm telling you right now, I will personally fire anyone who causes a panic over this. This is a bad sensor... We're working on land line reads, we don't even have satellite. A bad read, it has to be. Ground level rise like that takes years, we all know that. It's fact. There has been nothing in the last few days to indicate anything like that coming up...” He fixed a hard look on his face and met as many eyes with it that would meet his own. “No one is leaving until I check their phone. Nobody!“ His eyes swept the room. The cell phones vanished. “Who has a different set of readings?” “I got fifteen,” Joan Allen said in the silence that held the room. Her phone was folded discreetly in one hand, and she slipped it into her front pocket as though she were drying her hands against the fabric of her pocket. Mieka swore under his breath. “Jesus, Mieka, I just got a read from Long Valley.” This from Jason Lewis. “What? ...When?” Mieka asked as he turned to face him. “I was watching it. There was some funny seismic stuff earlier and...” “And? Get to it,” Mieka shouted. “And it seemed like it was nothing ... There was nothing when I got up to see what you guys were doing... Two feet... Two feet in the last minute!” Panic gripped the room and voices immediately leapt into hurried conversation.

“People! People! Shut up!” Mieka yelled above the din. The silence was instantaneous. He turned to face Jason. “Up two feet?” Sweat ran freely from his brow. “Down... Down. It's like it suddenly sunk... Suddenly...” Mieka waved him off, and turned to face the room. He swiped at the sweat as it rolled into the corner of one eye, stinging. “What else... Anything else?” “Seismic... 4.3 ... 5.8 ... Jesus... Clusters around Yellowstone.” Jane Howe. One by one everyone had gone back to their monitors. Alarms began ringing in the silence that had descended. First soft chimes then urgent warbles. All of the satellite network was down. They had been reduced to basic land line connections. Slow, they should have had this information sooner, Mieka thought. Much sooner. “Japan,” Someone called out. “Off the coast... Chiba... Seismic... It's a big one... A big one... 8.9 ... More... More coming...” An alarm that was mounted partway up the wall above the huge banks of monitors began to bray. Long, strident calls. Mieka turned to the alarm, frozen for a second. It had never been triggered in the ten years he had worked at the Alaska station. Never. He had begun to believe it never would be triggered. He thought of it as the Oh Shit, alarm. It was triggered from the central office on the mainland. It was only set off if there was a catastrophic failure of some sort. With the delay because of the land lines he had no way of knowing how late the alarm was. What had already, in all probability, occurred. He turned to go back to his own chair; there were decisions to make, people to notify. Suddenly the floor dropped from under him, and he found himself falling. Before he could reach the floor it suddenly leapt up to meet him, and he slammed headfirst into the polished concrete, nearly losing consciousness. He regained his knees and tried to brace himself as the floor shook harder still. Blood ran from his hairline, and ed a small trickle of blood from one eyebrow. A second later it ran across his cheek to his chin; dripping to the floor.

He watched the drops hit the concrete; splatter, and he thanked God that he could still see. There was a stabbing pain behind his eyes. He had hit hard, and the shaking building wasn't helping at all. Screams and yells mixed with the crash of file cabinets and the splintering of plastic as monitors shook apart or crashed to the floor. The air suddenly became clouded with dust as the concrete the room was made from began to shake apart. Mieka watched as Jane Howe bounced across the floor, her eyes wild, and slammed headfirst into the corner of a desk, sliding underneath; her body suddenly loose, shaking like a rag doll as the jolts hit the building: Her legs jumped up and down. Mieka tore his eyes away. He tried to maintain his position on his knees, the palms of his hands flat, grasping at the concrete, but the constant pounding of the floor against his kneecaps was becoming excruciatingly painful. Reluctantly he dropped back down to the floor, trying to control the drop as much as he could, but he went rolling away to slam into a wall: He felt his ribs break as he hit. The noise from the earthquake was a constant roar. Screaming, yelling, crying, pleading, the constant rain of concrete chunks, sounding like hail stones as they fell from the ceiling above. The thickening dust. A roar of something else, wind? ... Something beginning to overtake everything else, closing out all other sounds as he sagged against the wall and tried to hang on. His ribs were definitely broken, it hurt to lift his arms. He could feel the bones grinding together. He knew he was crying out each time they were moved, but he could not hear those cries. The ribs ground harder, and this time the light dimmed further; he had a harder time opening his eyes. A second later they slipped shut again as the floor suddenly dropped from beneath him once more, causing the splintered ends of his ribs to grind together even harder. He found himself falling as consciousness slipped away from him. The noise increased as he fell and then suddenly it was gone. He fell silently through the darkness. Project Bluechip: 6:20 PM Major Weston found himself sprawled on the concrete of the long hallway. One minute he had been walking along, Alice beside him, and the next he was on the

floor trying desperately to hang on as he bounced across the concrete corridor and slammed into a wall. The ceiling began to come apart and chunks of rock, concrete and duct work began to rain down into the corridor. Something snapped in his shoulder as he hit the wall and a second later Alice slammed hard into him pushing him further into the wall. Pain flared in his head. He tried hard to keep his eyes open. If he could make his feet and then somehow get them to the elevators they could get down into the subterranean levels of the complex and be safe. He pushed hard, fought the shaking, and managed to get to his knees. He glanced over at Alice where she had come to rest against him, the one look made it obvious that Alice was beyond help. A huge chunk of concrete had come down on her chest and smashed it nearly level with the floor. Her eyes bulged, he looked away quickly but the images would not go away. The shaking seemed to go on forever before it eased in a series of starts and stutters. Silence descended in the corridor. He had his chin tucked into his chest. His mouth was coated with dust, and his lungs seemed to be working overtime to get air. He moved and his shoulder screamed softly. He could handle it. It was dislocated, maybe broken, but it would not stop him from gaining his feet. Who knew, he asked himself, how much time there was before the next earthquake hit, and would it be harder than this one? A lesser shock? He didn't know. He had been honest when he had told Pauls and Black that no one really knew how or when it was going to happen. He wondered if they had made it out of the state before it hit. It didn't matter, he told himself almost as quickly as the thought had occurred to him. The compound was being released all over the world. Had been for a few days time now. It would do its job. Their mission was simple overkill. Just a push to be completely sure. A backdoor for the backdoor. He made his feet and stood, shirt clamped across his mouth, breathing as shallowly as he could. The dust was so thick in the corridor that he could see only a few feet. Somewhere, it sounded far away, an alarm began to bray. A minute or so after that as he stood trying to breath the sprinkler system came on. In most places it was still intact, although sagging from the rock ceiling far above where mounting points had broken. In some places the pipe broke as soon as the water pressure hit it, already too damaged from the first quake.

The air cleared almost immediately and the spray felt soothing against his overly hot face. He took his bearings and then staggered off down the hallway in the direction of the elevators when a second quake shook the facility and he found himself sprawled on the floor sliding helplessly into a wall. He picked himself up from the floor. The shaking had been horrific, but the facility was still holding; at least so far, he told himself as he dusted his hands against his pant legs. Both palms were cut and bleeding. The hybrid composite windows that looked out on the main floor of the facility had splintered and cracked shooting sharp pieces of glass like material all over the computer room. He lowered himself into his seat and fought the panic that hammered at his heart. As he calmed down he began to look around the room to access the damage. Besides the composite glass he saw no problems. The monitors were encased in rubber, designed to survive this sort of scenario and they had. The OS was offline though. The small blinking cursor at the bottom of the screen told him it was rebooting. It would be a only a matter of seconds before he knew whether the system had also survived. The screen came up in a burst of blue, and then settled into a command line. He righted his chair and began to type. A few minutes later he had a much better idea of what had transpired and how the facility had stood up. The entire first level was gone. Shaken to pieces and filled in with dirt and debris. The second and third levels were in bad shape. Bodies littered the hallways. An occasional lone straggler appeared through the spray of water and dust clouds that dominated the camera feeds. One camera showed an empty elevator. It was the second bank of freight elevators that came from the surface to the bottom most levels of the facility. It was the only one that appeared to be on line and operational. He was surprised that was even possible. As he was just about to dismiss that view the elevator door parted as if nothing had happened and Major Robert Weston stepped into the elevator bay. Blood and dirt streaked his face. His eyes were red rimed and bloodshot. He looked up into the camera. A second later his voice came through the system as he pushed the button on the elevator . “This is Major Robert Weston to the main monitoring station. Are you on-line? I

need a status report ASAP.” Pierce hesitated. He was not the monitor station operative. He was a code jockey, nothing more. No military rank, nothing. He hesitated a second longer hoping someone else would answer the Major, but the lights for the main and secondary stations were dead. They were off-line. There would be no answer. As he waited the channel remained silent and the Major finally repeated his message again. Reluctantly Pierce depressed his own by switch to answer the call. “Major, civilian Richard Pierce, programming. The boards are dead, Major.” Pierce leaned away from the monitor and began to check other station lights. Not a single station from the top five levels was lit. There subterranean levels were lit for two stations, but neither station tied into this circuit. “Pierce... Pierce, where are my men assigned to the monitoring stations?” “Major... Sir my best guess is dead, or the stations have been destroyed. I have two sub levels that are manned. Nothing else.” “Patch me through Pierce. Either one. Doesn't matter,” Weston told him. “Sir... Sir I can't do that. The board isn't designed to do that. I... I can speak to them and relay information,” he shrugged helplessly. “The best I can do.” The Major looked so long into the monitor that Pierce was sure he had lost him. The alarm for the elevator error procedure began to chime and Pierce cut it off, over riding the automatic sequence. “Major?” “Here... Read you. Okay, Pierce, let's shift gears... How does this bank look to get me to the surface?” “No way, sir. That bank is probably going to return here soon, in fact. It does that when it's damaged, returns to control, and control for that unit is sub level sixteen. There is no surface above it, just debris. I have no camera shots at the exit, but I have red lights across the board from sub level four to the surface. I have one camera on the surface that looks toward the entrance. The entrance is gone, though. Nothing but churned up dirt. “

“What do you mean this will return to the bottom once more and stay there?” Major Weston asked. “It's a safety mechanism, Major. It comes back and stays until the error messages are cleared. Major, you should probably decide soon on whether you'll be making a trip to the surface or ing us down here. I'm over riding the error procedure. I can get away with that for a few minutes, but then the status will change and the elevator will freeze there,” Pierce told him. The major swore, turned away from the camera, looking back out of the elevator. Pierce saw little. The camera angle caught only a corner of the open doors. The major looked back up at the camera, and a second later the door slid shut as he removed his foot. “Bring me down, Pierce,” he said quietly. Pierce saw the elevator lurch as he removed the over ride to allow the error sequence to repeat. He watched the levels increase as the elevator dropped in to the bowels of Project Bluechip. Base Ostega Northern Canada 1:00 am The first quake had been minor, the last few had not. The big one was coming. The satellite links were down, but Doctor Alan Weber didn't need to have a satellite link up to know that. He touched one hand to his head, the fingertips came away bloody. In any other circumstances he would be hurrying to get his head wound taken care of, but these were not just any circumstances. The entire world was ending and it was a miracle to him that he had made it through the complex above and down into the control room of the facility before it had been supposed to automatically lock down. His office was a shamble, but his secretary had met him in the hallway having ridden out the quakes in the supply room, between the tall rows of steel cabinets: Together they had made their way to the office. All main-line Comm links were down, probably because of the loss of the satellite systems. Underground back-up cable Comm: Down. The facility was in bad shape, and he was not kidding himself, there was no help on the way. No hope of reaching the surface and the worst was not yet here. He was probably lucky to have made it down the six floors to his office from where he had been.

There was an automatic lock-down program that would shut down the entire facility within seconds of an attack or catastrophic event, it had failed somehow. He laughed to himself, he had, had to lock it down manually once he had made his way in or else it would still be open to the world. He had blown up the two main entrances to the facility, sealing his own fate as he sealed it off from the world above. He had spent the last several years here in the Canadian wilderness running the chemical countermeasure unit at the base. He had worked on a top secret virus designed to prolong human life in cases of extreme deprivation: Nuclear attack, war and other unlikely scenarios. He had spent the last two weeks working up to this event from his subterranean office complex. All wreckage now. Still, he had sent operatives out from here three days ago to do what they could to seed the virus: Following his final orders sent down through some now probably nonexistent chain of command. He had heard absolutely nothing since, and believed that was because there was no one left in command any longer. The virus was so secretive that no one beyond the base knew the true nature of it. Even the politicians that ed bills for funding while looking the other way had not truly known what they were funding. A couple of well placed dollars in the pocket could buy a great deal of silence. Several Army bases had secretly been infected and studied. The commanders of the armed forces had, had no idea that anything was being tested on their men. The troops had done well, surviving their training with little food and water much better than they usually did, but over the next week nearly every bird in the area had died. Some side effect they had not been able to ferret out. That virus build had also been crippled. It had a built in self destruct mechanism to kill the virus after a short amount of time. In fact that same version had been kept as an antidote for the newest version which had no such mechanism and would go on reinfecting indefinitely. The entire virus design and its capabilities were top secret. Top secret. And usually Top Secret meant dozens of people knew, but this time it had meant that it really had been Top Secret. Withheld from the public, and even those in charge for years had known nothing of the true nature of the virus. Last week had changed it all. Last week the news had come down from the finest

scientific minds that an extinction event was about to take place. Up to ninety percent of the world population would likely be killed off as events unfolded. It was not a maybe, it was an absolute. The public knew that there was a meteor on a near collision course with the Earth. They had paid off the best scientists to assure the public it would miss by several thousand miles. A lie, but they had found that even scientists were willing to look past facts if their own personal spin put a better story in the mix. A survivable story, and so some had spun their own stories without prodding. From there the internet had picked it up and run with it. From there the conspiracy theorists, and by the end of the week the meteor was survivable. The story that the meteor would destroy the planet was now a lie made up by commanders of the rebel alliance in the Middle East to take the focus off their actions, the public believed what it wanted to believe. The truth was that the meteor might miss, barely, a near miss, but it wouldn't matter because it would contribute to a natural chain of events that would make a meteor impact look like small change. The big deal, the bigger than a meteor deal, was the earthquakes that had already started and would probably continue until most of the civilized world was dead or dying. Crumbled into ruin from super earthquakes and volcanic activity that had never been seen by modern civilization. And it had been predicted several times over by more than one group and hushed up quickly when it was uncovered. The governments had known. The conspiracy theorists had known. The public should have known, but they were too caught up in world events that seemed to be dragging them ever closer to a third world war to pay attention to a few voices crying in the wilderness. The public was happier watching television series about conspiracies rather than looking at the day to day truths about real conspiracies. The fact was that this was a natural course of events. It had happened before and it would happen again in some distant future. In the end it hadn't mattered. In the end the factual side of the event had begun to happen. The reality, Alan Weber liked to think of it. And fact was fact. You couldn't dispute fact. You could spin it, and that was the way of the old world, spinning it, but the bare facts were just that: The bare facts. The bare facts were that the Yellowstone Caldera had erupted just a few hours before. The bare facts were that the earth quakes had begun all around the world,

and although they were not so bad here at the northern tip of Canada, in other areas of the world, in the lower states, in foreign countries, third world countries, the bare facts of what was occurring were devastating: Millions dead, millions more would die before it was over, and this was nothing new. The government had evidence that this same event had happened many times in Earth's history. This was nothing new at all, not even new to the human race. A similar event had killed off most of the human race some seventy-five thousand years before. The space race had been all about this knowledge. A rush to get off the planet and settle elsewhere on an older, more sedate planet before something that had already happened time and again happened once more. The virus was an answer, help, solution, but Alan Weber was unsure how well the solution would work. It was, like everything else, a stop gap measure, and probably too little too late. And it was definitely flawed, but he had temporarily pushed that knowledge away in his mind. Even now as he sat and waited for the end, which would surely come, out in the world operatives were disbursing the virus that could save humanity. He thought for a moment, “Or destroy humanity,” he added aloud. There were no guarantees, and there was strong evidence to suggest the designer virus did its job a little too well. Designed to help prolong life, there were rumors that it could raise the dead. Some scientists who had worked with the virus in the now destroyed facility had nicknamed it Lazarus. Alan had seen evidence to the rumors that it could raise the dead, or the near dead for that matter. He had been present when a test subject that had been pronounced dead had come back. Weak, half crazy, but alive again. As the hours and then days ed the subject had become stronger, seemed to be learning from the situation it was in. The decision had been made to kill it: Even that had been difficult to do. Even so, he knew that it was the only hope for society. There was nothing else. The military machine was dead. The American government was dead. The president, from reports he had read, assassinated by her own guards. While most of America had tracked the meteorite that was supposed to miss earth from their living rooms, and had been side tracked by all the trouble in the Middle East, he had kept track of the real events that had even then been

building beneath the Yellowstone caldera and many other places worldwide. Yesterday the end had begun, and the end had come quickly. Satellites off line. Phone networks down. Power grids failed. Governments incommunicado or just gone. The Internet, down. The Meteorite had not missed Earth by much after all, and the gravitational pull from its mass had simply accelerated an already bad situation. Dams burst. River flows reversed. Waters rising or dropping suddenly in many places. Huge tidal waves. Fires out of control. Whole cities suddenly gone. A river of lava flowing from Yellowstone. Civilization was not dead; not yet wiped out, but her back was broken. In the small military base of Ostega that had rested above the defense facility near the shore of a former lake, the river waters that fed it had begun to rise: The chemical countermeasure unit, several levels below the base in the limestone cave structures that honeycombed the entire area, had begun to succumb to the rising river waters. By the time the surviving soldiers from above had splashed through the tunnels and into the underground facility, they had been walking through better than two feet of cold and muddy water. Shortly after that the pressure from the water had begun to collapse small sections of caves and tunnels below the base that fed the unit: That damage had been helped along by small after-shocks. Alan Weber watched his monitor as a wall gave way and the main tunnel began to flood. It was only a matter of an hour at the most before the water found its way to him. He sighed and then relaxed back into his chair, reached down and pulled the lower file drawer open, and lifted out a partial bottle of scotch. He leaned forward and Bobbi Trevers cleared her throat in the silent observation room. Weber smiled and turned toward her. “I suppose you have been watching, Bobbi?” She only nodded. He nodded back. “Share a drink with me?” He turned away, not waiting for her words of agreement. He heard her settle into a chair next to him as he pulled two plastic cups from the sleeve in the bottom drawer, left over from the Christmas party the previous year, and began to pour.

“I don't usually agree to drink on the job, but this is a different set of circumstances, isn't it?” His eyes met her own as she nodded weakly. “It's almost over, isn't it Doctor Weber?” “I'm afraid so... Call me Alan, Bobbi... Is it okay that I call you Bobbi?” He finished pouring the scotch into the plastic cup. He had stopped at just an inch in the bottom, wondered why and then filled the cup half way instead. North America Far above the Earth, satellites continued to orbit importantly. The North American continent lay sleeping far below. A wide inland sea had formed in the middle, fed by a huge river that stretched from the former Hudson Bay to the middle of the continent. Small in places and easily crossed, no more than a river: Wide in other places as if it truly were a sea. The state of Alabama had been divided in two along with most of the lower half of the former state of Florida. What resulted was the loss of the lower, southern half of the state. What remained now sat nearly forty miles out in a shallow bay that was quickly turning to sea: An island, the water surrounding it growing deeper as time moved on and the gulf reclaimed the land. The upper north eastern section of the continent had already pulled apart and begun to drift. Although it was imperceptible, the two land masses were inching away from one another, and ultimately would be separated by a new ocean. And become separate, smaller continents. The eastern end of the former United States was also drifting away from the northern section of Canada. The massive earthquakes had also severed the state of Michigan, turning it into a virtual island. Toward what had been the north, the St. Lawrence river basin had widened, pushing the land masses further apart. The Thousand Islands bridge spans had toppled, and slipped into the cold waters. The other bridges that had once spanned the mighty river had also succumbed as the river basin had split and pulled apart. The new continent had severed her ties from Nova Scotia, as she had been pulled

south and slightly east, to begin her journey. Only the province of New Brunswick and a small portion of Quebec remained with the continent. The rest of Canada was severed from them by the wide and deep river, more like a huge lake in places that surged from ocean to ocean. Most of the North American continent was now in a sub-tropical climate as well. The poles had been displaced by the huge force of the multiple earthquakes and volcanic blasts which were still ongoing. The old polar caps were melting, and it would be thousands of years before they would once again re-form in their new locations. The run-off from the melting ice would eventually reach the oceans and even more land mass would be sacrificed to the waves before the polar caps would be re-formed. There were only thirteen full states left on the small continent. The two former provinces of Canada, one of which was only a small fragment, and parts of five former states, the largest being Florida. Before the dawn, fires could be seen burning unchecked in many major cities, pushed with the help of freak winds the flames continued in all directions, occasionally fueled by chemical, and oil facilities, as well as numerous other flammable sources they encountered. The world began its fall.

ONE

Jack’s Journal L.A. The trek east out of the city was harder than we had thought it would be. We had become mired down in traffic long before we had ever hit the city itself, and had been forced to give up the truck. It was close to noon before we reached Alameda, and decided to try to find some kind of four wheel drive vehicles, at one of the many car lots that dotted it. Once we had liberated a truck, it had still been slow going until we reached El Segundo Boulevard. The stalled traffic had been much lighter there, and we had been able to drive part of the way by cutting into the parking lots of fast food restaurants, that dotted almost the entire length of the highway. We had followed that to Wilmington, and picked up another truck that had seen better days. Getting that truck had not been a problem; there were several used car lots along the road. We had used the parking lots to swing around the worst of the traffic, and that had worked well until we had intersected Compton Boulevard. It was hopelessly packed with stalled traffic. We had left the truck, which had sounded as if it was close to dying anyway, and struck out on foot again. Maria led the way as we cut cross lots through Compton Woodley Airport. Crossing the dead airfield had been unnerving for both of us. The runways had cracked, and either lifted skyward, or tilted down into the ground. Blackened skeletons of large aircraft dotted the airfield. Most of them were so badly burned that we had been unable to tell what they had been before. I thought a couple of them may have been military aircraft, but as badly twisted as they were it was impossible to be sure. Luggage, some burned, some untouched, was scattered across the airfield in every direction, and many of the suitcases were burst, with papers and clothing scattered everywhere along with other personal effects. There were bodies there too. On our way through the city we had seen very few bodies. It had been unsettling for both of us. Fewer bodies meant more un-dead. We had both wondered aloud if the changing was happening that fast. Raising the dead faster as time slipped

by. The bodies we had seen had not been killed by the Earthquakes. They bore head wounds, and appeared to have been dead for only a short period. Possibly only the last two or three days, we decided. The bodies at the airport were concentrated around the terminal building. The huge glass windows were peppered with holes as if a battle had taken place for the terminal. Most of the bodies inside were concentrated behind the long rows of seats in the main lobby where they had been trying to use the seats for cover. It had apparently done no good. We had paused only briefly, wondering what had occurred before we had moved on. The overwhelming stench in the shattered terminal building drove us out. The wrecked planes, where we had expected to see bodies scattered all around, were empty. Occasionally we had heard gunfire around us, and twice explosions from further north, behind us had startled us. We had hurried along fearing the sounds, but fearing more the possibility that the owners of the guns might find us. We walked in silence across the remainder of the shattered airfield, and we were both glad when we left it behind us and eventually came to 91. 91 was traffic packed and we had abandoned the truck, making our way across the steel roof tops once more, crossing under 91 on South Central and making our way along the sides of the road to E Del Amo Boulevard. There, like the Martin Luther King Highway, black topped parking areas fronted all manner of fast food restaurants, store chains and shops, which bordered both sides of the strip. It wouldn't necessarily assure a way around the stalled traffic, I had realized, but it appeared as though it would give us a much better chance of getting to 405.

HE SAT THE PENCIL ASIDE and listened to the noises outside the old frame house. Dark sounds, rustling, had to be the dead, but there was nothing for it. He picked the pencil up, flexed his fingers and began to write again... Yesterday I found an old bottle of whiskey in a locked cabinet in the living room and resolved to leave it be. Now I have changed my mind. I have been sipping at it while I sit here and write. Maybe it will help my resolve with the part I still have to play after I write this out. Maybe it won't, I don't know. But I do know it is helping my head right now, and that is enough for me. So, we had been trying to get to 405... Leaving Los Angeles... Jack led them towards the rear garage area of the dealership, where they found a full size four wheel drive Chevy pickup. Jack had worked at a dealership before, and recognized the garage area as the prep shop. “When someone buys a new car,” Jack said, “or truck, or whatever, they have to prep it. Take the plastic off the seats, fill the tank, wax it, sort of get it ready for the customer, you know?” “I thought they came from the factory all ready to go?” Maria said. “Well... they do, sort of,” Jack agreed, “but they have plastic over the seats to protect them, and oil drips from the cars overhead on the transport trucks; dirt gets tracked into them when the guys move them around the lot. Sometimes they may have a scratch, or small dent that the body shop guys have to fix, and they get paint over-spray all over the car; dust in it, you name it. I used to have to prep cars, and it's not much fun. Minimum wage type of job and the salesman who sold the car is usually breathing down your neck all the time you're getting it ready. I hated it, but you do what you have to do to pay the bills. I figured if we're going to find a truck all ready to go, this would be the first place to look. Gassed up and the whole nine yards. They even waxed it for us.” Jack finished, trying to break the somber mood that had set in as they crossed the airfield. His effort worked partially, Maria offered him a small smile as she spoke. “You know a lot of things don't you?”

“Not really,” Jack said. “I just worked at a lot of different jobs. Mainly just to keep the farm afloat, but also, I guess, because I believe you should learn as much as you possibly can. It worked for me. I grew up with a lot of guys who were constantly unemployed. Maybe they were carpenters, or roofers, or auto mechanics, farmers like me, whatever. When things would get bad, they'd get laid off, or the prices would drop for produce, it's always something. Not that things never got slow for me, they did, but I could go to work somewhere else fairly quickly. I can practically build a house from the ground up, and do all the rough and finish, electrical, plumbing, and carpentry. The same with cars. I just learn well, I guess and it paid off. Someday I'd like to build my own house.” “I've always wanted to own a house,” Maria said, the tentative smile had grown wider as she listened to Jack talk. “I never thought I would live anywhere except that crummy apartment,” she laughed. “Manor la cucaracha,” She smiled at Jack's puzzled look. “Cockroach manor... My nickname for the place. If I never own a house I guess that would be fine with me, as long as I never have to live in that dump again.” Jack was nodding his head as she finished speaking. “I know what you mean. I had a crummy little place up in Seattle out of college. I used to take all the overtime I could get, so I wouldn't have to go back to it too soon. I really hated it, I mean completely. I had this dream of buying some land and building my own house, when this is over that's what I would like to do. Just find a nice place and build a house. Maybe have some cows again. I guess that sounds kind of stupid, but it really is what I want to do, and if I make it through this in one piece, I'm going to.” “It doesn't sound stupid to me at all,” Maria said, “in fact it sounds like a good plan, a good dream to hold on to. I've never really dared to dream. I guess now it's okay to dream. You think?” “I think so,” Jack agreed. “I mean if you can't dream, what's the use, right?” she nodded her head as if to say yes before Jack continued. “Like, I live my life, and you live your life. You believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want. You see?” “I do,” Maria said. “I guess I'm sort of the same way. I always tried to live without hurting people. I was getting pretty bitter though, I have to it. I just saw too much that didn't make any sense to me, and I could never understand

why, if there was a God, he would let so much bad exist. I guess though, if people want it, it's going to be there. People thought I was bad, but I never really dared to look at myself. I guess I was bad, to a certain extent, but what was I supposed to do?” she seemed pensive. “I had family, but... Well, you know.... I guess I don't want to get into that: Suffice to say I couldn't be with them. There isn't much for a poor Mexican girl to do to make a living here.” She had lost her smile as she spoke, replacing it with a wistful pursing of her lips and a sadness that sat deeply within her eyes. Jack nodded his head and they both fell silent for a few seconds. “Maria,” Jack said. “It really doesn't matter anymore. I mean that sincerely.” Now it was her turn to nod her head. She hadn't realized it, but his opinion mattered to her, and what he said allowed the small smile to re-surface on her face. She had told herself that she didn't care what he thought about her, but she knew even as she told herself that, that she was wrong. It did matter. It mattered a great deal. They walked together to the back of the garage, and pushed up the steel overhead door. It took a few minutes to move a couple of the cars out of the way, so that they could drive the pickup out of the garage and into the lot behind the dealership. Jack drove the truck across the grassy back lot, and stopped at the rear of a gas station convenience store to look for a state map. Maria followed him into the deserted station. She filled a paper bag with some groceries, mostly canned goods, while Jack opened the map and studied it on the counter at the front of the station. “Looks like the best way out,” Jack said, “Is still going to be 91. We ed it, we'll have to back track to catch it. We should be able to skirt around most of the traffic, shouldn't we?” “Believe it or not, I don't really know,” Maria answered. “I mean I live here, or did, but I didn't get out of the city at all, or hardly ever, so I don't know what its’ like.”

She paused and looked at Jack as he bent over the map. He smiled as he spoke. “I actually understand that,” he said. “I didn't really know a lot about getting around L.A. either. I guess you learn how to get to the places you need to get to, and that's about it. No real big deal though. According to the map there are a lot of loops, sort of side roads that go around, and run parallel to 91, and hey, we've got four wheel drive, we can cut through the fields if we have to, right? That will get us to 10 and ten is our ticket east.” Maria shrugged her shoulders, “I guess?” “You know,” Jack said as they climbed into the cab of the truck. “We should stop and pick up a couple of sleeping bags, and maybe tents too. We still need to pick up a couple more rifles.” He didn't want to alarm her, or make her start to worry, by bringing the subject up once more, but the truth was that he was fairly worried himself. If there were armed people running around killing whoever they chose too, it would be kind of stupid, he thought, not to have better weapons. Maria had the pistol, and her rifle. Jack had his own pistol and a rifle, but he wasn't sure it would do a lot of good. He wasn't a good shot. She surprised him when she not only agreed, but didn't seem to lose her smile when she did. “I think it would be stupid not to stock up on whatever we can, guns included,” she said, echoing Jack's thoughts. “You know much about them?” “Not really,” Jack confessed, “I've shot a rifle, you know, hunting,” he frowned. “It's been years to be honest, but I think I could learn again. You know anything about them?” “Well, now that you mention it, I do. At least a little. Not from shooting one, but more from seeing them. There are a lot of pawn shops in my neighborhood, sort of goes with the territory, I guess. That's where I got this,” she said, holding up her small pistol, “I got the rifle from a smashed in pawn shop... There has to be a pawn shop or sporting goods shop out here somewhere.” Almost as she spoke Jack spotted one across the crowded interstate. “There's one,” Jack said as he pointed. They left the truck beside the stalled traffic, and walked through and around the cars to the large shop. The shop was picked over, but they spent the better part of the afternoon outfitting themselves from the racks in the shop and carrying what

they needed across the road to the truck. The pickup had a black vinyl bed cover. They opened it, stored the tent and the sleeping bags along with the other camping gear inside it, and then snapped the cover back into place. “It probably won't keep everything totally dry,” Jack said, “if it rains, I mean. This is more for show than protection,” he said indicating the cover. “But it should still do all right.” They had both picked up weapons in the shop. Jack had picked out a deer rifle, a fairly impressive looking Remington. He had also picked up several boxes of the ammunition the rifle took. Maria had settled on an entirely different sort of weapon. It looked more like a machine gun of some sort to Jack, and she also picked up several boxes of ammunition and spare clips for it. She explained to him that it really wasn't a rifle, but a machine pistol, and that it could fire better than seventy rounds a second if it were converted to full automatic. This one wasn't, she said, but she had seen some that were. To Jack it still looked like a machine gun, and he joked that the sight of it alone would probably scare anyone. By the time they had loaded the truck and gotten under way it was late afternoon. Even with the late start, and the slow going due to the stalled traffic, they managed to make it to the Colorado River in Ehrenberg Arizona just before nightfall. Arizona The country had been turning more arid as they drove, the river was an oasis. Off to the north giant plumes of smoke blanketed the sky, seeming to spread across the entire length of the horizon. They had both wondered what it might be. Maria had checked the map and she though it could be Yellowstone or something close to Yellowstone. Shops, stores, and even an RV park had sprung up around the interchange. They foraged for food in the late afternoon and gassed up the truck before evening began to take the sunlight. The air had a bitter, hot smell to it, the river flowed sluggishly, the water gray, and a scum of yellow white foam and ash rode the slow current. They sat in the truck and ate quietly while the map lay open across their legs and the seat top. Their eyes would drop to the map and then jump back up to scan the area. It had seemed too quiet, and there were no bodies anywhere.

No sign of life either, and the stores and shops had not been looted. Some were still locked up. Empty RV's in the park when they rolled slowly through it. Neither liked the feeling, the whole place felt wrong. “Jack,” Maria waited until his eyes left the map and met her own. He lifted them to follow her own gaze. “The silver building over to the right. The door just opened and then closed.” Jack frowned. “Not something the dead would do, is it?” “We didn't think they would come out in the daylight,” Maria said. As Jack watched he saw the door edge open slightly and then close just as slowly. “Saw it... I don't like it. Dead or alive they know we're here and they're checking us out.” He dropped his eyes back to the map. “Okay,” he said after a few moments. “Let's get off the road, run a ways out... Follow the highway. That takes us away from civilization to a degree, but eventually that will bring us into Phoenix.” He waited for her to nod her understanding. “There's a lot of desolation between here and there, at least on the map.” “Desolation is fine as long as the dead aren't there.” Maria said quietly. “Less likely to be,” Jack agreed. A few minutes later they were running through the desert that ran alongside I 10. There were not a great many cars or trucks there, but in several places there had been wrecks that closed lanes down. With no one to clear them they would have ended up in the desert anyway. And there seemed to be a dirt road that ran beside I 10 for as far as they could see. The landscape in the distance had been changing as they drove the day away, but with the sun setting a few hours after they set out once more it was hard to tell what the surrounding countryside was like. Jack dropped speed and flicked the trucks high beams on. A short while later Maria was sleeping, her head heavy against his arm. He drove through the night and into the early morning before she woke again. Day One

Sammy Black The truck began to rattle deep in the engine block and a second later a loud wheeze rent the air, bringing the smell of hot motor and burned oil with it. Sammy Black's eyes shot up to the mirror and he saw the dark spray of oil behind him on the highway, the trail coming away from that, following the now coasting truck. His eyes came down and the rear tires on the truck suddenly locked up and he had to fight for control as the pickup skated across the wreck dotted interstate and plowed into the side of a burned out SUV. The airbag was in his face before he could even react, and a second later the truck slammed back down to the ground from the bounce the rear end had taken at impact, and the quiet began to creep back in to the roar in his ears. He pushed himself slowly away from the steering wheel, flexed his jaw experimentally and felt blood go trickling away, running across his chin and then down his throat as he laid his head back against the headrest and waited for his blood pressure to drop and the roaring in his ears to taper off. The silence of the desert came back a few moments later. How long he didn't know, but he had flexed his left leg and the pain had made him scream. The next thing he knew his eyes were opening to the late afternoon sun and the desert quiet. His fingers scrambled across the seat top and he found the bottle of water he had been working on. The whole back of the pickup was full of water and packaged food. Camping stuff, the things that hikers ate. Freeze dried this and that. Jerky. Protein cakes. It was the first thing he did after he had set off the last canister in Houston. He had driven south and then began southwest. He found the bottle, lifted it to his lips and drained it. He had not realized how thirsty he had been. He had started in North Carolina, worked his way into Georgia, then Alabama before the shit had really hit the fan, and he had barely managed to keep the truck on the road when the first quake had hit. He had just left the tunnel that ed under the Mobile Bay when the quake had hit with such force that he had bounced off the road, skipped over the concrete rail and found himself rolling slowly down a grassy median toward the highway below. He had managed to get the brakes on and get turned around back up toward I10 above, but he couldn't get the truck back over the concrete rail, so he

had left the truck to see if there was some other way to get back up onto I10. When he stepped through a break in the concrete rail, and back up onto the highway a few seconds later, he turned his eyes back to the Tunnel he had just come through. Water lapped at the roadway. The tunnels swept down into that water. The whole bay had seemed to be boiling, agitated, but as he had watched the water had suddenly dropped, receding, leaving the Bay a muddied mess. All around him there were screams of panic, calls for help, and he was torn. If the water went out that fast it was a... He couldn't make it come, but it was bad. A hurricane could suck the water out like that, he had seen it once, but so could a tidal wave, a tsunami... His breath caught in his throat as he realized it could very well be a tsunami. He ran back down to the truck and got it moving. A few miles down the road he had managed to work his way through a field and back onto I10, running in the night for the Louisiana border. The trip had been harder from there on. He had had one vial left and he had decided on Houston as the best possible place to use it. Getting there had been tough, but he had made it late noon four days back. Far too late to do much good in his opinion. The city was devastated. Gunfire sounded everywhere, fires burned out of control. He had triggered the canister and dropped it into Galveston Bay a few hours later. From there he had headed North West. Interstates when he could find them, desert when he could not. He had found route 40 and he was now somewhere in between New Mexico and Arizona. He looked down at his leg after a few moments. He looked quickly away. The leg was a mess, and he was not going to be able to get it out from under the dash, and even if he did he would probably bleed out once the pressure came off the leg. He sighed. His hand searched along the top of the enger seat, not finding what he wanted. Movement was painful, but the sun was sinking, albeit slowly, and he did not want to be in this truck flinching at every movement or sound in the night. He did his best to lean forward and keep his leg from moving. His gun was wedged between the very edge of the seat top and the pushed in dash. He closed one hand around the grip and pulled. It was wedged tight, but it did pull back a few inches. Something on the gun was catching on something under or on the edge of the metal lip of the dash. He pushed the gun forward and then pulled back again. Almost, but a grating sound reached his ears, and he could feel the vibration in the weapon as it ground to a halt, once again hung up.

He pushed it back and forth lightly, realizing it was the seat cushion that was forcing the gun up into the dashboard. If he could get his fingers wedged in there, over the gun, push it downward, then pull back, maybe... He jammed his fingers into the tight space, ignoring the skin that scraped off on the sharp edge of the dash. A second later he was forcing them past the edge of the barrel and taking a deep breath. In his hurry to pull the gun free he forgot about his leg and pressed down on it as he suddenly yanked back. The pain was like fire, a live wire straight to a circuit in his brain. The circuit overloaded and he slipped instantly into darkness. Route 40 The Southwestern Desert Day Two Sammy Black The sweat trickled across his eyelid and then slipped into the eye as it opened, stinging. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt the pain flare slightly in his leg as he moved it in his reaction. He kept his eyes closed, trying to . It came to him after a brief second. He was in the truck. Wrecked... Night was coming... He opened his eyes slowly, ignoring the stinging from the salty sweat. No... The sun was low, in the wrong place... Morning, he decided. Somehow... Somehow he had slept the night through. It was gone. Morning was here. He ed why he had slipped away, moving the leg. He looked down at it now. It was much worse. Swollen, pushed hard against the dashboard, black and purple where he could see the skin through the shredded and ripped cloth of the pants. He could feel the metal lip of the dash embedded into the long bone of his thigh like a hatchet, he thought. His leg stank, he stank, like urine and spoiled meat. Maybe he had been out for days. He had no way to know, just laying here rotting in the heat. It was morbid, but he couldn't get the mental picture out of his head once he had thought it into being. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. It did seem to help clear his head, but a low buzz came right back, if it had ever been there. He wasn't sure.

Maybe it had, but it settled in as though it belonged there. He ed the gun. The gun he had reached for that had started it all and he felt the cool metal under his right hand. He curled his fingers around it, they were stiff, unwilling. He looked down at his hand. Scraped skin, dead and black clung to his fingers. The bone showed through in places. Black blood flaked off the fingers as he forced them to close around the grip.

THE WOLF WAS FIFTY yards away, hidden in a slight dip in the desert, an arroyo that cut through the hard pan, dry now, but it could change in an instant out here. The bare rock that lay against his belly cool, an escape from the heat. Nevertheless, he panted. Already his body was overheated in the desert morning. He had smelled the man a few hours before light and followed the scent. He knew the scent of man. It had always meant fear, flight, but lately it often meant food, sustenance. He wondered, as he lay, which one this would be. It was quiet in those hours before sunrise; still he had been afraid to follow it to its source. He had heard it breathing... Whatever this man was he was not dead yet. The wolf could wait. Waiting was something he understood. The roar took him by surprise and he whined deeply in his throat, flattening himself against the cool stone. Crying in his fear, but time slipped by and the noise did not come again. He waited, listening, watching the sun lift further into the pale blue of the sky, but he heard nothing more. He lifted his head from the ground, stood on gaunt legs, and howled into the quiet of the morning. He sank back to the cool rock and waited. Nothing answered him. A few minutes later he rose from the rock and made his way up onto the highway.

