California Coastline - Day Seven…
She’d scrolled through the photos on her cell phone for the past hour, briefly taking in small mouthfuls of the semi-warm canned chili. She shared a few of the images, but kept mostly to herself as the family of three spoke with Tom about the first few days of the infection. They spoke about how they were able to stay—for the most part—away from the worst parts of the devastation.
Looking out over the crowded streets, Cedric motioned for the others to come closer. “You see how when there are more than about five or six gathered together and all moving in the same direction, others are drawn in? It’s like they can’t help themselves. And as the crowd continues to grow, they attract even more from further away. These massive hordes continue to gain followers until something else gets their attention. That’s how we control them.”
Tom nodded. “So if you need to go south, you find something to distract them over to the north?”
“That’s it exactly, and we’ve found that flares seem to work best. Gets them all headed one way. We started using them to keep those things away from the building.”
“Smart,” Tom said. “How’d you guys find this place? We’re you in the city when it all went down?”
Cedric smiled. “I’ll let my wife handle that one. She tells it a bit better and had to deal with a lot more than I did.”
Sliding her chair away from the window, Veronica jumped right in. Her account was straightforward and without the gruesome details usually mentioned when recalling the day the world went to hell.
“Cedric called and told me not to ask him any questions. He was here working and said that we should get in the car and come straight here. Patrick was at home sick that day, so that made things a little easier. We jumped in the car and drove right over. But it was kind of weird seeing so many people running out of the city as we were driving in.”
Tom looked away from the window. “You didn’t have any idea what was going on?”
“No, not really. I was scared, but tried not to think too much about it. I could tell by Cedric’s voice that it was something bad and figured I’d just wait until I saw him to ask questions. I must have passed a few hundred of those things on my way here without even knowing it.”
“That’s incredible, you’re very lucky.”
“Yes,” Veronica said, “as soon as Patrick and I got into the parking garage, Cedric hurried us up the stairs and into the suite. I only looked down on the streets a few times that first day. I just couldn’t handle it.”
“Probably for the best,” Tom said. “It’s also a good thing you came here; this place looks pretty solid.”
“Yeah, Cedric had it all locked down within the first few hours. There were a few others here. They helped us check the building and then two days later, they were gone. They thought they’d do better out in the country. You know, less crowds.”
“Where are you going for supplies, food… water?”
“There was a restaurant down on the first floor. They’d just received a delivery the day before. We found their supply room stocked from floor to ceiling. It’s like we won the apocalyptic lottery. Well, that is if you like canned food and bottled water.”
Tom leaned back in his chair. “Wow you couldn’t have found a better place to ride this out. You run across anyone other than us out there?”
Cedric turned to Tom. “We have not. But that may be because our doors remain locked until we decide to open them. The sheer number of those things running around almost guarantees that no one is just going to stroll by.”
“How are you—”
“Oh wait,” Veronica said. “There is one other group that I think moved into that abandoned building near the police station. They don’t bother us and we don’t go anywhere near that part of town.”
“Sounds like you have your own little island here.”
Veronica nodded and then turned back to her new friend. “I’m sure this can’t be easy—how are you doing?”
“I have all these pictures of my family, but I don’t know where they are or if I’ll ever get to see them again—if I’ll ever get to say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry.”
Closing the camera app, she stared at the top left corner of the screen and froze. “I have a signal?” And looking back at Veronica, she said, “How is that possible?”
Veronica turned to her husband. “How
is
that possible? I thought we lost our signal the second day?”
Cedric sat forward in his chair and asked for the phone. “Looks like her provider has a tower nearby that is still functional. Some of the sites have combination generators, plus battery backups. They run on natural gas generators that are hooked up to gas lines. I’ve heard that some of those sites can stay up for weeks after power goes out.”
Handing the phone back, he pointed to the stairs. “The sixteenth floor is your best bet. The south side would get you the best signal, less interference. But if you’re thinking about trying to contact someone, we better go now.”
Without another word, the group of five stood and moved to the stairwell.