TWO

August 14th Jack had eased the truck up onto I10 and the tires bouncing over the broken asphalt had awakened Maria. “Not a big city... A town from the looks of it. Phoenix is close. Ten, fifteen miles maybe. Can't really tell from the map,” Jack said. A gas station loomed out of the early morning gray and Jack wheeled the truck under the roof that covered the pumps intending to siphon some gas to top off the trucks tanks. He shut off the motor and they both listened to the tick of the hot metal for a few seconds as it cooled. “Coffee would be really nice,” Maria said. “No way do we want to go into Phoenix... Too dangerous.” She yawned and then covered her mouth and laughed. “Mal aliento, dios... Morning breath.” She zipped open her knapsack, retrieved a bottle of water, her toothbrush and some toothpaste. She stepped down from the truck. Jack opened his door and settled his feet onto the pavement. It wasn't just old pavement, he saw, it was gray, washed out, used up: There was no black left in it. Maria stood slightly in front of the truck, her gun in one hand, the toothbrush working around her mouth on its own. In a blur her free hand was reaching to catch the rifle which was just coming free of her shoulder. Jack had his own rifle off his shoulder and into his hands before he even saw what had alarmed her. She spit out the toothbrush, pulled her gun and flicked the safety off. Three men stepped out of the shadows of the open garage bay. They were kids, Jack saw. Or at least not much more than kids. They walked slowly forward. Maria raised the rifle and pointed it at the lead kid. “That's it.” She said. She didn't scream it, softly spoke it, Jack thought later, but the kids stopped in their tracks. “What's with the fuckin' guns?” The lead kid asked. “Ours weren't aimed at you until you aimed yours at us,” Jack said. He hoped he

sounded as cool as Maria had. “Bullshit,” one of the other kids said. “You had it in your hands when I looked at you. That's why I got mine ready.” “I don't want to kill anyone today,” Maria said. “It really don't bother me,” The third kid said. His eyes were blood shot. They had interrupted him while he was sleeping, it seemed. He kept rubbing at his eyes, Maria saw. “I think you're right... Can't matter if you're dead,” Maria said. “Hey,” the lead kid said, “Maybe all's we want is to party a little.” “Well I don't know if Jack swings that way,” Maria said. “Pretty funny,” the kid responded. “Look... It's our town. We ain't the only ones here. You shoot there will be twenty more here in seconds. Then everybody dies.” “Oh... I guess I didn't see it right,” Maria said. “I can see where it might be preferable to get raped and then murdered instead of getting murdered outright.” The one in the back, the one with the sleepy eyes, stiffed a yawn and reflexively raised one hand to his mouth as his eyes slipped shut for a split second. Maria shot the lead kid in that split second, Jack had the second guy a moment later. The third kid opened his eyes to a changed situation. “Just give me a reason,” Maria said. “Any reason.” The kid released the rifle he held and it dropped from his hands to the pavement. “Can't shoot me I ain't got no gun... Can't... Can't shoot me...” He spun and looked off toward a rag tag collection of trailers that lined a dirt road in back of the station. “James!” he screamed. “James! Killers!” he turned back to Jack and Maria. “Can't shoot me... I ain't armed... Can't...” Jack shot him. A second later the truck roared to life and Jack spun the wheel hard heading back towards the drop off from the pavement, back the way they had come.

Maria bounced around the cab and smacked her head hard enough on the windshield to star the glass when the truck left the pavement at better than fifty miles an hour and hit the hard packed dirt that ran alongside I10. She finally got her balance, swept one hand across her forehead, looked at the blood and cursed lightly in Spanish. Behind them three trucks had launched off the pavement and were running hard to catch them. “Dammit,” Jack said. He pushed the pedal to the floor, there was nothing else for it. The glass in the back window starred a second later as Maria rammed the rifle stock into it. Another hit and the glass fell out into the pickup bed area. She raised the rifle and began to fire back at the trucks. A second later a hole punched through the windshield to Jack's left. He mashed the pedal harder into the floorboard feeling the truck skate across the hardscrabble of the desert as it flew beside the highway. “We have to get north, the other side of the highway. If they squeeze us south we'll be in the goddamn Mexican desert,” Maria yelled above the scream of the engine. “There's stalled cars up there,” Jack yelled back. “On the highway!” “There are bullets down here and they're gaining on us,” Maria yelled back. “Better sit down,” Jack yelled. “Just do it, Jack!” She continued to fire out the back window. Jack turned the wheel hard right and the truck lurched hard to the left, threatening to roll over as the center of gravity changed. It nearly rolled before it hit the edge of the pavement, broke over, and then became airborne. It came within ten feet of a stalled, wrecked semi and trailer and then it plunged off the other side of the highway so smoothly that Jack couldn't believe it had actually landed. “Nearly broke my neck slamming it into the ceiling,” Maria yelled. She fell silent. “I...” She started, but an explosion from the highway stopped her words. “Hit that truck,” Jack screamed. “Has to be.” “Keep it floored though, Jack. Keep it floored.” She stayed where she was,

staring out the back window, knees driven into the seat top. Jack's eyes strayed to her ass, and then snapped back to the road. He watched the hard packed earth fly by. “Roads coming up... Dirt roads,” Jack said. He had no sooner said it than the truck hit the slight rise and flew across it. “Like back roads, looks like,” Maria said. “Nothing on the map.” She was trying her best to read the map as the truck bounced and tilted. One hand clutching the seat back held her in a somewhat stable position as she looked at the roads. “Looks like all dirt roads, back roads and then it falls away to nothing. Just keep it pointed at the mountains in the distance.” She turned completely around and sat down with the map in her lap. “Must have hit the truck or each other. Whatever it was I don't think they will feel like coming after us again... Jack, we can't screw up like that again. I don't know what I was thinking letting my guard down like that, Dios mio!” Jack said nothing. Maria went back to reading the map. “Start breaking left, Jack. There's a river... No, maybe some sort of waterway, not a river, too straight. It ends and then picks up again a few miles later. We can get through and into the desert from there.” She looked at the map for a few more minutes, “Maybe twenty miles or so. Just run right by I10 and we should be good.” She turned and peeked over the back seat once more. “We're leaving a lot of dust, Jack.” He looked over at her. “We gotta figure this out too. I mean, we're going backwards, back to where we came,” Maria said. “I could loop out deep and then swing back,” Jack said. “Yeah, except in this desert you can see dust for miles... The dust is the problem.” She leaned over and looked at the gas gauge. “Less than a half tank.” She frowned. “We've got gas in the back,” Jack threw in. “I'm thinking this... We hit that water way, or an out building, has to be

something around here. We crash, sleep the day away, and then tonight we run across the desert to the other side of Phoenix. What do you think?” “Sounds like a plan... I'm shot,” Jack agreed. “Okay, so take the next road that crosses, slow down to keep the dust down and let's start looking for a place to hide for the day... We've got enough gas in the back we can get a long way before we need to find a station if we don't burn it up running in circles and backtracking.” Jack slowed the truck and began heading to the right, the east. “One of those towers will do... High voltage lines? Something like that. Just scrap metal now, but that will hide us if we drive right up to it,” Maria said. They drove to the tower and a dirt service road that circled it and continued to the north. Jack pulled the truck up close to the tower and shut it down. The silence held for a few moments, he fisted his hands into his eyes. “Jesus, I'm shot.” “Come here,” Maria said. She pulled him down to the seat and laid his head in her lap. She began to rub lightly at his temples. “God, don't do that, It'll put me to sleep,” Jack told her half jokingly. “Which is why I'm doing it.” She stretched her legs, angled them across to the driver's side floorboard, and leaned back into the door. The last thing she ed was smoothing the hair out of his eyes and then she spiraled away into a series of dreams.

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON when Jack awoke. Somewhere in the day Maria had wound up beside him. He lay still, unwilling to let her go, his hand was curled protectively around her. Maria moved and he felt the sleep leave her body. One moment soft and willing, the next a live wire. “You didn't cop a feel did you?” Maria asked in a mumbled half sleepy voice. “Maria, can't you ever just say something like, good morning?” She twisted her head around and smiled. The secret smile she rarely ever gave out. “Good late afternoon,” she said and the smile slipped away. There was still something there, but it wasn't that secret, vulnerable glimpse into her heart that it was usually. She stretched, yawned, and her feet came up against the door. “Next vehicle we get is an SUV so we have some place to sleep too.” “I don't know, I kind of liked this,” Jack said before he could shut his mouth down. Maria laughed and it was the unguarded Maria once more. “As long as you know what the deal is.” She twisted her head once more, and then her entire body so she was looking directly into his eyes. “I... I know the deal,” Jack said. The press of her body was maddening. “We really don't need to talk it out?” Jack shook his head and looked away. “I'm a little too old for you, Maria. I know.” Her eyes became sad. “Let me just say these few things.” She took a deep breath and then began to speak. “I am attracted to you. I considered sleeping with you before you became my friend, before I knew it couldn't work between us. I even considered it after... Maybe ten minutes ago too, but it would cost me a friend because it wouldn't mean to me what it would mean to you. It has nothing to do with age or anything else.” She held his eyes as if willing him to understand. “It's like you see me as this fragile little princess, and I am so far from that, Jack. So far. I can't see why you try to see me that way.” She laughed. “It's a thing men

do. Like... Like that is love, you see? Instead of love just being about all the other stuff... The things I ire about you, you about me. The things in common, the things that we share, the parts of you and me that are real that end up in the mix... But no, I'm a princess, unattainable beauty, something to worship, and it has nothing to do with what I really am at all. I have lived that way, tried to live up to that. It's not possible... The man I need is out there, I hope. Just someone that looks at me as me.” She watched his eyes. “I think I can do that,” Jack told her. Maria laughed. “No, really. I think I can separate those things... I'm pretty sure.” “Yeah? I think you like the idea of me... I think it might even hold together in a situation like this... At least for a while. And I think you could talk me into that comfort we could give each other, and I think you would feel completely different about me once that happened. You would think it meant that we were together, and it wouldn't mean that at all. It would mean we were scared and we took some comfort in each other... Because the attraction was there, and because it can just be about that sometimes.” She drew a breath. “But I think then I would go from princess to whore, because that's the way this world works, princess to whore in sixty seconds. I've seen it... I've felt it... And then I lose my friend, and I also hurt my friend, because he doesn't want to see it, I mean really see it for what it is.” She reached one hand up and pushed Jack's hair away from his eyes. He looked vulnerable, maybe he would love her forever, never hurt her, never treat her badly, never leave, but he would be reacting to something in her that didn't really exist. Something only he saw. Awestruck, in love, but not the kind of love she needed him to feel, to be in with her... She sighed again. She could see the hurt in his eyes. “We probably should get going,” Jack said. A smile played across his lips, tentative, but there. “Okay,” she laid her head against his chest. “I need a toothbrush... That little puta made me lose my toothbrush.” Jack laughed. “I got extras.” She lifted her face up, “Really?”

“Really.” She bent and kissed his forehead and then rose from the seat and looked around at the scrub brush and sand before she rose all the way up and sat on the edge of the seat while Jack straightened his long frame out and sat on the driver’s side of the seat. “That felt sort of, I don't know, brotherly... That kiss,” Jack said. “I hated my brother,” Maria said. She levered the handle and stepped down to the ground. “Hey?” Jack said. Maria stopped and looked back at him, her eyes careful. “I'll work at it... I mean,” he looked at a loss. “I don't want to lose our friendship either.” Maria smiled. “Thanks... I mean it. Now get out here and get me a toothbrush, Jack.” She laughed as she finished.

“SO, LOOK.” JACK JABBED his finger at the map and Maria leaned across and looked at the map, “Teddy Roosevelt Lake... Tonto National forest... Connected to Gila National forest... Cibola National forest. Pretty isolated.” Maria turned her eyes back to the desert. There was little to see, but twice she had hit bushes that popped up out of what seemed like nowhere. They had ed under the truck, but there were cactus out here too in places, and she was pretty sure a cactus wouldn't just under the truck. “So... Why there?” Maria asked. “Just a place to get ourselves together: Breath for a few moments, really look the map over and pick a destination.” “Isn't that taking us closer to Yellowstone, or whatever is causing the problems to the north?” Maria asked. They had both noticed thick plumes of black on the far horizon in that direction. The radio in the truck was dead: Static all across the dial. “It is... But,” Jack checked the scale and did some quick measurements. “Still close to a thousand miles away from there.” He looked up. “I think it is Yellowstone. I heard something just before everything hit the fan, something about the park in Yellowstone.” “What was it?” Maria asked. “I don't know,” Jack answered. He shrugged. “I wasn't paying attention... Wish I had been... Something like everyone in the park went off line... Like they couldn't reach any of the stations, rangers, whatever you call them... Something like that. And seismic activity, like an earthquake centered there.” He shrugged once more and shook his head. “So it's a good place to stay away from,” Maria said. “Yeah... I would say so, but we'll be a thousand miles away.” Jack shrugged once more. “So?”

“So, head north... We'll have to cross a few highways... Just keep out from the cities... I mean Phoenix turns to suburbs that spread out a long way, at least that's what the map looks like. Like it just kept spreading and so they just kept adding names.” Off to their left the city was easy to spot. There were fires all through it. In some places huge sections were on fire, in others it was scattered fires. There were no areas that didn't seem to be affected, and with the fires it was easy to track the edge of the cities as they drove. Maria laughed. “So they just added names. Well, couldn't the same be said about Los Angeles? About any large city as it grows? Isn't that the way it works?” “I guess... I hadn't thought it out.”

“GOING TO HAVE TO CUT through part of the city,” Maria said a few moments later. Jack looked up from the map as the truck rolled to a stop. “A river.” “Probably a canal...” Maria said. “Either way we can't drive over it... Does it break anywhere?” She turned the truck and began to run along the side of the canal heading for the city once more. In the distance several fires burned, but the fires seemed to be several miles distance, nothing close. “Like a housing development or something,” Maria said a few minutes later as the truck bumped up onto a road that was paralleled by a brick wall. The wide concrete gutter was bone dry, the pavement smooth after so much time in the desert “Not on the map...” He shrugged. “I just don't know, Maria.” Maria had stopped on the edge of the housing development. It was dark, lit only by the headlights of the truck. Cars and trucks sat neatly in driveways. The streets were empty. Heavy dust seemed to blanket the whole scene. Little trails cut from place to place. “Spooky,” Jack said. “Volcanic ash?” “Probably... What do you think the trails are?” Jack frowned. “It has to be the dead.” “It doesn't have to be the dead... Could be small animals raiding house to house... No garbage any more so they have to get into those houses and get what they can or starve... Or it could be the dead.” “Great, you had me ha...” Something hit the truck hard and it rocked on its springs. The smell of death hit them about the same time, and Maria hit the gas, mashing the pedal into the floor boards. A rotting hand came through the open back window and fastened around Maria's throat, her hands left the wheel as she was yanked backwards; the truck spun

hard to the left and accelerated, her foot still mashed on the gas. Jack lifted his gun and shot the zombie in the face. It seemed slow motion at first, the face exploded as it fell away into the back of the pickup, Maria drew a deep breath and tried to grab the wheel, but it was too late. Everything sped up to real time and the truck roared forward and slammed into the side of a house, continuing on through the wall and into it. Her foot had slammed down on the brake and the truck finally stopped several feet inside the house. Jack hit the dashboard hard and then rebounded and slid under the dash as the truck plunged into the house. Seconds later he scrambled out from under the dash, the smell of gasoline was strong, the smell of the hot motor equally strong. He looked over at Maria but she seemed dazed, her eyes unfocused, a trickle of blood running from somewhere under her hairline, mumbling softly under her breath. Jack levered his door open with a little help from his foot, it screeched as it opened. The screech of metal was very loud in the silence of the house. The headlights were still on, illuminating what looked to be a kitchen. The smell of death came to him over the smell of gas and hot motor. “My God, Maria, we've got to go,” Jack said loudly. He reached down, gabbed Maria's rifle where it had fallen to the floor and then shoved his gun into his holster. He was surprised he had the presence of mind to actually pull the strap over the hammer and snap it in place to hold the gun in. He reached over and pulled Maria to him, she came willingly. A second later he was outside the ruined truck and staring out the hole it had punched through into the house. He saw no dead, but he could smell them. He debated only briefly and then ran for the hole and the moonlit night outside. The dead were all around, pulled from their wanderings by the sound of the wreck and the smell of the living. Jack shifted Maria's weight more fully onto his shoulder, and lifted the gun, but before he could fire, the truck blew up behind him and he felt himself pushed by the blast out into the street where he struggled to stay on his feet. A warm rush of air moved rapidly past him and Jack got his feet moving only a second later. The dead scattered. They made an odd clicking sound, a sort of strangled scream, which Jack supposed was all they could do with no air to move their lungs, as he ran they slowly disappeared into the hiding places they had

stumbled from. An SUV loomed out of the darkness, illuminated by the flames and the moonlight: Dusty, sitting in the driveway of a house three houses over from the one they had plowed into. A second later and Jack had the door open and he tumbled Maria inside onto the enger seat. He ran around the car to the other side and fired a quick burst at three of the dead that came from the side of the garage and started toward him in their stumbling, dragging way. They all three went down, but they were back up again almost as quickly as they had gone down. He was too far away for head shots. He got the handle open and jumped into the car pulling the door shut behind him. He sat, his breath coming in ragged gasps and pulls. His lungs hurt, there was a stitch in his side and his heart felt like it just might explode at any second. He looked over at Maria, but her head was rocked back against the seat back. A sob escaped his throat, but he bit down on it, breathing hard, and checked the ignition. No keys, but that was what he had expected. What he hoped for was gas. The car should start, the gas was the important thing. He reached to the floorboards for his knapsack and a screwdriver to jimmy the ignition and that was when he realized he had nothing to get the truck started with. All he needed was a screwdriver to hammer into the ignition, pop the cylinder, and then start it, but he had neither the screwdriver nor a way to get it into the ignition in the first place. He fisted his hands and slammed them against the wheel. His head sank onto his hands. “Smash it,” Maria said. It was not much more than a whisper, but it bought Jack's head up fast. Outside the truck the dead were gathering. Just three or four, but they could smell them, and it wouldn't be long until more showed up. He focused on her face which was ashen and blood slicked, unsure if she had really even spoken. She turned her face to him, eyes heavy lidded, unfocused. “Smash it, Jack... Rock... Rocks by the driveway... Saw them... Smash it.” Her head sank down to the dashboard and stayed there. A trickle of blood ran across the dusty plastic and rolled toward the edge of the dash before it slipped over the edge and continued down into darkness. “Maria. You're hurt bad, Maria.” “Jack... Jack, shut up and get a rock... Get it, Jack. Stop whining, get the rock.” Maria told him. Her words were muffled, whether from the effort or the position

she was in he couldn't tell. He picked up the rifle by the barrel and looked through the glass at the dead that were trying to figure out a way into the truck. He waited for the one near the driver's door to slip backwards along the side of the SUV and then he threw the door open and jumped from the truck. He landed badly, on the very same rocks Maria had been talking about, and nearly went all the way down before he caught himself and slammed his knee into the pavement to stop himself. He had been unable to close the door as his ankle twisted and he fell away. The one that had just slipped past the door was already turning to get inside. He couldn't shoot; if he did he might hit Maria. He launched himself at the shambling wreck instead and dragged it backwards and to the ground. They were both snarling he realized a moment later when he shot it in the head. A second one came around the back of the SUV. Jack took two steps and shot it in the head. The third was on the opposite side of the truck and seemed frozen, unsure what to do. Jack turned, picked up a large rock, and tried to step back into the truck. The ankle collapsed and he went sprawling, losing the rock, barely holding onto his rifle as he once again slammed his knee into the ground to stop himself from planting his face on the steel door sill of the car. The zombie on the other side made up her mind, stood to her full height, and sprang to the roof of the car. Jack heard the metal buckle as she landed. A second later he forced himself to his feet, adrenaline flooding his body, leaving that sour electric taste in his mouth as it did. The zombie stood to her full height once more, nothing but tightly stretched skin and protruding bones, but determined to have him. Jack raised the rifle and shot her under the chin. She collapsed on the barrel and he turned as she spilled past him and burst open onto the driveway behind him. Jack took two shambling steps of his own, ankle and knee screaming, pain so hard that it made him stop and double up. He vomited, losing control for a brief instant, the pain was so hot. A second after that the adrenaline kicked back in and he finished his shambling travel, managed to stoop and pick up another large rock and get back inside the SUV. He slammed the door on the hand of another zombie that had come out of the darkness. He heard the bones snap, and the fingers fell away into the SUV as the door thudded home. Jack collapsed against the steering wheel. He couldn't seem to catch his breath. He waited for his heart to slow down. The dead seemed to be everywhere when he lifted his eyes a few seconds later.

One was inches away, staring into his own eyes through the glass. Dozens of others milled about as if waiting to be told what to do. His heart staggered once more, and the rifle was coming up before he realized he could do nothing. He lowered the gun and raised the rock that was still clutched in one hand. He smashed it down on the cheap plastic that surrounded the ignition built into the side of the steering column. Outside the zombies went crazy. Sounds did that to them, but to Jack it was almost as if they knew he was about to escape. The one next to the window stepped back and cocked it's head. Jack looked back at the column, smashed the rock down again and the pieces of the ignition fell to the floorboards of the SUV. A splinter of plastic cut his hand as he jammed his fingers into the opening and pushed down into the hole the cylinder had once occupied. It took a second to find what he was searching for, but once he found it his finger pressed down and the motor began to turn over. At nearly the same time the zombie dropped from sight outside the window. The motor coughed to life just as the zombie shot up with a rock in its rotting hands and smashed it down on the glass. Jack let out an involuntary scream as the rock skittered across the glass and flew across the hood. The zombie did it's odd little scream and then fell out of sight once more. Jack slammed his hand forward, caught the shift lever and yanked it down into reverse. His foot was already mashing the gas pedal down, the engine was revving and so when the zombie came back up with yet another rock the front fender slammed into him as Jack spun the wheel, and the car began to race backwards, turning as it went. The zombie and several behind it flew away from the side of the car, the wheels hopped as it bounced over them and then caught. The car rocketed out into the street. Jack locked the brakes up to get it stopped and nearly stalled it as it ground to a stop. A second later he dropped it into drive and plowed through a group of a dozen or more of the dead as he fumbled for the headlight switch and roared off down the road. The dead flew up over the hood. One smashed into the glass hard enough to spider web it as it hit and then tumbled over the roof. He could hear them bumping as they slammed into the roof and fell into the night behind them. A few seconds later and all he could hear was the scream of the motor as he accelerated down the street. He forced himself to slow down so he didn't wreck. Maria was holding onto the dashboard in a death grip.

The truck left the pavement and flew out into the desert once more. Jack mashed down the pedal a little more and began to put some space between themselves and the housing project. He reached over and pulled Maria away from the dashboard. She rocked back into the seat, her eyes closed, blood still running from under her hairline and slicking her face. East of Phoenix The moon was fully up. The desert seemed almost as if it were lit with streetlights to Jack. He had found a dirt road and followed it to a concrete building that was part of a complex of buildings. The place didn't look like it had much going for it. A collection of buildings in the desert. A few trucks sitting around. Company trucks of some sort, painted the same colors, but no name on them. He ed through the complex slowly on the dirt road that fed it. Nothing. He turned and drove through it more slowly. Nothing again. Jack stared out into the night. The moon was moving past the halfway point, there wouldn't be much of the night left. He looked over at Maria where she sat, head back, breathing slowly. At some point the bleeding had stopped. He looked back around at the buildings. Maybe ten, unless he had miscounted. A dozen trucks and cars sat scattered around the buildings. A large building that was probably a garage, or at least appeared to be: Doors down. A side door, closed. He drove slowly, circling the building. A back door, also closed. Maybe, he thought, if it had been closed from the start nothing had been inside. Jack pulled back out front of the building, shifted the SUV into park and left it running. The door was fifteen feet away. He reached over, pushed the button on the glove box and let it fall open. He pawed through insurance papers, candy bars, those would come in handy later, maybe, and a half bottle of water. There was a small flashlight on a key chain. No keys on the chain. Probably no battery in the flashlight either, Jack thought, but when he pushed the click button on top of the small aluminum flashlight it shot a bright beam that lit up the inside of the truck and nearly made him blind to the night before he clicked it back off. He waited a second and then leaned across to Maria. “Maria... Maria, I got to go... Maria?” Nothing. Her breathing didn't change and it scared Jack more than the attack by the zombies had. He sighed, fingered the safety on the rifle to make sure it was off, and then stepped from the truck.

The door chuffed closed behind him, nearly silent. Silence in the desert night, or at least it seemed silent for a moment. The desert wind reached his ears, just a soft rising and falling of sound as it slipped around the buildings. Nothing else. He made himself search the entire area once more with his eye and then he walked to the door, took one more look back at the SUV and then turned the knob and stepped inside the building. Jack stood in the darkness and listened to the wind slip around the metal building. His hand skittered along the wall and found the light switch. He flicked it before he had thought about it. Old habits die hard, he told himself. The click was overly loud in the darkness and made him jump. He forced his heart to slow down and then breathed deep. There was death here, he could smell it, but it was old death. Not the smell of the zombies. He breathed in deeply once more to be sure. The building was much more than a garage, although there was a garage area to pull trucks into. One sat inside now, two large rolls of fencing in the back and dozens of long steel fence posts. He had seen them before. About five or six feet long with a sharp steel cross piece at the bottom to drive into the ground. A sledge hammer to the top to drive it down into the earth and you had a fence post. He stepped forward toward a glassed in room just past the truck. A lunchroom or sorts he guessed, or a break room. Vending machines lined the walls and three tables sat in the middle of the room with plastic chairs scattered about them. Empty. Off to the left a steel door separated another area. He was beginning to panic about Maria. He had been gone a long time, but he forced himself to twist the knob on the door. It led to a hallway. A small office, bathrooms; lockers, a shower area, and the door that lead outside. He walked to the door and locked it. There was a glass wall that looked into the office and his eye caught something he had missed as he walked past. There was a chair that had been pulled over to a window that looked out on the desert. A man sat in that chair. Jack's heart leapt into his throat, but only for a second. The man was dead, but he had been dead for some time. A gun rested in his lap, his head cocked at an odd angle. Jack backtracked to the door, opened it and stepped inside. The smell was not that bad, but it was what he had smelled. The dead smelled differently once they rose to their new life. That was all he knew. It wasn't

something he could definitely put his finger on, just a different smell of corruption. Jack reached the chair and stared down at the man. He had dried out in the heat of the desert. Jack grabbed the armrest closest to him and dragged the chair from the office and out into the garage. He rolled it up to the doors and looked them over. Electric, but they could be manually raised and closed. Probably a nod toward electricity that might not always be available in the desert. Jack pulled on the chains that dropped from the ceiling and the door went up easily, squeaking as it did. He pushed the chair out across the cracked pavement and left it close to one of the other buildings. The SUV rumbled close by, the motor turning over smoothly. He could see Maria, head back against the head rest. A minute later he drove the truck into the garage and then worked the chains, lowering the door down once more. Maria She awoke with a gasp and sat upright. The movement caused pain to flare inside her head and her hands flew to either side of it as if to hold the pain inside. “Here,” Jack said from beside her. “Drink this... Coffee.” He handed her the paper cup. “Dios... Jack, my head is killing me,” Maria moaned. She sat carefully for a few seconds longer, holding her head steady, before edging open one eye and looking around her. The blanket that had been covering her slipped down and she reached for it unconsciously, catching it before it could slip off and onto the floor. She was laying on a table, soft blankets beneath her, her shirt had been stripped off. Her bra was stiff with dried blood. “Ay Dios Mio,” she said softly. “Come on, Maria. Drink the coffee, and,” He held out his other hand. “Aspirin... At least I think it's aspirin. Some off brand, but it'll help that headache.” Maria tried a small smile on her face, took the aspirin and the coffee and managed to get the aspirin down. “Jack, that really is coffee, bad coffee, but real coffee.” Maria said. Her eyes were traveling around the room. Vending machines, including a coffee machine

with the front door pried off. “There was the powder that it's made from inside... I just liberated it and made it over a fire.” He turned and pointed back through the glass into a garage area where she could see he had dragged a camping stove of some kind and hooked it up to some bottled propane. The small cook surface looked funny with the giant propane cylinder next to it. Jack laughed. “Yeah... Not exactly made for each other, but it's good enough.” Maria looked Jack up and down. He was dressed in clean clothes. “Where did you go shopping,” she asked as she sipped at the coffee. She swung her legs off the table and a wave of dizziness swept over her. Her stomach clenched and for a moment she was sure the coffee and aspirin were on their way back up, after a short battle they decided to stay. For how long she didn't know, but she did know she had to take it slower. “Slow, Maria,” Jack said as if he had looked into her mind and stolen her words. “Got you... Got you,” Maria agreed. “Clothes in the back, Maria. Lockers. I'm guessing this was some sort of ranchers place... Maybe a big operation... Cattle? Crops? I don't know. Bags of fertilizer, fencing, overalls, gloves, trucks, and about thirty lockers back there, most with clothes still in them.” Her fingers crept up her head and felt carefully under her hairline. “Are those stitches I feel?” She asked. “Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Had to. Used dental floss and a needle. You never budged, scared me, Maria.” “Well, if I had moved I would probably have kicked you right in the sac...” She sighed, “Thanks, Jack... What happened... We were somewhere,” Her face clouded, but she could not bring the memory. “That housing project?” Jack prompted. “Nope,” Maria said. “Nicer homes... Back toward Phoenix?”

“Nope,” Maria said again. “We were running at night...” “That I ,” Maria agreed. “Okay, so we stopped to check out this housing project. Like upscale houses out in the desert. It looked empty, but it was full of zombies. One got you through the window...” Maria's hand went to her throat. It was bruised and yellowed in the bright light inside the room. Maria looked around and then up. The ceiling lights were on. “Yeah... So you do ,” Jack said. “Yeah... Muerto.” Her eyes went to the lights and then back to Jack's face. “We got away.” “Barely,” Jack agreed.” He followed her eyes up to the lights. “Generator.” He stopped talking so she could hear it. “Okay... So that's that sound,” Maria said. She cleared her throat, drank some more of the coffee and then cleared her throat again. “I didn't get bitten, did I? You?” “No... I would have done it if I had to, but no. They didn't get us.” Jack said. “Would have killed me?” Maria asked. Jack nodded. “Jack, it's okay to say you would have... It wouldn't be me... It would be one of those things and I don't want to be one of those things, Jack.” “I know... I would have killed it. No way would I have let you become that.” Jack swallowed hard and the silence fell, just the generator chugging away. Maria eased her feet slowly to the floor and tested her weight. Better than earlier, but she decided to sit a while longer. She drained the cup and Jack took it. “You want more?” He asked.

“I need water, just plain old water.” She looked around hopefully. “Got that. A water cooler. You can even have it cold with the power on.” He was back just a few moments later with a new cardboard cup, this one filled with cold water. “Dios... Cold water in the desert. I would not have believed that,” Maria said. “Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Not much longer though. There isn't much fuel oil. That's what it runs on. It was meant for short power outages. It's been on two days now.” Maria choked on the water. Coughing bought the headache back, slamming into her forehead hard. She nearly ed out. Jack was right there, an arm around her, holding her. She took a breath, another, and she was all right again. She would just have to wait on the headache to retreat once more. “Come on, Maria. Let me get you into a chair.” Before she could argue he picked her up and carried her to a nearby chair. Not one of the plastic ones scattered around, a leather one. Beat up, but comfortable. She sank back into the chair and immediately began to feel better. “Si, verdad? Two days here?” “No. Three. It took a day to get the generator going. It wasn't designed to run after the initial time allotted. It would come on, run a while and shut right back off. I had to wire it direct. Maybe some safety feature so it wouldn't run out completely. I had to fill the tank from fifty five gallon drums, that was a bitch, but once I cut out the safety, filled her up, she started and stayed running. We're down to a quarter tank though... No more fuel oil... So I'm glad you're back.” Maria upended the cup and drained it. It was amazing how good the water could make her feel. Like new life and strength being poured into her. Jack bought her another and then another before she sat back into the chair. Her eyes fell on a vending machine with crackers, cookies and bagged chips. The door was ajar. Jack followed her eyes. He laughed. “Cookies, crackers, chips?” He asked. “Yeah,” Maria said. Hunger had suddenly leapt up in her stomach. She was starved. Jack came back with a couple of packs of each and she ate greedily as he talked.

“Maps out in the garage. I can't tell exactly where we are though. Somewhere to the southwest of Gold Canyon is my guess. I didn't see anything here with an address on it, letterhead, no signs on the trucks. Nice trucks though, so it made money, whatever it was.” “I'm going by where I think we are. I know we crossed over water before we got here, a bridge across a viaduct, at least it looked that way in the dark. But we didn't cross a highway, and 60 is right there, couldn't have missed it. Of course, we could be a little farther north or a little more south. But even so we have to hit 60 it's right there, so I'm pretty sure the next thing up is going to be 60.” Maria said nothing, the food was like heaven, but the crackers were a little dry so Jack left and came back with a cup of water and a Coke. The Coke was also cold. She nearly drained it in one pull. It was like her body was bent on a mission of replenishing itself in one setting. She made herself stop. “Good, but I don't want to get sick.” She said to Jack's raised eyebrows. He nodded. “Any dead... At night? In here when you got here?” “One... Took himself out in the office.” He motioned through the glass. “Put him outside. Turned black in the sun in a day or so.” He stopped and cleared his throat, left and came back with a Coke for each of them. “None of the others. Not one. Nights are quiet... Truck runs good. I gassed it up, swapped better tires onto it too from the rack in the garage. Pretty easy to do. Extra gas cans, oil, a bunch of those blankets.” He paused for a second. “You look... Clean.” She had looked down a few seconds before at her gore stained bra and jeans. She'd been in these clothes far too long. “Shower in the back. Hot water too once I got the electric on.” “De veras, and I am sitting here talking?” She stood from the chair, found her stomach did not intend to give her a hard time and turned to Jack. “Clothes?” “Sure... I... I don't know if...” He turned red. “Yeah,” Maria said. She laughed. “No bra, panties?”

“Right,” Jack agreed. “Well I don't care if it is boxers, a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Clean clothes, Jack” She looked around her... “Soap... A towel... That is it. Where is it?” “Um. Right here,” Jack said as he stepped to the door and pushed it open for her. Jack returned to the lunch room a few moments later and cleaned up the blankets and empty cups while he waited.

THREE

September 28th Jack angled the truck off into a grassy median they had been traveling along Arizona 188, and followed a dirt road into the forested park area. About a half mile in they came to a wide calm lake. The area was completely deserted. No cars, no trucks, and only a few rustic buildings close by the water. A quick search confirmed the buildings were empty. They worked together to gather some dead-fall to build a small fire. Maria piled the dry wood next to a large stone fireplace, and Jack carefully arranged some wood inside the fireplace, over some smaller twigs and crumpled pieces of paper, while Maria opened the rear of the truck and pulled out the sleeping bags, as well as some metal camp utensils they had picked up earlier when they had ed through a small town. They debated on leaving the tent, but decided to set it up instead, close to the fireplace. The buildings were dark and deserted-looking, and not the least bit inviting to either of them. The tent would not offer anywhere near as much protection as the empty buildings, but to them it was much more appealing. Once Jack got the fire going he began to set up the tent as Maria started dinner. “What are you making?” Jack asked, as he walked back to the fireplace. A large steel pot sat directly over the metal grating of the outdoor fireplace, and the aroma from it was all he could smell as he finished setting up the tent. His stomach was growling. “Well,” she asked, “how does it smell?” “Pretty damn good,” Jack replied, “in fact about the best thing I've smelled in a long time. What is it?” he asked again. “Well, it's nothing great, beans and corned beef,” she looked at him and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, who knows? “Smells good though, huh?” Jack nodded his head in agreement, and said aloud. “It's got bachelor food beat, that's for sure... It's going to be a few minutes, right?” Jack asked.

“Probably more like an hour,” she replied, “That's why I've got it off the heat, simmering. Why?” “Well,” Jack said, “that lake looks pretty good. I'm thinking seriously about jumping in it and washing some of this road grime off.” Before he could say more Maria jumped up and said, “Last one in!” Jack stood dumb founded as she raced away towards the lake. He caught up with her next to the water, slightly out of breath, and laughing. When she started to remove her clothes, he nearly choked on the laughter though. Maria seemed not to notice, and after she had stripped down she dove gracefully into the water and swam out into the lake, toward a wooden raft that was anchored about fifty feet off shore. Jack got over his initial shock, stripped down and also dove into the water. The coldness of the water shocked him, but it helped in a way to. He hadn't realized just how beautiful she was, and his body had begun unconsciously to respond. The cold water ended that though, and he turned over on his back and floated as he kicked with his feet towards the raft. When he turned back over as he sensed he was nearing the raft he saw her sitting, looking back at him as he swam towards her. She smiled, and he couldn't help but smile back. Cold water or not, he thought, she is a beautiful woman. He had guessed she must be in her late thirties when he had met her, but now he thought he might be wrong. Maybe it had been the fact that he could not recall ever seeing her smile that had contributed to his observation. Whatever it had been, he was pretty sure he was wrong. She looked like maybe she was only in her late twenties, maybe, he thought. It was more the way she looked now, he realized, that made him think she was probably a lot younger than he had initially thought. In their old life she had been wary and tired-looking. She seemed more alive to him now though, and the smile went a long way towards smoothing out the lines that had seemed to be embedded in her forehead. He supposed that to her he must seem awful old at fifty-two. Maria sat on the wooden surface of the small raft and watched Jack turn back over on his back, as he continued to float towards the raft.

Everything she had depended on had fallen apart and he had seemed to be the one to go to. To open up to, to look for stability in. He had seemed like that kind of man, and he had turned out to be that sort of man. He had convinced her to open the door to herself and it had been a big deal to her. It was something she would normally never do at all, under any circumstances. Nevertheless, she had let him in. He seemed honest, she told herself, and reminded her of herself. She had started life honest anyway, it was just that she couldn't be as honest as she wanted to be, she reminded herself. Life was just that way, she had decided. Jack was different. She knew it was stupid, here she was entertaining what she had told him to forget, but even as the thought entered her head she reminded herself that it was only comfort she needed. It was sexual attraction. He didn't move her inside like she wanted to be moved. She wondered if she could be moved that way by any man and the thought caused her smile to slip away. The meal was excellent. Jack's mind was not entirely impaled upon the world and what it had become. He thought they both just wanted to be part of the whole again. He realized, on an unconscious level, that it was even more than that. He wanted some sort of security again. Some kind of normalcy... Same old, same old, he thought. The thought made him laugh. “What?” Maria asked. “Well, first, this is so good. And second, I was thinking that as much as I used to hate the same old, same old of the world, I find myself wishing I had it back again. Ironic, I know.” Maria nodded. She felt the same way. In a world that was constantly cruel to her, she had held out hope that it would not always be that way, that somehow, someday, it would all change for her. And it had, and for her this was even better than she had dreamed. She didn't have to pretend about her past, it didn't matter anymore. She didn't have to be anything, or anyone, other than who she had always wanted to be, herself, the woman that she had buried deep within her. She was happier than she could ever recall being in her entire life. It was as if she had been blind, and now through some unimaginable miracle could see. It was so much and so many feelings that it threatened to overwhelm her. Jack spoke as they finished eating. He had been thinking non-stop about

everything that had happened in just the last few days, and he was no longer certain he wanted to risk traveling on. “Maria?” he began, not quite sure how to proceed with what he had been thinking. “Do you want to go? I mean, do you want to go all the way across this country? It's just that, well, I'm not as positive as I was that it has to be done, or that we should.” She thought for only a brief second before she answered him. “I think that we have to, Jack. It's not a question of whether we should. We have to,” she said. Jack nodded. “I've changed a lot of my thinking,” Jack told her. “I really have. I don't always pay attention, but I did when it came to you. I don't think I've ever had a friend like you. I don't want to lose that. I'm explaining it badly, I guess.” Jack said. “No... No you're not. I know exactly what you mean. How about some tea?” she asked. “Tea?” he looked puzzled. “Where did you get tea from?” She held up a small package, and said, “It was in the camping gear, a free sample package. Want some?” “Sure,” he said, as he smiled at her, “it sounds good, actually.” While Maria made the tea, Jack took the small tin cups, along with the plastic bowls that had also been in the camping kit, and walked down to the water to wash them. The moon had begun to rise and a silver trail spread across the lake, seeming alive as it rode the small ripples of the water. When he finished, he stared off across the shimmering surface. It was calm and peaceful, and he listened as somewhere in the distance an owl hooted its greeting into the night. It was good to hear. He had heard little of any birds at all recently. He walked back to the fire feeling good. The night was dark, but it held no fear for him. Maria looked up from where she was stretched out beside the fire and smiled. “Jack, where do you want to be when this is over? I mean to live?” Jack thought for a second and considered before he responded.

“I guess it would depend,” he said. “I don't think I would want to live in a city though. I like it here... It's peaceful. I guess someplace like this. Mountains, but this is a type of mountains I've never seen. I mean mountains like you would see in New York... Pines, Maples.” Maria rolled over and propped herself up on one elbow next to him as she spoke. “This place, it used to be a state park, but now it is just a nice lake. Nobody owns it anymore. It would be a good place to be... Away from the city... Build a little community here... There are thousands of places like this now... All over the country. I would like a place like this.” Maria said quietly. She removed the pot from the fire, setting it to one side so it would be there in the morning when they awoke. They crawled into the tent and were asleep within minutes. The silvery moonlight shown down as they slept, the nearly full circle slowly traveling across the darkened sky. Jack San Mateo Mountain range 29th They awoke early to the chatter of squirrel-talk in the trees. Gray squirrels playfully leaping through the pine branches and running up and down the thick trunks, scolding as they went. Maria set the tea to heat once she had rekindled the fire from the still glowing coals, as Jack broke camp and quickly loaded the truck. They ate a small breakfast of the leftovers of the meal from the night before, and sipped the strong, hot tea as the sun began to slowly peek over the tops of the trees across the lake. After they rinsed the utensils in the lake, and doused the fire, they climbed into the truck and drove slowly back to the main road. Maria had awakened feeling torn to be under way, and yet feeling a strong urge to stay: Once they regained the main road and Jack pointed the truck north she felt better. The going was slow, but the farther they traveled the less traffic there seemed to be, and, Jack discovered, if they stayed on the shoulder they could make pretty

good time. Towards mid-morning they turned off onto state Route 260, and began to angle toward the New Mexico border. The going was much easier and they found that they could keep to the pavement, most of the time, which allowed them to make even better time. Late afternoon found them in the small city of Springerville just inside the Arizona border, and Jack drove the truck into the parking lot of a large shopping mall on the outskirts. The mall served as an anchor for several department stores and a large grocery chain. There were several other specialty shops scattered throughout the mall. They stocked up on canned goods, as well as several packages of freeze dried meats from a sporting goods store in the mall. By the time they had finished it was late in the afternoon. They left the small city behind, and continued into New Mexico on I60. Just before nightfall they reached the Cibola National Forest and Jack pulled the truck off onto one of the dirt roads of the park and found a place to park among the trees. He unloaded the truck and set up camp, as Maria made dinner. She experimented with canned meat along with some freeze dried food, and the result was a tasty stew-like dish. “Where did you learn to cook, Maria?” he asked, “this is really good.” “Oh it's just a little something I threw together,” she joked, as she blew lightly on her finger-tips. “All I ever ate when I was by myself was fast food,” Jack said, “I'd drive into town and there was a good selection. It all sort of tasted like cardboard after a while though. I can't believe you made this out of that stuff we picked up today.” “I drove through that town every time I came out. How do you call tacos or burgers a good selection,” Maria joked. Jack laughed. “Okay, a fair selection,” he amended. Maria laughed lightly. “Well,” she said, “I did throw in some canned meat. If you think this is good, just wait until I have some decent stuff to cook with.” Jack bugged his eyes out comically at her, “You mean this isn't the good stuff?”

“Not even,” she joked back. They sipped at cups of hot tea as the fire crackled invitingly in front of them. They were at the edge of the San Mateo Mountain range, and it was somewhat cooler at the higher elevation. They had both remarked though, on how much warmer it was than it should have been: Maria more so than Jack. 30th In the morning they broke camp before the sun was even up and headed out into the chill pre-morning air. They both enjoyed the scenery as they drove along, and verbally promised that they would take their time if they returned, and stop as often as they wanted to, to look at the scenic mountains. As they traveled, they encountered less and less stalled traffic, until the road before them opened up, totally deserted for miles at a stretch. Mid-morning brought them close to the Oklahoma border, and if they had not had to slow down and find an alternate route around the City of Clayton, they probably would have entered Oklahoma by nightfall. The stalled traffic had returned several miles outside the city, but once they were within two miles of the city limits, it had become imable. Even the breakdown lanes were packed full, and the traffic had forced them into the fields that flanked the highway to find a way around. Once past Clayton however, the stalled traffic had once again given way and they spent the night camped beside the highway less than twenty miles from the Oklahoma border. Noon of the following day brought them to the outskirts of Woodward and more stalled traffic. After taking several shortcuts across open fields, they eventually came upon route 412, which, Jack found by checking the map; they could follow most of the way across the country. They spent that night by a quiet lake that reminded them of the one back in Arizona. They were just outside the small town of Cleo Springs Oklahoma. They were both becoming used to the traveling, and had each developed a routine they followed every night when they stopped. They had twice seen smoke off in the distance that day, as if to the east of them some great fire were burning. They had correctly guessed the reason long before they reached the fire. Someone, or

something, had set the entire city to flame. For several miles before they reached and successfully ed around and beyond the city of Enid Oklahoma, black oily smoke had hung over them in the sky. They had been forced to detour more than twenty miles to the south, running through the fields to get around the still burning city. Even from that distance they could feel the heat, and occasionally see the flames leaping into the sky. When they stopped that evening at a small lake just off 412, the glow of the fire was still visible in the distance behind them. They were both tired and dropped off to sleep before the last vibrant colors of dusk had fully faded from the sky. The next day they traveled steadily onward toward the distant mountains. The going was slower and they had to stop several times to move stalled vehicles out of the roadway, or take other routes that were less traveled. They kept on a roughly north east direction, rising only slightly up through the states. They had finally been stopped by the wreckage of three cars that had collided on the Quachita river bridge on 270. The collision had taken out the concrete and the guard rail on one side of the bridge. There had been a fire after the wreck. And the heat must have been tremendous. Two of the cars were wrapped around the steel guard rail that had either broken on impact, or in the fire after that had shattered the remaining concrete that was still connected to it. Jack managed to winch one of the cars out of the way, and together they had pushed the other two off the bridge and into the river. They had both watched as the cars flipped end for end, and finally landed half in the river and half on a small island that split the river. At the expense of a small amount of paint, which was scraped from the truck as they ed the one remaining vehicle, they managed to get into the Quachita National Forest preserve before nightfall. Two additional days of travel brought them just into the Alabama border and the small community of Ardmore. They found a logging road just off 31. After Jack had set up the tent in a clearing back into the woods, he walked back over to take a closer look at the truck while Maria started dinner. Maria had surprised him earlier in the day when they had stopped by the side of the road to rest. A large buck had wandered out of the trees to their left and stood

staring at them in the roadway. She had used the Remington, and carefully sighting, had brought the large animal down. Between them they had managed to dress it out, and had filled a large plastic cooler in the back of the truck with the venison. The smell of fresh steaks sizzling on the fire made the delay worthwhile. The trip across the country had been tough on them, but it had been much harder on the truck, Jack saw now, as he looked it over. Most of the damage was superficial, long scrapes down both sides of the truck, a small dent here and there. The big problem however was mechanical. The brakes were borderline, soft and spongy, probably due to the rough terrain they had traversed. Jack had, had to constantly ride the brakes as they went down steep inclines to get around the road when it was hopelessly blocked. The other problem was the motor. It had developed a constant rattle deep within the block every time it climbed even a small grade. He supposed most of it was due to the fact that they had been forced to use whatever gas they could find, and several times that had been low grade unleaded. That and the fact that the fuel injection system had not been set up for high altitude, it had been a desert truck up until it's liberation from the garage in Arizona. The truck was running better than twelve hours at a stretch, most days, and almost all of that was labored driving. As a result the truck had also developed several small oil leaks. He walked around the truck and looked it over carefully. The tires were chewed badly from the rocks they had crawled over. It looked ten years old, Jack realized. He pulled the map out of the glove compartment, and after studying it, decided the truck would probably make it to Athens Alabama, and they should be able to pick up something to replace it there. He really hated to though, as he had grown to like the truck a great deal, even become attached to it. But he realized, the truck would never make it the rest of the way. He tossed the map back into the glove compartment, shut the door and walked back over to the fire. The smell of the cooking venison was maddening. While he had meant it when he told Maria she had done wonders with the canned stuff, there was nothing like the real thing. He resolved to also hunt around for a case or two of Quick Cold to keep what was left of the meat fresh when they reached Athens.

Although they had seen plenty of wildlife, they had yet to see any people. They both felt, however, that there were people: For whatever reason they just weren't showing themselves. They both understood, to a point, what would make other people distrustful of them. They had seen a lot of evidence themselves, bodies horribly mangled, cities burned, and they had no wish to meet up with the people who had left it. They had found most of the bodies as they ed through the larger cities and towns, and most looked to have met with violent deaths. It was almost as if they were trying to finish the killing that the earthquakes had not been able to finish. And more dead meant more dead rising to whatever that new life was. It wasn't something either of them liked to dwell on too long. It was sobering to both of them, and Maria had taken to carrying the machine pistol with her whenever they left the truck. Jack had already gotten into the habit of keeping the Remington close at hand, but he too now made sure it was with him, and the safety off, all the time. Jack walked back from the truck and sat down next to the fire. “The truck's in bad shape, Maria. The one front tire's cut to the threads already.” He had also checked the oil and other fluids. “She took two quarts of oil, last two we had, and it's still not touching the stick. Not good.” She screwed up her face and looked at him pensively. “Well, I suppose I could get a second job. Then I guess we could afford a new one,” her humor caught him by surprise, as it usually did, and he laughed out loud. “You are nuts, you know that?” he said. They laughed together, and then he told her that they should be able to get another truck in Athens the next day. After that she fished out the meat, which she had wrapped in foil and placed over the coals at one edge of the fire, and they ate. They ate it with relish, and laughed at each other about what pigs they were, and then after a swim in a clear mountain stream that flowed nearby they crawled into the tent. They were only three miles outside of Athens the next morning, when the truck gave up the ghost. It died with one dreadfully long rattle deep within the block of the engine. Jack coasted over to the side of the road and they simply left it. He had tried to start it, but it would not turn over. Jack took the Remington, and Maria held the machine pistol as they walked along the road. It took the better part of an hour to walk

into Athens, but when they arrived it was still early morning. They had both been bothered by a feeling that they had been followed, or were being watched. It was unsettling, and they were constantly glancing around themselves as they walked, but they saw no one. They were standing on the pavement of a car lot looking over a long line of vehicles, trying to decide which one to take, when the first shot came. The side window of the truck directly in front of them imploded, covering the interior in small jewel-like chunks of glass. They both reacted instantly, dropping to the ground and rolling towards the rear of the truck. When they reached the rear of the truck they both crouched low and sprinted deeper into the lot. Another shot rang out as they ran, and Maria watched as a wide hole was suddenly punched through the fender of a truck just a few inches ahead of her. She dropped to the ground and rolled over on her back, raising the machine pistol instinctively in front of her. It was all that saved her life. Jack was still running deeper into the lot, not realizing Maria was no longer beside him. The sound of the machine pistols chatter behind him stopped him cold, and he turned and ran back toward the front of the lot. When Maria had fallen, a tall dark haired kid had appeared from in front of the truck, and directly into the steel sight of the machine pistol. He raised what looked to be an automatic rifle, but before he could fire Maria began squeezing the trigger of the pistol, and it jumped and began to bark in her hands. Jack had just come up beside her, and watched as the man toppled over, nearly cut in two. The sound of screeching tires out on the roadway dragged his mind away from the still twitching body of the young man, and as Maria jumped up into a low crouch they both began to run towards the road. Jack stopped only long enough to pick up the automatic rifle from the ground where the man had dropped it. When they reached the road a small Jeep was moving rapidly away from them, and a blond haired man, not much more than a kid, Jack realized, was crouched in the back aiming a rifle at them, while a dark haired young woman sat behind the wheel. They both dropped once more to the ground, and opened up on the Jeep as the young man began to fire. The slugs from the young man’s rifle ripped into the pavement, tearing huge chunks out of it close to Jack's face as he fired back at the Jeep.

The blond haired kid suddenly bolted upright, and seemed to jump from the rear of the Jeep. He landed on the roadway, rolled, and then was still. Both rear tires blew out on the Jeep as Maria's gun continued to speak, and before it had traveled far the young woman lost control, and it flipped several times rolling down the middle of the road. The young woman fell headfirst in a heap on the pavement where she had been thrown, and had then been rolled over by the Jeep as it continued to flip down the road. Smoke curled up from the overturned Jeep. Within seconds it attracted a small circle of flames from under the hood that grew and began to curl up and lick at the rubber of the still turning front tires. “You okay?” Jack asked, in a panicked voice as he looked at Maria. “Aún estoy un poco... conmocionada... Good... A little shaken,” she amended. They both walked slowly down the road to where the bodies of the young man and the young woman lay, they were perhaps twenty feet apart. Maria had thought that possibly the young woman might still be alive, but she was not. Her neck was broken, and they had quietly carried both bodies off the road and into a field before returning to the lot. They had debated briefly whether they should bury them, but had decided not to. It was not a decision made out of spite, but out of necessity. They had no idea whether the three were alone or not, and if they were not, and there were others close by, it might be best to get back to the lot, pick up a truck, and head back out to where the Chevy had broken down as quickly as they could. They walked calmly back to the dealership, and went inside. They both felt safer inside despite the wide glass windows that fronted the road. A huge four wheel drive Suburban sat on the showroom floor nestled in between other cars and trucks that surrounded it. It was obviously a heavy duty truck. It sat much higher than the pickup had, and the tires were much more aggressive, and the open cargo space behind the driver's area would be an asset to them, Jack realized, much better than the open pick-up bed had been with its flimsy vinyl cover. He walked around the truck, noticing that it was also equipped with a winch as the pickup had been, but this one looked to be a lot sturdier to him, strictly heavy duty. He walked over to a slightly raised area, where a board filled with keys spanned

most of the rear wall behind a small, but long counter top. He gave Maria the keys to a convertible that was between them and the doors, and she moved it while Jack jockeyed the truck around until he managed to get it aimed at the wide glass doors set into the side of the building. He drove it outside, checking the gas gauges as he did. The truck had dual tanks, and both of them were full. Not that they'll last any longer than the pickups single tank, he thought, but he was still glad that they were full. They edged carefully around the still burning Jeep, and made their way slowly out of town and back to the pickup, watching the side roads as they went. They were both spooked. When they were still more than a hundred yards from the pickup, they could tell that they'd had visitors while they were gone. Jack edged the Suburban up carefully to the truck and they searched the surrounding countryside, but decided whoever had been there was gone. The truck was demolished. Someone or some-ones had attacked it with a vengeance. All the windows were smashed, and the black vinyl cover that had spanned the bed of the truck was slashed to ribbons. The tires had been flattened, and they had dented or punctured nearly every body . The camping gear, along with the rest of the venison, was gone. The map they had been using lay ripped and shredded across the front seat, which had also been slashed. They only walked around the truck once, but it was enough. They both turned without speaking and walked back to the Suburban. “Doesn't matter,” Jack said once they were safely back inside the Suburban. “We can pick up more gear down the road. I saw a small sporting goods store about a mile back, it had a little shopping center right next to it.” “I guess we don't have to deal with the dead here because these people are here and killed or chased them off. But then we got to deal with people alive trying make more dead out the living... One or the other and no in between, I guess,” Maria said. Jack shook his head slowly as they drove away. When they reached the small sporting goods store he pulled as close to the front doors as he could. The parking lot looked deserted, but the dealership had also

looked deserted, and he was taking no chances. They looked the huge lot over for better than ten minutes before they left the truck. He wished they didn't have to stop at all. The sooner they were on the road the better, as far as he was concerned. He supposed it probably wouldn't be any better stopping somewhere else though. They entered the store and took turns watching the lot as they picked up what they needed. Besides a handful of dead, all head shot, the store was empty. Maria looked over the bodies. “I guess some archaeologist is going to dig all this up in forty thousand years, if we all survive and have to come up with some explanation as to why so many skulls show evidence of bullet holes... Makes me wonder what they'll say... Religious practice? Sacrifices to Dios?” She asked. “Hopefully they'll never know what this was really about,” Jack said quietly. By the time they had re-outfitted themselves it was nearly dark. The setting sun casting the lot in deep shadows, and Jack was glad he had parked the truck close to the doors. They debated staying. They could sleep right inside the small shop Maria argued, but Jack didn't want to, and Maria's argument was halfhearted at best. They both decided they would rather put as many miles as possible between them and the small town. In the end they left despite the descending darkness, and they did not stop that night at all. Jack drove while Maria slept, and towards daybreak as they were nearing Fort Deposit the road disappeared into the water. They had stood looking as the sun rose higher into the sky. It was water as far as the eye could see. The air carried the tang of salt. They were both at a loss for words. Finally, Jack angled the truck down off the pavement, turned it around and drove back to an old logging road he had seen a few miles back. He dropped down off the pavement and followed the rutted road into a quiet, forested area and killed the hot motor. They quickly set up a small camp in the sparse morning light, and then crawled into the tent. They held each other tightly as they drifted off to sleep.

MARIA AWOKE LONG BEFORE Jack, and now sat outside the small tent, watching the last rays of light fade from the sky. It seemed to seep slowly away, and darken the sky above the trees. The wind kicked up briefly, blowing the dead leaves across the ground. They scratched and rattled as they went, making her think of small skeletons rattling in the wind. She felt afraid, and had since she had awakened earlier. She couldn't explain it to herself. She had been tempted to awaken Jack, but had decided after twice starting to do so, to wait until he awoke on his own. She could tell now though, by the change in his breathing, that he would soon awaken, and she walked to the small fire she had built earlier to start some coffee brewing. She placed the small tin pot on the coals next to the fire. She was sitting by the fire wondering how to approach the subject of what next, when Jack rolled out of the tent. She turned around to face him, and she saw the sadness etched into his face. He's worried too, she thought, and before she could complete the thought he proved her right. They had been undecided for a short time after they had found the highway arcing down into the water somewhere inside what had been the border of Alabama. They would have to go back, but where? They had been heading south, not an absolute place, but south nonetheless. South was now out of the question., The water had stretched away as far as they could see to the south, east, and then arced away forming a new coastline to the west. Far out in the water there was a low blur on the horizon. Maybe it was land, maybe it was wishful thinking. They had starting backtracking the next day. Maria poured coffee in the small tin cups for both of them before she spoke. “Where are you thinking?” They had backtracked all the way into Kentucky. Stopping last night at what they assumed was the Ohio river, too tired to decide what was next. He shrugged his shoulders as he responded. “I think we can start heading for the East coast. What do you think?” “I guess so, I... I don't know. It certainly won't hurt, and where else would we go?” she stared into the fire as she spoke. “I think we should be a lot more

careful though. I get the feeling that those people we ran into aren't the only ones around who would just as soon kill us, and I'm not kidding myself about it, I think it was pretty clear. They didn't want to talk, or even to just take us prisoner or something, they wanted to outright kill us. No sense pretending about that.” She paused. “I mean, I really thought there, for a second, that they were just scared or something, or maybe saw me and... Well, you know. But that wasn't it.” When she finished he nodded silently, and then sipped from the cup before he spoke. “You're right, I just didn't want to think about it, Hell, I couldn't think about much of anything except getting as far away as possible, and I kept thinking about the truck too. Did they do that before they tried to kill us, after, or was it someone else? There's no real way to tell, but even if they were alone I'm not kidding myself that there won't be others just like them. We do have to be careful,” he paused, thinking. “In fact I think we need to get off the main road from now on. These parks, rural areas seem better. No dead... Few dead anyway... Fewer people. I never thought I would say fewer people was a good thing, but,” he shrugged, “Guess I just did. I don't think it's safe... You agree? I mean, there are lots of other roads that parallel the main highway. I guess it just seems like the smart thing to do, and it feels like the right thing to do. What do you think?” he asked. “I think you are right. I've been sitting out here thinking about pretty much the same thing for quite a few hours, and you're right, we have to be careful, and you're also right about the main road... It just doesn't seem safe, or the safest way to get anywhere anymore.” “Well,” Jack said, “if we're going to take side roads, we're going to have to get another map, and that means we're going to have to go into the next city to get one. I'm not thrilled about that, but we're also going to need to pick up more ammunition too. Either way, we have to at least follow the highway into the next town down the line. No way around it,” he almost seemed as though he were hoping that she would come up with some alternative as he spoke. “No other way,” she said, “so... I guess we better get moving?” She allowed what she had meant to be a statement to rise at the end and turned it into more of a question.

“No,” Jack said immediately. “No way. It'll be dark soon, and I really don't think that would be a smart move at all. No... I think we should wait it out here tonight, and get on the road early in the morning. We should be able to make the next town without a map. I don't even know what the next place is, but it can't be too far, can it?” he didn't wait for a response; he had asked more for himself than her. “No, I'm pretty sure it won't be far. We've been running into lots of small towns every twenty, thirty miles or so, and most of them at least have gas stations. We should be able to get a map fairly easily. After we do though, that's it. We get off the main road, and stay off it.” As darkness closed in, they had both turned quiet. Maria had begun a small dinner over the coals in the fireplace, they had hastily thrown together earlier that morning when they had arrived, and Jack had walked over to the truck and occupied himself with checking the mechanics, making sure that nothing had been damaged the night before as he had driven. Several times he had driven over debris in the road, but in his haste to put miles between them, he had ignored it. He had also become convinced during the night as he drove, that they were being followed. He had kept glancing into the mirrors, sure that he would see glowing headlights closing in on them from behind. It had not happened though; the road behind them had remained empty all night as he had driven. He had another thought as he stood looking over the truck. What if they had done something to this truck? He wondered. He knew it was irrational, there had to have been over a hundred trucks on that lot, and... How would they have known to choose this one? And if they had, wouldn't something already have happened? In spite of how ridiculous it seemed, he checked the truck over anyway. There was one small gouge in the front enger fenders paint, probably due to some debris flying up and hitting it, but other than that the truck seemed fine, and none the worse for the hurried trip. He pushed it from his mind as he walked away from the truck and back to the fire. Maria was stirring a stew like mixture, to keep it from burning on the hot coals. “I think it's ready,” she said as he approached the fire, and squatted down beside her. “Hungry?” she gave him a small spoonful to taste.

“Oh yeah,” he responded, and rubbed his stomach with one hand to show her it was true. He sat down close to the fire, and turned his thoughts away from the truck. Jack tried a tired smile on his face as he took a bowl of the stew. Maria sat down next to him, and they began to eat as the last traces of light seeped from the sky.

MARIA AWOKE A FEW HOURS before dawn and sat just outside the small tent, lost in thought. They had spent the last few days driving, stopping only when they had to. As a result they had put a lot of miles between themselves and the bad memories. She slowly became aware that the sky was beginning to color with the first rays of sunrise. The silent, night-black forest surrounding them began to color. A chatter of a multitude of squirrels who called the forest home came with the light. The croak of crickets, the light rustle of leaves in the faint, morning breeze. The bird song was absent, she thought. It made her wonder why, but the symphony created by the other forest inhabitants began to break apart her troubled thoughts as she listened, the black mood that had begun to descend upon her finally lifted as the first brilliant rays of sunlight began to stream down through the thick pines of the forest. They were somewhere inside the borders of what had once been New York. They had done nothing but drive the last few miles, and the side roads they were following had been clear enough to make good time. They had found and raided the roadside ruins of a small Mom-and-Pop place. The maps on the counter were for the Southern Tier. A few maps for the Western New York city of Rochester. They had yet to see any town or city signs, but she suspected that once they left the safety of the wooded area they were in they would. She rose slowly and began to re-kindle the fire. When Jack awoke a few minutes later, she had coffee heating, and had already prepared a small breakfast from the left over dinner of the night before. Lazy curls from the wood fire drifted slowly up through the trees into the morning air, the smoky scent hung in the air, and invoked nothing but good feelings in her. When Jack crawled out of the tent, the black mood that had threatened to envelop her was completely gone, and had been replaced with a deep feeling of peace that calmed and soothed her soul. She knew they would have to be careful on their trek to the coast, but she was no longer overpowered by the sense of foreboding that had washed over her earlier. “Morning,” Jack said, as he sat down next to her and took the steaming cup of coffee she offered, “Sleep okay?”

She considered her answer only briefly, “No,” she replied, “I woke up a couple of hours ago and couldn't get back to sleep. I kept thinking about things, Jack. Like what's ahead for us, and I couldn't shake the feeling that we have to be careful, but I shouldn't spend my time sweating this stuff,” she looked into his eyes as she finished speaking. “I know how you feel. I feel the same way,” Jack said, “I spent a long time thinking about it last night before I could finally get to sleep. I guess I just don't care anymore. We could drive ourselves crazy trying to reason it... whatever happened, happened, and we'll just face what we have to as we go,” he paused for a second. “I think truthfully that we'll be okay, I really do. If I didn't I would say so. We'll just keep going.” Jack finished speaking, and when he did he pulled Maria to him and held her. “Are you afraid?” he asked her. “No,” she replied, “not afraid of death anyhow, maybe just afraid of turning... I don't want that, Jack, I really don't,” she began to cry as she finished, and Jack held her, comforting her as best he could. I won't let that happen, he thought, not at all. Aloud he said, “Maria?” he waited until she looked up at him. “I think that we just have to be careful so that doesn't happen, you know, like if we just went ahead with no thought to what we were doing, we could find ourselves in a bad situation, or we might not be able to think quickly enough if something happened. But I don't, and can't believe that we will. Not if we're careful, Maria, and that's probably what we're being made to see.” He was looking over the top of her head as he spoke. “I think,” he said, changing the subject, “that those stitches need to come out... Might hurt a little.” She looked up at him from his arms. “Might?” She asked. The surrounding symphony continued as the rays of sunlight fought their way deeper into the forest to awaken its inhabitants; they held each other and allowed the chatter and scolding of squirrel-talk to dispel their fears. Its calming effect soon overcame the fear and apprehension thinking of the trip had heaped upon them. Jack worked with a pair of nail clippers, tweezers, and peroxide, pulling each piece of dental floss from her head.

“Put some iodine on it too,” Maria told him as he finished. “That's gonna hurt like a bitch,” Jack told her. “Really? Like a bitch?” Maria asked. “I didn't mean it exactly like that,” Jack told her. He let the dropper suck up some iodine and then squeezed small drops on each small hole that the dental floss had slipped out of. “Oh,” Maria said. “That does hurt like a bitch,” she gritted her teeth as Jack continued until each hole was done. A few minutes late he was done and Maria got up to walk it off. “The hard part is that I want to itch it,” she told him a few minutes later. Jack nodded his head and looked into the eyes of a small gray ground squirrel that sat watching them on a gnarled limb of an older nearby pine. Its tiny handlike limbs were clasped together across its white belly, and to Jack it seemed as though the squirrel were an old and wise man, sitting and watching them from his pine perch. The squirrel chattered briefly, adding its voice to the talk of the forest, and then scampered across the limb, into the upper reaches of the pine, out of sight.

THEY TRAVELED ON ACROSS the state for the next few days not seeing much of anything at all, and began to think they would see no one. It seemed like everyone they did see was intent on putting them in the ground or had already come out of the ground. Either way, their intent was the same, making them dead. So they went to traveling. The days just became a blur as they worked their way across the state and just outside the central New York city of Syracuse they picked up three people, and it changed a lot of what they were doing. They had stopped in a strip mall, a gun shop that didn't look completely pickedover, and Jack had jumped right out of the truck like nothing was wrong with the world at all. It was Maria who spotted the man first...

FOUR

Central New York The sight of the man broke the paralysis that had held them, and they both quickly took cover behind an old truck parked in the lot. Jack began to mentally berate himself for not hearing the sound of the running truck when he had gotten out of the Suburban. Stupid-Stupid-Stupid! He thought as he dropped to the ground and tried to crawl under the old truck. He couldn't get all the way under it, but he did get under it far enough to be able to look into the open doorway of the sporting goods store. What he could see of it was empty, but he could not see far enough into the gloom of the interior to see whether there was just the man Maria had seen, or others waiting with him in the shadowy store. “Hey!” a young sounding male voice called from within the store. “Don't shoot, okay? We don't want any trouble with you.” The voice let Jack and Maria know that there were at least two people in the store, and a few seconds later, they could hear the soft voice of a woman coming from the store as well. “We don't want trouble either,” Jack called back. From under the car he could see a jeans-clad pair of legs separate from the shadows, and cautiously walk toward the open doorway. “What do you think, Maria,” Jack whispered, “you believe 'em?” “Only one way to find out,” she replied, as she backed out from under the car and stood slowly. A young man was standing framed in the doorway, a shotgun resting in his hands. He saw her rise from behind the car, quickly followed by Jack. His shotgun remained in his hands, but he did not turn it in their direction, instead he seemed to be purposely holding it away from them, and they could both see that he was frightened. Jack and Maria both kept their guns turned away, but still they were on guard, as Maria spoke into the silence.

“Look, we really don't want any trouble either. We only stopped because we saw the truck running,” she lied. She thought it probably wouldn't be a good idea to let them know they had stopped for ammunition. “We haven't seen any... many,” she corrected herself, “people. We'll leave if it’s what you want,” she finished. The young man’s grip on the shotgun seemed to loosen as she had spoken, he seemed to be less fearful than he had been. “We haven't seen any good people,” the young man said, “but we have seen a lot of bad ones.” Maria and Jack both relaxed a small amount, and Jack spoke. “We've run into pretty some bad ones ourselves,” he said. He moved from behind the old truck and out into the open. “Can we talk?” he asked. He was careful to keep the machine gun pointed down as he had moved from behind the truck, and he forced himself to keep it pointed at the pavement as the young man seemed to consider what he had said. The young man had lifted his shotgun from the pavement as Jack had stepped from behind the old car, now he dropped it back toward the pavement, and answered. “Well, come on, I guess,” he replied. The other man they had seen initially and a young red haired woman stepped out of the shadowy interior as he finished speaking. They were both armed, but both kept their weapons pointed down at the pavement. Jack looked at Maria. “Well?” he asked. She nodded her head, and they walked slowly toward the front of the store. Once the two groups were facing each other, Maria spoke. “I'm Maria, and this is Jack,” she said, pointing at Jack. “Scott,” the older man said, stepping forward, “and this is Dave,” he said pointing at the dark haired young man, “and Amber.” He paused for a few seconds. “Might have over-reacted, but we haven't seen anything but bad the last few days. Thought you might be part of a group we ran into yesterday... It’s hard to tell who you can, or can't trust.” With that the man seemed to consider them briefly, and then set his rifle aside. The man’s fear, that had been so evident once Maria and Jack were standing face to face with him, seemed to melt away. Maria stuffed the machine pistol into her jeans, and Jack slung the rifle over his shoulder before he stuck out his hand. “Good to meet you,” Jack said, “I think we were beginning to think we wouldn't

meet anyone at all who wouldn't try to kill us.” Maria stuck out her hand as Jack finished speaking, and the young man and woman put their own weapons aside and stepped away from the sidewalk and shook the offered hands. “You from here?” Scott asked, as he also shook their hands. “Los Angeles,” Maria replied, “heading east, how about you?” “Texas,” Amber, the young woman said. Her accent was slight, Jack noticed. “We tried South... South is no good,” Jack said. He looked at Maria who nodded before he continued. “We could all make the trip together,” he offered, “It might be a lot safer that way?” Maria echoed the invitation. “See no reason not to,” Scott said slowly, as he turned his eyes to the couple beside him. “Amber, Dave?” “I'm for it,” Dave agreed. He had a slightly thicker accent, Maria noticed, well, maybe not an accent really, she told herself, he just talks somewhat slowly. “Me too,” Amber said, and a smile lit up her face as she spoke. “No lie. I've been pretty scared, and it'll be good to have more of us, I think.” “I lied,” Maria said, and then hastily continued, “We didn't stop because we saw you. We stopped because we need ammunition. We got ambushed, and... Well, we got out of it. I didn't mean to lie, I just wasn't sure we could trust you, and I didn't think it would be a good idea to tell you we were running low, not knowing if... you know...” she finished lamely. “Don't give it a thought,” Scott said, “can't say I blame you, in fact,” he said, as he reached for his shotgun, and opened the breech. “We did too, but there isn't any here. I hoped to scare you off, but the truth is that we're out of ammunition ourselves. If you had been bad, I guess we would've been screwed.” He finished by setting the empty shotgun against the door frame, resting butt down on the pavement. “You mean,” Jack said, “you're out completely?” Dave said, “I've been out since yesterday, and whatever was in this shop is gone.

Somebody cleaned it out.” Jack and Maria followed the others into the small shop. It took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust to the sparse light inside, but once they did they could see that the shop had been ransacked. Two large glass display cases that had probably held, who knew how many handguns, Jack thought, were empty. The glass fronts had been shattered into the cases. Racks that had once been likewise protected by lockable glass sliding doors had also been broken into, the thick glass that had once protected them lay inside, but the rifles they had protected were gone. Nothing had been left. The floors were strewn with empty boxes, wads of packing paper, and literature on several types of guns that had been discarded. The glass from the cases was everywhere, Jack saw. “Looks as though they didn't leave anything at all,” Jack said. “Told you,” Dave said, as he shook his head. “Somebody got here before us, and it looks as though they weren't about to leave anything behind,” he sighed. “You have any ammo at all?” Maria asked. “I do,” Amber answered, “I've got seven rounds for this 30.06, that's why... well, that's why I hung back when we saw you, you know. I could see you through the window, and... If I had too, I was going to shoot,” she seemed embarrassed as she spoke. “She's the best shot between the three of us,” Scott said. Dave turned red, but nodded his head. “Been anywhere else in this town?” Jack asked, “Maybe there's another sporting goods store around.” “Didn't have the time,” Scott said, “we got here only ten minutes or so before you did.” “Well,” Maria said, as she counted up what ammunition she had left for the machine pistol, “I've got one full clip of sixteen, and... Looks like two in this clip, and I'm done.” Jack had checked over what he had while she was speaking, “Looks like this one

is down to ten in the clip, but I've got better than a hundred rounds for the Remington in the truck, that should help us a little. We need to find a place to get our hands on more, especially for that machine pistol,” he gestured at Maria's weapon, “and this one,” he said holding up the machine gun they had taken from the kid who had tried to shoot Maria, “this is a...” he held the machine gun up so he could read the writing on the side, “Hey, Maria, this say's it'll take nine millimeter bullets like yours, let me see one,” he waited until she handed him one that she took out of the full clip, and then compared them side by side. “Yeah, same thing,” he said, “this doesn't have a brand name on it though, just says what sort of bullet it takes, everything else has been ground off, see,” he held the side of the machine gun up so that Maria could see it. “That's been converted,” she said, “and that's probably why they ground off the serial number, and most likely the model and make at the same time. That's been converted to full auto,” she finished. “It does explain something that has been bugging me though. When that guy popped up and let loose on me, I thought he was squeezing those rounds off pretty quick. You can buy that gun, or could, and you could even order the conversion kit, but if you got caught converting one or in possession of one that was converted, big trouble. I've seen a few in my neighborhood though...Just the same, and I'm glad that one fell into our hands, and not somebody else.” Jack turned the gun over in his hands; his appreciation for it was much greater than it had been. “So what is it?” he asked. “It's called a Sixteen-Nine on the street,” Maria said. “I don't know what it's really called,” Jack looked confused. “Sixteen for the clip,” she said, “and nine for the ammunition size. See?” she held up her own pistol, comparing the two side by side. “They're nearly identical, except for that long wire stock on yours. Makes it look more like a rifle. Mine's semi, that one's full.” “And we can swap back and forth on ammunition?” Jack asked. “Just on the ammunition,” Maria answered, “the clips won't fit.” “Well, with just sixteen bullets wouldn't it run out pretty quick?” “Not pretty quick, damn quick, like immediately. I think the attraction was speed, sixteen bullets in less than half a second. You can get a larger clip that will hold two hundred.”

Jack turned his head back to the other three who had been listening to Maria talk. They all seemed impressed. “I guess,” he said looking around the destroyed shop, “we better get going. Is that truck of yours in pretty good shape Scott?” “Junker,” Scott said, “it was nice when we left Dallas, but it's on its last leg for sure now. That's why I left it running; won't start if you don't, and to be honest, I been too damn scared to stop and get another.” “Well,” Jack said, “leave it. We got room in ours for all three of you.” Maria was staring around at the wrecked interior of the shop, it wasn't the damage that bothered her though, it was all the missing rifles, and guns. “Yeah, let's get out of here,” she said, “this place gives me the creeps, and I for one don't want to be here in case whoever took all of this...” she gestured at the empty shop, “...returns.” Everyone, Jack included, looked apprehensively around the empty shop. “Yeah, let’s go,” Jack said hastily, as he turned and walked out the door. They all scouted carefully around the parking lot, as they walked to the Suburban. Anyone could be hiding in this lot, Jack thought, as he looked around at the packed parking lot, anyone, anywhere. They reached the truck, Jack unlocked it, and they all climbed quickly inside. Several sighs of relief were released once Jack started the Suburban and drove from the lot. A half mile down the road, Scott spotted another store and Jack cautiously pulled into the lot to have a look. He was able to drive up close to the shop, without getting out of the truck. The glass store front, including the doors, were barred by a segmented aluminum pull down door, and the store looked as though no one had yet been in it. “What do you think?” Jack asked of no one in particular. “Don't look as though it's been broke into yet,” Dave replied, “gonna have to leave the truck to be sure,” he finished with an apprehensive shrug of his shoulders. Maria pulled the nearly spent clip from the machine pistol, and clicked home the full one. “Stay here, I'll go see,” she said, and she was out the enger door

before Jack could protest. Jack shut off the truck and got out. No way, he thought as he jumped from the truck. Scott looked from Dave to Amber. “I don't know about you, but they got the guns,” he said, as he opened one of the rear doors, and stepped out. He carried the empty shot gun with him as he went. Amber and Dave brought their guns out of the truck with them as well. Jack was staring through the segmented burglar door into the interior of the small shop, as Scott walked up. “What's it looking like, Jack?” he asked. Maria was back on the sidewalk, the machine pistol in her hands, sweeping the parking lot with her eyes, Amber and Dave beside her. “Looks like nobody got to it,” Jack said, “what do you think, Scott?” Scott squinted into the shop. “Hard to tell, but I think you're right, Jack, it looks good to me. But this door is gonna keep us out, just like it's kept out everyone before us.” “Uh-uh,” Jack said, “not me it isn't.” He turned face and walked back to the Suburban. “Look out, Scott,” he said, as he started the truck and cramped the wheel around to bring it up on the sidewalk. “Saw this on a cop show once, here goes...” Jack lined the truck up even with the front doors in back of the aluminum burglar door, backed up, and punched the gas pedal. The rear tires screeched briefly as the truck bumped up over the curb and hit the door. The truck ed through the aluminum door as if it were made of paper and barely tapped the inside glass doors before Jack locked up the brakes. The light tap on the doors was all it took to shatter the safety glass. Jack reversed the truck, and backed down off the sidewalk. He cramped the wheel once more, and shut off the truck, leaving it almost where it had been in the first place. He got out and looked over the front of the truck; there was not even a single scratch to show where the massive bumper had connected with the aluminum door and then the glass. He stood up from his examination of the bumper, and was surprised to see everyone staring at him.

“What?” he said. “I told you I saw it on a cop show once. Of course, I didn't know it would work so well,” he finished grinning. “He told me he was a farmer,” Maria said grinning. Amber laughed. “Well folks,” Jack said as waved his arm at the store, “looks like the store's open after all.” Scott said, “If I ever lock myself out of my house, I guess I won't be asking you for help, Jack,” he broke into a hearty laugh when he finished speaking, and within seconds they all found themselves laughing along. “Well, let’s go get that ammo,” Maria said laughing, and they all walked into the shop. They spent no more than an hour in the shop, before they had completely reoutfitted themselves. They were able to obtain new camping gear, ammunition, and three more of the nine mm machine pistols. They all reasoned they were much more effective than the old single-shot rifles, and shotguns that Scott's group had been carrying, and the fact that they would all now be able to use the same caliber ammunition was appealing. The shop had contained a great deal of pre-packaged freeze dried foods, and that had also found its way into the rear of the Suburban. Jack picked up a canvas strap for the machine gun, that allowed him to keep it suspended from one shoulder, yet easily accessible to him if he needed it. The machine pistols fit easily into leather shoulder holsters, and there were more than enough in the shop for everyone. Jack debated briefly, and then took one more of the machine pistols, along with one of the leather holsters as well. He had a vague, uneasy feeling about the weapons. He felt as if he had ed some weird sort of commando outfit, instead of belonging to a group who had been nothing more than average citizens just a few short weeks before. He pushed the thought away, and after adjusting the leather shoulder holster, slid the fully loaded machine pistol into it, and fastened the small chrome push-catch across the blued steel grip of the weapon. They loaded all the gear into the back of the Suburban, including every round of nine mm ammunition the store had in stock, which, Jack thought, amounted to enough to wage a small war with. After consulting the map they set out once more.