. . .
Into the hallway on the sixteenth floor, it was much the same as every other floor in the building, including the one they’d just walked away from. Out of breath and with her signal again fading, she quickly typed a brief message and walked to the south end of the hall.
The others stayed back near the lobby and watched from behind as she stared down at her screen, willing the signal to return to something even close to full strength.
After thirty seconds, she dropped to her knees and began to cry.
Veronica ran the length of the hall and knelt beside her. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
The young woman with the dark shoulder length hair and deep blue eyes set her phone in between her legs, wiped away a tear, and looked up.
“It went through.”
Hidden in the shadows of the Admissions building, Frank’s lower back again began to tighten. He looked back one last time and then started for the fences. Carrying the two black duffel bags, he stepped carefully through the damp grass, increasing his speed with each new step. One hundred yards ahead and the thick outcropping of bristlecone pine would be his refuge, if he made it that far.
With Griffin heading toward Carpenter Hall and Horatio attempting to gain the attention of Josie and her men, Frank’s only job was to get to the gate with the weapons and stay put. Although with all the moving parts, he didn’t like the plan. He didn’t like it one bit. There was no room for error or the possibility that the people they were trying to avoid wouldn’t react how they were supposed to.
Fifty yards from the trees and Frank turned. Through the dense moonlight blanketing the expansive greenbelt, he watched Horatio moving quickly—but not running—between the Admissions building and the gymnasium. And over his other shoulder, Griffin now stood only feet from the steps to Carpenter Hall, crouched down and out of sight.
Falling into a rhythm, Frank’s pain was manageable. Even with his lower back throbbing, he was able to keep moving at a decent clip. The straps dug into his shoulders and the swaying of the heavy bags made for an awkward gait, but at least he was still upright and moving forward.
As he stepped off the grass and into the damp underbrush, Frank began to slow. He held his right hand above his brow and squinted through the intermittently spaced pine. Now able to make out the six-foot chain-link fence ahead, he let his gaze drift right, searching for the gate he was told would be close.
Treading cautiously through a small patch of snow-dusted ice, he reached the fence, dug out two carabiners, and hung the bags one at a time near a set of duel support posts. And before stepping back, he again reached into the first bag and withdrew a forty-five caliber pistol, readied the weapon, and started back toward the edge of the trees.
With his back against the girth of a large pine, Frank again watched and waited. Twenty feet from the gym, Horatio had stopped and turned back as one of the men in black approached him, gun in hand.
Further on, their hastily thrown together plan had indeed taken an unfortunate turn. Josie was walking Griffin, Helen, and the three women he’d come here with to the center of the greenbelt. And from this distance, it appeared as though they were moving at a right angle to Horatio and his captor.
The two groups intersected less than fifty yards from where Frank stood in the shadows of the tree line. And through the crisp night air—sharpening his focus and listening intently—he could just make out their conversation.
. . .
“So,” Josie said, addressing Griffin, “you and your friends figure that heading back out there on your own would be a better option than staying behind my fences and trying to work together?”
Griffin turned to his friends and nodded. The lump along the side of his head was again beginning to throb as the pain pushing out from behind his right eye intensified with each breath. Staring back at the woman with the close-cropped hair, his anger was driving his pulse to dangerous levels.
Outgunned at the moment—two to one—he wanted to choose how he delivered his next message carefully, but he also wanted her to understand who she was speaking to. Josie stood ten feet away, the Smith and Wesson hanging from her right hand, and the man in all black at her side shouldered a semi-automatic.
Taking a step forward, Griffin gripped his pistol. “We’ll take our chances out there and if it’s all the same to you, we’d like to do it without any problems. Let us get to our vehicle and then we’ll drive away. Nothing else needs to be discussed.”