The Tug Hill Plateau Early Morning The camp was a makeshift place off an old logging trail. It was dry under the pines where they had set up camp, but the logging road had flooded over at some recent time in the past. The water had receded and left the road a quagmire of mud, steaming in the early morning sun. They had encountered no major obstacles on the way in. The road in was cracked in a few places, flooded in a few others, but only a few inches of water. They had come in, in a downpour, but the major stuff had held off until after they had arrived and settled in. Jack had made to set up his own tent and Maria had stopped him without a word. Her hand fell on his wrist, and before he knew it her mouth was on his, soft but insistent. She pulled back with a slight smile, as she walked away Jack wondered exactly what the change signaled. They set up a watch; with extra eyes it was not so bad. Maria took the late afternoon watch, Jack the first evening shift. The fire was low embers, the small encampment silent when he turned the watch over to Scott and headed for the tent; she met him on the way and led him away from the fire. She spread a sleeping bag on the damp ground and then took his hand and pulled him down as he stood, unsure of what to do. “Maria,” he breathed. “Just come with me... Stop thinking, Jack,” she told him. Her mouth found his and he stopped thinking. Her hands worked at his pants zipper and he found his own hands had already solved that problem as he pushed her jeans down past her knees. His mouth found the hard plane of her stomach a second later, and her hand began to stroke the hair at the base of his neck, pulling him closer as he planted little kisses up across her breasts, teasing her nipples, and then back down. “Please don't you take this the wrong way, Jack,” she breathed. “Don't you do it,” she whispered as she pulled him down to the ground. “Come down here with me...”

THE STARS WERE HARD diamond chips in the sky as they lay close together. Jack sat up and lit a cigarette. His heart was a slowing hammer in his chest. He rolled his own cigarettes, everybody did it seemed. There was still plenty of tobacco just lying around behind glass doors and in locked cabinets. Funny how stress made you pick up the poisons again. Gamblers did it, alcoholics did it. Smokers too, he guessed. He wondered briefly how many people had quit smoking to live, only to be killed by what had happened, or the dead, or circumstances from all the fall out. He laughed lightly. “What,” Maria asked. “Not really funny... Ironic, I guess... I was thinking millions of people quit this to live... They're all dead and here we are.” “Yeah, well, irony was never lost on life... Better give me one of those too,” she said. “This is bad stuff, you know. It'll kill you deader than a cockroach,” Jack told her. Cockroaches had not fared well in the rising of the dead and so it was joke among them if something wasn't doing well. The dead ate cockroaches like they were popcorn. Bad time to be a cockroach. “Dios, mios. I had not intended to live forever, Jack, now give me one of them damn things,” Maria told him. Jack ed her his own and then lit himself another. “My, God. There is nothing that feels like that,” Maria said as she drew the smoke into her lungs. “Reason it gets you,” Jack agreed. “Hey... I guess we made a little change,” he laughed a little. She looked up at him. “I hate to make decisions.” “Me either, but” Jack said. “Yeah... But not now. Let's let things settle out a little more. You are not going

anywhere are you?” “No,” he laughed lightly. “Of course not, Maria.” “Nunca te dejaré,” Maria said. “What does it mean, Maria?” Jack asked. “It means, I will never leave you.” Jack nodded. “I feel the same, Maria. I do.” “You better... I broke my own rules.” “You won't be sorry,” he stopped as she curled into his side and nuzzled his chest. “Your scent... Don't you find it is scent that gives you the most comfort? The most feeling of acceptance, belonging? Like, when I became used to you, your scent, I knew I had lost the battle, Jack. I knew it was over right then.” “But how do I win your heart, Maria. How do I do that?” Jack asked in a near whisper. “You just knock at the door, Jack... Knock.” Jack reached forward and tapped lightly on her chest with one fist. A single tear slipped across her cheek. “Tienes mi corazón... You have my heart.” “I didn't mean to make you cry, Maria,” Jack told her in a near whisper. “Stupido,” She told him. “It's for a good reason.” She buried her face in his chest. “Whatever this is I don't want to lose it either.” “You won't,” Jack told her. She looped one arm across his chest and pulled herself closer. “Better not.” He pulled her close with one arm and took a deep pull from his cigarette with his

free hand. The stars continued their slow journey across the blackness. He felt her breathing change a few moments later and he held her as she slept. The morning of the third day The last few days had bought rain, snow, and what felt like earthquakes or explosions far away. Heavy vibrations they could feel through the pine needle covered ground. No one was sure what they really were, but they were all worried about it. They had made up their minds late last night, when the rains had stopped to get out of the woods. The truck turned over and started fine. They had spent most of the sunrise checking it over, but they found nothing wrong with it. They should have no trouble driving out of the forest lands. “If we go, it should probably be soon,” Jack said. They had spent a great deal of the last few days wondering what was going on in the world. Twice on the first day a slow moving cargo plane had over flown them. They had seen no markings on the wings, but they had both been painted the olive drab of army equipment. They had heard the sound of it approaching early in the morning of the second day, but the engines had suddenly begun to sputter and cough, before it had come into sight the sounds of the motors had died away. A few seconds after that the northern horizon had erupted in a fireball. They had heard nothing more. The battery powered radio they had picked up back in Syracuse had stopped working. They had hoped for a news update, a lone broadcaster, anything. But it had been solid static across the dial until the batteries had gone. “It could have been that meteor... I think I read once that a near miss could be as bad as a direct hit. Mess things up the same as a nuclear bomb.” Scott shrugged. “But they said that would miss us completely,” Jack threw in. Dave nodded, “Maybe it didn't. Wouldn't be the first time they said something that turned out to be bullshit.” “What? You don't trust your own government,” Amber asked in mock surprise.

“Yeah... Well, either way we're back to sticking it out here or going into the closest city to see what's going on... Or somewhere else for that matter,” Jack threw out after a few moments of silence. “I say we go... Maybe the guard is there, or has been there.,” Amber said. “Can't hide out up here forever,” Dave agreed. “We'll run out of food... At the least we have to stock back up,” Scott added. Jack nodded. “We don't know how long this is going to be.” “Or if it still is,” Maria added. “There is that too,” Scott agreed. “At the least then we should go in and stock up. I mean if no one is there, we can stock up, come back here if it's bad and decide what to do... Get on with the old life if there is someone there,” Maria said. “Seems like we would have heard sirens... Trucks, another plane when that other one went down... Nothing,” Amber said. 'Might not be anyone else... Might have been the last one,” Dave said. “Hey, man. A little positivity wouldn't hurt,” Scott said. “Just saying is all,” Dave said. He wouldn't meet Scott's eyes and a few seconds later he walked away, making himself busy, checking over the truck. “Just a kid, Scott,” Jack said. “I know... I know... I'll fix it.” He walked off toward the truck. Jack could tell he was disappointed in himself. They were both back a few moments later seeming as though nothing had happened. “Okay,” Scott said. “Might as well get going...” “Who wants the front seat... Two,” Jack asked. “Probably the girls,” Dave said.

“Why is that,” Maria asked. “What?” Dave asked. “Why the girls,” She shook her head before he answered. “Well, I'm not a girl, I'm a woman. It was a rough road to become a woman, and I don't want to be called a girl.” “Hey... Peace. I didn't mean anything by it,” Dave said. The silence held for a few minutes. Jack laughed uneasily. “We need to get out of these woods... Getting a little stir crazy.” “Well, let's get this place picked up... ... Maybe we'll come back,” Scott said. “Maybe not. So bring what you want to keep, only make it a small amount,” Jack added. A half hour later Jack drove the Suburban down the logging road, sticking to four wheel drive and the sides of the road where he could. Twice he had to make everyone get out and push, and then take a run at a particularly bad section of road before they all climbed in once more. It was late morning before they found route 177. A short time later they found route 11 and headed toward the small city of Watertown. Watertown: Jack and Maria Late Afternoon The city was a mess. Buildings toppled, streets blocked off with debris, no power and no people out on the streets that they had seen. Against all odds the outskirts of the city seemed completely deserted. A small mall fronted the interstate exchanges. A home improvement store anchored one end of the mall, a big box store and dozens of other shops filled out the mall, the parking lots were all but empty. At least at first glance. The big box store was deserted, the doors barred, chained and locked. A little work with the tire iron from the Suburban freed up the chains and a nudge from the nose of the truck

shattered the heavy glass doors. Jack and Scott pulled the doors aside and Jack drove the truck inside, crunching over the safety glass which had fallen out in one large sheet. “Might be safer inside,” Dave said as Jack turned the truck around, narrowly missing one check out aisle and faced back toward the doors. “I think we're stuck here for the night,“ Jack said. Stock up, get whatever else we need in the morning and head out. Little gun shop across the street... Truck dealership over at the mall across the street... Should be easy to get what we need.” He levered the door handle and stepped down to the ground. “Company,” Dave said as Jack turned toward the opening. “Seven or eight... Came out of that strip mall entrance way across the strip,” Scott added. Jack turned to Maria. “Shotguns... Rifles in the sporting goods' area. I don't want them to see what we really have, or even use these unless we have to.” He lifted one of the machine pistols as he finished. She nodded as she and Amber sprinted toward the middle of the store. Company The small crowd of people was armed, Jack saw, long before they actually reached the wide street and crossed over into their parking lot. Behind him, in the store, he had heard the sound of breaking glass several times. Presumably Maria and Amber breaking open display cases. “Think they can see us in here?” he asked. “Probably too dark,” Scott answered as Maria and Amber came back with their arms loaded down with high powered rifles and shotguns. “Careful,” Maria said, her breath coming fast. “These are loaded.” A small line of blood ran away from one knuckle as she ed Jack a rifle that looked like it would be at home slung over any hunters shoulder. He looked her over. “Hang back with the machine pistols... Just in case.” She nodded. “You're hurt,” he finished.

Maria laughed. “Dios mio. Cálmate, te preocupas demasiado.” She smiled and pecked his cheek. “Just glass from a case... It's nothing. You worry too much about me.” “Not a girl,” Jack said “Or even close,” Maria agreed with a smile. She stepped close to the front of the entrance way, still deep in shadow, but just behind the shattered doors, and shrugged her machine pistol from her shoulder. There were a dozen of them when they came to a stop just thirty feet away from the doors. Women and kids, the old man and a younger guy hanging toward the back. The two men and three of the women were armed. “We know you're in there,” The lead man shouted out. He was an older man, short silver hair, thin, the ragged remains of a suit hanging from his shoulders. “We don't want trouble... Just company... Safety... The nights are pretty bad now. I guess you know.” He made to step forward again. “No... Right there is fine,” Maria said. “I told you, we come in peace.” The man said as she stepped from the shadows. Maria re-slung the rifle and picked up one of the heavy shotguns. Scott moved out with her and a second later Amber and Jack ed her. The man stopped, staring them down. Jack motioned to the rest to stay inside. “Every bad alien movie I ever saw started just exactly that way,” Maria said. “Is that what you think?” The man asked. “Aliens? Well, I'm no alien... I don't know what happened, but I don't think it was alien, or aliens, unless you count the meteor that might or might not have hit us. And I'm obviously not one of the gangs or I wouldn't be out here in the daylight talking to you.” The silence held a long time. “You hear me?” The older man said. “I heard you,” Maria agreed. “What do you mean one of the gangs? Not one of the gangs?”

The man laughed. A short hard laugh that had nothing to do with amusement at all. “Are you serious?” “If I wasn't serious I wouldn't have asked,” Maria told him. “But... Okay... Why can't we do this in there? Look at what I have here... A handful of scared mothers with a few children. The young guy at the back is okay. Why don't we do this in there. I don't like being out in the open. It's just the gangs we have to worry about.” He looked off in all directions as he talked. Maria looked over the group and then over at Jack. “Nothing we can't deal with,” Jack agreed. Her eye's met Amber's and then Scott's. They both nodded. “So you know, there are more of us inside. Don't be stupid.” “Wouldn't think of it,” The old man agreed. “Alan,” he said. Maria just nodded and motioned him forward. Early evening They were all gathered around a small fire that Scott had started for heat and light. The nights were still cold. Scott had built the fire in an empty fifty five gallon drum they had rolled out from the back. It the smoke detectors had still been working they would have had trouble, but as it was the smoke just gathered high up in the steel rafters and found its way to the outside from there. “What do you know,” Alan asked. “That might be a better place to start.” “Practically nothing,” Jack answered. “Earth quake... Meteor. Everything wrecked and no answers. We've been on our own since Los Angeles... No news... Met Scott, Amber and Dave just a few days back and they have been on their own too... Maybe know a little more than we do.” Alan nodded. “Okay,” He rested his head in his hands for a moment, and then looked up. His eyes were red; the bags under them bruised and heavy. “The second of August... It happened overnight, the first, the end of the first into the second. I don't know what it was, anymore than you do, but I suspect the meteor they said would miss us didn't. Maybe that started a whole chain of events. So, aliens? No. I think our own government did us in though. I can see your view too, because there is something alien about it. About the way we would view it,

the way you would view it. A few days later the planes came over. Big Cargo planes. Sprayed blue stuff over the entire city. We thought for sure we were done right then, but whatever that was it didn't kill us, didn't seem to do anything to us... But I wonder, I really do...” He seemed to zone out for a second. “Alan?” Scott asked quietly. He laughed. “Sorry. I need sleep. Sleep is what I need. Gangs,” he took a deep breath. “This city, most of the cities I've heard about on the CB are controlled by gangs now. They're out all night rounding us up, the other survivors...” He frowned heavily. “I'll be straight, not much use for other men... 'Less they think like them. Not much use for the children either. Women, gas, cash,” he laughed again. “They seem to think a day will come when it will all be worth something again.” “You don't?” Maria asked. “I don't,” Alan agreed. “I think somebody mucked up badly... I can't believe it was all an accident. Washington? Dead. L.A.? Dead. New York? Dead as well. There have been reports of the President being killed. In the end the Secret Service deserted her. The few that remained fled. The whole thing fell apart. And it's no better in other countries from what I have heard on the CB. Some of it could be exaggerated... Could be fear talking... But I don't think so. I think most of it is absolute truth. I think it all failed and we're on our own. That's what I think.” Maria looked over as Amber sprang to her feet and walked away into the darkness of the store. “I'll be back,” Maria said. She got up and followed. “I appreciate the truth, Alan,” Jack said. Alan nodded. “Upset us too. Nothing for it that I can see.” “Where are you from,” Jack asked. “Rochester... Haven't heard much from it except there is a glow to the west... Could be they still have power there.” “Hey inside!” This from the parking lot that was now edging quickly toward twilight.

“Shit,” Scott said. “Forgot all about that.” He jumped to his feet and headed to the opening, Jack right behind him. “Guess we'll have to post a guard or something,” Jack agreed. He stared out at two small groups that stood in the darkness looking around at the deepening shadows. Scott spoke. “What is it you want?” Scott asked. “What is it we want? Are you kidding me? We want in there, out of the cold, the night.” The guy was tall and dirty looking in the fading light, but Scott supposed they all looked a little rough. “Talking like that ain't gonna get you in here,” Scott told him. “In fact it will get you an invitation to hit the road.” A woman who was leading the second group, off to the right of the first group spoke up. “Look, man. We're all on edge right now. We just want to share your shelter. Manny is not so good with diplomacy.” “Manny?” Scott asked. She nodded to the other group, “Manuel... Manny.” “These groups ain't bad,” Alan said from beyond the doorway, hidden in the shadows. “You vouch for them?” Jack asked. “No... I won't go that far. I will say I have seen them around... They are not part of the gangs that are all over the place at night in the city. Not these two.” “Good enough for me... Ed? Scott? Anyone else got an objection?” “We'll just watch them kind of close,” Dave said.” “Okay... Well, somebody better go get Amber and Maria... Just to be safe.” He turned back to the parking lot and the two waiting groups. “Slow,” he called out. “Slow and keep those rifles pointed down.”

FIVE

Watertown: The Mall Jack and Maria Morning Amber had risen early to the smell of hot food. A few of the women had begun cooking sometime before dawn, and plates were filled with food. Stew, canned ham, powdered eggs and more. The store aisles were crammed with canned stuff. She looked over at Maria who was eating as fast as she was. “Pigs,” Maria agreed. She laughed. “I had no idea how hungry I was.” “Man oh man. Me either,” Amber agreed. “It is good,” Manny grinned from nearby. Amber gave him a smile and went back to eating. The conversation ebbed and swelled around them. What to do, where to go. They were now ten, a few of the others that had come in yesterday had left when the sun came up, a few others in the mall had made it clear they would not be going with them. Jack and Scott were talking to each other as they scooped some eggs onto paper plates and carried some plastic cups of coffee over to the fire and sat down. Maria met Jack's eyes with her own and he smiled back, and they both went back to their conversations. They had posted guards all night long, and although there were gunshots further away, and a few fires they could see burning back in the city, the night had ed uneventfully. Their small group had finally decided to go towards Rochester, New York. Alan had said that he felt it may be their best bet, due to the fact that there were no large military bases very close to it, and the lake levels would be low for a while, so there should be no flooding. “It's probably dead center of the two major fault lines, and it's further away from the Saint Lawrence,” he had ventured.

They had discussed Syracuse, which was much closer, but rejected it when Manny had pointed out that the Finger Lakes could easily flood the whole area. Scott had agreed, and related their own travels, crisscrossing the Finger Lakes. Amber had pointed out that Watertown had its own military base and reminded them of the new facility that had been under construction in the old caves under the city. More reason to wonder why the military wasn't here. “So, we are avoiding the military now?” Jack asked. “Makes sense,” Scott said... “We have seen them overfly us, but they have not offered help to us. It's like they know what they are fighting, and that says to me that they are not on our side at all... Maybe involved, in fact.” There is a base here/” Jack asked. “That whole complex is probably under water by now,” Dave opinioned. “But nobody here got any help from that base or the other big base close by... Manny said it was obvious they had flights coming out of there, but when some others tried to enter the base they threatened to shoot them.” “That true, Manny?” Jack asked. Manny nodded. Saw it myself, and there were bodies out there... By the gate... Only a few, and I didn't think much of it, there were bodies everywhere those first days before they started to turn, but after I wondered if they were shot because they refused to listen... To leave...” He frowned and then went to poking at his eggs with his plastic fork. He finally set the plate down on his lap. “I agree,” Ed, another of the ones who had come in the night before added. “Saw it.” Glenn said that he felt the facility was probably destroyed, and had gone on to explain his own belief that anyone in there was either dead or trapped permanently. “The Black river runs under most of the city, right through a series of old caves. I can't say for a fact, but I think what most likely would happen is that at least part of the cave system would collapse. They're done for, if they're there at all,”

he had said. “And, no. They didn't have nothing to offer us either. Closed up the tunnel entrances right off the bat... Never saw any of them after that.” “Seen a few military groups out in the city... Bad outfits... Like deserters... Bad as the gangs,” Lisa, another of the locals that had come in with Manny added quietly. “Then we aren't going to look for them to help us... We aren't going to look for them at all,” Jack said quietly. Scott nodded decisively as he finished speaking. In the end they had finally decided on Rochester, and they spent some time discussing how to get there. An hour later they were leaving the parking lot in three jeeps heading for Rochester. Maria was in the front driver’s seat with Amber beside her. The second Jeep, with Scott driving and Jan in the enger seat, Lilly in the back, pulled in behind them. Ed drove the last Jeep, with Dave riding beside him, A shotgun was resting between his knees. Gina in the back seat with her own rifle, a wire stock model that looked exactly like the one Jack himself carried. Terry on the other back window, a heavy shotgun resting between his legs, and two 45 caliber pistols on a wide belt at his waist. There were a few more hand guns scattered among them, Jack knew: He, Maria, Scott, Amber, a few others, but most had stuck to the assault rifles or shotguns. The rain that had been threatening once again began to fall hard as the small caravan pulled out of the parking lot, turned right on the crowded street, and began to weave through the dead traffic heading out Route 3. Mexico NY: Jack and Maria Late Afternoon “So, what do you think?” Jack asked Glenn. Jack, as well as Maria, stood facing the road along with Glenn and Alan: They both shrugged. The group had stopped just ten minutes before, when they had come to the turn off for Route 104 in the tiny town of Mexico, New York. The road was so bad in places that the Jeep vehicles bounced roughly over them no matter how slow they drove.

For nearly ten miles they had been reduced to a crawl as they crept slowly forward down the broken road, ing over the thick chunks of asphalt that tilted crazily into the air. In some places the drops from surface to surface was more than six inches. Nothing the vehicles couldn't handle, but the driving had turned into a slow crawl for long stretches. They had spent the previous two days bogged down just a few miles outside of Watertown. Torrential rains, thunder and lightning. They had spent two miserable nights in the Jeeps trying to get some sleep. They had started out early this morning with high hopes. In the last three days combined they had moved no more than forty miles, but the rain had finally stopped and they were hopeful. They had maps, but the roads and small villages were so torn up that it was hard to find landmarks that could tell them where they were. The occasional highway marker, Village Limits sign, even business signs that listed the name of the town or village, were nearly all they had to go by. By mid morning the rain was back and their spirits had plummeted. The trees had been winter brown three days ago when they left Watertown, but as they drove through the steady rain more and more green came into view. To the small group of people trying to negotiate the road it had sometimes felt like driving through a jungle. The road steamed where the asphalt had been warmed by the sun earlier in the morning before the rain had come back. The trees, seemingly bent on shedding their winter grays and browns and covering the landscape in green. They had finally stopped to move a fallen tree out of the roadway and then Glenn had wondered aloud if the road would get any worse. They had all stared at the overgrown landscape for a few moments longer, but there was no way to see what may lay ahead, and backtracking now was out of the question. After a short discussion they had returned to the Jeeps and once again set out on the cracked pavement toward the west. Noon, or what they judged to be noon, found them parked under the tilted remains of a gas pump island: The rain was back, beating on the steel s above them. The convenience store that had anchored the gas pumps was gone. Churned up earth marked the most likely spot. The air reeked of raw gasoline despite the rain.

Glenn was bent over a map which was spread across the hood of one of the Cherokees. The other two Jeeps were parked beside it, tailgates down as the rest of the group sat eating a lunch of cold, canned-meat sandwiches they had made. Jack and the others stood talking and studying the map. They sipped at warm sodas and ate, talking between mouthfuls. “This,” Glenn said, “leads straight into Rochester.” He pointed with one finger down the roadway as he spoke. “Of course...” he said, pausing to swallow, “there's no real way to know what shape it's in, or how much traffic we'll run into.” They had decided farther back not to take either of the turnoffs that could have shortened their trip, because of the traffic they contained. They seemed to have been more popular, and therefore much more heavily traveled. Both of the turnoffs had been built after the main route, and had been designed to by the larger towns and cities on the route offering a more direct route: Both had been blocked with large tractor-trailers, several of which had been involved in accidents. They had stopped momentarily to gaze at the scene, walking quietly through the twisted and blackened steel shells. They had expected to find bodies, but none of the trucks had any engers, dead or alive. They seemed to have been driven by no one at all, wrecked, and then abandoned. As far as they could see down the road they were now on, there was no traffic at all. The road on the other hand was buckled and twisted for as far as they could see so there would be little time that could be made up. A trip that would take three hours at the outside just a few days before looked as though it would now take three or four days. In fact the entire small town seemed to be completely deserted. They had met no one as yet, and had begun to wonder aloud to one another whether they were completely alone. It felt that way. It seemed as though everyone had simply decided to leave at the same time. Perhaps a mass exodus of some sort had occurred. Even so the feeling of being watched was pervasive. Creeping up on nearly everyone one, making them stop what they were doing, quickly lift their heads and look around, only to find no one there.

“It can't be any worse than the alternate routes we've stopped at,” Jack said, staring down the empty road. “No,” Glenn said, and then continued after taking a deep drink from the warm can of soda he held. “This tastes horrible,” he said, making a grimace. “Anyway, I would bet that we're going to hit some of that truck traffic again before we get to Oswego. The last alternate we ed, 104 B, comes back into 104 just before we get there, at...” he paused as one finger traced the route on the map, “...New Haven. Have you been there, Alan?” “It's the gas fumes,” Jack said. “Messes your taste buds up.” Glenn nodded. “Wide place in the road is all it is,” Alan replied, looking at the map as well. “Problem I'm concerned about is Oswego. Mighty damn close to the lake.” “True,” Glenn said, “but I don't think we have too much to worry about. It's a good twenty-seven feet above lake level, according to the map. I guess the big worry would be damage from the quake though. Road might be all busted to hell, maybe some buildings down, no way to tell 'till we get there, for sure anyway, but I think we ought to count on a tough time getting through there...” “...All that truck traffic will be back, and they do a lot of container shipments from the Oswego docks, mostly by train, but a good portion by truck, so that'll add even more traffic. It's also a college town, and even though most of the kids there would've been gone on break, they do run classes’ year around... Could be a lot of dead there right now.” “There's another problem too,” Alan said. “Although the map doesn't show it, there are two bridges that we have to cross... dead downtown too. I think one's a canal of some sort, and the other spans the Oswego River. You think the quake took them out?” he finished, looking at Glenn. “It's possible I suppose, but like I said, there's no real way to know till we get there,” Glenn replied, frowning. “What about a boat?” Maria asked. “No good,” Alan replied, “good idea, but the banks are too high. It might be

something to keep in mind though. If we have to we can take to the lake and skim around the roads. There are quite a few marinas all along 104, so if we had to go a way before we could get back in, it would at least get us back somewhere down the line, even if the water's still down.” “You think it is?” Jack asked, looking at Glenn. “Well, it was farther back. A lot depends on whether the locks in the Sea Way held or not...” “Hey!” Amber shouted. “Hey don't run off!” Jack looked over to see what she had yelled about, but she was standing on the edge of the protected pump area staring back down the road. He caught Maria's eye, but she only shrugged as she walked over to her. “Something?” Glenn asked. “Don't think so,” Jack said... “Maybe a mutt or something... Go on, Glenn.” “Okay, So... Oh yeah, the Locks, I don't imagine they could have all been down. I'm not positive, but I think it drops somewhere around twenty-two feet from the Atlantic to Ontario, and the levels of all the lakes are different too. Most people don't know that, unless you live up here of course. I'd bet though that they held, at least so far, or at least the ones that were closed: If not I think the lake level might have already started to rise again, unless... Well, could be like I said before. There could be a whole new river cutting through the middle of the country, and if so I wouldn't want to bet on anything.” Glenn drew a short breath and then continued after looking over to where Maria and Amber were talking. “I got side tracked with that damn fault line right after I read the article about it. You know, one of those things that sort of grabs your attention. Hell, until I read it I wasn't even aware we had any fault lines up here. You hear earthquake, you think California, not northern New York.” “But I thought you said you read about it in school?” Maria said as she walked back over. “No... What I said was you could read about it in school. I checked it out at the library. You know, I just couldn't believe it, and I learned a long time ago not to

always believe what you read in the paper, so I went to the library and asked,” Glenn said grinning. “Everything okay, Maria? With Amber?” “Oh, yeah... Thought she saw someone across the road in that wreck of a diner. Ran as soon as they saw her.” Maria shrugged. “We could go check it out,” Jack said. “If someone doesn't want to be found, goes through the trouble of avoiding us, maybe it's best to let them be,” Alan said. Glenn chuckled. “Library,” Jack prompted. Glenn nodded. “I am sorry,“ Alan said and smiled heartily. “Me too, Glenn,” Maria agreed. “Library,” Jack prompted again. Glenn laughed. “Okay, library; as it turned out I wasn't the only one interested in that fault line. I had to wait better than a week to get the book I wanted. It was worth the wait though. The book was written by a fellow name of Jack Frederick. Guess he was living somewhere up here at the time. I haven’t ever heard of him though. He told all about the fault line, and the locks. Got into a lot of boring shit, and used a lot of fancy words, but the gist of the whole thing was that he felt the thing was getting ready to go at any time. Course he wrote it back in the fifties, and I suppose when nothing happened right away people just forgot it. Till the article in the paper anyway...” “...He thought it was more likely to go before the big one ever hit California, and I guess writing that book was his way to call attention to it. I'm running at the mouth here, but bear with me and I'll try to get to the point. See, he thought the whole damn continent would crack right down the middle, with a hard enough quake. The newspaper article was aimed at that side of it too. He also thought that it would eventually drift apart, course that goes back to the theory that the continents are not finished moving yet. But he thought it would move pretty

quickly initially, leaving a huge gap more than three or four miles wide and running from north to south. If that's true then it'll probably be even worse through the middle states, as the land's all low to begin with.” “So,” Glenn continued, after a brief pause, “you'd have one hell of a big river, and then almost an inland sea in the middle of the country. In effect it would pretty much cut the country in half, I guess. Of course, who knows? Science ain't based entirely on fact like most people think it is. It's just a bunch of theories, and whoever gets the most people to believe their particular theory comes out on top, I guess. Thing is a lot of people forget it's just theory and start to believe everything they say. I in school being taught about dinosaurs and people living at the same time. Hard science,” he laughed. “This guy though, he did a lot of research on it, and I think the reason no one wanted to believe him was because it's a scary thing to think about. So I guess that's it. It still boils down to the same thing. Maybe, maybe not. We'll never know till we get there, and we ain't going to get there if I keep running my mouth, are we?” Glenn smiled, as he finished. “You do talk up a storm,” Jack agreed, “but at least it’s interesting stuff. I've read about it too, not to that extent, but I have to agree with a lot of what you said. Hell, I'm a skeptic. I rarely believe anything I read,” he laughed as he finished. “I think that's everyone,” Alan said. “You get bamboozled a few times and that's it. You think it's all garbage. And,” He chuckled a little, “The sad thing is a lot of it still is junk.” Maria nodded. Her eyes cut to Amber who was still watching the wrecked diner on the other side of the road. Shading her eyes to see better. “Seriously though,” Jack continued, the smile leaving his face. “I still don't know what the hell was going on in those caves back in Watertown, not entirely anyway, and it bugs the hell out of me. Makes me wonder if that had anything to do with this.” “Not likely,” Alan said. “If the damage was not so wide spread, say just localized, I would say hell yes, it probably did, but this thing is nationwide, so no. One secret whisper-the-name military base isn't gonna get my vote. I'd say this was a natural event. A meteor and a bad set of circumstances of where it hit at an active volcano site. We might find, once we get to Rochester that this thing

is confined to the U.S. Maybe Canada and Mexico, parts of South America, but it doesn't seem it could have affected Europe... Australia. We may be able to expect help from those countries.” “I would like to think that, Alan. I surely would, but I'll need to see it proved,” Glenn said. “Here,” Alan said, walking back from the rear of the Jeep. He held a warm sixpack of beer in his hand. “Stole this for us, to wash down the taste of that orange soda.” “Aren't you afraid we'll get pulled over for drinking and driving?” Jack said, smiling as he opened one of the cans. “Hell no,” Alan said, smiling back. “Of course I ain't the one driving, you are. Don't worry though; we'll post bail if you get arrested.” “Ha, Ha,” Jack said, as he climbed in behind the wheel of the Cherokee, “you'd probably let me sit there.” Lightening forked across the sky and Maria jumped. Amber laughed and put one hand on her arm. “Easy, Maria,” she told her. “I thought I was spooked.” “Why?” Maria asked. “The people that might be across the road?” “Yeah... It was really weird though... I thought,” she laughed, “Don't laugh at me. Well, the person sort of lurched across the doorway, like a horror movie Frankenstein or something.” She screwed her face up, but she wore no smile at all. “Yeah?” Maria asked. “Maybe it was just the rain... Or sniffing this gasoline, that will make you see things for sure.” “Yeah... Yeah, what I told myself. Just the way they moved... Maybe they were injured.” “Yeah... Probably were, Amber,” Maria agreed. “Could also be dead... Haven't seen many here, but we sure saw enough on the trip from L A.” “Funny though that they would run away if they were hurt.” Amber finished.

She climbed into the back seat. “Dead don't want you to see them... Find them.” Maria had also grabbed one of the warm beers and grimaced at the taste as she climbed in beside Jack, and said, “So, you going to keep this buggy? I mean this was supposed to be a short test drive, and I don't know how I'm going to explain the scratches to my boss.” Jack reached over and picked up the factory sticker from the floor boards where he had tossed it, after tearing it off the rear window back in Watertown. They had been playing this little game most of the day. After what had happened they were all attempting to lighten one another's moods, and it seemed to be working, at least most of the time, except with Ed. Ed had simply withdrawn into himself, and no one seemed to be able to draw him out. Jack let out a long whistle as he looked at the sticker price at the bottom. “I haven't made up my mind yet, lady, do you suppose your boss would mind if I kept it a while longer?” “No, I guess not,” she replied, “but you'll have to keep me along with it,” she finished, laughing. “Oh,” Amber said from the backseat and laughed. “Well, okay,” Jack said, playing along. “I guess that kind of makes the sticker price worth it. What did you say those payments would be?” They joked back and forth as they drove along the road, and Glenn and Alan ed in from the back seat. It helped to take their minds off their situation a great deal of the time. She seemed to have her wits together, and wasn't afraid to do whatever she had to, to protect herself and stay alive. That was all any of them could do, Jack thought, just try to get past it to whatever was in front of them. The whole group had begun to tighten up, he realized. The others had all gravitated towards Glenn, himself, Alan and Maria. They had discussed that. It had made Glenn especially nervous. While it was true he was used to taking charge, this was not the same thing as running a business, he had pointed out, and he wasn't so sure he liked it. He accepted it though, as did the others,

although it was a reluctant acceptance. Eventually the subject turned towards the more serious topic of Rochester, and what to expect when they got there. “I can't tell you everything about it,” Alan said, and then continued. “Most of what I know about it is a couple of years out of date anyway,” he said pausing. “Well, anything you know is more than we know now. For instance, when we get there what's the best way to get into the city? Or should we stay out of it?” Maria asked. “Well, it's a big city. I think we should go in, but I think we'll probably have to give up the Jeeps, due to traffic. The best thing to do would be to get off 104 when we get to Fairport.” “Fairport?” Glenn asked, looking at the map once more. “It's a long way around, sort of, but I think it might be the best way in. I think we have to get down in the city, at least at first anyway, just to see what there is. Like Glenn said, who knows? Could be that the police are still there, or at least someone in authority.” “Nice pipe dream,” Glenn returned. “You're probably right,” Alan answered, “but I would bet that glow we could see across the lake last night was Rochester, and if it was, that means the power is at least still on. They just gave the okay last year to Rochester Gas and Electric to fire up that new nuclear plant out in Livingston County.” “Where's that,” Jack asked. “Well, Rochester is in Monroe county, Livingston county starts out past Henrietta, which is a small suburb of Rochester. It's maybe fifteen miles or so away from the city itself, I guess. There was a lott'a bitching when they first proposed it, but it ended up being built anyway. Anyway, I'm starting to sound like Glenn now, I guess. The whole thing's computerized from top to bottom. Oh they have people working there, but they're only there in case something goes wrong, not to run the place. Even if something does go wrong, the computer shuts the whole thing down, not people. They supply electric for the entire city

with it, with some to spare. All the excess power that the place produces gets sold to New York City. They built a new plant to handle it downtown, on Broad Street. It's a way from the lake, so if that was Rochester we saw last night, the plant must still be up and running. That means there may still be some sort of control there, you know, police, or something, at least other people I would guess anyway...” ”...You know, I think I am becoming a Glenn clone. I guess I should get back to what I was saying before I started running at the mouth. Fairport looks like the best route in. We can get off at Webster and shoot across 250 straight into Fairport, and from there we have several routes to choose from. There are quite a few loops that surround the city, Can-of-Worms it's called. Most of the traffic would be there. They rebuilt the whole system just a few years back so it would be easier to get around the city. Almost all the old routes in and out were pretty much secondary after that, you know, really light traffic, but all of those routes in should be pretty well open.” Glenn traced the route on the map as Alan spoke. “Looks good to me too,” he said. “Looks like we can get pretty much anywhere on the east side of the city from there.” “We can,” Alan agreed, “but don't let that map fool you. It's not as straight forward as it appears. I think we'll head out on East Avenue from Fairport. Try that first, and see.” Glenn looked for East Avenue on the map, but couldn't find it. “Thirty-one,” Alan said. “Route 31?” Glenn asked. “Yes, straight out of Fairport. It's really East Avenue still to me, but I think they list it as Route 31 on the map,” Alan said. “Got it,” Glenn replied. “It doesn't go straight in anymore like the map shows,” Alan warned, “They changed it, but it goes far enough to hit Winton road.” “According to the map,” Glenn said, “it'll take us north or south, and that opens a lot of ways in to the city.”

“Sounds like a done deal,” Jack said, as he turned on the heater in the Jeep. “Hey,” Glenn said, “don't you feel a little guilty driving around in a stolen Jeep?” “Nope, If you're gonna steal something make it something nice, I always say,” Jack replied, with a smug look on his face. “Besides, it's getting colder out again, isn't it?” he asked, turning the conversation back to something more serious. “I mean I'm from Los Angeles of course, and you always know what it's going to be like there. Cold in the mornings, usually, this time of year. Hot all day long.” “It does stay cooler, or at least it did,” Glenn said. “It can get hot in the summers, maybe edge up to the eighties, even low nineties on very rare occasions, but not as high as it was earlier. I really gotta believe that there's another reason for it. It seems to be swinging back to cold again though. Of course it's right back to the friggin' scientists you know,” he continued, “only time will tell on that one, I guess. that Japanese island that had the quake about thirty, thirty five years ago?” Jack said. “Moved it, right?” “About six feet,” Alan said, “and that was just a quake, not a meteor blast. Who's to say what a large blast like that, coupled with a super quake, or whatever it was, would have caused? Or several large quakes, volcanoes for that matter? I don't pretend to know.” “I don't guess we'll be finding that out right away,” Maria said. “No... More wait and see,” Glenn said. “I'd sure like to get my hands on a com though, but who knows if a com could tell us much? Probably not anymore, I'd guess. Shit, where the hell can you find a good scientist when you need one?” Everyone laughed, breaking the tension that had been building, as it always did when the conversation turned serious. “Hey,” Jack said, as he thrust his open hand over the seat back, towards the rear. “You guys hogging all the beer back there? No wonder you're both starting to sound like a couple of fifth grade scientists.” Glenn laughed as he ed Jack another beer. “Your license,” he said. “Guy's?” Maria asked. She waited until they looked at her. “Well, I was wondering, if, well... When we get to Oswego, if we could stop and get some

clean clothes? I've been in these for two days now, and if there's no one there, in Oswego, I mean, I'd like to stop and get some clean ones.” Jack looked down at his dirty shirt; he could use some clean clothes too. And a shower wouldn't be bad either. Aloud, he said, “I vote yes, does anyone know where there's a shopping center, a mall?” “There are a couple just inside the city limits,” Alan said, “They should have just about anything you'd want.” “It would probably be a good idea to stop,” Glenn said. “It would give us all a chance to clean up too. Of course that's if there's running water.” “Even if there isn't,” Maria said, “there's the lake, right?” “True enough,” Glenn replied, “but we may not be able to get close to it. I'll hope for running water myself.” A chorus of 'Me too' greeted Glenn's last statement. Jack spread his fingers apart and looked from face to face. “Well, let's get this show on the road.” West of Mexico NY: Jack and Maria Early Evening Jack had been able to pick up speed once they had left Mexico. The pavement was fairly even, but after the first three or four miles the traffic began to block the highway and they were down to a slow crawl. He could go no faster than ten miles per hour. There were several blind hills, and curves, and abandoned cars and trucks that seemed to be in the least likely places. The four wheel drive had come in handy, as several times they had to go off the road and into a field, or someone's yard to get around it. As evening fell they drove partway up the side of a concrete bridge escarpment and set up a camp. They were protected by the trucks, sheltered under the bridge itself, yet high enough to see in all directions. The dead came for them not long after they had set up their small camp for the evening.

Maria was sitting next to the fire, helping some others prepare a small meal when the first of them sprang from the opposite side of the Jeeps where they had been hiding in the thick shadows. Maria had shrugged the fully automatic rifle she had been wearing off her back on a shoulder strap into her hands without thinking. Her fingers automatically brushed the safety off as she ran her index finger past the trigger guard. She watched in shock as three of the dead leapt from the shadows, clearing the hood of the Jeep they had been hiding behind and came down in a squat on the opposite side without ever touching it. Time seemed to drop from its normal speed to a slower speed all at once. She could see the muscles bunching in one zombies legs as her eyes swiveled and locked on Maria's own. The zombie seemed to scream, but no sound reached Maria's ears From the squat they had all launched themselves. Maria watched as one hit Amber and drove her to the ground. She was surprised to feel a heavy vibration from the rifle in her hands, and as her eyes came back to track the one that had launched itself at her she saw it disintegrating in mid-air. Even as she turned and tried to track the third zombie she felt a cold splash of fluid strike her face and she closed her eyes involuntarily as she finished her turning. Something heavy hit her and drove her sideways and backwards, but she managed to keep her feet as she bunched her thigh muscles and dove for the edge of the fire where Amber was wrestling with the one that had driven her to the ground. She could see her name forming on the edge of Amber's lips. She had not screamed it yet, but Maria knew she would scream it. A second later she was straddling the zombie's back, yanking her head back by her filthy, matted hair, and planting her knife squarely in the top of her skull. She had no idea when she had gone for her knife, but she was glad that she had. Amber's scream reached her ears long after she had rolled the zombie off her, down the concrete abutment and was settling herself back onto her feet. There was no time to check on Amber as she spun quickly and tried to take in the entire underpinnings of the bridge in one sweep of her eyes. She watched Jack swing a tree limb they had gathered for firewood and take another zombie's head off with it. Her eyes continued on. Two dead lay on the ground near Scott, that was it. Almost everyone had pushed back into the shadows of the overhang of the bridge abutment. Safe... They seemed safe to her. She heard herself draw in a deep panicked breath as she spun in the other

direction, eyes moving, and found nothing there at all. One hand came up and wiped at the mess that dripped and ran down the side of her face as she finished her breath and bent over to help Amber to her feet. She heard herself asking if she had been bitten, but her mind was elsewhere, looking at her shirt, her jeans, her exposed arm: Before she was done looking Scott and Jack were there by her side and time seemed to take a fast jump back into its regular framework. Conversation suddenly sped up and voices resumed a regular level where she heard them long before she understood them. Jack was looking in her eyes and it took a second to understand his words. They seemed to be spoken so fast. She understood at last. “No... No... Not mine,” she told him as Jack wiped the mess from the side of her face. Twenty minutes later they were all silently watching the flames leap from the fire. They had built it higher, the circle of light reaching farther, making them at least feel safer. The night was silent, but it had been silent before, Maria told herself. She let her eyes travel from person to person. No hysterics... No crying, weeping, cursing. It was like they had accepted it as their due in this new world. She wondered over her thoughts, realizing that she felt exactly the same. The fear of just a few weeks and a few thousand miles ed no longer held her. She walked back to the fire and once again began stirring the dinner pot.

SIX

NYS Route 104: Jack and Maria Late Afternoon By the time they reached the outskirts of Oswego the next day, they were ready to stop and rest. Alan pointed out a large shopping center on their left, and Jack pulled into the mostly empty parking lot and rolled up to the front doors of a large department store. “Thrifty Deal?” he asked Alan. “Chain store,” Alan replied. “You can find a little of everything.” The other two Jeeps pulled in behind them as they were getting out. Jack walked up to the front doors and tried to open them. “Locked,” he said. “That's okay,” Glenn smiled, reaching back into the Jeep. “I've got the key.” He handed the jack handle in his hand to Jack as he walked up to the glass doors. “Well,” Jack said, “I guess here goes.” He swung the jack handle at the door and the glass shattered into millions of green-tinted crystals that skittered across the pavement. “It's my first real crime,” Jack said, turning around with a large grin on his face. Just then a loud alarm began to whoop from within the store, and a split second later an even louder alarm, mounted in a steel box above the doors, began to bray into the quiet afternoon air. Jack, along with almost everyone else, had turned and began to run back towards the Jeep when it went off. The jack handle clattered to the pavement. “Holy shit,” he sputtered. Maria was doubled over laughing, leaning up against the Jeep for . Jack looked at her stupidly for a few seconds and then smiled. Most of the others began to laugh as well, breaking the tension the alarm had caused. “Y-Y-You,” she tried to say, but couldn't stop laughing. “I thought you were going to have a heart attack, Jack,” she said, once she had gained some control. She held her stomach and began to laugh again. Jack began to laugh himself,

along with everyone else. “Well... it frightened me at first,” he protested. He hadn't been the only one, he knew. Glenn's eyes had looked as though they were going to pop right out of his head, he recalled. He seemed to be all right now though. Glenn walked forward and picked up the tire iron from the pavement. Standing on tip toe he pried the metal box open. He hit the large siren inside with the jack handle, until it finally screeched and then quit. The other alarm inside was still going off. He disappeared into the store, and a few seconds later that one stopped too. Glenn came back outside and peered sheepishly at the small crowd, most of whom had finally stopped laughing. “If we're going to do this on a regular basis,” he said, “we better pick up some real burglar tools while we're here.” Everyone laughed again, but the laughter died down quickly, and once it had they all crunched across the glass and into the store. The power was off, it turned out. The alarm had been backed up by battery, and had apparently switched over automatically when the power went off. The mood changed once they had gotten into the store. Just the fact that no one did come when the alarm had gone off would have been enough, but the empty store had also contributed its share to their somber mood. It served as a reminder that they still had met no other people at all. They had traveled over seventy miles and seen no one, and it reinforced what had happened in all their minds. No cashiers at the empty checkouts, no police cars screaming into the parking lot to see who was breaking in, there was nobody, anywhere it seemed. They had gone together through the deserted aisles of the store, unwilling, or unable, to split up. Jack and Scott had visited the garden center while the others stayed together as a group. Scott had spotted what looked like a water tower as they had pulled into the lot, mounted on the roof. It may have rarely held more than a few hundred gallons of rain water at any given time, used to water the flowers and plants the garden center sold. Now it was overflowing, running down the moss covered concrete block wall. The wall was cracked. The tower had never been meant to be over filled and the weight was taking a toll on the wall and the roof beneath the tank. The ceiling below where the tank mounted had caved in, but the steel girders that held the roof looked strong enough.

A little work had located the thick hose that brought the water down from the tank. A little more work and some duct tape had grafted a shower head to the hose end and fastened it to an over head beam. Jack, his hair still wet from the cold shower; dressed in a faded pair of jeans and a blue chambray work shirt, leaned up against the wall outside the garden center with the other men, and waited for the women to come back out. They talked quietly among themselves as they waited. “You think Rochester will be the same as here?” Dave asked. He had seemed especially shaken by the alarm in the parking lot, and still seemed shook up over it. Terry stood silently next to Glenn, tapping the heel of one work boot against the cinder block wall. “It does sort of seem like everyone is gone,” he said, as he stopped tapping the boot heel and straightened up. “Could be,” Glenn said, solemnly. “It really could be, but I don't think so. I think there are probably people right here in Oswego. They're scared, is all. I can't say as I blame them either, they don't know anymore about what's going on than we do. Even if they saw us come in, I don't think they're about to come running up to say howdy. I wouldn't,” he paused, before continuing. “If I saw a bunch of people come driving in, I'd probably want to stay away. No police means there's no protection, and they don't know who we are, or even where we came from, or what we want for that matter. I think though, that there are people. Maybe it's just going to take some time before we all get back together. I just can't believe we're it, I guess.” “I have to agree with you, Glenn,” Alan said. “If we were to stay here a while, I would bet we would probably see someone. The curiosity would bring them out, I think.” “I agree,” Jack said. “I was none too keen when you guy's approached us back in Watertown either. I thought about ignoring you, as a matter of fact.” “Glad you didn't, Jack,” Glenn said. The other men nodded agreement as he spoke. “I can see though where a body wouldn't want to: Especially since we were carrying guns, or rifles, at that point. I am glad you did though.” “Think we'll make Rochester tomorrow?” Dave, asked, as Gina and Jan came

walking out of the garden center. “It's not far, only about another sixty miles,” Alan answered, “but I doubt it. We will probably get there late tomorrow or the next day sometime, depending on the stalled traffic of course.” He seemed to consider for a second. “Maybe longer. The stalled traffic is even heavier and it might be ten times worse than this once we get closer. I mean they may have also taken to the secondary roads, so there may not be any real way to get there in one straight shot anymore.” “That's about what I figure,” Glenn chipped in, “at least a few days.” Maria and Amber walked out, and the small group prepared to make a meal and settle down for the night. Everyone, at Glenn's suggestion, had changed into sneakers or boots in case they ended up walking. They had taken the time to pick up extra clothes, as well as some more canned goods to replace what they had eaten, and Jack had found some Quick Cold in one of the side aisles. Quick Cold had only become popular in the last couple of years as a retail item. Before that it had only been used by the medical profession, to transport anything that needed to stay cold, or frozen. Organs for transplant, fresh blood, and countless other things. The plastic bags contained a small stick shaped tube. Jack had filled three large coolers with soda and beer, and tossed in several of the bags after snapping the small cylinder within, to activate the chemical the bags contained. They had instantly frosted up and began to cool the warm cans. A few minutes later they rolled the trucks inside the store and built a fire for the night. Jack took the first shift of guard duty with Scott, just inside the main entrance. Oswego NY: Jack and Maria Late Morning They spent the morning scouring the store for useful items. After they had loaded the Jeeps, they had left the abandoned shopping center and began to work their way through the seemingly empty city, when they reached the first bridge they were forced to stop. The bridge was still standing, that was not the problem. The problem was that it

was packed bumper to bumper with wrecked and burned out cars and trucks. A large city bus also sat within the wreckage. Dave and Jack scrambled over the cars to see what had caused the huge accident. At first, it seemed that the wreckage went on forever. But as they neared the second bridge the problem became apparent. The bridge, or more properly put, the twisted steel girders and huge chunks of concrete that had been the bridge, lay at the bottom of a deep gorge, partially submerged in the water. Reluctantly they scrambled back over the cars to tell the others that were waiting. “Think we could move them?” Alan asked, as Jack and Dave returned. “I saw a wrecker back up the highway a bit; we could go back and get it.” “Wouldn't do any good,” Jack said, his voice somber. “The second bridge is nearly gone. Even if it weren't, I don't see this one standing much longer either. We took a look at the underside from the other bridge, and a couple of the pilings are cracked pretty badly. I wouldn't trust it. There is another bridge though, looks like only a couple of blocks over. It's still up, but I can't tell from here whether it has traffic on it, the sides are enclosed.” “Which way, Jack?” Glenn asked. “Looked like down a little way,” Jack said, pointing back the way they had come. “Take the next right, and it should be only a couple of blocks away.” “Well,” Maria said, trying to sound positive, “let’s go find out.” They piled back into the Jeeps, and after some careful maneuvering, managed to turn them around and head back the way they had come. Jack made the next right and started down the street, while Glenn and Alan, as well as Maria, watched for a bridge on the side streets that bisected the one they were on. Jack had just slowed to cross a set of rail road tracks, when Maria suddenly yelled out. “There!” she shouted, pointing down the tracks. Jack looked in the direction she had pointed, which happened to be down the tracks.

“Shit, that figures,” he said, “a rail road trestle.” The trestle was a newer one, and the sides were enclosed steel with concrete reinforcements. Probably why I didn't realize it was a train trestle, he thought, and then said aloud. “Well that blows that, but there ought to be other bridges. This can't be the only one.” “Actually,” Glenn said, from behind him, “it ain't necessarily bad news.” “What do you mean?” Jack said, staring back down the tracks at the bridge. “Well, just what I said. It's still a bridge ain't it? It's not a rickety old wooden one either, solid steel and concrete, it'll hold us, and it does cross the river right?” Jack looked at the bridge doubtfully. “I suppose so, but... You think we could fit across it?” “I've seen cars and trucks both on trains,” Maria exclaimed, “they would have to fit, or else how could they carry them on the trains without smashing the hell out of them?” “Good point,” Glenn said, “how about you park this buggy, Jack, and we go take a look at the bridge.” The other two Jeeps parked, and all of them walked off down the tracks to look the bridge over. The concrete ties, and the tracks that lay upon them, were well ed. Heavy steel girders ran the length of the bridge, and were ed by massive concrete pilings sunk into the river bed far below. Jack peered down through the ties at the concrete. It was cracked in a few places, but all the pilings seemed still to be firmly anchored in the river bed. “Do you really think it would hold us?” he asked. “If it will hold a train, Jack, it will hold us,” Glenn replied. “I mean the cracks, wise ass,” Jack said. “The pilings are cracked. They seem to still be solid, but... I don't know,” he finished lamely. “Tell you what. You drive one, and Alan and I will drive the other two.

Everybody else can walk across. I'll go first even. If it looks the least bit shaky we call it off, and search for something else, okay?” Glenn argued. Jack thought for a moment before he replied. It might be a good idea after all. Where else were they likely to find a bridge that wasn't blocked off with traffic? The bridge did seem solid, and it couldn't hurt to try he supposed. “Okay, but I'll start out. You watch, and you damn well better let me know real quick if she starts to go. I'll be pretty pissed if you dump me and my new truck in the river,” Jack finished, smiling widely. “Wouldn't think of it,” Glenn said, solemnly. “See you on the other side,” Maria said, and before Jack could reply she quickly kissed him. “For luck,” she said, a bit breathless. She turned and along with the others started walking across the bridge. Jack watched her go. The kiss had taken him by surprise. “Ah, Jack,” Glenn said grinning, “better close your mouth before the bugs start flying in.” Jack closed his mouth with a snap, and looking a bit embarrassed, walked off towards the Jeep. Alan threw Glenn a wink, and they both walked out onto the bridge to wait. Jack started the Jeep, backed around, and drove slowly over the ties towards the bridge, straddling the rails as he went, and he was still thinking of the kiss as he edged slowly out onto the bridge. He looked across and saw Maria waving from the other side. He waved back and then brought his attention back to the truck. “How's she look, Glenn,” he asked out the open window, as he inched cautiously out onto the trestle. “You might scratch the paint a little, but the deck didn't budge a bit when you eased on to her,” Glenn replied. “I don't think they brought too many autocarriers across this deck though, more like freight cars. You only got a couple of inches on either side.” “Well here goes nothing,” he muttered under his breath as he moved further out onto the bridge. “Still okay?” he asked.

“Good as gold,” Glenn replied. Jack was not entirely blocking the bridge, and Glenn and Alan squeezed by on one side of the truck. “We'll be behind you,” Glenn said, as he paused at Jack's window. “I'll wait until you're off, and Alan will wait until I'm off.” Glenn looked at both men as they nodded their heads. “Let’s do it,” Jack said. He eased off the gas and let the Jeep idle its way across the bridge, bumping over the concrete ties as it went. When he reached the other side he angled off the tracks, parked, and walked back to the bridge. He stood quietly beside Maria and watched until the other two Jeeps were across. Early Afternoon Once they were back on the main road again, it was late afternoon, and by the time they finally reached the other side of Oswego, they had all agreed to stop for the day. They entered the small town of Martville, and pulled into a large field. They made a half-way decent meal out of the canned goods they carried with them, and once they tired of rehashing the day’s events, one by one they went off to find a place to sleep. They had sleeping bags, and rather than set up the tents they had also brought with them, they all agreed they would rather use the bags. Jack watched as Terry walked off in one direction with Gina. Obviously something had sparked with those two, he thought. He sat talking quietly with Glenn and Alan, as well as Maria. When he finally said his goodnights a few hours later, Maria got up, and saying goodnight, walked away with him. While Jack waited for sleep to come, he found that instead of thinking of all the bad things that had happened, he was thinking of Maria, and all the good things that could happen. Route 104: Jack and Maria Early Morning The next morning they were on the road early. The going was still slow, but by noon they were on the outskirts of Alton, a small town about forty miles from Rochester. They were only thirty or so miles from Webster where they would

turn off 104, and take route 250 into the small village of Fairport. As they had traveled the last leg of their trip a few others had decided to come with them, the little caravan was growing, and they all felt safer with the larger numbers. A run-down general store, with two old gas pumps sitting on a chipped concrete island, was all that marked the small town. The low speeds and constant use of the four wheel drive, had taken a toll on the fuel tanks of all three vehicles, so when Jack had spotted the small store as they ed a sign for the township limits; they had pulled off into the dirt parking area. The others followed him in and lined up by the pumps. When Maria and Terry, along with Gina, had first picked up the jeeps, they had filled the tanks by siphoning gas from the dealership's underground tanks. It had been a fairly easy process as Terry had worked at a gas station before, and had been responsible for, among other things, checking the levels of the tanks and comparing them on a daily basis to the numbers on the pumps to make sure they matched up. He had known where to look for them. The tanks were fairly simple to access. A long piece of hose slipped down into the tank had been adequate to siphon the gas into cans and then fill the Jeeps. Terry had found a hand operated pump, mainly used to pump kerosene from cans into small heaters, at the department store back in Oswego, and along with Dave had adapted the crank operated pump to use it to pump gasoline. The adaptation had been simple. A long section of heavy hose had been slipped over the pumps short tube, and held in place with a small hose clamp. One by one the others were pulled over next to the underground tanks, and quickly filled. Maria had been impressed with the idea. It was a lot better than the mouthfuls of gas they had swallowed filling the Jeeps back in Watertown. After the vehicles were gassed up they decided to take a short break and eat lunch. They were all getting sick of the canned meat, so they foraged through the small general store to see what was available. Once each had found what they wanted, they had carried it out onto the wide front deck to eat. Jack sipped at a cold beer while he sat in an old wooden chair eating a large bag of chips. Glenn and Alan were talking quietly beside him. “Where do you think the best place to go is?” Glenn asked of Alan. They had been discussing several places where people may have gathered. They were all

hoping to find other people once they arrived in Rochester, but until now they had not discussed where to go once they arrived. Alan answered. “Well, the com is open. I think it would be a good idea to stay away from the North side though. The whole area has been run down for years, and I'm not so sure we'd want to meet anyone who was still alive in there.” “That bad, huh?” Jack asked. “Actually, more than that bad,” he replied. “When I was still living there, and still on the City Council, I we had constant problems there. The city was always being accused of not caring much about the north side, and to be honest it was based in fact to a certain extent. The city and the council, me included I hate to it, did let it run down pretty much. Trouble was, when we tried to retake the neighborhoods we couldn't.” “Why?” Glenn asked. “Didn't you have from the neighborhoods?” “Not really,” Alan said. “Don't get me wrong. There were still a lot of good people trying to live there, but by the time the city stepped in, drugs had pretty much taken over. It got so the police couldn't even go in there after dark. The drug dealers knew it and used it to their advantage. After a while... well, the good people who had tried to change things just left. The last time I was there it was pretty bad. We, myself, and two other board , decided to take a tour through some neighborhoods ourselves, to see just how bad it had gotten. We had to have a police escort, and even then we ended up seeing only a small part. Most of the neighborhoods were full of drug houses, prostitution, burned out buildings. I'll tell you, truthfully, it scared me. That was one of the reasons I didn't run again and ended up moving to Watertown.” “A lot of parts of Watertown were like that too,” Dave said. “I got to the point where I really had begun to hate the place.” “I know exactly what you mean,” Alan said. “Don't get me wrong. I'm not glad that this happened, but... who knows how much worse things would have gotten? At least now there's a chance to start over again, maybe.” “You know what really got to me?” Glenn asked. Both men looked at him waiting for him to speak.

“You know where Mobile Alabama is?” they both nodded. “Well, I was down there a few years back to see a buddy of mine I was in the Navy with. We were always telling each other we were going to get together and finally we did. So we were driving down Airport Boulevard, kind'a the main street so to speak, and I was, you know, sort of looking around out the window. Sightseeing, I guess you could say. Anyway, I see this young girl standing in the middle of the island that splits the lanes holding a sign. I figured it was one of those 'Will work for food' signs, but as we got closer I saw it wasn't. I could also see she was pregnant, couldn't have been more than sixteen or so. I asked my friend to slow down so I could read the sign. I couldn't believe it.” “Well, what did it say?” Alan asked. “Well, it was misspelled, you know, but it said, 'I'm pregnant and abandoned, please help me.' I couldn't believe it, so I asked my buddy to turn around and go back, but by the time he did she was gone. I couldn't believe that things had come to that.” “That's bad all right,” Jack said. “I've seen the other signs, the food signs, but I've never seen one like that.” “I haven't either,” Alan said, “but I can't say it surprises me a lot.” “Well,” Glenn continued, “that wasn't the end of it, two days later I picked up the paper and there was an article about her in it. I guess I wasn't the only one who had seen her. The police had picked her up earlier, and told her not to stand there with that sign. That was in the morning, and it was afternoon when I went by, so she must have come back. Quite a few people had seen her back there in the afternoon, according to the paper. Well, the thing is that somebody did stop and pick her up, but not to help her. They found her body in the bay the next morning. If they hadn't picked her up the day before, they probably wouldn't have known who she was, but they did, I guess. The story said they had fingerprinted her, and taken pictures too. I guess they arrested her, ain't that a slap in the face? Anyhow, that's how they identified the body... I've always wondered about it. Who would just abandon her in the first place? I mean, being pregnant and homeless? I've always felt that I should have convinced my buddy to stop right there, to hell with the traffic, just stop and pick her up...” “...So, I've gotten pretty sick of the world myself. It never seemed to stop, and it

seemed that people kept coming up with more ways to be cruel. To tell the truth, I'm glad it's mostly gone, I hated it that much.” When Glenn finished they were all silent for a few minutes. Jack thought about the food signs. How many times had he seen them? Countless, he guessed, but he had never stopped. He had been, well, sort of afraid to. “I think we all made our share of mistakes,” Jack said. “I know I did. I wish I hadn't, but I did. I guess maybe things are better, in a way,” Jack finished his beer, got up, and retrieved three cold ones from the cooler in the Jeep. He handed one to each of the men before he sat back down in the chair. “So,” Alan said, easing back into the conversation of where to go once they arrived in Rochester. “North side is out I think, there's no way I'd want to go back in there, especially now. East side is mostly old mansions; East Avenue, Park Avenue. West is made up of mostly poor neighborhoods and shopping centers, and farther out small business. South side is a mix, some places are as bad as the North side, and others are as nice as the east side. Farther out though, it's all malls and big discount stores. I'd say downtown would be a good place to start looking.” “Why?” Glenn asked. “Just a hunch, I guess,” he replied. “But where did you go after it happened?” “I see your point,” Glenn said. Downtown, Glenn thought, was the first place he had thought of going. It made sense to him that it should be the first place to at least check. “We'll have to walk, at least I'm pretty sure we will,” Alan said. “I believe you,” Jack agreed. “A city that size has a lot of traffic I suppose.” “Unbelievable,” Alan said. “An awful lot of it ends up on the Can-of-Worms, but its heavy downtown too. There are still a lot of small companies down there, so I'm fairly certain we'll have to walk down. We should be able to get within a block or two of the War Memorial though, and that's dead downtown. City Hall is across from that, and if there are people, that's where they should be. Of

course the only real way to find out is to get there and see.” The small caravan pulled back out onto the highway and continued on a few minutes later. Long before they reached Webster the stalled traffic began to back up, and they lost a great deal of time winding their way through it, or where that was not possible, pulling into the center traffic divider to get around it. Even the center divider, a narrow, sloped grassy area double the width of the two lane highway, began to fill up with stalled vehicles, and several times they were forced to get around some other way. Fortunately the areas along the highway were crowded with small restaurants, shopping malls, and gas stations; the closer they got to Rochester. And they all had feeder roads. Roads that were mostly empty now. The parking lots were fairly empty, and they managed to get around the stalled traffic that way. When they reached Webster it was nearly 6:00 PM, and a light rain had begun to fall. The exit and entrance ramps were packed solid with cars, and imable: As a consequence they were forced to drive the Jeeps down the side of the steep escarpment to the road below. Some cars appeared to have either been trying to enter or exit using the wrong ramps, and the results had been catastrophic. Most of the cars were crushed and blackened shells. A large gasoline tanker sat amid the wreckage. The tanker had apparently tried to exit the entrance ramp and had crashed and burned. It looked as though gas, from the ruptured tanker, had spread the flames under the entire bridge, and everything had caught. Jack supposed that several of the cars gas tanks had probably exploded too, helping to fuel the inferno. Once they had negotiated the steep and muddy embankment and driven out of Webster the stalled traffic eased up. “Most likely everyone stuck to the main routes,” Alan said. “I'd hate to see what the Thruway looks like though, it's probably packed tighter than a drum.” The others nodded agreement. Even though the stalled traffic had lessened, they were still forced to detour off the road several times to avoid accidents or vehicles that seemed to have been

abandoned in the middle of the road. It was well after 8:00 PM when they reached the four corners in the small village of Fairport, and the sky was beginning to darken. The rain was coming down harder. Jack angled the Jeep into a deserted gas station and they all ran toward the door which had been left propped open, thankful they were out of the rain. They were no sooner inside than the rain began to pelt the tarmac outside in great sheets. The sky darkened rapidly, and a stiff wind kicked up, blowing the trash that littered the streets through the air. Jack was staring out the wide glass window when suddenly the street lights began to glow. Within a few minutes they were all glowing brightly, illuminating the wind driven sheets of rain. Maria walked over and flicked on a switch next to the door, and bright fluorescent lights buzzed to life overhead. She clicked on several of the other switches next to the first one, and the outside sign, along with the pump islands lit up. “Looks like you were right, Glenn,” Jack said. Glenn, grinning, blew lightly on his finger tips and rubbed them on his shirt. “Elementary, my dear Watson,” he said, still grinning. He was still grinning a few seconds later, when Lilly began to point out the window and screamed excitedly. “Look!” she exclaimed, “a truck, people!” Everyone quickly crowded toward the windows to look out. An older Chevy sat at the curb idling, its wipers throwing great sheets of water from the windshield. The darkened side windows gleamed, reflecting back the bright glare of the station lights. Lilly and several of the others were waving through the glass in an attempt to get the drivers' attention. “Looks like a Suburban... Where did it come from?” Jack asked, puzzled. “I don't know,” she replied. “I turned around and there it was. Aren't they going to come in?” “Maybe they're afraid,” Maria said, shrugging her shoulders. “They must see

us.” Everyone stood silently for a few seconds staring out at the Suburban. It still sat at the curb, and it appeared to Maria that the person or people inside it were not going to come in. Just as she had the thought the car reversed and began to slowly back up towards the entrance to the station. When it reached the station entrance, it pulled slowly up onto the edge of the pavement and stopped. “What are they doing,” Terry asked, sounding slightly afraid. Everyone else turned towards Jack expecting that he might be able to answer the question. “I don't know,” Jack said. “Could be they're afraid, like Maria said.” “Might be better to flick off the inside lights,” Glenn said, in a low tone of voice. “It doesn’t look as though they intend to say hello.” He peered out at the truck. Maria reached over and flicked off the inside lights. Almost immediately the Suburban's headlights came on and it pulled ahead slightly, angling the beams into the station interior. The lights flicked up to high beams, flooding the interior in harsh bright light. Almost as soon as the lights had flicked up, the two front doors opened and two shadowed figures stepped out into the rain. The headlights were blinding. “Listen, man,” One of the figures shouted in a deep voice. “You ain't welcome here. You come into the city and you will get fucked up.” Silence held, rain drummed against the steel roof. The figures got back into the truck. The headlights winked out. Tiny spots floated in front of Jack’s eyes and he quickly blinked them away. The truck was backing slowly into the road, away from the station. “What in hell are they doing?” Dave asked, looking at Glenn. “What the hell was that all about?” he asked again. Glenn shrugged. “I guess we've been warned... I didn't much like it, I can tell

you.” “I didn't much like that either,” Jack said as he looked over at Dave. Glenn stood beside him, his eyes locked on the car. Once the Suburban reached the roadway it pulled slowly up to the stop sign at Route 250 and once again sat idling, its lights still off. Jack tried squinting his eyes tighter, to see into the darkened side windows, but they were pitch black, like a limousine, he thought. “What should we do,” Gina asked? Jack looked at her, and it was obvious she was frightened. In fact, he noticed, everyone, himself included, seemed frightened. Terry was the only one carrying a shotgun in the station and Jack noticed it. “Terry, give me that,” he said motioning at the shotgun. He shifted his machine pistol more fully onto his back. It would probably be a better weapon for killing, but he hoped to scare them with the shotgun instead. “Be careful, Jack,” Glenn said, “No telling what they're up to. I don't know if it's wise to go out there.” “Don't!” Maria said, turning to face Jack. She seemed on the verge of panic. “Don't worry,” he said. “I only want to show them we're armed... maybe they'll take off. Think they're armed, Glenn?” Jack asked. “I don't know, but who knows how friggin' long they were sitting out there watching us, if they'd wanted to shoot us they could have easily. The lights in here probably lit us up like a damn Christmas tree,” Glenn stated. “I ain't so sure you should be going alone if you're going out there though. I'm going too.” Terry and Dave followed them out the door. The four men advanced slowly toward the truck in the pouring rain. The Suburban stayed put, its engine softly idling, and curls of white exhaust floating up through the sheets of rain. They stopped about ten feet from the still idling truck, and Jack stepped to the front of the small group with the rifle clutched in both hands. He didn't want to seem too threatening, but he wanted them to see the rifle.

“Hey, you in the truck!” He shouted above the deafening roar of the rain. The taillights flashed briefly as if in answer, and a cold chill crept up Jack’s spine. He shuddered involuntarily. “What the hell is with these guys,” he muttered, to no one in particular. “They are some kind of assholes all right,” Glenn whispered. Jack looked over and saw that they were all shaken. He tried again. “Hey, what's the problem?” He had meant for the question to come out strong and loud, but it had not. Instead, the words had seemed to choke up inside him, and had sounded strangled when they had come out. The eerie feeling had gotten stronger, and Jack noticed that he felt an almost panicky urge to run back towards the station. He looked at the others, and noticed they seemed to be panicked as well. What the hell, he wondered, as he fought to control the panic. He found himself suddenly raising the rifle and aiming at the truck. “Don't shoot the bastard,” Glenn whispered. “Don't intend to. I just... I...” Just after he began to lower the rifle, the Suburban's headlights suddenly flicked on, and the rear tires spun on the slick pavement, smoking and screaming as they clawed for purchase. The engine whined higher in pitch and the big Suburban seemed to jump out into the intersection. Jack watched as it skewed around sideways on the wet asphalt and roared off towards Webster. A enger leaned out the window and aimed a rifle at them. The rifle in Jack's hands bucked and the rear window of the Suburban burst inward in a spray of glittering black diamonds as it sped away. The shooter ducked back inside. Shapes moved and shifted in the back of the Suburban, maybe as many as half a dozen, Jack thought, maybe more. No way to know, he decided. The pitch of the motor rose higher, and a few seconds later the taillights slipped out of sight. “Christ.” Jack said, as his dry mouth tried to work. “I counted at least eight with the driver and enger,” Glenn confirmed.

Jack could still hear the Suburban accelerating in the distance over the sound of the rain as it sped away, and feel the heavy pounding blat of its engine in the pavement under his feet. The four men turned away and walked slowly back towards the station in silence. Jack stopped at one of the Jeeps before they entered, and waited for the other three to catch up. “Listen,” he said in a low tone, almost a whisper. “I don't think it's wise to scare the shit out of the others. Maybe we should tell them the back was empty. Agreed?” Terry was still swallowing convulsively, but nodded his head up and down like a puppet. Glenn and Dave both mumbled agreement. “Terry,” Jack hissed, “snap out of it. It won't do any good if we walk in there with you looking like that.” Terry nodded and tried to calm down. “Maybe you can get Terry aside and talk to him, Dave.” Just as Jack had finished speaking, the door to the station swung open, and the people inside poured out into the rain. Maria, looking badly shaken, walked towards them with her hands folded across her chest. “They all had guns... The ones in the back, Jack,” she said. “I looked, we all looked, Jack, when you shot out the back window.” Her voice had risen as she spoke, and at the end she was nearly screaming. Jack pulled her to him and held her in the rain. To hell with it, he thought, keeping secrets was never one of my strong suits anyway. It's probably better this way. “Jack,” Glenn said. “I think it might be best if we stay here for tonight, instead of going into the city. I also think we ought to pull the Jeeps inside the service bays for the night... keep an eye on them. Probably ought to keep shotguns or handguns with us from now on too.” “I guess you're right, Glenn. Maria, why don't you and the others go back inside and get the doors up. We'll pull the Jeeps in... Okay?” She hugged him fiercely before she let go and ran back into the station. The three of them quickly drove the Jeeps into the service bays, and then locked the wide doors behind them. They locked the front door to the station as well, and they all walked back into

the rear section of the garage bays by a small parts room. Jack propped open the door to the parts room, and turned a small light on inside. The bulb was dim, but flooded weak yellow light out into the garage area, it was enough, he felt. If the Suburban came back he didn't want them to be perfectly silhouetted inside the station by the florescent overheads in the garage bay. Maria and Connie began to fix a cold dinner while the others unloaded the sleeping bags and ice chests from the Jeeps. Jack was into his second beer and his heart was just beginning to resume a somewhat normal beat. Terry walked back from the front of the garage where he had been staring out into the rain. They all half expected the Suburban to come roaring back at any second. The shotguns were out of the Jeeps now, close at hand, just in case, but Jack noticed several of the others had swung their machine pistols around to the front so they would be within easy reach. He couldn't recall when he had done it, whether he had seen someone else do it or he had done it on his own. He knew what it meant though. It meant that life had just gotten a little cheaper. Maria and Connie brought dinner over, and both grabbed a cold drink, sitting down as Glenn began to speak. “This changes everything,” he said to no one in particular. “I don't think it's a good idea to just ignore it either.” Jack took a deep gulp of the beer before he spoke. “I guess you're right, Glenn and it was stupid to think we should keep it to ourselves. I shouldn't have suggested it.” He looked around at the small group of frightened people and his eyes locked on Maria's as he continued to speak. “I thought it would shake everyone up for no reason,” he said. The argument seemed empty and somewhat foolish even to him. His eyes were sad, Maria noticed, and he shrugged his shoulders helplessly when he finished. Silence hung thick in the air for a few minutes until Glenn reluctantly began to speak again. “I don't pretend to have an answer for one,” he said quietly, as he looked around from one to the other. “I guess we can only go with what we know for now. What I mean is what we know from our own personal experience back in Watertown,” he waited but no one spoke.

Glenn continued. “Whatever this is it looks a lot worse now than it did then. This little trip has proven that it was not a localized thing. Probably Rochester is gone,” he shrugged. “No way to know, but is it worth an armed fight to find out? That sounds nuts, right?” “No... Sounds sane,” Jack said. “We knew this, I think. I think we knew this. Maybe not that it would go this bad this fast, but I think we suspected... Suspected is a good word.” “Possibly,” Glenn replied. He shook his head. “No, most likely. Most likely subconsciously we knew and didn't want to face it. I guess the pretending is over now though... Maybe that's for the best before one of us gets killed taking too much for granted.” Jack nodded. “I... No, Glenn, I don't think you're nuts, if you are then we all are. I think the world ended. I mean the sensible part we all understood. I don't know what in hell this part is... I mean there has got to be some way to explain or at least understand this.” “You just did,” Maria said quietly from beside him. “She's right, Jack,” Glenn said, “You did. I don't think this is a rational or predictable world anymore. If it isn't, then all that's left, Is simply survival or,” he motioned toward the outside, “Death... Let those people tell you how to live... Or Worse. There is no in between anymore, no walking the fence, the gloves are off, just one or the other.” “So what’s next?” Gina asked, expectantly. “If I knew that,” Glenn answered. “I guess I would be God. I'm not, so I don't know...” “...Just to make my position clear though, I don't intend to start waxing religious, but you can bet that I might just start praying. It used to seem superstitious to me. Not anymore. Now it seems important.” Silence hung in the air for a few moments, and Gina spoke up. “But what should we do? Should we go back, or go into Rochester, or should we maybe go somewhere else?”

“I think that question needs to be answered by all of us individually,” Glenn replied calmly. “It's not a question one person can answer, and we've pretty much stuck together so far, I can't see splitting up if there's a disagreement. I think we all need to decide together.” “I don't see any reason to go back to Watertown,” Lilly said “I agree,” Dave ed in. “There's nothing there for us,” Amber said. One by one they all voiced their opinions, until only Scott, Maria, Jack and Amber were left. “I don't see the sense in it,” Jack said quietly. The remaining three nodded their heads in agreement. “So... do we go into Rochester, or somewhere else?” Glenn asked softly as he looked around the cramped garage. “I for one would hate to think we came all this way for nothing,” Scott said. “I vote we go. If it's bad,” he shrugged his shoulders, “we get the hell out and go somewhere else.” Glenn looked back at the small group. “Well?” Silently, they all nodded their heads in agreement. “That's that then,” Glenn said. “We'll go in the mornin',” he paused. “Tonight though, I think we need to keep watch. I'm going to take the first watch, who's next?” “Me,” Scott said. “I'll relieve you,” Dave said, “just get me up when you get tired.” “That should see us through the night,” Glenn said. “...I think it's best if we all sleep in here tonight, and on this side, behind the trucks. It might be a bit crowded, but I don't want to take any chances.” Glenn finished, picked up a shotgun, and headed towards the glass enclosed front of the gas station, the small

group began to break apart. Maria spoke up, after most of the others had drifted away. “Jack?” “Ssh,” he said, as he put a finger over her lips, “no need.” He led her away and they pushed two sleeping bags together in front of one of the Jeeps. “Jack?” she said, “I just need to be held.” “I know,” he said quietly. “I need to hold you.” He took her into his arms and held her as he tried to push the thoughts that wanted to crowd his mind away. Maria slipped off to sleep quickly, but sleep eluded Jack. He lay quietly thinking, still holding her, until he drifted off to sleep himself much later.

SEVEN

October 14th Rochester NY: Jack and Maria Morning He was still holding her when he awoke the next morning. Maria awoke a few minutes after he did. She kissed him softly, and said, “Thank you for not being like every other man I've met in my life. I love you, Jack, you know that?” Jack kissed her back, and then she left to help with breakfast. Glenn wandered over, his eyes bloodshot, a rifle slung across his shoulder. “Did you see anything last night, Glenn,” Jack asked? “Zip. I stayed up all night myself, whoever or whatever... They didn't come back.” “I thought you were going to switch off with Ed. You should have got me up,” Jack said. “Was going to switch off, but... I don't know, Jack, there's somethin' strange with Ed. It seems like he's walking around with his head stuck halfway up his ass. I ain't so sure he's going to make it,” Glenn finished in a near whisper. “It happens, some people can't take it when things get flaky, Glenn. Hell, a few weeks ago I was an old man in early retirement. Couldn't half the damn time to go out and get my damn mail.” He laughed lightly. “Look at me now... You should have got me up.” “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Glenn said. “Besides, it looked like Maria needed you. Looked like you needed her too,” he finished quietly. “I think we all need each other,” Jack answered, “Ed will come around.” Once everyone had eaten they packed up the Jeeps; unlocked the garage doors, and backed out into the already hot morning air.

Jack left the Jeep and motioned the others out of the Jeeps onto the pavement. The quiet of early morning descended. “We don't know anything at all about what's next. If, after a night to sleep on it you have changed your mind, it's no sin... No one will blame you if you want to go back... Or even somewhere else.” He waited, but no one spoke. No nervous clearing of throats, no uneasy laughter. Nothing. “Okay,” he scrubbed at his face and the beard that was growing across his chin. Marveling at how it could be there at all. “I'd say windows down... Rifles loaded and safeties off... Watch... Follow my lead. If I back up and try to get out of there you follow me. Don't turn around, just keep it floored in reverse... Let's just be smart. Maybe those guys were nothing but smoke.” The silence held. “Smoke or not we can't run away,” Alan said. He straightened and smoothed his shirt front. Jack nodded, looked around once more and then climbed back into the jeep. They pulled off the service stations paved area; rolled slowly through the intersection and headed into the city of Rochester. The next day... A Highway Jack Jack came awake with sunlight streaming in through the windshield of the small car he was in. He looked around at the road. Stalled cars for as far as he could see in any direction he was somewhere outside of Rochester, but where, he wondered. He thought back to Rochester. The drive into the city in the early morning had seemed uneventful right up until the attack had come. Afterward he had berated himself, cursed himself for not taking the events of the night before more seriously, but he knew that the truth was that none of them had. None of them had, and now he was the only one left. The only one left, and he was alone because of that decision. They had just ed a large mansion, or what had once been a large mansion on East Avenue: Nearly into downtown when the attack had come. The last vehicle,

Ed... Terry, Gina? He couldn't for sure, but it didn't matter, they were only the first to go. The truck had blown up behind them. One second it was morning silent, and the next a roaring fireball had erupted from the roadway. The truck had lifted into the air engulfed with flame, and had come back down a split second later a twisted, shattered wreck. The roof ripped open crudely as if a giant can opener had done the job: Glass gone, body twisted. Blackened shapes still moving clearly seen through the flames. They had all panicked. Jack had hit the brakes, somehow convinced they had driven over something in the road. Landmines. The word leapt into his mind and kept repeating. The Jeep behind them had rammed into them, Scott, Lilly, Jan, and that had distracted him further. As he had lifted his eyes he had seen the men squatting beside the once elegant mansion. A rocket launcher on one man's shoulder, and he had known the truth. His foot had seemed to leap forward of its own accord and slam into the gas pedal, but it was too late. His eyes swiveled back and he saw the rocket leap from the launcher. A second later a black curtain had descended. He had come to hours later. The vehicles' nothing but twisted husks, still burning in the black night. He could feel the heat from the fires. He had lain for what seemed like a long time trying to orient himself, make sense of what he last ed, and what he now saw. Time did nothing to sort it out. It still made no sense some time later when he had first tried to sit up. Pain had flared everywhere and the black curtain had descended once more. The second time he awakened the fires had been out. Heat still came from the blackened shells, but the fires were dead. The moon was high in the sky, bloated, bright silver. He had moved slower, and while it had been close he had managed to fight past the first pain when he had moved. His left leg was bad. Not broken, but cut badly, maybe sprung, after all he had lain with it twisted to one side for what he assumed was a very long time. He used part of his shirt to wrap his leg as he let his head clear. The heat from the fires was still heavy, rolling across the pavement and baking into him. Here and there flames did flicker in some other close by vehicles. Probably, he thought, the only reason the dead hadn't gotten to him. They were

still afraid of fire, even if they were losing their fear of nearly everything else. His head was worse. Pain flared rapidly inside every time he tried to move too fast. It felt like liquid sloshing around inside his head, his brain shifting with it, slamming into the bone cage of his skull, and he wondered if it were true, or just something his mind provided in explanation of the pain. He bent and retched until his stomach simply clenched. There was nothing left to void. As he sat the pain eased enough for him to stand. Standing helped to ease it even more and he began to search. What was left was hard to understand at first. Pieces. An arm here, a leg there, bones blackened in the wreckage. A pool of blood where his head had lain. No other blood anywhere, and more than enough pieces and bones to make him sick once more. Vomiting had pulled the pain back full force and he had found himself exiting into the black curtain once again. It was dawn when he had found his way back and a sense of urgency to be moving had set in. His head was better, but his leg seemed worse. He had set out limping, staggering, but had managed a fairly reasonable walk after a few hundred feet. A shattered convenience store a few blocks down provided bottled sports drinks he rounded up from the aisles. He drank two straight down and his head began to clear. He watched the sun as it began to rise, the street lights winked out: Taking more bottles with him he began to walk back out of the city. Keeping to the back yards and alleyways of homes and businesses. He looked at the cracked plastic dashboard of the little car now as he pulled his mind back. He had no idea how long he had walked. He had no idea where he was right now. The car was not familiar, but he could recall the morning coming on and a panic as he searched for a place to hide away the day. He could feel heat baking into his hand from his leg when he rested his hand against it, and a low grade buzzing had seemed to fill his head, distracting. The little car had probably looked perfect in the early morning light. The windows thickly dusted, hard to see inside of. Protection from the dead and the living. He looked down at the car’s interior. Key's hung from the switch. He didn't have a lot of hope, but he twisted the key and the starter began to turn over: Slow, barely there, but then it picked up speed in a rush and the car stuttered to life,

coughed, nearly quit, and then smoothed out and began to warm up. The muffler was loud, one side of the windshield was a spider webbed mess, but the gas gauge stood at three quarters of a tank. He rolled his window down to rid it of most of the dust. A second later he had rolled down the enger side front window to clear it too. A short windshield session had found no fluid, but the dust had mostly been pushed aside by the rubber blades. Jack shifted the car into first and pulled from the side of the road bumping over the cracked and tilted pavement as he went. The driving was slow going, but an hour later he reached the outskirts of the city of Oswego. Had he really walked so far in the last days and nights? How much time had slipped by him, he wondered, but he had no answers. For the last twenty minutes he had been following deep tire tracks that cut around the stalled traffic, and the closer he had gotten to the city the more he had found himself having to slow down and cut around the stalled traffic following the muddy tracks. He had no idea who had made the tracks, and it made him more than a little concerned. He wound slowly through the stalled traffic, going around where he had to, and he was almost into the downtown section when the car became hopelessly mired as he tried to get around several vehicles blocking the road. It had been close before, but the front wheel drive had pulled the small car through despite the churned up ground. This time it was buried up to the undercarriage, and there was no hope of getting the little car out. Jack shut it off, and leaving the keys in the switch where he had found them, walked off into the downtown district. When he came to the first bridge, he scrambled over the cars, pulling his damaged leg behind him when it refused to flex or bear his weight, and walked to the second bridge. He saw the same scene that he had seen a few days before: The bridge collapsed into the river. A large steel service walk that had run beside the bridge, however, was still intact, and he carefully walked across it to the other side. He walked slowly down the crowded roadway and eventually out of the downtown section. It had been eerie to say the least.