Josie also stepped forward, less than three strides now separated the two. “Well, there is one thing that probably should be discussed, at least for my sake. I’d really like to understand why it is you and your people are so obstinate. Why it is that you have gone out of your way to do the opposite of what we’ve asked in every single situation.” Looking back at the man in black, she continued, “I don’t think we’ve been unreasonable or have asked for anything that would put any of you in harm’s way. In fact—”
He had heard enough. This conversation wasn’t moving forward and it definitely wasn’t heading down a productive path. She was attempting to paint a picture that simply wasn’t accurate. “Where are all the men?”
“First off, we helped you. We brought you off that mountain, beaten and bruised. We offered you a safe place to rest, somewhere to catch your breath. You have no right to question a single thing about what goes on behind these fences.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Horatio now stood alone in between the two groups. “Josie, why don’t we just let them go, they haven’t—”
“So, now you’re taking responsibility for these people? You feel as though we should allow anyone to just come and go from here as they please?”
He didn’t respond.
Turning to Griffin, Josie grinned. “You and your friends are free to go. I only have one stipulation.”
She turned back to Horatio, leveled her weapon at his chest, and fired three rounds.
Anticipating her next move, Griffin turned his weapon on Josie and stepped out in front of his friends. “Put it down.”
She laughed and returned his gesture. “He deserved that. He chose to stand with strangers and now he’s going to die with all of you watching.” She raised her other hand and motioned to the man in black. “But he also may have saved your life.”
Cora and Shannon turned away as Helen fell into Carly. The four women shook as they cried into their hands and looked to Griffin for an answer.
With two weapons trained on him, Griffin’s eyes moved to Horatio. Three points of entry, two high up on his chest, and one near his armpit. Unable to voice his words and gurgling a mouthful of blood, the young man rolled onto his left side and began to spasm. Ten seconds later, he was gone.
With Griffin’s attention quickly swinging back to Josie, he said “You’re insane, he was one of your own. What you’ve done makes no sense.”
“Listen, I’ve already told you that you and your friends are free to leave. Horatio just paid for your one-way ticket away from here. And it makes perfect sense—he turned his back on the one person he owed the most to, so how on earth could I ever trust him again?”
“You people are—”
“I’ll tell you what, I was originally just going to teach you a lesson and then let you go, let you go out there into that hell and find out just how wrong you really are, but I think I’ve changed my mind. You are still free to go, but I’m only giving you thirty minutes. Then I’m sending my men out to look for you. And for your sake, I hope they come back empty handed.”
Pausing for a moment, she looked down at Horatio, then to the women, and finally back to Griffin. “You’d better get a move on. It isn’t going to be as easy as you may think.”
He figured he knew what the answer would be, but as the women hesitantly turned and began to walk toward the fences, Griffin looked back toward the parking lot. “Our vehicle?”
“I’ll make you a deal. You can keep the two bags of weapons you brought here—you’ll need them out there—and in exchange for me being so generous, you agree that the armored truck now belongs to me. Does that work?”
Griffin paused a moment and then before turning and following the women, he said, “I hope I get the chance to kill you some day.”
“The feeling is mutual, but for now, you’d better go.”
. . .
Finding their way to the gate that Ethan and Ben had exited through less than an hour before, Griffin removed the latch and pushed it open. He and Cora helped guide the others through the thick underbrush and out onto the sidewalk. Shannon was the first, followed by Carly, Helen, and finally Frank.
The group huddled under a large spruce and waited as Griffin scanned the long boulevard from one end to the other. “Looks like it’s clear, at least up to the next intersection. We should probably go.”
“One second,” Frank said turning to Helen. And then reaching into his coat, he pulled out a cell phone and smiled. “It’s Ethan’s, I’ve had it since we got out of the truck earlier tonight. I didn’t want to give it to him in front of those people, but I knew it was pretty important to him.”
Helen looked confused. “Why don’t you give it to him yourself?”
Looking around at the others and then back to Helen, he said, “He received a message just a few minutes ago, and I think you should be the one to read it.”
Depressing the home button, she swiped to open the phone and moved to the messages app.
One new text…
Ethan, I’m still alive, in the city, about ten miles from my house. It’s the Stern Building on Sixth Street. I hope you get this. I love you. Emma.