When he reached the other side of the city, he stopped at a used car lot by the side of the road. An older Chevy pickup sat among the line of cars and trucks that fronted the road, and Jack walked over to examine it. The four wheel drive truck looked to have been used fairly well. It was dented and rusty, but Jack liked the look of it. He walked around it and looked it over. The tires appeared to be in good shape, wider than most, as well as being tall and aggressively tread. He looked in the corner of the windshield, noted the stock number, and headed in the direction of a small trailer at the back of the gravel lot. The trailer served as an office, and he knew that if the keys were to be found, that was where he would find them. He hoped the keys would be there and that the truck would start. If not, he supposed, he could cross the street to a new car lot that he had noticed. He would prefer the old Chevy, but if there was no choice he would cross the street and take one of the shiny new pickups that sat on the lot. He supposed he would even be better off taking one of the newer vehicles, but he didn't want to. Even the old Chevy was newer than any truck he had ever owned, and all the newer trucks he had seen, seemed more like cars than real trucks. Even the Jeeps had been more luxury vehicle than an actual off road vehicle. The old Chevy looked like it had already seen its share of rough roads and would have no problem with them. He had marveled while walking through the downtown district at how many things had changed in just a few days. The grass was growing. The temperatures were higher again, vegetation seemed to be making a fast grab at every inch of real estate. Like it had only been waiting all these years to take back its own. He found the keys on a small board in the cluttered office, and headed back to the old Chevy. He had to pump it several times before it would start, but it had eventually caught and started with a large cloud of black smoke pouring out of the rusty tail-pipe when it did. Almost flooded it, he thought. The smoke cleared as the truck warmed up, and he sat and waited for the idle to fall off before he pulled out onto the roadway once more and headed north out of the city of Oswego. West of Mexico NY: Jack Things had gone bad fast. There had been two significant earthquakes, one

following on the heels of the other. The first time he had nearly wrecked the truck, the second one came as he was pulled to the side of the road trying to ease the pain that had come back full tilt in his head. The truck leapt forward, and then darted sideways; Jack managed to get his hand out to stop his head from smashing into the dashboard, but only barely. The truck had finally stopped rocking and the world came back into focus. He pulled the truck back onto the roadway, careful of all the new cracks and devastation, and found his way to a small roadside strip mall a few miles farther down. The lot was deserted. Half the store at the opposite end was collapsed. A small mini mart, a drug store and a pawn shop were still standing; untouched. He had made his way into the small store, found the drug aisle and was surprised to see it intact. The one back in Rochester had been emptied of drugs. The leg was swollen against the pants material; the rags he had wrapped around it had stopped the blood flow, but had done nothing for infection. He peeled the rags away now, taking a good part of his skin with it, and looked the wound over. Something had punched a deep hole into his leg. The area that had pulled away was oozing puss now, the skin around it red and swollen. He had helped himself to a bottle of peroxide, some antibiotic cream, iodine and some bandage. He scrounged up a fast meal while he worked up the nerve to work on the leg. He probably wouldn't feel like eating afterwards. He had no fever, and he counted that as a good thing, but the leg still felt hot to the touch and that worried him. He finished some energy bars and three bottles of water before he limped off to find what he still needed. Two aisles over he found a small knitting needle. The point was sharp. It was wide enough to allow him to push it in to get to the abscess he was sure was there. He carried it back to the aisle then decided maybe something to help with the pain might help. He searched, but there was nothing stronger than beer in the now warm coolers, and that was covered with a gray moss he didn't want to chance touching. The drug store nearby probably had some pain pills he could take, but he wouldn't know how much would be safe. It probably wasn't a good idea to be out of it in this world any longer. Maybe later, he decided. He would have to visit to get antibiotics anyway. Reluctantly he limped back to the aisle and sat with his back against the shelving as he arranged the items he needed around him.

The peroxide came first. He broke the seal and poured half the bottle over the wound. There was some pain, but the bubbling and foam that appeared told him what he had already guessed, the infection was bad. He spun the top off the iodine, spilled a little into the dimple of the puncture wound and then inserted the knitting needle into the bottle and left it to soak in the iodine. He wasn't positive if it could disinfect it, but he was reasonably sure it could. The pain was intense when the iodine hit the raw wound, but it abated after a few moments. He picked up the needle, but just touching the wound with it sent shock waves of pain up his leg. He stopped, stretched backwards against the shelving, bracing himself firmly. His breathing was hard and fast, tears had squirted from his eyes and stained his dirty cheeks as they rolled away to his jaw line. Sweat had instantly broke out on his brow. He couldn't stop at a mere touch. He had to shove the needle down far enough to be sure he punctured the abscess so it could drain. He steeled himself, took a deep breath, centered the needle over the dimple and drove it down into his leg before he could think anymore about it. The pain came fast, but his mind shut down almost as quickly. He had awakened hours later, the sunlight lower in the front windows. The leg was draining freely, fresh blood now, but he could see that the poison had also drained. His head felt better, his stomach more settled. He took his time and grimaced only slightly as he poured first the remaining peroxide into the wound, and then the balance of the iodine. Both hurt, but the pain was nothing like it had been. Antibiotic cream and some bandage and he was finished. He sat, staring down at his hands. Dirt, blood, who knew what else. He made his feet and limped off into the store looking for supplies for the road. A few moments later he was loading them into the enger side of the truck. A quick search through the drug store turned up antibiotics, an ace bandage that might help, and some vitamins. He didn't know if the vitamins could help, but he was sure they couldn't hurt. A few minutes later he had bent the pawnshop's steel-mesh protective door open and smashed out the front door glass with a jack handle from the truck. The exercise was making his leg hurt, but the skies were turning dark and he wanted to hurry before nightfall came. The pawn shop was a nightmare inside. Every single cabinet was locked. Even so he found a gun cabinet, managed to pry it open, and left with two semi automatic nine mm pistols and a dozen boxes of ammunition. He got to the

truck, debated on the ammunition, and went back to see if he could find more. The problem was he didn't know where to look. He found nothing, but he did liberate a shotgun and a whole case of deer slugs for it. He made his way back to the truck tired out, sweating, his leg aching deep inside. The bandage was soaked through with blood so he changed it as he sat in the truck and gathered his strength. The leg of the jeans he had been wearing were a tattered wreck. Blood and gore streaked the leg to his boot top. The once white sock stained deep red and black in places. He needed clothes. His shirt stank, and was stuck to him with sweat. His boots, he hadn't really noticed until he had just taken a hard look at them, were melted in places. The leather looked sandblasted and ratty. He took two of the pills, washed it down with water. Next big town, he told himself, he would get clothes. A light rain had begun as he pulled the truck back out on to the roadway, heading for Mexico as the rain bounced up from the pavement and covered the surface with a gray mist. Watertown NY: Jack The truck was far better suited to the task of driving over the wrecked roads than the little car had been. A few short hours later he stopped for a rest in a small town at a local gas station. He siphoned gas from the underground tanks, and scrounged a light lunch from the combination gas and food mart, dragged a beat looking aluminum lawn chair out from behind the station, and sat down to eat. He sipped at a warm beer as he ate. He enjoyed it even though it was warm. He finished his lunch and climbed back into the cab of the truck. It started without hesitation this time. He nosed it out of the small station and headed north once more. As he drew closer to Watertown the stalled traffic thickened, and when he reached the Watertown Center exit a heavy rain began to fall which slowed him down even more. He flicked the headlights on and followed the same muddy tracks that cut into the steep grassy embankment down to the road below the over. He slid the last twenty feet to the pavement, and proceeded slowly along the rain slicked street. He had just ed the Watertown town limit sign, when he noticed the fresh

muddy tracks had cut across the road and into a field on the right. He slowed the truck, and let his eyes follow the tracks into the field of standing hay. A gray pickup truck rested in the middle of the field, at the end of the deep muddy grooves it had cut as it plowed through it. It had slued around at the end, and now sat facing the road. Jack shivered as a cold chill crept down his neck and into his spine. He couldn't explain the feeling that had crept into him when he had spotted the truck, but it set him on edge immediately. This had to be the same truck he had been following since before Oswego, the tire tracks on the sides of the road. He stopped, but did not leave the truck, instead he stared through the rain slicked windshield at the Ford. It appeared to have been abandoned after it had become stuck in the field. The rain streamed across the darkened glass of its windows, and down the sides of the gray steel body. He fought the urge to get out and check the pickup. Someone could still be in it, hurt maybe, he reasoned, but he was sure his leg would never allow him to make the trip out to the truck and back. He felt unreasonably positive that the truck wasn't empty, that someone was watching him as he sat idling in the road. He put the Chevy back in drive and drove past, shaking off the chill that had ed through him, and sped up a little as he left the truck behind in the muddy field. It was nearly night, the gray of the afternoon moving toward blackness. When a set of headlights appeared behind him a couple of miles down the road, he stared at them through the rear view mirror so long that he almost slammed into the rear of a stalled tractor-trailer in front of him. He looked up just in time and managed to miss the truck, but slid off the road and into the front yard of an old, paint-peeled green house. He narrowly missed hitting the rickety front porch, and fought to bring the truck back under control as he shot past it. He goosed the gas pedal and the truck swung around, clipping several bushes that fronted the porch, but the truck was now angled toward the road. He gave it more gas and steered it back onto the roadway at last. He looked into the rear-view as he gained the road, and he could now clearly make out the shape of the gray pickup behind him. It was gaining, and when it reached the tractor trailer, it seemed to skim by on the outer edge of the road without slowing at all. Jack jammed the gas pedal into the floor board and the

old Chevy began to shudder as it picked up speed. He glanced back and as he did the truck blew by on his left in a spray of water that momentarily covered the windshield. Jack instinctively released the gas pedal and jammed his foot into the brake pedal while working the wiper switch. The old Chevy shuddered in protest and began to slide down the road. The windshield cleared as it slowed down, and he watched as the Ford spun sideways in the road. It came to rest in the center of the road, blocking it from side to side. Steam rose from the hot tires. Its black windows gleamed in the light rain as tiny rivulets streamed across them towards the ground; washing away some mud that still clung to the lower body. Jack drew a deep breath into his lungs as his own truck slid the last few feet and stopped. He ended up still pointing straight in the right hand lane, about twenty five feet from the pickup. He reached for the rifle that had slid off the seat onto the floorboard, as his heart beat quickly in his chest. The enger side window of the Ford slowly lowered as he watched. The black glass gave way to a dark gray interior, and the young dark-haired kid that sat behind the wheel of the truck slowly turned towards him. Jack could see his yellow and crooked teeth, from where he sat in the truck as he grinned. Two other faces moved beside him, white blurs in the dim light. His heartbeat sped along crazily, and he fought to control the panic he felt rising inside him. He clicked off the safety on the rifle as he slowly eased it up onto the seat beside him. The dark-haired kid continued to grin, a cigarette plastered into one corner of his mouth, jittering up and down. Talking to the others, probably, Jack thought. The kid raised his rifle and pointed it out the window at Jack. “Hey! Get outta that fuckin' truck, man. Come on, man, get outta there right now!” Jack heard the words over the rain, over his own closed windows, but there was no way he intended to get out of the truck. The kid motioned with his head and the two others with him climbed out the enger side of the truck: Laying their rifles across the hood; aiming carefully at him, Jack saw, which was completely

ridiculous. It was a shot of twenty, twenty five feet. You could do that with your eyes closed. Unless... Jack swung the rifle up fast and popped off a shot aimed at the kid at the outermost edge of the hood. The kid flipped backwards with a surprised look on his face. A split second later he was sighting on the second kid. No one had shot back, the driver was still grinning foolishly, but he didn't think that would last long. It was a game to them. They had no idea what they were doing. They were playing roles in a movie they had seen once, something like that, Jack told himself. He had become convinced that they could see nothing of him staring into his headlights. He squeezed off his shot, aiming carefully and the kid dropped the rifle he had been holding and stepped quickly backward, clawing at his chest and then disappeared from sight. Had it been him he would not have made that mistake. He would have realized how much of a target he was, but these were just kids, babies, no more experience in life than a few years and a couple dozen action films. Even so a kid could kill you every bit as dead as a full grown man could, he told himself. The dark-haired kid in the truck finally raised his rifle and aimed at him. It was almost funny, Jack thought, looking at the rifle jerk and jump on its way up, but the next instant, when the windshield on the enger side cracked loudly, he was stunned to see a small hole punched through it when he looked. A nest of cracks ran away from it, and small crystals of glass glittered on the dashboard. He quickly ducked, levered the door open, and dropped to the pavement. He raised the rifle to his shoulder, aimed, and fired. As he did he heard another shot, and felt a stinging sensation in his left leg. The right side of the kid’s face dissolved as Jack's shot found its mark. He saw the spray of skin and blood hit the black enger side window behind him, as the bullet shattered it almost simultaneously. The young man continued to grin with what was left of his face, he shot once more. Jack saw the flame lick from the end of his rifle, as he dropped towards the ground. The shot missed, and he heard the ford's engine whine a few seconds later as the tires began to bite into the pavement, producing a high pitched scream. Jack dove back up from the ground, and shot once more at the truck, that was now sliding around and heading for him.

He dove back into the Chevy just as the pickup hit the still open door, and tore it from its hinges. It flipped up over the already braking pickup, and clattered to the pavement. Jack keyed the ignition, and jammed the truck into drive. The tires spun and began to smoke as he mashed the gas pedal to the floor and tore off down the road. The truck slewed around behind him, and began once again to give chase. Although the truck shuddered in protest, Jack did not let up on the gas pedal: Instead he kept it jammed to the floor. The truck edged up and past eighty before he eased off. At just under ninety, the truck rattled loudly, and the large tires hummed as it sped down the road with the gray pickup seemingly welded to its rear bumper. The wind and rain was a heavy roar through the open door. Jack used the stock of the rifle to smash out the rear glass of the truck, and fired twice into the windshield of the Ford. The windshield blew inward, and the Ford locked its brakes and spun sideways on the road. The tires caught, and the pickup truck flipped into the air. When it landed it rolled several times before bursting into flames, where it came to rest in the middle of the road. Jack mashed the brakes on the Chevy and slid to a shuddering stop in the road, craning over his shoulder, staring out at the burning wreck behind him. As he watched the gas tank caught, and the truck lifted from the road with a loud, Whump! It clattered back down seconds later, scattering parts of itself across the rain slicked roadway as it did. Jack stepped cautiously from the pickup, and continued to watch as the truck burned. He was still watching in horror a split second later as the kid spilled from the wrecked car. The right side of his face was a raw mass of meat, and curls of flame and smoke leapt from his clothing as he tumbled out of the inferno and hit the pavement. The flames on his clothing seemed to flare up as if in anger, and then, within a space of seconds, die out altogether and disappear. Smoke curled from the kid. Jack stared momentarily transfixed. And then bent over and vomited on the road. He stayed hunched over for a second, before he turned, crawled back into the truck, and quickly started it.

Before he pulled away, he glanced into the rear view, back at the truck. As he watched the flames leapt and flared into the rain filled skies. Jack shifted into first and drove quickly away. He pushed the truck hard until he arrived in the city; constantly checking the mirrors, expecting the truck to reappear at any moment. It didn't, and when he almost lost control of the truck sliding around a stalled car in the road, he finally slowed down, afraid that he would wreck the truck, and end up dead, or dying on the side of the road, finishing the job the kid had started. He turned right at a four corners, ing a small gas station that sat darkened, and headed into the city, still glancing nervously behind him. Just as he topped a small hill he glanced back once more. There was no one in sight so he pulled off into the parking lot of a store and turned off the motor. He sat for a moment, with the rain streaming in the opening where the door had once been, listening. He half expected to hear the truck's engine roaring towards him. He didn't, the air was silent, save the thrumming of the rain on the steel roof of the truck, as it fell and splashed its way to the ground. He slowly became aware of the pain in his left leg, as his heart slowed down and resumed a somewhat normal beat again. He stepped out of the truck to the ground, testing the leg. Dark blood covered a large area of the outside pant leg, just below his hip, and the blue denim fabric was shredded and burned. It now matched the lower leg. The skin was spit open for a few inches, he saw, but the bullet had only grazed the upper thigh. He breathed a sigh of relief, turned and walked towards the store. He took his rifle with him and glancing back at the road listened carefully before he limped to the awning covered sidewalk that fronted the strip mall and entered the store. Nothing. Inside he slipped off the jeans and clenched his teeth tightly together as he sprayed the wound first with a disinfectant, then poured a full bottle of peroxide over it. He wrapped the leg with clean white gauze, and taped the flap tightly. It stung a great deal, but he was afraid of infection and it wasn't likely he would be seeing a doctor soon, he thought. The other wound had opened and was bleeding freely once more so he changed that too. He looked out the front glass doors when he had finished, still listening, then

stepped outside. He had seen a small shopping center when he pulled in, to the left of the store, and he set off toward it now to replace the bloodied and torn jeans, keeping to the sidewalk, dodging the rainfall where the awning was ripped and tattered. He picked up two complete sets of clothes, leaving the others where he had removed them in the aisle of the store. The blood had nearly sealed the boot on his left leg to his foot, he discovered, so he pried them both off, washed his feet as well as he could with bottled water to make sure there were no wounds under all the blood, and then pulled on fresh socks and a new pair of boots. He walked back over to the store, and then back to the rear coolers. He was surprised to find them still cold, and was even more surprised to hear a small fan kick on as he pulled a cold beer from within. He hesitated, then pulled out one more, hearing a generator kick on in the far distance as he let the door swing shut. He walked back towards the front counter, went behind it, and sat down on the stool that was there, staring out the wide glass windows at the parking lot as he sipped from the can. The rain dripped and drizzled, letting up somewhat. “Well, I made it this far,” he said aloud. He shook his head, lowered his face into his hands and began to weep. Jack’s Journal Watertown NY: October 22nd The moon is blood red, stained by sunrise which can't be too far away now. I have heard some noise outside from the dead. It's almost a relief to hear it, makes me know they haven't somehow gotten in and are right now sneaking up on me from the basement or something. I am sick... I don't want to think about that though, I don't.... In Watertown, a few days of rest has made a huge difference in how I feel and my leg has responded as I had hoped it would. It is still stiff, something is wrong in the knee, maybe, but I can walk and the more I walk the better I feel. I sat in a chair on the front porch of a house I had moved myself into, drank hot coffee and watched the snow melt and drip from the trees: It had snowed overnight, but

once again it is warming. I found a truck in the parking lot of the store I was in, managed to get it started and drove it out toward the suburbs. This house has seen better days, but it is still standing, no worse than any others I have seen. It sat a little apart on its lot, and the doors front and rear were steel units. That is what had attracted me to it. It looked defensible to me. I have seen no one. Not even signs of anyone. Nothing. Bodies, smoke, nothing. Winter is coming and the entire town is covered with snow. I drove to the top of State Street Hill and looked out over the city. Dead. No footprints in the snow. Nothing, and that seemed all wrong. There should be people. What happened to all the people that had lived here? Had they left? Something else? There were no clear answers. I drove back to this place, stopping at a few stores on the way, searching out food and medicines and dug in. There is an old wood stove that had been used to heat the basement. A little work and I got it going. There was a cord of wood that had been stacked outside the back steps that led down into the basement. The wood stove has heated the house up fine. I spent a few hours looking over the house after that. It is rough. The foundation is cracked and has dropped about eight inches on one side. The house is leaning, but still solid. Maybe a few years of leaning will take its toll. Maybe the next earthquake, if there is one, but for now it is stable, and that is all I care about. I have steady taken antibiotics along with aspirin, when I first got here I dosed up and had fallen asleep on the couch in the basement and slept for... I don't know how long, but time didn't really matter a great deal. I slept a long time. I woke to take more water, antibiotics and aspirin. I had finally awakened with the headache and the buzzing gone, the swelling in my leg lessened, and the redness mostly gone when I redressed the two wounds. I took yet another dose of the antibiotics, skipped the aspirin, and restocked the wood stove before I ate a breakfast of canned meat and powdered eggs made on the top of the glowing wood stove. I have been sitting here trying to figure out what to do. Something, maybe while I had slept, has worked its way into my brain and it will not leave. What if, my thoughts have asked, What if Maria was not dead? What if she had survived?

Wouldn't they have wanted to keep the women alive? It troubled me, because how could I know the truth of it? I had been badly injured, I had looked around, but right then, in the clear light of a day removed by several days of rest I couldn't be sure what I had done, what I had looked at, how well I had searched. Whether she was there, gone, dead, alive. There was no way to know, except... Well, except to go back and find out, my mind had supplied. I had sat there sipping at the hot coffee looking for reasons to ignore the thought that had just seemed to drop in on me, but I couldn't. I have to go back. I have to be sure. And it isn't just about Maria, maybe she is gone, maybe she isn't, but what about the others? Could I really have been the only survivor? Had it been their plan to kill us all or were they looking to take the men out so they could get to the women? That seemed more logical. And yes, there were bones, I ed, blackened and burned by the fire, and body parts. I could see them vaguely in my mind, but I saw no faces. I saw nothing that convinced me they were all dead, in fact the longer I have thought it out, the clearer it has become that they have to be alive, at least some of them. I had most likely survived because I had appeared dead. I must have appeared dead. Hell, I had been halfway to dead. So, that is it. I am not a writer, I’ll leave this here and hope to come back and get it, but if not maybe some of the others will see it. Jack sighed, leaned forward, and the legs of the chair dropped back down to the floorboards of the porch with a loud band. There was nothing for it and no reason to put it off. There was nothing here. This town was dead. Dead as dog shit, as they used to say. He had to leave anyway and he had no intention of heading east so west it would be. And Rochester was west. “It could get you killed,” he said aloud. And it could, he agreed, but that made no difference either. He stood, drained the cup and set it down empty on the rail next to the small journal he had written in. A half hour later I had been winding through the stalled traffic of Arsenal Street; heading out route 3 for Rochester...

EIGHT

Rochester NY: Jack Jack sat quietly in the dark, his weapons gathered around him. He had gathered them from their own arsenals and they hadn't even missed them. They, the people running this section of Rochester, might think they had their act together, but they were nothing but amateurs. He had looked the weapons over several times: Thought out his plans more than a dozen times. There was nothing left but to do it. He had seen enough to know what was going on in Rochester. The entire city had been divided into territories by different gangs. He had watched the city for the last two days and nights. Walking boldly where he wished in the daylight, sticking to the hard shadows through the night. He couldn't ask for a better picture. The power was on still. He didn't know how that was possible or why it was possible, but in the scheme of things it made his work easier. People with lights weren't so concerned with people sneaking in. The lights gave a false sense of security at night. He had worked his way in and seen everything he needed to see, and then made his way back out in the gray light of morning that first day. Since then he had slipped easily back and forth across their lines as if they didn't even exist. He had started with the wreck. It sat where he had left it, on the outskirts of the city, near the downtown entrance from East Avenue. He had spent the best part of two hours going over it and there were more than a few things he had missed. The first, and major thing, was that the Jeep he, Maria and the others had been traveling in had not been directly hit. The one behind them had also not been directly hit... Scott, Jan, and Lilly had been in that Jeep. Both Jeeps had been destroyed just the same. There was a large area of asphalt gouged out, and the tar had melted around both vehicles. The fire had been serious and had probably killed anyone who had not escaped the Jeeps, but some of them had escaped the Jeeps; more than just him. There were bones, blackened, and wet now from the near constant rain. The body parts he ed seeing were gone, the dead, wild dogs, it didn't matter

what had taken them. Even so there were not enough bones to for everyone. It didn't mean that Maria was one of those that had made it out, it only meant some had. So he had set out to find out who might have survived and where they were. The second night had paid dividends. He had followed a group returning on foot with a woman they had traded for and slipped right back into their protected area along with them. From there he had simply followed those they had bought in as they were pulled and shoved along the streets to a two story house off Culver Avenue. The house was guarded, but it was guarded to make sure no one escaped, not to keep people from slipping in. And even that was slip shod. It was late the next day before he had seen her, and he had wept freely as they had dragged her from the buildings front door along with Scott, Amber and a few others he didn't recognize. Either the others were somewhere else or they had already been killed or traded. He had shuddered to think of what they might have been through over the last several days as he had made his escape and then finally decided to come back. It was too much guilt to take in, and so he shut it down and followed them as they were dragged through the fresh snow, barefoot he saw, to another building and turned over to armed men there. His mind had screamed, 'Do something! Do something right now!' But his common sense had fought it down. That would be suicide. It would benefit no one. It would surely get him killed, and probably Maria and the others too if they realized that he had come here to free them. They had not been long at the building, those that had bought them had stood around talking, low tones, subdued, it seems they were none too happy about their own circumstances. It had been on the way back, after they had brought them back out and were headed back to their prison, that Jack had overheard part of their conversation. Scott was alive because he had told them he had skills with carpentry. They needed skilled workers. So far he had refused to work for them. They had beaten him several times. Most likely they would kill him soon if he didn't give in. He was probably holding out, enduring the beatings, and hoping for some way out

for the women, for himself too. Maria and Amber were a different story. They had been brought over to be looked over by a rival gang who might purchase them as part of some trade. From the sounds of the conversation they had liked what they had seen. The deal would go down tomorrow if they decided to go with it: If he intended to get them out alive it would have to be tonight. It had not taken long to gather what he needed. He had found weapons of every kind. Rifles, pistols, knives, hand grenades even. He had gathered them and bought them to the small wooded area in back of the house next door where he had been hiding watching the prison. There was nothing left to do. A few minutes before, the guard had changed. The night shift consisted of only two guards, and they were already sharing a t together out back of the building. He heard their low voices and laughter as he worked his way out of the woods, bringing only what he needed, around to the front of the house. He hesitated at the front door. He was fairly certain there was no one inside, but he couldn't be positive. Anyone could have slipped in while he was out gathering weapons. He closed his eyes for a moment, shifted the pistol in his hand slightly, and then reached down and turned the knob. The door swung open to a dark interior. Cold, no heat... No sounds. He stepped inside. Rochester NY: Jack Midnight It had almost gone without a hitch. It had taken him a few minutes for his eyes to adjust, but once they had he had set off through the house. He thought back on it now as he bent his weight to the shovel, digging more out of the bottom of the shallow grave... As he had searched his ears had begun to tell him things too, they were upstairs, he could hear small creaks as body weight shifted on the floors above him. He could hear weeping from somewhere above him too. The sound made a sob catch in his own throat before he choked it back and headed for the stairs.

Scott had been out in the open, tied to a post for the railing. Jack had caught him in the process of trying to fight his way free. His mouth was gagged, but he immediately stopped his struggles when Jack came into view at the top of the stairs. Jack bent forward carefully, the step creaking loudly, and cut the bonds on his wrists. A second later he was ing Scott a pistol as he worked to free his jaw up. Jack ed him a canteen, and Scott sipped carefully, his lips blistered and cut, before he handed it back. His voice was scratchy, rusted. “Kill the ones out there?” Scott asked in his whisper croak. His eyes were hard. Jack shook his head. “They're getting high... Won't be a problem... Where are the girls?” Scott nodded and headed down the hallway with Jack following. He stopped in front of the door. “One of them went in a little while ago... Probably... Probably...” He shook his head, unable to continue. Jack whispered, “Don't lose it... We'll go on three, fast, but don't let the door make a lot of noise. Try to stab him, not shoot... Don't want to alert those others.” He held Scott's eyes until he nodded. Jack turned the knob slowly and counted down quickly. His shoulder hit the door but it didn't give completely, just flexed, cracked loudly, and then sprang back at them. He cursed under his breath. “Take it down, take it fucking down,” he whisper croaked.” They both hit the door with their shoulders and it shuddered, splintered and finally crashed opened. The guard inside was waiting, a gun in one hand, the form of a nude female beside him, a vague shape tied to a radiator across the room. The woman's hand rose and pulled the gun back and down. The gun went off as they were tackling the man, and then everything went bad fast. Jack drew his knife across his throat to cut off a scream that had begun, but even he knew it was too late. Scott scrambled up and made his way to the radiator and began untying the woman there. Jack bent, pushed the man aside and saw Amber. She moved quickly and he pulled her to her feet. They were out the door seconds later, all armed with the pistols Jack had bought, all ready, scrambling down the stairs two at a time. The front door burst in as they hit the bottom of the stairs and the two men that burst through never stood a chance. They ran over the top of them as they were still falling and spilled out into the night.

The whole area was on alert. The guards were out, dogs running everywhere, Jack saw, but the dogs were no problem. It wasn't like the movies, the dogs didn't know who they were looking for. They had managed to make it three blocks north, nearly out, before Jack realized that Amber had been hit. She stumbled, he pulled her to her feet, but she stumbled again and when he looked back he saw the blood that covered her entire side and soaked her leg. Her breathing was harsh, ragged, and blood leaked from her mouth. There was no time, he bent and took her over his shoulder, hearing her cry out in pain as he did, but there had been no other option. They had made the blockade a few moments later and had, had to stop while they tried to figure a way around. There were too many of them. Two dozen standing watch, but they were not trained to do it. Most of them had never hunted, didn't know how to watch, what to look for. Jack had laid Amber on the ground and Maria had pulled her into her arms and held her, both crying silently. Behind him, several blocks back at the house where they had been held, the grenades he had rigged to a timer finally went off. The men scattered, ran, started to regroup and then began to run through the streets back to where they had been. Jack and Scott picked up Amber together and ran through the darkness, sticking to the deepest shadows for the next half mile until they were well beyond the city and the gangs that were out looking for them. Jack and Scott collapsed onto the ground breathing hard, spent, while Maria held Amber as she died. Dawn had not been far away so they had taken refuge in a nearby house and waited the day away. No one had come near. They had rested up during that time and when it was dark once more they had left the shelter and brought Amber with them... Jack bent to the shovel once again. They had all taken turns, it was nearly done. He took a deep breath, stepped away from the hole and the others nodded. A second later they were lowering Amber into the hole. She was dressed in clothes the Maria had taken from a house just a short time before. A long dress, her face pasty white and smeared with dried blood, but peaceful nonetheless. A half hour later they were back in the house ransacking it, looking for anything that might help them. They had a half mile to travel, a short distance, Jack had thought when he had hidden the truck he had driven here in,

but a long walk now that he knew there would be others out looking for them. They left a short time later and made their trip to the falling down garage next to a flattened diner where Jack had hidden the truck. The house had given them virtually nothing. No water. No food, a couple of coats and that was it. The truck was a welcome sight with its cache of food and water, and they had spent the next hour just sitting quietly, eating, replenishing their fluids, not talking. “You were dead,” Maria said at last. “The guy went over, kicked you, was going to shoot you in the head, but he decided not to because you were dead.” Her eyes were bright, tears perched on the lids ready to fall. They fell as Scott spoke. “I couldn't do anything, Jack. Nothing.” Jack caught his own emotions. They had been right on his sleeve for days, it seemed. He took a minute and composed himself. “Alive. I was alive. I came to and thought all of you had died. I was in bad shape, bleeding, leg messed up... I thought you were all dead.” He stopped, gained his composure once more and then started again. “ Later, back in Watertown, I couldn't if I looked well enough, if I made sure you were dead, but I decided I didn't. I didn't, and it ate at me.” His throat tightened up and he had to stop. “So I came back,” He said at last. Maria came to him and hugged him. “Thank you,” she said. “I am so glad you did.” Scott nodded and they all fell silent once more. Maria wiped at her eyes and then stood and walked away. “Sorry... They were about to trade us... Amber...” She choked. “Amber and me.” The tears nearly overtook her once more, but she fought them back. “I was thinking west when I left Watertown... Now I don't know,” Jack said half to himself. “East coast... West coast,” Scott said. “Doesn't matter does it?” “Except we came from the west... We know the west is bad,” Maria said.

“Okay... So we go east... Toward the coast. We get there and decide what's next.” He looked down at his leg. Blood had seeped through the bandages. “Leg's shot,” he said by way of explanation. The silence held for a second. “I should look at that,” Maria said. “Later,” Jack agreed. “Ready, Scott?” “Yeah. Yeah I am.” “Okay, let's get going. I want to be as far away from this damn place as I can be by daylight tomorrow.” A few minutes later they were running as fast as they dared in the moonlight, heading east. They stopped in Central Square, a large place on the map, a small place in person, and began restocking from some stores in a damaged strip mall. Central Square, New York The woman stood shadowed by the edge of a pile of rubble. She had watched the three for several minutes now as they packed up their vehicle, obviously getting ready to leave the city. She needed to go herself, but were they the right ones to travel with? Two men and one woman, but the woman didn't appear to be anything more than an equal, not held against her will. It was probably the best chance she was likely to have. She stepped out into the moonlight and the conversation suddenly stopped as everyone froze. “We should be...” The man stopped in mid-sentence as Pearl stepped out into view. He swiveled quickly to face Maria, placing his body between her and the other woman. Pearl raised her hands quickly, out and away from her body. “I've got nothing,” she said. She ed the small pistol she had tucked away almost as soon as she had spoken the words. The woman stepped around the first man, and the other man had shifted to face her more fully, probably while she had been paying attention to the first man. A well oiled team, she thought. They had spent time together, it was obvious. The woman motioned to the first man, “Go ahead, Scott.” The man stepped forward, pushed his own weapon around to hang from his back on the leather

strap that held it. His hands settled roughly on her shoulders and he began to pat her down. “There's a bulge there,” Maria said quietly. She motioned at Pearl's jeans where the crotch bulged slightly. Scott's hand stopped suddenly, just below where the shirt overhung Pearl's waist. He felt her tremble. “It's small... I've been scared. Just something for safety,” Pearl told them. “But you said you had nothing,” Scott said as his eyes held her own. “What is it?” Maria asked. “Says she's got a piece in her... I guess, her panties,” Scott lowered one hand and carefully felt the small gun. Maria was at his side when he looked up. “Really small,” he said and shrugged. Maria ed him her pistol. “Keep it on her.” Maria reached forward and freed the buttons that held the fly of Pearl's pants. She reached in and came out with a small .22 pocket pistol. She looked it over. “Five shot... .22 Mags,” Pearl said. Maria looked up. “I can see that. So why didn't you say something?” “Your man was on his way down. You spotted it.” She shrugged. “Look. I'm alone. I had to have something. This town may look dead, but it's far from dead. I'm just looking for a way out. The road. Leave this place. It's been... It's been bad.” her eyes seemed to cloud at the end. “Mind? It's a bit cold.” she looked down at her open fly. “Go ahead,” Maria said. Pearl buttoned the fly back and then took a deep breath. “So?” “So, What's your name,” Maria asked. “Pearl... You?” “Maria... Jack, Scott,” she nodded to each with her head. “I guess she's okay,”

she told Scott. Scott lowered the gun and then handed it back to Maria a second later. “We're headed for the city,” Jack told her. “Syracuse?” Pearl asked. “No... New York... Manhattan,” Jack said quietly. “Why should we make room for you, Pearl? Especially since you didn't want to tell us about this gun?” He had taken the pistol from Maria and was turning it over in his hand. It was very small and didn't seem capable of doing much harm. “It will kill you well enough,” Pearl said as if reading his thoughts. “It's a bad world. You need another shooter. Who knows what you're going to run into between here and there.” She paused and then nodded at the pistol. “You can see I'm resourceful.” She met Jack's eyes when they swung suddenly up to her own. “I'm not dangerous unless someone is trying to hurt me,” she finished quietly. Jack raised his eyes to Maria and Scott. They both nodded. He looked back at her. “Guess you're in, Pearl,” he told her. He tossed the gun and she caught it in one hand. “I like it, but here,” Maria said retrieving a rifle from the back of the truck. She tossed it to her lightly. “Zero to sixty?” Pearl asked as she looked over the rifle. Maria pulled a clip from a pouch at her side. She frowned. “Guess so,” she said as she tossed the clip to Pearl. “I guess so.” Pearl socketed the clip home as she nodded. “Okay,” Jack said. “Looks like you have a enger for that new truck, Scott.” Maria nodded and they all piled into the truck. Jack turned it around and started back out to the strip.

NINE

Jack and Maria Mannsville New York They were pinned down in the remains of a pole barn, in a field just a few miles outside of Watertown off route 11 south. The rains had been so hard, and so frequent, that the fields and roads were completely flooded. They had been forced to stop after twice driving into water far too deep for the trucks. The field they were in was higher ground that most of the others. They shared one wall and the partial metal roof of the collapsed pole barn with a few wild cows they eyed them suspiciously. Their corner was reasonably dry, but several days of rain and boredom had blighted their spirits and they worked hard to keep off each other’s nerves. “I learned to sew as a girl,” Pearl said now. She held Maria's hand and guided the needle as she repaired the hem of her jacket. She had caught it on the ragged edge of one wall as she had run over into another part of the pole barn that had no ceiling. In her haste to get out of the rain she had caught the edge of the jacket and ripped out the seam. The seam also formed the bottom of the pocket on that side. Without it she had found herself slipping items into that pocket that then fell to the ground, or the concrete floor of the pole barn, or down between the seats in the truck. She focused and tried to keep her line straight. It wasn't so hard once you got the needle threaded. “Just like that, good girl,” Pearl encouraged. Maria smiled. “So,” she raised her eyes from the seam, “Where were you back there?” The smile that had been on Pearl's face fled. “I was held... Held by mad men...” She seemed to consider a moment. “A mad man, perhaps. The rest were not quite so rabid.” She rubbed at her eyes and then raised them from the floor where they had sunk of their own volition. “One of his men let me go... I suspect, of course, that he let me go to make a way

for him to escape...” She shook her head. “He was not a virtuous man. No, he let me go and if I made it he knew that his chances would be likewise as good or better. Why, he could even say he was out looking for me if he got caught, could he not? Right.” She looked back down and then out at the falling rain. “Sorry,” Maria said. “I didn't mean to make you relive it. It doesn't matter.” She looked back down at the hem, nearly half done, and took up another stitch. “It's all right. It's not so bad. The bad part is this,” she raised her hand to indicate the world. “Who knew all of this was... Gone... Who knew?” “I suspect your mad man must have,” Maria said quietly. Pearl nodded. “I suspect, no, I know he had something to do with this. Played some part in all of it. His man, Pierce, near as well told me as much.” “You mean, something to do with the whole world being messed up?” Maria asked surprised. “I believe so... There is a base there, you know.” “I knew that. My boyfriend worked there until he was transferred overseas,” Maria agreed. “No,” Pearl said quietly. “Another... One far below the city itself. Maria raised her eyebrows. “Below the city?” “Sounds crazy, I know. But believe me it is there. That is where they held me. My mad man, Weston, Major Weston is all I know him by, commands it with an iron fist. It is sealed, or it was until I broke out... Supplies to last a very long time. I suppose he could grow to be an old man, if he isn't already, and die there hiding from... Well, whatever it is that he is hiding from there... Or waiting out.” She met Maria's eyes and they were dark, contemplative, sad. Maria stayed quiet, she had questions she wanted to ask, but she held them back. She had the feeling if she pried that Pearl would close up again as she had been the first few days she had traveled with them. “Are you... Are you okay from it? ... I mean did they hurt you? I know it's not my business. I know I shouldn't pry. Forgive me.”

“More than once. I really had no hope of making it out of there alive. I knew, you see. I knew it was there. Sort of like that old joke where the man says, 'Yes, I can tell you, but then I would have to kill you.' Only, it was no joke.” She focused on her hands were they clutched one another and battled in her lap. She raised her eyes and tears threatened at the corners. “It's alright. I'm alright, or I will be alright. I just... I just need some time before I talk about it. Just...” “Hey,” Scott said. “Is this a private party or can anyone come?” He and Jack had been across the road checking a small shopping complex that was mostly collapsed. They both had boxes in their arms. “Yeah. We've been toiling away in the rain, but we bought you some good stuff.” He smiled, a lopsided grin that lit up his face. His hair was plastered to his head, and his skin was overly white from the cool air and the constant rain. Pearl smiled widely, sat up straight and tried to peer into Scott's box. “So what have you brought us then?” She asked. Her eyes were red, but no more so than Scott's own eyes from the rain and wet. “Wow, she turned on that English accent hardcore. I think she wants what you have in that box, Scott,” Jack laughed. Maria took a deep breath to clear her own head. Jack leaned close. “Okay?” He asked. His eyes were still smiling but had a hint of worry in them. Maria was pretty sure he had realized how he felt about her and was having a hard time dealing with the emotions that had come with it. She would have liked nothing more than to lean forward and kiss him hello. See how that smoothed out the worry lines embedded in his forehead. But, they weren't at that place yet. She offered him a huge smile instead. “I'm fine, I really am okay, just bored. How's that leg? Don't over do it,” She cautioned. He smiled widely. “Oh, it's nothing. It's good.” “Good? You nearly got that leg shot off. I'll take a look at it later on. Now, what gives? What's in the boxes?” “Yes, what is in the boxes?” Pearl added. Scott tipped his box forward and Jack followed suit. Jugs of sports drinks, candy bars, and several cans of canned meat.

“Get out,” Maria said as she grabbed a candy bar and a can of the meat. “I love this stuff!” “The candy?” Pearl asked? She had pulled out a candy bar for herself. “The meat,” she laughed. “I know we all say we hate it, but fry this stuff up and it's golden.” She looked at the candy bar. “This too, although it will give me about seven hundred pimples probably.” They both laughed. “Why is it so unfair?” Pearl asked. “A few ounces of sweetness and days of paying for it?” “Proof that God was a man. A woman would have taken care of that!” They both laughed again and Maria saw a real smile surface and settle onto Pearl's mouth. “Hey,” Scott said. He held up a box of pancake mix and a jar of peanut butter. Beside him Jack lifted another box of pancake mix and a jar of grape jelly. “We got both,” He said reverently. “Oh my God,” Maria said. Her eyes rolled comically. “Okay, Pearl, we best get the frying pan and get dinner going. The mighty hunters have returned with provisions.” She looked down at the cows that were watching them. Mistrustful of the sudden outburst and the laughter. “Hmm, do you think one of you could get us some milk? That one cow is nursing and if she is nursing that means she can give us a little.” “I tried to get close the other day and she was none too interested,” Jack said. He looked over at the cow and she shifted her weight and stared him down as though she had understood what Maria had asked him. “See that?” Scott asked. “She knows. That is no dumb cow, right there. No dumb cow at all. She'll kick your ass right back to Watertown.” “That's what I'm worried about,” Jack agreed. “Well, you get a rope and I'll get a pail and let's see if we can convince her.” “Well... Be careful, of course,” Pearl said. “Yeah... It was a suggestion, but don't end up getting hurt,” Maria added as they

walked away. She turned to Pearl. “I am sorry... I hope you can be okay.” “I will be,” Pearl said. She turned back to Scott and Jack. “Those two will surely get themselves kicked about.” “Think so?” Maria asked. “I hope that they would be smart enough to call it off if it looks dangerous.” She broke off as Jack and Scott walked over to a sack of grain that had probably been in the barn for a while, Maria judged, by all the dust that rose when they picked it up. The two of them carried it over to the cows who still watched them carefully and stopped about twenty feet away. “Here cow,” Scott called. He ripped open the top and spilled some grain onto a reasonably clean space of concrete. Maria sniggered and Pearl raised one hand to her mouth to stifle her own giggles. “God,” Maria said. Scott looked over and made a face. “Come on cows... Come on girls,” Jack encouraged. He picked up a handful of the grain and walked slowly to the cows with it. One cow lifted her head and then wagged it up and down. Jack stopped. “What's that mean?” He asked. “Um, I think it means, hey, bring that shit a little closer, Man,” Scott said. The cow tossed her head and then trotted the few feet to Jack. She looked at him warily, extended her neck far longer than Jack had thought was possible, and then lipped the grain from his hand. Two other cows, too curious to stay still, trotted over, and a second later they were licking Jack's hands with their rough tongues. A second after that they hurried past him as though he didn't exist and began to eat from the pile on the floor. Jack looked up at Scott amazed. “Get the pail and the rope, Man,” Jack told him. Scott came over with the pail and the rope. “Well, which one you want to do?” Jack asked him. “Um, I'll hold the rope... Yeah, I'll hold the rope,” Scott decided.

Maria watched as Scott slipped the rope over the cow's head and Jack carefully reached under her and grasped her udder. The cow did nothing: Intent on eating the grain. Jack's head popped back up a second later. “Uh, how do you get the milk to come out?” Pearl laughed, jumped to her feet and dusted off her jeans. “Let's go show them,” she told Maria. Maria laughed. “How about you show them, because I don't have a clue... Doesn't it just come right out?” Pearl laughed. “Nearly.” She reached Jack, slipped by him and fastened one hand around a teat and pulled down as she squeezed lightly. “Not hard. Slow and easy.” The milk made a load noise as it squirted into the plastic bucket. A few seconds later Maria and Pearl had retreated to start dinner while Jack and Scott took turns milking the cow. Jack, Maria, Pearl and Scott Jack sat across the fire and listened as Dale Johnson talked. They had met up with his party earlier in the day. Six total, they had been heavily armed, and the meeting had been tense, a standoff in the shattered doorway of a grocery store on the outskirts of Syracuse. Pearl had broken the tension by lowering her rifle and offering her hand. Sink or swim, she had said later, and they had all managed a laugh about it. She had a way with words, or at least a humor in her words. Dale, Bonny, Sammy, Ariel, Liv and max. Max and Liv looked like characters straight out of an end-of-the-world sci-fi novel. Leather pants, ribbed sleeveless t-shirts, crossed holsters slung low, hair cut short on the sides, spiked on top, and they had a way of looking through the person they were talking to, as if they really didn't matter at all. Max rolled a never ending supply of wooden toothpicks from one corner of his mouth to the other. They were both restless, watching the sky, the roads in and out of the parking lot they had camped out in. The others were more laid back. Followers, but they followed Dale rather than the other two, and that made Jack wonder at the strangeness of that. Two type A personalities that no one was following, and Dale, a take it as it comes sort of guy, that everyone including the type A's were following. “This place is over in Kentucky, maybe Tennessee. We overheard others talking

about the place a few times now, guiding others in. It's small now, but it'll grow. It will have to grow, I mean, they have got a set up there they say... Plans, you know.” Scott cleared his throat. “But you haven't talked to them at all, right?” “Well, no. But we have talked to people that have talked to them,” Bonny said. Dale nodded. “They have a place that has existed for as long as this country has existed. They just had someone who knew how to get to it.” Max this time. Jack nodded. “But it's still a maybe... I can't go on a maybe... We're headed to the city... A large group there we've talked to. Probably south from there.” “How do you know that is real? I mean, couldn't that be as much of a pipe dream as what we're following?” Dale asked. Maria nodded. “Well, you're welcome to stay here tonight, but in the morning we're heading down along the thruway and following that into Manhattan... You're welcome to come with us... Strength in numbers, “ she smiled. “Can't do it,” Dale said. He turned to Pearl. “You're welcome... Plenty of room.” Pearl had been quiet, listening to the conversation go back and forth. She was not interested in New York. Her personal belief was that Manhattan would be nothing but death and destruction on a larger scale. The people that Jack and Scott had talked to had pretty much confirmed that. And there was sickness there, something strange, something new. She got the idea they were heading there because there was a group of survivors there, nothing more. And she didn't feel they would stay there long, Jack had talked about heading south as soon as they got the chance, Manhattan was not going to be his final destination. She sighed.” I don't know.” She looked at Maria. They had become close over the last few days, but she would go wherever Jack went. Jack might not realize that yet, but he would. As far as herself, she just wanted to be out of the fight. She wanted somewhere to start over. Someplace safe. “You have to do what you have to do for you,” Maria said. “Who knows, maybe we'll all end up in the same place. I mean, if it turns out to really be a large gathering place, we probably will all be there eventually.”

Dale rose from the fire. “Actually we can make a few miles before full dark,” He frowned. “I don't want you to think we're refusing your hospitality, but I want to get there. It sounds good, not too good to be true, but really good. They'll need people to run it... Set things up. I guess I'd want to see that, have a hand in it,” he sighed. “It would be so nice to put this behind us. Turn a corner, start over,” he shrugged. “I get you,” Jack said. He rose from the fire and took the hand Dale offered. Scott and Maria both offered hands. Pearl said nothing at first, but then turned to Maria and hugged her fiercely. She offered her hand to Jack and Scott, both of whom hugged her instead. A few minutes later Dale and his small group, plus one, pulled out of the parking lot back onto the feeder road. Jack and the others sat quietly by the fire for a few moments until the sound of the motors died away. “I wouldn't have thought that,” Scott said at last. “Surprised me,” Maria agreed. “But, she went through something back there. She didn't talk about it, but whatever it was haunted her.” “We're going to stop hooking up with people. We can't afford it. We'll be down to nothing at all soon,” Jack joked. Maria and Scott both laughed, but it was a short lived laugh, silence settled back in. “Hope it is real,” Maria said at last.” Scott nodded. “Who knows,” Jack said after a brief pause. “Maybe we will all end up there: If it's there: If it's all they say it is... Maybe.” The silence held for a short while. Maria cleared her throat. “Talked to Billy today. About forty people there now,” she said. “Yeah?” Scott asked.

“Yeah. They have a nice little place there, but they're thinking about heading south soon.” “South is the place, I think,” Jack agreed. The conversation went back and forth as they talked about the camp outside of Manhattan and leaving the outskirts of Syracuse in the morning to start for the east coast. The Camp: Billy and Beth Mid June Billy sat sipping coffee by the fire talking with Jack Morrison, when a truck dropped down off the road and into the far end of the field. Conversation died away as the two of them watched the truck coast to a stop. A few more trucks left the field, ing the truck where it sat. Billy rose to his feet with Jack, poured the dregs of his coffee into the fire and looked down toward the truck. “I'm on my way,” Jack told him. Behind him Beth and Maria were talking in low tones. A few feet away Scott was talking to Mac and Iris. Jack offered his hand and Billy took it. “Wish you were staying,” Billy told him. Jack, Maria and Scott had made up their minds to head south to whatever might be left of Alabama. There were three others going with them. “Wish us luck instead,” Maria said with a laugh as she walked up. “I think there is land out there,” Beth said. “Who knows how far though.” “We will,” Scott said. He laughed and Billy walked with them to their truck. The truck behind them held more gear and the other three that had decided to go with them, some newcomers from the city that Billy had not gotten to know well. He waved once at the truck in back and then leaned in the window as Jack closed the door. “Just stay in touch,” Billy said. “As long as you can.” “Will do,” Jack said.

Billy and Beth watched them drive away before Billy turned his attention back to the truck at the end of the field. Jack and Maria West of Manhattan September 3rd “Nobody,” Scott remarked as he clicked off the CB and stepped down from the truck. “It may be the weather,” Ami said as she took his hand. “May be,” Scott agreed with a smile. He bent forward and kissed her softly. “You do that so well,” Ami told him. She had that secret little smile on her face, the one that turned up the corner of her lips. The one that had made him say yes when she had asked to them. They had met her and the small party she had been traveling with the day after they had left Billy's camp and started on their way. Scott thought back on it now. That had been more than two months before. They had spent those two months just trying to get out of the city, past all the stalled traffic that went on forever, and into a place where they could actually have trucks, drive, make time. That day they had still been driving, or trying to. They had come around a curve on a barely held together state route that paralleled the thruway and there they had been: A truck parked in the middle of the road. Jack had locked the brakes up, the curve had not given much warning. Ami had been standing at the front of the truck and she had never even flinched. Jack had stopped a good fifteen feet away. When he and Scott had stepped from the truck she had hit Scott with the smile. He had fallen right then. No arguments. “Could'a killed us,” Toby Black had said. He was the leader of the six party group. “Shouldn't ought to drive so goddamn fast.” Jack was speechless, it was Scott that had fired back.

“That may be,” Scott had allowed,” But maybe you should give a little thought to parking in the middle of the road too.” “On a goddamn curve,” Maria added, barely cracking a smile. “Yeah, well,” Toby said. He seemed to consider a few moments, tugged at his graying beard, and must have decided to say nothing. He had just nodded, dusted one hand against his jeans and extended it to Scott. “Toby,” He had glanced from Scott to Jack to Maria, nodding as he did. “This is Andy,” he had nodded at a skinny man who stood a few feet away. “Galloway over there, Flint at the back of the truck, Lucy siting inside there, and Ami right here.” He had tried to slip one arm over Ami's shoulders, but she had smiled and shrugged it off. “And who are you,” she had asked Scott. Behind him Maria had chuckled. “Scott,” he had said. She had taken his hand and held on, her eyes on his own. “Listen, you can stay to dinner with us if you like. Fresh venison, killed a deer a few hours back.” Toby had pointed at a fire where what looked like both haunches of a small deer had been spitted: Fat dripping and sizzling. “Yeah,” Maria had agreed. “We'd be glad to.” “Yeah,” Jack had added. His stomach had been growling so loudly he had been sure that everyone could hear it. He had reached in, shut down the truck, and then shifted his rifle to his opposite shoulder as he shook hands with the others including Ami who had finally let go of Scott's hand. A little work had secured some late corn from an overgrown nearby field, that and the venison had made an excellent dinner. “So where you folks going to,” Toby had asked. “Alabama,” Jack had answered around a mouthful of corn. “Dammit this is good.” Toby had laughed.

“There are, I think, more deer than there are people. Could have had a cow, in fact, but it would have been a waste of meat,” Ami had said. They had traded small talk as they ate, sharing road information. Toby was bound for Manhattan, even after he had talked to them. Jack had shaken his head. The man was stubborn, there was no changing his mind. Jack had offered them to with them and continue on to Alabama. “Maybe,” Toby had agreed. “I might come back and look you up, but I got to know for myself.” They had been getting ready to leave a few minutes later, having refused politely the offer of spending the night, when Ami had asked if they would accept only her since the others didn't want to go. “Yeah,” Scott had said, nearly immediately. Toby had not seemed surprised although more than a little let down. He had, had a hard time hiding his frown. Scott smiled now thinking about it. “What,” Ami asked. “Thinking about how I like the way your mouth turns up at the corner the way it does,” Scott said. He reached forward and pulled her to him, at the same time walking back to the fire and Maria and Jack. Ami laughed. “Dead,” Scott repeated to Jack and Maria. “Kind of weird,” Maria said. “I mean, it's been chatter, chatter, chatter the last few days and now it's dead. Doesn't make sense.” “Is strange,” Ami agreed. “But we're also further away from the city. Maybe all that chatter was the city... Or most of it.” “My thoughts exactly,” Jack agreed. “We need to find a map and see what is near. Maybe the largest cities close by were destroyed.” “I imagine they were: When we came this way it was the same. The few times we got close to a city it was bad. Destruction, the smell was horrible, and the sick ones too,” Ami said. “Sick?” Jack asked.

“You haven't seen them yet?” Ami asked. “I don't think we saw as much of the really bad stuff I have heard on the radio...” Maria paused for a second. “Back there, Manhattan, when we were with Billy, we heard some bad stuff out of the city. I mean like horror movie stuff. People looking dead but still walking around... Going without food for days, but not dying; attacking other people,” She shrugged. “Had to kill them, the ones that told us said so: Had to kill them because they were just gone. Come right at you and try to kill you if you didn't... Some kind of bad sickness,” Maria finished. “Zombies,” Ami said with a small nervous laugh.” She held her hands up when Jack and Scott shook their heads almost in unison. “I know, I know. They are not zombies, living dead, whatever, but I'm telling you I've seen them and they are bad shit. Bad shit. They may as well be zombies. No real thoughts seem to be going on in there.” She tapped her head with one finger. “They will attack you. They will try to kill you, eat you” She shrugged. “Not zombies, some sort of disease, but it is some very bad shit.” “Like... Like plague of some sort,” Maria said. “Yeah... Yeah, but they keep moving. I mean they should be dead, right? Their necks are swollen, faces black and blue, skin all messed up, running sores, this mass of black lines, like infection, running all through them, under their skin; but they don't die. It's like they are rotting on the bone, but they keep moving somehow. I don't get it, but I have seen it a dozen times. Crazy too, not rational, I mean they are attacking and trying to eat other living people, how is that rational? Head shot, yeah, maybe you could kill them some other way too, but you don't want to be screwing around, because maybe they'll bite you. I have seen what happens to those who get bitten, they get sick pretty fast... A day or two tops. And in just a few hours they got those little black lines running off under their skin. Like I said, bad shit.” “Jesus,” Jack said. “Billy told us about some that were camped near them. They didn't even know it. They live like animals, nests in the woods, darkness, got one of their women, never found her, never found them, but the smell in the clearing was bad... Like death. And a few from the city told other stories. Central Park is over run with them. Thousands of sick and dying, only they aren't dying for some reason, like... I don't know, like they can somehow stay alive when they shouldn't be able to stay alive.” He shivered involuntarily. “Little spooky... I can

see why some are calling them zombies.” Ami nodded. “Difference is these are real. I think zombies are a made up thing, these are something goddamn close to that, but they're real. And there are some who seem sane, or... Calculating. I know that sounds even crazier, it's like they evolve into something else... Some higher form of insanity that is so far gone they're almost, well, sane again.” Silence held for a few moments, Scott broke it. “But a shot to the head does it, huh?” “Yeah. Works every time. I mean, it sort of makes sense. Whatever the hell it is keeping them alive it requires them to have a brain so they can at least function on that... Well, on that animal level, I guess. No brain, no functioning at all.” Ami nodded once she finished and the silence held again for quite some time. This time Maria broke it. “Well,” She squared her shoulders, “I guess if they look suspicious it has got to be a shoot first ask questions later sort of deal then, right?” “Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Yeah,” both Scott and Ami chimed in. Maria leaned forward and threw a few heavy chunks of wood onto the fire. Night was not far away and the shadows were closing in fast. “There were stories about that shit the planes sprayed on us,” Scott said after a long pause. “Like?” Maria asked. “Billy said he heard about it more than once. Almost all of us have stories about planes spraying stuff on us. I saw it back in Watertown, I... I think it was the next day... March 2nd, maybe March 3rd. We were up there in the Southern Tier... Raining all goddamn day, ? Planes flying overhead. I seeing them. Blue shit... You guys?” “I don't the blue shit... Seems I the planes, but I thought, I

don't know, military transport planes. I really didn't think about it until we got back to Watertown and there were no troops there at all. I expected them to be,” Jack said. “I planes,” Ami said. I was in Schenectady... Planes, I thinking the Army had arrived, but they just flew over real slow, cargo doors open, that was weird, I half expected paratroopers to jump out... No blue stuff though, not that I ... Why? What was it about?” “I the blue shit,” Maria added, as Ami finished. “What was it about. What did Billy say?” “Some government shit designed to strengthen us,” He held his hands up as everyone spoke at once. “I didn't say I believed it. Hell, Billy said every time he tried to nail someone down about what they heard and who they heard it from, they would get all sketchy. Oh, it was a soldier I met on the road, told me he knew because the planes flew out of the base he was assigned to. But no name of the base. No facts about it, just like a... You know what it reminded me of? Like an urban legend. They get going the same way. Always sketchy details, low on facts.” “Yeah, well, that's one hell of an urban legend,” Maria said. “Yeah, but the thing is there is always, they say, some seed of truth there,” Scott said thoughtfully. “Maybe is,” Jack agreed. “All I know is those things are real. We'll have to be careful,” Ami said. The silence fell and held this time. “Well,” Jack said at last. “Sleep beckons.” He looked over at the tents they had been using. “Maybe tomorrow, take some time, pick up bigger trucks... Maybe taking a chance sleeping outside isn't smart.” “I was going to mention that,” Ami said. “They might not bother us... Seem to hate fire, bright light. But if they did,” she shook her head. “I don't want to go that way.” “Me either,” Maria agreed.

Jack sighed. “Why don't you two girls sleep... Scott, you too. I'll take four hours and then wake you for the next four.” “Done deal,” Scott agreed. They all rose from the fire, Maria stretched up and kissed Jack. “Be okay?” She asked. “Perfect.” he kissed her again. “Listen... Why don't you and Ami sleep in the truck, you know, just to be safe.” “I second that,” Scott agreed. “I'll take the tent. You guys can do most of the driving tomorrow; let us nap a little to catch up.” “After we get better trucks we can sleep in,” Ami added. “After,” Jack agreed. Maria stretched up on her tip toes and kissed him once more. She left without another word. “Sure you want first?” Scott asked. “I'm good,” Jack agreed. He watched Scott walk away and then turned toward the black landscape and the trees that surrounded them, wishing he had not parked so close to the woods. Jack and Maria Pennsylvania: I 81 September 18th The sign read, Tremont 3, Pottersville 15. “Hard to tell which way it used to point,” Maria said. They had found the sign protruding from the vegetation at the side of the road. The metal rails that once held it had been snapped off, pulled apart, the sign was twisted, the lettering barely legible. “I think we can take for granted we are near those places though,” Scott said. He glanced at Ami who was bent over the hood of their truck examining a map of

Pennsylvania. She raised her head and looked around. “That over up there is route 209... Goes into Tremont, Pottersville further on. Small places. Guys, we've been following route 81 for miles now. We don't have to find it we're on it.” They had been looking for route 81 to follow it across Pennsylvania, through Washington and then into Virginia. From there they intended to pick up whatever routes they could find that would take them toward the coast. They had been following I 81 for the last several hours without knowing it was I 81. There were no signs. The traffic was bumper to bumper in places, nonexistent in others. Most of the congestion was around the interchanges, and they had only come onto I 81 from an interchange. They had found no more since then until they had come up on this one. “A com that was worth a damn would be nice,” Scott said. He shoved the small com he held back into his pocket. Jack nodded. “Sun rises in the south west: If we keep that in sight that should keep us generally on the right track.” Maria nodded this time. “So, stay on it?” “I think so,” Jack agreed. “But maybe a quick look around... Stock up, wouldn't hurt us before we start really laying down the miles.” “Go up to 209,” Ami said, motioning up at the over, and go left... That will take us to Tremont... Small town or city, I can't tell, it looks small.” “Left, that would be,” Scott pulled the com from his pocket once more and watched the dial dip and quiver. He sighed and then threw the small com up into the sun. “Should have done that long ago,” He said. “East, I guess. That would be east. What used to be east.” “Still is east,” Maria said. “Com doesn't know where true north is anymore, so it hardly matters. For now it's east.” Scott nodded. “Don't know why it matters to me anyway,” he itted. “Because it keeps things normal,” Ami said quietly.

“Maybe,” Scott itted. “The doctor's office is closed,” Maria said and laughed. “We're all fucked up. No doubt about it. Let's get some supplies and get on the road.” Silence held for a split second and then Scott laughed. Ami ed in and Jack chuckled right along with them. “Let's go,” Scott agreed. A few seconds later he was gunning the motor slipping through the high grass, fighting his way up to the over. Tremont PA. The streets seemed deserted, the buildings dusty and empty. Most of the main street was gone, what buildings remained perched on the edge of a yawning chasm. They approached carefully and looked down to see a small stream flowing across the floor of the cut some forty feet below: Emerging from a dark smudge on one side and flowing under a huge rock overhang on the other. Moss grew on some rocks near the stream. It had an air of permanence. The imagery below looked like something out of a wilderness camping guide. “Looks like one of those forever wild things... Hike the Appalachian trail or something,” Ami said. She let her eyes wander upward where the buildings perched on the edge of the abyss, as though waiting to plunge down into the small, peaceful stream far below. “And then you have this,” she raised her arms to encom the buildings where they sat. “Surreal.” Scott nodded his head. He stood from his crouch and looked around at the buildings. “Deserted, I guess.” He had no sooner spoken the words than gunfire erupted and shattered the quiet afternoon air. He dove for the ground, ed where he was, but too late. He hit the slope to the bottom of the gully and rolled toward the bottom. Halfway down his head struck a small rock outcropping and he stopped wondering about the gunfire and where it had come form. Ami lunged for the gully, but Jack grabbed her just as quickly and pulled her toward one of the buildings Maria had run for. Already she had made the doorway and stood beckoning to them. Jack pushed Ami forward toward the building and then leapt the short distance to the cover of the corner of the building. The leap was too much for his still healing leg and he collapsed in agony just within the shadow of the building.

“Jack!” Maria from the shadowy interior of the building, Ami crouched next to her. Behind him he heard running footsteps approaching, he motioned for Maria to go before he pushed himself over onto his back to face who ever this was. The pain flared bright in his leg as he used it to turn himself over, and he almost ed out. He got his gun up and pushed himself up on one elbow ready to fire. A second later a figure ran around the edge of the building and into his line of fire. He hesitated only the briefest of seconds, but it was long enough for the young girl to bring up her own weapon and fire. Jack's pistol roared as he felt a stinging sensation on his neck, and he watched the young girl twist backwards and slam off the brick buildings inside corner as his bullet found her. As quickly as the noise had begun the afternoon turned deadly quiet. No bird calls, the vague gurgle of the stream as it flowed far below in the gully, nothing else. Jack put one hand to the side of his neck and bought it away bloodied. “Great,” he muttered to himself. He turned slowly, used one hand to get his good leg under him and stood from the sidewalk he had fallen on. Maria spoke from behind him and he nearly jumped before he could calm his staggering heartbeat down and respond. “Baby... Baby, come on,” Maria whispered again. “I told you to go,” Jack said tightly as he limped toward the darkened doorway of the building. “And I didn't,” Maria said every bit as tightly. Jack made the doorway and looked around at the darkened interior. “Where did Ami go?” “Ran back toward the pit when you went down. I... I couldn't stop her, Jack,” Maria told him. “Of course not... Wouldn't have stopped me if it was you down there either.” He sighed. “Jesus, you're bleeding bad, Jack, really bad,” Maria told him. She pulled her tshirt over her head, wadded it up and pressed it against the side of her neck. “Feel funny,” he said, “Sleepy... Hey, no bra, that's...” The lights dimmed down

suddenly; winked out completely, and he spiraled down into darkness. Tremont PA Full dark “I wanted... I wanted you to know it... I wanted you to know... Know it,” Jack said. His words were garbled and barely intelligible. His eyes snapped open in the darkness, his breath caught in his throat, and he began to sit up. Maria placed a hand against his chest, leaned close and whispered into his ear. “Lay still, Babe. Lay still... Be quiet... Something is out there... Someone... Quiet.” Her hand kept firm and steady pressure against his chest and he sank back down to the floor. It seemed he was barley holding onto consciousness, his eyes kept rolling up into his head. “Goddammit,” Maria exploded. A second later her machine pistol began to chatter. Jack sank back down into unconsciousness. The Gully Scott's eyes flew open in the darkness. Something... Something had awakened him... He had been asleep and something... Close by a woman screamed and the sound of a semi automatic weapon firing fast came to him. The scream tore off abruptly, reduced to a series of gagging, pleading sounds, and then nothing. He tried to move and nearly grayed out from the pain that flared in his left arm. Something, he thought, was broken or badly injured. He tried again and this time it responded better. Dislocated, he told himself, as he grimaced to bite back the cry that wanted to slip past his clenched jaw. He whimpered slightly from reaction and the expenditure of energy, and grasped his left wrist firmly with his right hand. A second later he was pulling and twisting slightly. A sharp pull, a sharper twist. Once, twice and he was on the edge of ing out. He drew several deep breaths and tried a third time and the shoulder slipped back into place. He fell back against the moist earth and closed his eyes, intending only to gather his strength for a moment, but his eyes betrayed him and he spiraled away down into the dark. The Vacant building Maria made her feet and duck walked forward to where the two figures had

crumpled to the ground. The one, a woman, half her lower jaw missing, one leg hanging by a thread and blood pumping out of her at an alarming rate, was snarling softly and crawling toward the road where a second woman lay breathing hard. She reached her and rose on one elbow before lowering her face and beginning to bite with what was left of her shattered jaw. The woman laying in the street began to scream, Maria switched to single shot, stood and walked up behind them and shot them both. The one on top still whimpered and snarled, almost sounding as though she were pleading, before Maria shot her one more time and she collapsed: Silent at last. Maria faded back into the shadows, listening, but the night was silent. She returned to Jack who had slipped back down into a deep sleep once more. She had given him morphine, a small shot. They carried it. She had debated doing it, but he needed it. He had opened up a large section of his neck and the bleeding was heavy. She had to stitch it and she couldn't have him waking up halfway through that. She had looked with dismay at the dirt grimed into her hands and under her fingernails. Infection was a real possibility in this world. She had drenched the whole area with a full bottle of peroxide, something else they carried, stitched the wound with dental floss, and then sprayed it down with a once popular spray antibiotic. She had managed to force three penicillin pills into him and got him to swallow them down, out of it as he was. There was nothing else to do, but wait it out. He had lost a great deal of blood, but she had not been able to get him to swallow again, the water just poured out the sides of his mouth when she gave it to him. She took his head into her lap now and held him. Watching the black and silent night, her machine pistol across her lower legs. Safety off and ready. Tremont September 20th Her eyes blinked rapidly, she drew a deep gasping breath and then came fully awake. Ami stared around the ravine at the gray light that was beginning to paint color back into the world. Rock, sand and water. Moss on some rocks. She puzzled the information over and over again in her head. Rocks and water... Rocks, water, moss, sand, rocks... Moss, water... The realization of where she was come to her as she ed the events of the day before. She rose to her scraped and blood crusted elbows and then to a sitting position. Her back felt

sprung, maybe it would hurt more later, but for now she could deal with it. Her heartbeat seemed a little odd. Too slow, something, but it wasn't skipping beats or anything so she dismissed that too. She sat, shaky, and let her mind come more fully back to herself before she raised her head and took in her surroundings more fully. Hypothermia, her mind said, and she was cold, very cold, there was no heat in the ground down here. That could explain the heart beat seeming to be too slow, hypothermia did that. Her mind seemed determined to keep up a dialogue with her as she studied first one side and then the other side of the ravine. Her eyes slipped over a dirty bundle of rags where they lay half in half out of the water and continued on before she realized they were no bundle of rags, got to her feet and stumbled the thirty feet or so to where Scott lay, half in, half out of the water. Her fingers, stiff though they were, felt at his neck for a pulse. He moved as she jabbed her stiff fingers into his neck. “Jesus... Jesus, Ami... That hurts. That hurts,” Scott said. His words started out mumbled but grew a little stronger as he spoke. “So damn cold,” Scott finished. His lips were blue tinged and he was cold to the touch. “I know, baby, I know. I have to get you out of this water. Going to move you,” she told him as she made her own feet, fought the dizziness that threatened to down her, and bent once more, wrapping her arms around his upper chest and dragged him backwards. Scott called out a second later and then lapsed back into unconsciousness once more. Ami struggled to pull him back farther away from the water and then let him go, sinking to the ground herself and breathing hard. A few minutes later she had caught her own breath and was checking herself over for injuries. Obviously, she told herself, they had both tumbled down the ravine. Him first, her as she tried to follow. One side of her face was a ruin of scrapes and crusted blood. Her mouth was numb on that side, but that had been the side against the ground so that was no real surprise. She flexed her jaw experimentally and it seemed to work fine. One knee ached, but did not seem to be swollen. Her tailbone hurt, no way to check it now, but she assumed it was most likely black and blue. Right ankle hurt a little: Could have been the way she slept on it too. No way to know, but it was also not

swollen: She was bruised, a little battered, but no big deal. She needed warmth and she would be fine. She turned her attention to Scott. Bruising on his jawline and temple on the right side of his face and scraped up skin in the same place. What wasn't scraped up was deeply bruised. Probably where his head collided with something on the way down to the bottom. His shoulder felt larger on one side, but she was able to move his arm with no problem. “Hey,” softly from above, but she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Oh my God you scared the shit out of me,” Ami whispered. Maria only nodded. “He okay too?” “No,” Ami said softly. “Too cold... Have to get him out of here... Warmed up.” Maria nodded and then disappeared for a few seconds. “Okay... Listen, I'm going to get the truck. The one you and Scott were driving had a winch. We should be able to get you up with that.” Ami felt at her pocket for the keys, but as she looked down at her pants the pocket was gone, ripped from the fabric of the cargo pants. “Keys are gone,” she called up. Maria swore lightly under her breath. “Plan B,” Maria called down after a few minutes. “Our truck is gone, don't know if that was why they attacked us, but they took the truck. I don't know how to hot-wire a truck or a car... Jack is out, so I'm going to go look for something that will run, get a rope and come back here and get you out that way. Hang on.” Her face disappeared from the top of the embankment and then was back a few moments later. “Water,” she called down. “Don't try to catch it.” She took her time, aimed, and then tossed first one and then two more bottles down. They landed with a hard thud not far from where Ami sat with Scott's head pulled into her lap. “Drink... You don't want to get dehydrated too,” Maria told her with a tight smile. “I'll be back as soon as I can.” She disappeared before Ami could speak. “Come on, baby, come on,” Ami said as she slapped at the side of Scott's face. She finally got him to open one eye, pulled his head slightly higher and got him to drink half of one bottle before his head sank once more into her lap.

Afternoon They were all huddled around the fire Maria had built inside the small sidewalk area under the overhang of the doorway. There was very little room, but there was a building at their backs and a wide view of the downtown area and the edge of the ravine a few hundred feet away. “We have got to get out of here,” Maria said. The day was slipping away. She had no doubt that whatever it was that had attacked them last night, plague victims, would be back tonight once the sun went down. She had only a dozen bullets for her machine pistol. Jack's pistol had a loaded magazine, nine, and Scott and Ami had both lost their weapons on their fall into the ravine. Maria had smashed the window on their truck, but all the ammunition had been in their own truck, and that was long gone. “Bad straights,” Ami said. “Very,” Maria agreed. She eased her lap out from under Jack's head, and rose to her feet. She had found an old mini van that she had used to get Ami and Scott out of the ravine. It ran well enough, and had nearly a half tank of gas. It would have to do. She had already transferred what foodstuffs there had been and supplies they could use from the second truck into the mini van, and packed it carefully along the sides of the rear windows. The rear seat had folded down, and there was space to lay both Jack and Scott out in the back. The problem was that neither of them were conscious and they were both big men. Not an easy task. Ami had been banged up too. One side of her face was going to be covered with spectacular scars. Maria had dug the small pebbles out of it, washed the dirt away and disinfected it. There was nothing more she could do. She didn't know if Ami was up to the work or not. “Think you're up to it,” she asked now. She looked up at the sky. “The longer we wait the worse it will be. The day's getting away from us.” Ami nodded. “No, but I will have to be. Let's do it.” She rose to her own feet, steady now, where just a short time earlier she had been shaky. She had warmed up nicely, and she saw that Scott had as well. His breathing had become something closer to normal, even, no rattle in his chest or gasping that she was afraid she would hear. He slept deeply. Maria had pulled the small van close to the building earlier. She went to it now,

opened the rear hatch and returned to where Ami waited. They decided on Jack first. Jack was the heaviest and it might be better to get the heaviest out-of-theway first. It took more than twenty minutes before they managed to get Jack securely into the back of the van. They had both collapsed to the pavement breathing hard, not wanting to do anything else, but after only a short break they had forced themselves to their feet once more. The longer they sat, the deeper the weariness had moved into them: Settling into their bodies. Scott had been no trouble at all. Maybe it had been the first tugging and fighting to get Jack into the van, or maybe he was just that much lighter, but he was easily positioned into the back of the van. They both collapsed to the pavement once more. Breath ragged, lungs aching and burning, sharpness resting just below their rib cages, a feeling Maria had always acquainted with running too fast, too hard. She took her time, slowed her breathing, dragged Ami to her feet and walked back and forth in front of the building until her heartbeat resumed its former slower beat, and the sweat began to dry on her skin. Only then did she slow and rest against the hood with Ami. “This is so hard,” Maria said. She burst into tears, but fought them back just as quickly. Ami lowered her head into her own hands and a few sobs slipped past her hands before she got herself under control. “Better go,” she said aloud as she raised her tear streaked face. Maria nodded, moved around the truck and opened the driver's door with a rusty screech. A few moments later the broken pavement of downtown Tremont was shrinking in their mirror as they made their way west once more, heading back to I 81 to continue their trip south.

TEN

Harrisburg PA September 22nd The fires burned low around the small open area. The six of them sat quietly watching the stars come out. Jack shifted and Maria curled into his side, head on his chest, eyes closed. “Okay?” Jack asked. “Um hm,” she agreed, “Just tired.” They had met Cathy Cross on their way out of Tremont, just before they had made it back to I 81. She had been on foot, walking the tree line, heading vaguely south. She had heard them coming, she had told them, and ducked into the woods. Something, maybe the sight of what appeared to be two women traveling alone, had made her come back out and fire her gun into the air to get their attention. The gun had nearly made Maria drive on. Her initial impulse had caused her foot to ram the gas down, but a split second later Ami had spotted Cathy where she stood just outside the tree line and got her to stop the van. Maria had stepped outside the van, machine pistol ready, willing to waste the precious few bullets she had left if she had to. “You're not weird are you?” Cathy called out. She was maybe a hundred yards away. Nearly lost in the tall grass. Her own rifle was clasped tightly in her hands. Not aimed at Maria and the van, but ready for whatever the van and its occupants might bring. “There are four of us... Our men are hurt,” Maria called. She panicked immediately when she realized she had unintentionally told the truth. Just blurted it out, but she fought the panic back. “Will you take me?” Cathy had asked. “It'll be cramped, but yes,” Maria agreed. “If you don't mind the cramped space... We'll get another truck as soon as we can... Bigger.”

Nineteen straight hours of driving had bought them into the next morning and a small dealership on the outskirts of Fredericksburg. They had made good time running along the edges of the black topped former highway. Outside of Fredericksburg the highway had once again become congested. They had finally been forced to take to the high grass in the fields more and more to find their way around the traffic. They had found the dealership and pulled right up to the front doors of the showroom just as dawn was breaking. They had met John Campbell as they were searching the lot for a suitable truck. They had heard his truck long before they had seen it, but there had still been no chance to hide their own truck to remain unseen by him. They listened as he fought his way around the same obstacles they had, apparently following their tracks they had cut through the soft shoulders and the fields of tall grass. The motor rose in pitch, straining, and then fell back to idle as he once again made the roadway. When he came into view he had seen them about the same time they had seen him and raised one hand in a happy wave. Maria had breathed a sigh of relief. With John's help they had liberated two trucks from the dealership lot, gassed them up, and made it to the other side of Fredericksburg and a sporting goods store that had not been completely ransacked. They had stocked up on ammunition, and with Maria leading they had struck out again, once more heading south. Scott had come back first, the next morning, Jack had come back later that day. Both a little slow, groggy, but healing. Ami leaned forward and shifted the meat that simmered over the fire. Wild turkey. They had met a flock of them pecking their way through a field twenty miles north. She had been able to walk right up to one that only bristled, and threatened her before she shot it. She had felt bad after she had shot it. She had never hunted a day in her life, but a few minutes later Scott had been helping her to gut the bird, pluck the feathers, and then they had continued on down the road to where they had set up camp for the night. They had backtracked to I 81 after the detour to Fredericksburg and were now just outside of Harrisburg. Harrisburg was off limits. Someone had made and posted signs over the crumpled city limit signs where they had fallen. One word, PLAGUE written in all caps with dripping red paint making it seem even more ominous to them.

They had backtracked once more to where they now were, looking for a place to both cross what appeared to be a large lake in places, and avoid Harrisburg. They had found no way across what they were sure had been the Susquehanna River, but was now a large inland lake: So far across in places that they could not see the other side; slow, deep, and carrying all manner of debris. Tree limbs, pieces of houses. Bloated animal carcasses and who knew what else. As night closed in now they could see a red glow on the horizon. What was left of Harrisburg that was not flooded was burning brightly: No doubt a cure for the plague. It had made them all quiet. “We'll have to skirt this somehow tomorrow, won't we?” John asked now. “I thought about that, but no. I think it makes no sense to go back up along the river, or what we hope will turn back to a river, looking for a place to cross. I don't think there will be any bridges left. All of that stuff had to come down stream... I think any bridges that were there to cross are now gone. No... I think, find a boat, pack our supplies into it and make our way across to the other side,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Be dangerous with all that shit floating downstream,” Scott said. “Very,” Jack agreed. “I think we do it in daylight. Get ourselves ready... There are places where we can see across. We go slow, carefully get to the other side and get the hell out of the water as fast as we can.” “That would work,” Ami agreed. “I think so,” Cathy added. “But we'll have to find a boat, right? Will there be a place close by?” “There should be,” John said aloud. He seemed to be thinking. A second later he had one of the map's open and spread in his lap. “Where there is water,” he said vaguely. “There are boats,” Scott finished and smiled. John gave Scott a crooked smile which made him blush. “We just need to work our way back north along the waters edge. Eventually we'll find a marina or a boat dealership, something,” John finished. He gave Scott a look again, seeming to enjoy the way he made him feel uncomfortable.

He had already told Ami that she was lucky she had him, he was a beautiful man. Scott had wondered over that statement until the facts of the situation had dawned on him. John had simply laughed. “That should work,” Jack agreed. He tended to hold his head stiffly. His neck seemed to pinch when he moved it too quickly. The skin was healing and the muscle in his neck was sore. It felt stuck, like part of it had healed improperly, or bonded to something it shouldn't have. He could feel a tearing, pinching feeling when he moved it too far. The plus side was that it was becoming less. So maybe it was just the muscle itself healing. Healing slowly, he told himself as he flexed it carefully and rubbed at the raised ridge of stitching. “I think she sewed it to your ear,” Scott said and ducked as Maria batted at his head. He chuckled until Ami gave him a shot to the ribs. “Shit. That's not fair, working together.” “Sure it is,” Ami disagreed. Jack smiled. “I do seem to hear better when I flex my jaw,” he said. Maria swatted his arm. “So mean, saved your head, might have had to amputate it too, yet you're so mean.” Cathy flexed her jaw. “Hey, me too.” Everyone laughed, breaking the tension. A few minutes went by and Jack began to talk once more. “So, the boats, make our way across and stock back up, get another truck, continue on our way.” “Right,” John agreed. “Unless, well, but you don't want to travel by night.” “But what, though?” Maria asked. “Well, we're going south and I bet that lake is going south too.” “Some,” Scott agreed. He had taken the map and was looking it over. “It does go a little south, but it mainly goes East... Back to the east coast... At least the Susquehanna did, so I assume the lake does as well.” “Plus the debris,” Ami said

“Good idea if not for that,” Cathy agreed, “So, back to the boat, get across as fast as we can and get on our way.” Jack nodded and one by one the others did. “Okay, so that's decided.” He turned back to the turkey sizzling on spits over the fire and rubbed his hands together. “White or dark,” he asked. “Oh, dark,” John said and made eyes at Scott. Cathy giggled. Jack and Maria Kumbrabow State Forest Valley Head WV September 26th They had left I 81 once they had crossed the Susquehanna river. They had been unable to find it again easily. They had instead kept south on back roads and flat land where they could make good speed. The farther from the main roads they went the easier it was to travel. The roads were less congested. The problem was that the destruction was wide spread. More than once a section of road they were following had disappeared into water, or into a ravine. It happened fast, you had to pay attention. They had found the state forest area, pulled off on an overgrown road and made their way a little deeper into the forest. A ranger shack had supplied what looked to be a good place to sleep for the night. It would be the first time out of the trucks in a few days. It would feel good. “I could stay right here,” Cathy said. “I really think it's beautiful.” They were inside near the wood stove they had kindled. A deer carcass hung just inside the doorway. They had shot it right in the front yard of the shack shortly after they had stopped. Steaks were cooking on top of the stove in a cast iron pan. “I like mountains too,” Maria agreed. “Yeah, except, this would not be a good place to be in a few months when winter rolls in I bet,” Ami threw in.

Cathy frowned and then sighed. “Didn't think of that.” “Reason we are heading south to begin with,” John said. “Easier winters... We hope.” He sighed too. “But it is pretty. I love it too. So... I don't know, wild, I guess. Primitive. I could see me living in a place like this, but only if I had a partner who was a good hunter... Well supplied before winter. Safe. More people to help. Life would be a little tougher here, I guess, but the beauty might be worth it.” “I think south will be tough too,” Scott said. “Hurricanes, storms, flooding I would bet, after all, all that water ends up down there some place and all the rivers have to be overflowed... Maybe even changed course. And living down south brings its own problems. Like it's hotter than hell several months out of the year, even if you live on the Gulf. The storms. Snakes, and bugs that can kill you.” “What?” Jack asked. “What?” Scott asked him. “Bugs that can kill you? And, what kinds of snakes.” Scott laughed. “Snake of all kinds. Too many to list. That is semi tropical. Probably will be tropical eventually, maybe even is now. All the animals that call it home were controlled because of the people population. We already noticed most animals made it and the people didn't, so those snakes are not afraid of much of anything anymore. Scorpions, bot flies, kissing bug, fire ants, a lot more. Most can't kill you but they might make you wish you were dead. Now the snakes can kill you, and it's not like you can run to the hospital.” “Jesus,” Maria said. “Thanks, Scott. Thanks a lot.” “Hey. I didn't make these bugs, I just thought you should be aware. Look, it's not a big deal, just something you have to be careful of. Like... Like, say, freezing to death up north. My first winter up there I went out in January, 32 below zero with the wind chill. No hat, and my ears froze so goddamn fast I thought I would lose them.” “Only takes about ten minutes to get frostbite when it's that cold,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Maria agreed. “Lucky you didn't lose them, part of them.” “Okay, so see? It's the same thing. Different area of the world. You just have to be aware of it is all. Learn.” The cabin shook as something slammed into it from outside. “What the fu...” Scott began. “Douse that lantern... Lock that door,” Jack said as he lunged for his machine pistol where he had laid it down by a small, pine table. The cabin plunged into darkness and they were all momentarily blind from the lantern light. A few seconds later their sight began to return. “Get your guns in your hand now that you can see,” Jack whispered. “Jesus, don't shoot any of us... Watch the windows.” There were two small windows that had been set into the cabin wall, one on each side. The one side, Jack ed, faced the deep woods. The other faced the road. He motioned everyone toward the back of the cabin so they could look forward and see out of both windows. “Shoot the window out we don't have a way to stop them,” John said. “A man, or a bear, can easily break one of those windows if they want to,” Maria said quietly. “It's no protection at all.” Something slammed into the wall directly behind them and Cathy screamed before she could stop herself. Something answered from outside at the back of the shack. A low growl that turned into a snarl that did not sound like any animal any of them had ever heard. “Oh God,” Cathy said. Maria pulled her to her and buried her head into her breast. “Shh... Quiet, Cat, quiet.” The silence came back heavy and then whatever the something was, it continued to bump its way around the side of the shack, seemingly headed toward the front. Silence and then the shape of a man appeared in the g;lass of one side window. A second later and the glass shattered; the figure began climbing into the room.

The gunfire was deafening inside the little shack. The man blew into pieces long before he made it through the window, and was tossed back out onto the grass. A second later another came to the window and snarled at them. All of them fired. Silence returned fast and hard. Cathy sobbed from Maria's breast where she held her tight. “Sss okay,” Maria told her. “It's okay. Ssh, it's alright.” The seconds dragged and the silence remained, punctuated only by Cathy's sobs. Jack and John made their feet and went quickly to the doorway. Flashlights in their hands. “Scott?”Jack turned back around to him. “Scott don't let anything in here,” Jack told him. “No way,” Scott agreed tightly. A few moments outside told them everything they needed to know. Noises from the woods told them more. They were back quickly. “Plague,” Jack said. “Get whatever you can get fast, probably guns only. There are more of them back further in the woods. We've got to go.” They drove the overgrown dirt road carefully, there were dozens of plague victims crowding close to the road, shying from the light, but not wanting to. They made the small county road they had followed in, turned south and drove into the night. Jack and Maria Asheville North Carolina September 27th The day was clear and bright as they skirted what they were certain was Asheville North Carolina and headed toward the Georgia border. They would be in Georgia just a short time before they crossed over into Alabama. Billy and Beth had told them they had not been far into Alabama before the state had disappeared, the highway sinking into the sea. They were three trucks riding the sides of the roads angling their way across wet areas via whatever high ground they could find. They were close to the Georgia border when the attack came.

The trucks had come around a curve ahead of them and swept past on the other side of a wide highway median. Jack had known by the way the men in the trucks had watched them that this was not going to be a friendly meeting. The trucks had slowed. The center median was flooded, there was no way they would make it across there, but it was less than a mile back to where there was a crossing. The same crossing they had used to get onto this side of the highway. Jack had picked up the CB handset in his truck and told the rest to follow him. He had no place in mind. It made no sense to go back, forward made the most sense. He picked up as much speed as he could and the other two fell in behind him as he skirted the road, running into the fields where necessary. A half hour bought them in view of a small town off the highway they were traveling. Jack drove off the edge of the highway and crossed through the fields into the town The roads were rough, most of the town was a shamble, but the streets were quiet and darkened by the overgrowth of trees. The downtown section was full of abandoned cars, Jack spied a garage up ahead and angled into the parking lot. A little work and they managed to cut the locks off the garage doors and raise them. An hour after they had driven into the lot they were hidden away inside the garage. They had left the trucks and were gathered quietly looking through the dirty glass at the deserted streets. “They will follow our tracks right off the road,” Jack said.” “And if not they had got us on the road with no safe place to fight from,“ Scott said. “We have concrete block at our back here. They don't know this is where we went.” “Maybe,” Jack allowed. “There,” Maria said and pointed. One of the trucks they had seen on the other side of the highway idled down the street in low gear. The load exhaust reaching them inside the bays. “How in hell did they find us so fast,” Ami wondered aloud. “I don't know,” Jack said. “Maybe mud... Wet spots on the road from where we crossed out of the fields

and headed down this way,” John offered. “Dammit,” Jack agreed. “That's it.” “Nothing for it now,” Scott said quietly. “Well, do we bring it to them or let them bring it to us?” John Frowned, Maria spoke up, Cathy right behind her. “I say take it to them. That's one truck we can take out, out of three, right now. Might make the others think twice about it.” “You're sure it's one of them?” Ami asked. “Positive,” Jack said. “Then we got to do it,” Ami agreed. “How?” “We can't shoot through this glass... Go around back, out the back, I mean. We'll take him as he rolls out of the other street corner,” Jack decided at last. The rest followed him out the back door and around the building to the overgrown weeds and shrubs that hid the corner of the building. A few moments later the truck rolled through the intersection on the opposite side of the garage and they opened up on it. The driver floored it and the truck scorched the pavement as it jumped ahead, but a split second after that the motor died and the truck bounced as it slammed back down to the pavement; drifting across the road headed for a small playground on the opposite side of the street and a construction area just beyond that. A second went by, another, and the front enger door opened and three people jumped from inside, stumbled, rolling onto the ground, trying to get to their feet and then began to sprint off down the street as the truck continued on, mowing over the chain link fence of the playground, and then hanging up on a small concrete barrier just inside the fencing line. Jack led the first man and carefully fired. The man collapsed to the pavement like a rag doll, arms and legs flopping as he tumbled to an awkward stop. The second runner stopped, turned, and opened up on them. Maria felt the wind as a bullet zipped past her face before she heard the shot. At the same time she was pulling the trigger on her machine pistol. A notoriously bad weapon for long

distance shooting, but a killing machine in full auto mode. The man seemed to start a slow tap dance for a second and then slowly toppled forward onto the pavement. A pool of blood spread quickly from under him. The last runner turned, a woman, threw down her weapon and raised her hands. A shot rang out and she topped over into the street. “Oh my God,” Cathy said. She choked back a sob. “I didn't mean to kill her. I didn't mean it.” “Doesn't matter,” Maria said. “If you hadn't, I would have.” “But she surrendered,” John said. “She was surrendering to us.” “Well, too late. She never should have come after us. We can't take prisoners. Do you think they would have? No. They would have killed everyone. Maybe not us... Me, Cathy and Ami. That would have been worse. Don't cry for her she made her bed and she's dead now. Fuck her,” Maria finished quietly. “It is what it is,” Ami said softly. “Hey... Hey, hey, hey,” John said. “More!” A second later the whole day seemed to come alive with noise. Gunfire crashed non stop as the other two trucks rolled onto the street and began firing. The battle was short lived. The last truck never fully turned onto the street. One of them got it with a lucky shot, the two front tires blew out and it dove for the ground. The huge tires making it seem sloped at a steep angle down onto the rims. The men inside the truck scrambled to get away as the men inside the lead truck continued to fire. Eventually the gunfire fell off. No one moved. They had seen three men run from the last truck, back down the street. Two had lurched while they were running. They seemed to have been hit, the other might have made it, Jack thought. The silence held. Nothing. No sounds. No shots. Jack looked around and saw Cathy sprawled on the ground, the side of her face missing. He looked away quickly, watching the street carefully. From somewhere farther away they heard a motor turn over slowly, grinding to life. It caught, quit, and then caught again. The idle evened out and a few minutes later the engine rose to a higher pitch, almost screaming as it fled from the small city, east, back toward the highway.

Jack drew a deep breath. “Bring her inside,” He said tersely. Inside they laid her out on one of the work benches, but it was clear in just a few moments that she was dead. Jack paced back and forth in front of the windows, pausing to listen. Across the street the first truck popped loudly and then burst into flame, a trail of fire running away from the rear of the truck toward the street and the garage where they were. “Great... Okay, listen, we have got to go. We have got to go right now before that fire turns real bad.” As he spoke a car at the curb in front of the garage caught fire as the pool of gasoline found its way under it. Old oil on the motor, something, it caught fast and began to burn right along with the other truck. “We should bury, Cathy,” John said. “We should, and any other time we could, but this time, no,” Jack said. “Either of those tanks could blow at any second. Then we'll be forced to run. On foot, because there will be no way out,” as he spoke he began yanking up the closest garage door. Scott wrenched another up close to him. Maria shoved up the last one. “But it's wrong,” John said. He was frozen in the middle of the floor, glancing back and forth to Cathy's body. Jack walked quickly from the door to John. He didn't hesitate, but threw a quick punch at his jawline. “Scott,” he called as he caught him. Scott was there a second later and together they shoved John's unconscious body into one of the trucks. Maria, Scott and Jack himself drove. Screeching out of the garage and across the pavement out into the street. The trucks jumping and diving, motors growling, the tires spinning and screeching as they fought for purchase. They were less than two blocks away when something back at the garage blew up. Jack sighed and followed Maria as she made her way out of the small city and southward once again. Jack and Maria Fort Deposit Alabama October 15th

It was early morning. One moment the road had been there, and the next it had been gone, angling away down into the water. They all stopped, shut down the motors and looked over the water. Jack fitted a pair of binoculars to his eyes, as did Scott. “Way out,” Jack said as he ed the binoculars to Maria. “Yeah... Yeah, hardly see it,” Scott agreed. He ed his own binoculars to Ami. Maria lowered her binoculars and then ed them off to John. John had been quiet lately, but he was speaking to them. “So we're here,” Maria said. “We are here,” Jack agreed. They had stopped two days earlier when they had found a small marina and picked out three boats, trailered them, and hooked them to the trucks. It had made the going slow as they finished the last few miles into Alabama looking for the place where it ceased to exist, but it had been worth it. After all, they had decided, they would have to have boats. Get them now or get there and have to back track to get them. “It's not deep at all,” Scott said as he looked out over the water. “It's, like, barely there, maybe just inches... I wonder if this is high tide or low tide?” “Good question,” Jack agreed. “We're here, we have time, let's wait and see. We may find ourselves driving quite a lot of the distance.” “Or backing up from here to higher ground,” Maria joked. “I don't think so,” John said. “Look. There are no marks anywhere that resemble water rings... That means this might be high tide right now. If so, and it's only inches right now, this road might be high and dry in a few hours.” Jack nodded. “Tides can be a foot or more in places.” He snapped his fingers. “Billy mentioned a truck dealership not far from here. Four wheel drives.” “Right,” Maria agreed. “What do you have in mind?” “Four wheel drive, and those kinds of trucks sit higher... Put some wider tires on

them, what do they call them, tires that float over the top of the mud instead of sinking in?” No one spoke. “Well, I can't the name, but we should put tires like that on them, wider, that should do better if we have to drive on the bottom... Sand, mud... Just in case it doesn't go all the way out.” “Now?” Scott asked. “No. Let's see what is up with the tide first. We have the time now. It's on our side,” Jack said. “I saw a herd of goats back a mile or so, I say we go get us a goat, come back here and make a celebration meal.” “Kill the fatted goat?” Maria asked. “Kill the fatted goat,” Jack agreed. “Honey, you feel okay here alone? Me and Scott will head back and get a goat. You can get a fire ready, a place to stay... Probably for the night.” He looked off to the sides. “It's clear over in there.” “Go ahead,” Maria said. “We'll get a fire going and get set up... Wait on you.”She leaned forward and kissed him. “Come right back,” she said. “Will do,” Jack agreed. “John? You want to come or stay here?” “Stay,” John decided. “Anyone else?” Jack asked. “Just you two,” Maria agreed as Ami and John shook their heads once more. Jack smiled, bent and kissed her once more, turned and left. Fort Deposit Alabama Jack and Maria “This should be low tide,” Jack said as he stared up at the sky, eyes shaded by one hand. “Should be,” Scott agreed. They had spent the last few days observing the tides and working on the three trucks. They had found a garage a few miles back while they had been searching

for tires to swap out the ones on the first truck. A rusted truck had sat on the cracked and kudzu choked pavement. Wide mud tires on all four corners. A few minutes work had gotten it to run at a choppy idle. Scott and Jack had driven it out in to the Gulf themselves, ten miles on the odometer, but it had plowed along with no problem. The bottom was hard packed sand, not mud. The water at low tide was no more than a foot deep, at least where they had driven. It had been a good deal farther out to land, maybe twenty miles or better, maybe less than another ten: Distance over water was hard to tell, Scott had said. Jack had tended to agree with that statement. To him it looked like the land mass had gotten no bigger at all. He had begun to wonder if it would. They had stopped, debated, and then decided to drive back. They had little fuel, no boat in case it did get deep, and no idea how far they had to go. As far as the binoculars could show them, the water looked no more than a few inches deep. That had been four days ago. Their own trucks, now equipped with wider, aggressively tread mud tires should be able to drive right over the sandy bottom: Dig themselves out if they did bog down. The question was whether the drive to the land could be made in one low tide window. The deeper question he had asked himself more than once now was why? Why was it so important to reach a spit of land that was cut off from the mainland. Abandoned by nature to the ocean? And what would be there? He had no answer except a vague certainty that it would be safe. Safe from the gangs, safe from the dead, safe. Maria touched the back of his arm, he turned and smiled at her where she stood with Ami. Behind them, John was checking over the trailers they intended to tow behind the trucks with Jayne. They had picked up Jane back in Hayneville where they had found the tires and a still standing garage to do the work in. It had taken two days to break down the tires on all three trucks and swap them out with the new ones, using only jack handles, crow bars and a foot operated air pump. There had been no generators anywhere close by. On the way back they had nearly driven into a big one that had been left by the side of the highway. That generator was now attached to the third truck. They had met Jayne Singleton on the second day. She had stayed in hiding the

first day and night watching them. Three men traveling with two women, it had looked all wrong to her, but by the second day she had decided to take the chance. She had seemed unsure at first, even after introducing herself, and so they had spent an extra hour feeling each other out: By the time they decided to head back to Fort Deposit, Jayne had been with them. There was no friction between any of them. They seemed to be able to work together as though they had known each other for years, Jack thought now as he lifted his eyes back to the sky. He looked back down at Scott and shrugged. “Let's do it,” Jack said aloud in the quiet afternoon sky. “Let's take a look.” The Alabama Gulf Jack and Maria They were past the point they had traveled to previously, 12 miles on the odometers. Twice now they had crossed deeper sections where the trucks had slipped down into the water driving slowly across the sandy bottom, water nearing the tops of the door-sills. The island was closer, but the sun was setting and soon the tides would be changing, rising. Jack picked up the radio handset as he coasted to a stop. “A few more hours... By midnight we'll be in high tide... From now on out it will be rising.” He didn't ask the question. “I say keep going,” Scott answered after a few moments of silence. “No sense in stopping,” John said a brief second later. “Jayne says so too.” “Well, except we can't swim,” Jack said half joking. The silence held a few beats. “That's why we have the boats,” Ami answered with a laugh. Jack re-set the handset and dropped the truck into gear. He was making maybe three miles an hour tops, with darkness coming it would be even harder to see into the water. He shifted back out of drive.

“I think I'm going to ride the hood... sounds crazy, I guess. But I think we can make better time... I can let you know to slow up if anything looks funny, bad,” he shrugged. “Does that mean you aren't sure, because it sounds like a plan to me,” Maria said. Jack smiled as he leaned forward and kissed her. A few minutes later he was on the hood: One wet foot for his troubles. He looked behind him and saw Scott climb out on his own hood. “No way are you getting all the fun,” Scott called. He scrambled up onto the roof of the truck and Jack followed suit. A few moments later they were traveling through the shallow salt water. Jack lowered his hand and moved it in a forward motion. A few moments later he gave the okay sign, and leaned across to the drivers window. “What is that? Speed wise?” “Ten, a little less, maybe,” Maria told him. “Ten it is,” Jack said. He sat up straight once more and watched the small waves as they seemed to roll toward the truck. With the tide beginning to turn he supposed that was exactly what they were doing. His eyes shifted to the island, which now seemed to take up a much larger space on the horizon. His eyes returned to the water shifting from side to side and ahead. Not long now, he thought. Not long. Alabama Island Jack and Maria It was not far past the sunset when the nose of the truck rose out of the water and skimmed along across no more than a few inches of water. The moon had drifted behind the cloud cover, the headlights were on, but they did more to hide the surface of the water than anything else. They illuminated a small area ahead of the truck and then seemed to be swallowed by the night. Before the bottom had risen, the water had been growing steadily deeper as they traveled. They had once again been slowed to just a few miles an hour, plowing through close to two feet of water, and there was a current with the depth that tried to pull them sideways. Jack had been close to calling it off, turning around,

or getting the boats ready if there was not enough time to get back before the tide was fully in. A few minutes later they had begun the climb from the water and found themselves where they now were, proceeding slowly through the darkness in just inches of water. The moon peeked out from the edge of the clouds and an island took shape before them, partly hidden in mist, the island stretched away on both sides. A quarter mile to the beach, no more. The moon slid free and the island was lit up fully. Trees, broken pavement delineating a road that disappeared into what looked to be a jungle. They were both standing on the rooftops now, knees flexed, arms pumping, screaming, as the trucks finally left the water behind and drove up onto a wide sandy beach. Birds lifted from the surrounding trees, momentarily blotting out the moon once more, as Maria bumped the truck up onto the wide beach, followed closely by John and Ami.

THE FIRE BURNED BRIGHTLY on the beach. They were close to the tree line, watching the tide bring the water up the long sloping beach., waiting for sunrise. “Never make it at high tide,” Scott said. He worked open a pack of peanuts and tilted them above his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully. “Probably has risen a good eight feet out here,” Maria said. “At least,” Jayne agreed. She blew across a cup of broth and sipped at it. “Maybe an hour until daylight,” Jack said now. He shifted his back where he rested against a tire, one arm around Maria. “Be a good time to bring something in by boat though,” Ami said. “Yeah,” Scott agreed. “Plenty deep enough now.” Rifles and pistols lay nearby. There was no way to know what to expect, but to think there had been no living souls on this land that had died and turned would be foolish they had agreed. They would get no sleep tonight, and at sunrise they would start inland, looking the island over. The conversations flowed back and forth along with the occasional subdued laughter in the darkness. The Sky began to lighten behind them, gray light spilling across the tops of the trees. Far out on the water the first red-gold arrows of light touched the water and awakened what looked to be an ocean. “Hard to believe we drove across that,” Maria said from his lap. Her head rested against his thigh, eyes slitted. She rose to one elbow and then sat up as the others began to stand.

THE BROKEN ROADWAY ran through the jungle of vegetation and they drove it slowly into the interior of the island. There were several roads that cut off from the main blacktop, but there was no time to follow all of them. They ed through the overgrown remains of two small towns. Empty. Cars sitting on the streets on flats, buildings overgrown with kudzu and other vines. Mounds of sand trying to wipe out everything the Kudzu had not taken. In places the road looked washed out, as if water had flowed across it at some point. The four wheel drive took them down into the resulting ravine or through fields and dry stream beds to get around it and up the other side. They drove through a slightly larger town twenty miles inland. Several large stores, a few car dealerships still stood: Sand covered most of the roads and streets everywhere they drove. The doors that lead into the stores were drifted shut four feet high in places. They stopped to dig one out, broke the locks from the aluminum door frames, only to be rewarded with a moldy interior that had obviously been flooded at one time. Somewhere inside a clicking came to them, a few moments late three dead, not much more than putrid flesh on skeletons, had come from the aisles to meet them. They had taken them out quickly and nothing else had come from the depths. Even so they had forced themselves to walk the interior to be sure. They were even more convinced the entire store had been submerged when they left it an hour later. The aisles were full of sand in places. The roof had collapsed in others and sand and what had probably had once been seaweed clogged some aisles. Scott opinioned that most likely every car or truck in sight had a motor full of sand and was worthless. No one argued the point. They had gone through the town slowly after that, but they encountered no more dead. They had returned to the main road, driving farther into the interior of the island. Fifty miles inland the land rose steeply and then flattened out. They stopped once the island began to spread out below them. They could see all the island from this point. The end of the journey was not far ahead. No more than five miles ahead, cliffs dropped down into the ocean. A much deeper area of water than what was behind them capped that end of the island. The western and eastern views were nearly equal. Off to the west there was a second smaller island that was removed from the main island by a small channel, at least it looked small from where they were. The distance was hard to judge, they would

have to drive it, but it was far less than the fifty miles they had driven, maybe half that, Maria thought. Whether heading east or west, roads snaked here and there, away from the main route, or what they considered the main route: Woods covered parts of the island, wide plains other areas. Nothing alive moved anywhere they looked. “I think,” Jack said as they sat on the hoods of the trucks and drank warm bottled sports drinks, “This whole place, or most of it, was flooded over. I guess we can all see that, but I mean for a time, a long time. Any life washed away... Including people.” “So what's to stop that same thing from happening again,” Ami asked. She looked nervous even as she said the words. “I would bet a tidal wave... No, tsunami triggered by the quakes, rolled right over everything on the coast. Probably took days to recede. That's why there is no one here.” Jayne said thoughtfully. “Wouldn't happen again?” Ami asked. “I don't think so,” Scott said. “I think it's been quiet for months now... I think this place is safe now... Maybe the only place in the world without dead. I think the dead in that store were trapped by the place being locked up. Probably locked it up themselves for protection... Drowned when it flooded.” “We'll have to be careful if we come across something like that again,” Jayne said, more to herself than anyone in particular. Silence held as she finished, a few nods of agreement. Jack upended his bottle, drank deeply and then grimaced. He looked at the label. “Cherry Cucumber,” he said aloud. “For real? Who in hell thought that up? Maria, take a letter to...” He paused as he looked for the manufacturers name on the bottle without success. “Well, to these sonsofbitches,” he said in his best Clint Eastwood imitation. “Tell 'em we won't be drinking no more of these bastards.” He grinned, turned and spat on the ground. Scott applauded. “No more Clint Eastwood, that sucks,” Ami said with a sad face.

“Or cold beer,” Scott said and grimaced. “Or panty-liners,” Jayne said and then pulled a face. Maria broke into laughter so hard that tears squirted from her eyes. Ami ed in. Jack, John and Scott just shook their heads and looked at one another. “I... I can't believe you said that,” Maria said. She laughed harder. Jack cleared his throat and looked out over the island. “A perfectly good conversation,” Jack said and sighed dramatically. Maria gave him a shot in the ribs with one elbow. They all laughed then. Okay... Okay,” Jayne said eventually, “but really... Here we are, what is this place now that we've found it?” “Alabama Island,” Scott answered promptly. “Yeah... Alabama Island,” Jack agreed. “Okay, but what is it to us,” Jayne said “Home,” Maria said. “It's home.” The silence held as one by one they each nodded. “We'll need to make more trips,” Jayne said at last. “A lot of trips,” Scott agreed. “What do we need,” Jack asked, as Maria produced a small pad of paper and a pen. November 12th Alabama Island Jack and Maria The tide was on the way in when they reached the shore and rolled out onto the long flat beach. The trip was faster now, knowing for a certainty that the land was there, but it was still a close run between the tides.

As the days ed and the trips became more regular, they planned on leaving on the low tide, collecting all the materials they needed, and coming back on the next nearest low tide. That usually meant a layover, as it took time to collect what they needed, and as the areas around Fort Deposit were nearly stripped clean of any and all building materials or supplies: They found themselves venturing farther out. Some were back on the island while another group was out. Today two groups had met up and come back together. The old road had been cleared of sand in most areas simply by driving over it, in others with shovels and hard work. The highest area had been officially named Mount Alabama, and a rough camp was set up there. It was the highest point on the island, therefore worthy of the name, they had decided. Piles of materials had been trucked in across the water and stored there under the trees, but they had not yet begun to build. Jack lead the way down the road and into a forested area that was part of Mount Alabama, but a quarter mile from the actual summit. Here the trees were very old growth. Massive trunks, and heights that went well beyond a hundred feet with large spreading limbs. They had all been taken under the spell of the place since they had first stumbled across it on the third day. Unlike some areas they had discovered, where submersion under salt water had killed the trees, these trees had either never been submerged, or had not been submerged for long. There were thriving and imparted their beauty over the entire area. As Jack stopped the truck there was nothing there to denote the fact that they had chosen this place to build: It looked like nothing more than a scattered tent community under the huge trees. The six survivors had become twenty during their supply runs, and Jack had no doubt the twenty would become fifty before they ceased their runs to the mainland. Others were there, he could feel it. He, Maria and Scott often talked about it. It was easy to understand their reluctance to come out of hiding and them. It had taken those with them some time, it would take those remaining some time too. Jack jumped down from the truck and watched the others pull in. Two of the new trucks were stake-rake trucks: One driven by Scott one driven by Kyle, one of the newcomers. Kyle had been a farmer in the old days. All of his own animals that had survived were here now, including a half dozen cows, fifty chickens, and a nearly blind dog named Bam-Bam. Kyle helped Bam-Bam down from the truck and then walked over to Jack where he stood with Maria, Ami and Scott.

“Six cows and four pigs. Scott's got a bull and John has twelve pigs that are about as wild as I have ever seen. Like to have eaten us as we were trying to load them... No horses yet.” He pulled his hat from his head, wiped away the sweat from his face and then put the hat on backwards. Jack smiled. “That bull?” Scott said. Maria smiled. “Pissed off?” “Very,” Scott agreed. “I think take it out in the field before I release it. Make sure it calms down and doesn't just charge us.” Jack laughed. “I know it's not funny. I never really thought about how to get it out of the truck once we got here.” He sighed. “Well, we've got five acres fenced for it... Should have built one of those chutes you see on rodeo shows.” “Are you a secret cowboy,” Ami asked Jack as Jayne walked up. “If I am, I'm one of those McMurtry cowboys. The real ones not the cleaned up versions.” Jack laughed. “So... We could back it up to the gate, close in the sides before we let that door open, maybe it will shoot right out the back and kick rocks,” Scott said. “Kick rocks?” Jack asked. “Hit the road,” Maria supplied. “Hmm, well, if that's our best option let's do it.” Jack agreed. The bull turned out to be easy, it was the pigs that were trouble. They dropped the latch on the back of Scott's truck and the bull took off. They dropped the door latch on John's truck for the pigs, and instead of taking off into the woods to become wild pigs they could hunt on occasion, they stayed right in camp. Raiding garbage, knocking down tents, and chasing kids around. They had to shoot two of them before it was over and the other ten had finally run off: As night closed in they had all eventually found a reason to laugh about it.

“OKAY, THERE ARE MORE pigs we can get. What we'll do next time is release them a little further away. The thing is they're going to be dependent on us until this island springs back and starts ing all the life it should be. We've released rabbits, and a few dozen nutria. It won't take long for them to breed and become a food source for the pigs, but until they do they will search us out and look for food. And a pig will eat anything at all. A cat, puppy, garbage, which is what we can feed them. They're omnivores so they'll search out vegetation and eat that too,” Kyle finished. “You mean feed them cats and puppies,” Jayne asked. “I didn't say that,” Kyle said. He frowned “Okay, maybe it sounded that way. I meant garbage. We can feed them garbage so they aren't trying to eat our cats and puppies.” His face was red. “So long as you are not trying to feed them cats and puppies,” Jayne said. She seemed to enjoy getting Kyle wound up. It was an easy process. He was somewhere south of infatuated with her and immediately got both defensive and tongue tied when she spoke to him. The fire in the center of the tent city was burning brightly. Both pigs were spitted and cooking over the flames. Food for a few days only with twenty adults. There were six children here too. None had come through with their parents, all had been on their own and taken in by the people that had come to with them. Some were past the trauma on those first days back in March, some were not. “Deer,” Jayne said after a pause. “Equally important as cows.” “I agree,” Jack said, “but getting them here alive is the trick. We need a way to get animals here in larger quantities to release them.” “What about, probably stupid,” Jayne said, “But what about by sea? Hear me out.” She raised her hands when the comments about how shallow the water was had started. “Wait.” “Let her finish,” Jack said. Jayne smiled. “Thanks. Okay, so water. Yes, we've just a few inches here and

inbound from here. I think that is getting deeper almost daily, but I realize it will be a long time before it's deep enough to take a boat with any real cargo on it. Not enough draught, but the Gulf side of the island is plenty deep. We can leave a port in Georgia, Mississippi, even Louisiana and get here from the Gulf side.” She finished with a twisting of her mouth and a shrug of her shoulders. “Should work, right?” Jack was nodding. “Will work,” Maria said. “That's a great idea.” “I have to agree,” Scott said. “That will work. Kyle? Do they make something to haul animals over water?” “Oh yeah. And if we can't find something ready built we can get a barge and outfit it ourselves. Anybody plumbed that channel between this island and the little one?” “Looks deep,” Jack said. “Probably is plenty deep, but let's find out exactly how deep,” Kyle said. “In fact, I want to go tomorrow and bring back a seaworthy boat... Something fifty, sixty feet long. A fisherman... Better yet a tug. We'll need a tug if we're bringing back a barge... Might need two tugs in fact,” He laughed and waved his hands at everyone. “Sorry, got carried away... Here's the thing. That channel would be perfect to build a dock on... Some place to unload. This side of the island is far too shallow. The Gulf side is too deep with nothing but cliffs. That channel is perfect: If it's deep enough. So, I can get a boat. A tug would be good because it's already going to be set up with depth finders, fenders, a good powerful motor. And as I said if we end up with a barge we'll need a tug boat... We'll have it.” Jack looked around to nothing but nodding heads. “Looks like the ayes have it,” He said and laughed. Everyone laughed and then the laughter died away. “Well, that's another thing right there,” John said. “I know of no better time to bring this up, but we probably should make something official before things get bigger here.” “For instance, I've been following you since before we came here, and there is

no doubt you are the guy who runs things here, but it isn't official. Now suppose some guy comes along and decides he should be in charge? I'm not for that. That's like some of these other settlements we hear about. We've all listened in to The nation and their broadcasts. They have it together there. They're growing because they have established rules and leadership, and we could have it together here just as easily, but we need our leadership established. We need to have it decided. That place, a few others I have heard of or talked to have leaders. It's right up front, no dancing around it...” He shrugged. “Maybe I'm overstating the obvious. We should elect you the main guy here... However that goes.” “You and Maria together,” Jayne said solemnly. “No, really, that's the way it should be,” Ami added. She clasped one hand to her mouth and her eyes began to leak. “Okay,” Scott raised his voice and waited as everyone quieted down and turned to pay attention to him. “Listen! A motion came up to legitimize this place,” He laughed along with the others: As the laughter died away he continued. “Here's the deal, John and a few others of us believe it's time to make the leadership of Jack and Maria official.” He had intended to say more, but he was drowned out by the cheering that erupted. He would never have believed twenty plus people could make that much racket. The dogs were barking, the children running around in circles and screaming. “Jesus,” Jayne said. She turned to Jack, an amused look in her eyes along with the tears. Jack stood. “Okay, okay,” he tried. He finally had to lift his voice above the din. “Okay! Hold it down folks, I'm sure they can hear us on the mainland.” The noise died down, but they were all staring at Jack expectantly: He had no idea what to say next so he sat back down, embarrassed. Scott stood and brushed his hands against his jeans. “So here it is: I don't know anything at all about how to form a government, but I suppose it goes something like this; we all decide it, vote, and that's that.” Nodding heads met his words. “So the idea was Jack as the leader of this place, Alabama Island. Maria was suggested too. That would be it. I guess that's a king and queen?” He looked and sounded doubtful.

“A monarchy,” Jayne answered. “Like the motherland... England” “A monarchy,” Scott repeated. He still looked doubtful. “Anybody against it?” Dead silence greeted his words. “Okay, for it?” The noise split the air again, wolf whistles, shouts of Hell yes, more. The dogs were once again barking and howling. Scott sank back down to the ground. Emmett Wolf stood and lifted a nearly full bottle of bourbon skyward. His other hand held a sheaf of plastic drinking cups. A few seconds later nearly everyone had a drink of straight bourbon in their hands. “Jack and Maria,” Emmett bawled above the general din. The crowd repeated his words and the drinks were downed. “To Alabama Island,” Emmett yelled. The drink cups went around again and everyone toasted to Alabama Island. “I don't know how much use this crowd will be tomorrow. You might want to plan an easy day,” Scott told Jack. He had to raise his voice above the din of voices. “It's crazy,” Maria said. “Oh, I think they'll party all night long. After all, they just elected America's first king and queen in well over 200 years,” John opinioned. “I think Kyle and I will bow out early. Want to catch the midnight tides and get in there early tomorrow morning.” Jack nodded. “I'll be going with you.” He turned to Scott. “Do you think you'll have enough sobered up to begin plans to build a dock? Check that depth, figure out some way to get in there?” “Yeah. I think it will go as is. I mean the depth. We have a stack of railroad ties we salvaged a few days back. Here or up top. That will make a dock. I think my idea was a dock, further down the road when this deepens.” Scott answered. Jack turned back to Maria. “You be okay here alone?” he asked.

“My loyal subjects will make sure I am,” Maria said. Her words were joking but her eyes said she was a little overwhelmed. “Don't sweat it... Don't let anyone treat you differently. Don't think of yourself differently. It will be old news in a few days and you'll be okay with it, okay?” She nodded. “Just not sure if I like it much.” “I understand that,” Jack agreed. “I'm pretty sure I'll never be comfortable with it myself, but it's done. One way or the other it had to happen. I was thinking more along the lines of a committee the way some other places do, but I can see where this has its attractions too... Ease of making things happen... A lot of responsibility though.” “Is it ever,” Scott agreed. “And you volunteered me for it,” Jack said. “Who else could do it?” Scott asked. “No. You were the only choice... Besides, we can change things to some other form down the road if we need to.” “You think so?” Jack asked. Scott looked out at the people as they laughed and danced in the firelight. He tried a lopsided smile on his face. “I hope so.” Jack rose from the ground and dusted the sand from his pants. “Well, I hereby appoint you and Ami as council to the monarchy: let's get everyone eating before Emmett gets them too far gone.” Scott laughed, picked up a metal scoop near the fire and banged it against a pot a few times. In no time at all lines were forming as the pigs were lifted from the fire, burnt and crispy in places, juicy and dripping fat in others, and carried to the tables. A layer of palm leaves had been laid out on the table tops, and the pigs were lowered onto them. Ami, John and Jayne began carving and serving. Jack, Maria and Scott fell back and watched, marveling over how so much had changed in just a few hours.