Apocalypse Atlanta (21 page)

“You’re leaving her with me?” the man said, his annoyance obviously growing.

Peter drew a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and gave the man the same look he’d perfected for use on Marines who complained at being assigned fatigue detail or some other task they didn’t want to do.  “I’m a United States Marine, and there’s a goddamn emergency.  I need to report to my unit.  You will put this woman in your car and take her with you until you have a safe place to leave her.  Do you understand?” he barked.

The man regarded him hesitantly, and a few moments passed.  Peter lost his patience and took a step as if he were going to come around the car at the driver.  The man threw up his hands.  “Okay, okay.  It’s just, I mean, a lot to deal with.”

“Take care of her.” Peter repeated, giving him another dose of the look before turning and jogging back to the GTO.  He took a moment to examine the front of the still idling car, but other than the right headlight being destroyed, and some dents in the bumper and grill, the car looked okay.

Sliding back behind the wheel, Peter revved the engine experimentally and eyed the gauges.  Nothing was showing trouble, and he shut the door and rebuckled his seatbelt before glancing behind him.  The man was at the front of his car with the woman, just getting her off the hood.  Peter waited a moment, and saw the man start around to the passenger side of his car.  Nodding absently, Peter pulled back out onto the road and resumed his meandering track through the north Atlanta suburbs towards Marietta.

* * * * *

Darryl’s head turned when the clubhouse door opened again.  Dogz had been trickling in for the last half hour, well Dogz and some extra people, but this time he finally saw Bobo’s form filling the doorway.  He paused there, just inside the door, looking around at the people in the clubhouse, before catching Darryl’s eye.

Straightening up, Darryl grabbed his current beer and the empty from the one before that and headed for Bobo.  The older man pointed at the television room.  Darryl grimaced, but headed that way.  Bobo beat him to the doorway, and stood looking at the crowd of kids who were clustered around the two game consoles.  Both were running fighting games, and the noise level was high as the kids reacted to the on-screen violence with cheerful enthusiasm.

“Bobo, maybe we should talk outside?” Darryl suggested after a couple of seconds.

Bobo glanced back at him, then into the room again, before sighing audibly.  “Yeah.  Out back though.”

Surprised, Darryl followed Bobo over to the back door, and outside.  About thirty feet from the house was a large fire pit.  The shallow depression had been dug down about eighteen inches below ground level and encircled with stones to a diameter of four feet.  Scattered around the pit very haphazardly were lawn chairs, some barely holding together while others looked newer and more sturdy.  Bobo grabbed one of the newer ones and dropped down into it.

“How many kids here now?” Bobo asked without preamble, before Darryl had even had time to do more than glance around for a chair of his own.

“Man, I ain’t kept no count.” Darryl shrugged.  “Maybe ten so far.”

“Shit.” Bobo said, shaking his head.  “You look at the news yet?”

“Naw, I been keeping an eye on the front door like you said.  Plus the kids stay out of trouble when they busy playing the games, so . . .” he shrugged again.

“Look.  Sit down, I need you to listen to me.”

Darryl moved one of the chairs to face Bobo’s and sat down.  His beer he set on the ground nearby, but the empty he’d brought as an ashtray he nestled in the cup holder on the arm.

“You listening?” Bobo asked.

“Shit Bobo, I’m fucking listening.” Darryl said, annoyed.  Bobo was acting like he was one of the kids, rather than pushing towards forty.

“Okay, here the thing.” Bobo said, ignoring Darryl’s frown.  “You know I been overseas in the Army, right?”  Darryl nodded.  “Lot of places in the world ain’t got the kind of infrastructure and services we take for granted here in the States.

“Been around when all sorts of fucked up diseases broke out and washed over everyone in the area, things we only read about in books here.  Shit like cholera and malaria, and other things that make them look like a case of the sniffles.”

“Yeah, we lucky.” Darryl shrugged, dropping his finished cigarette in the ash can and pulling out his pack.

“I think our luck done run the fuck out.”

Darryl paused, fresh cigarette poking out of the pack and halfway to his lips, eyeing his brother Dog.  “What that mean?”

“You just been chilling, but I kept up on the news on the way out here.  Whatever this is, it bad and getting worse by the minute.  I think they already lost control of it, they just don’t know it yet.”

“What do you mean, lost control?”

Bobo grimaced and leaned forward.  “They’re trying to deal with this like it a normal disease, just isolate everyone and wait for doctors or whoever to figure out how to treat it.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, I’m thinking that ain’t gonna work.”

Darryl didn’t snort, but he did stick his fresh smoke in his mouth and traded the pack for his Zippo.  “Man–”

“I’m serious.” Bobo insisted.

“Yeah, I see that.” Darryl nodded, lighting his cigarette and drawing on it deeply before snapping the cap down on the lighter.  “This only been going for a couple hours now.  How come you’re so sure its gonna be so bad?”  Darryl paused.  “Hold up–how bad you saying it gonna be?”

“Bad, real bad.  Like everything collapse and the end of everything bad.”

Now Darryl did snort, not quite in derision, but definitely with a strong dose of dismissiveness.  “You totally tripping.”

“Not even.” Bobo shook his head.  “Let’s go look at the news.  Better, pull that fucking fancy ass phone of yours out and look at the headlines.”

“So tell me how you figure it gonna be the end of days or whatever.”

“They running out of police and ambulances to send into downtown.  Hospitals are turning away anyone who ain’t sick with this thing, or hurt real bad from a regular sort of accident.  The governor calling up the military and starting to deploy them, they ain’t even waiting for full units to show up.  They just grabbing anyone wearing a uniform and throwing them out to start trying to help.”

“Sounds like they just taking shit serious.” Darryl shrugged.  He ashed his cigarette over to the side, away from his chair, then dragged on it again.  “For a change.” he added, thinking of all the things that so called ‘leaders’ in American argued about instead of just getting on with fixing.

“Yeah, they taking it serious, but they already losing.”

“Now we back to how you know that when they don’t.  You out here chilling with me, they in the capitol dome or wherever with information we ain’t got.”

“Damnit!” Bobo said sharply, then stopped and took a deep breath.  “Look, call it a hunch if you want, but things about to get bad and I think we ought to be ready.”

“So what’s ready mean?” Darryl asked, trying to sound conversational instead of skeptical.

“We need to keep an eye on what’s going on around here, for starters.” Bobo said.  “No strangers, no one we don’t know good.”

“It ain’t like we ever had much of a problem with walk ins.” Darryl pointed out.

“Yeah, but if brothers go thinking this is some big ass party weekend, they’re gonna start inviting folks in that could cause problems.”

“Okay, fine.  I’ll help you pass the word around.  This a Dogz weekend, only Dogz and family and close buds.”

Bobo looked like he wanted to argue with the phrasing, but he nodded tightly after a few moments.  “And we gonna need to lay in some supplies.”

“We fixed pretty good right now.” Darryl shrugged.  “I mean, we probably need to do another beer run tomorrow, but that ain’t nothing new.”  There were already nearly twenty Dogz at the clubhouse, and if every member of the club turned up they’d have nearly fifty on hand.  Figuring probably about a twelve pack per Dog just for tonight, yeah another beer run would be needed, possibly tonight.  He wondered if maybe they should send a few guys out to pick up a keg.

“Naw, I’m talking about food.  Supplies.  Things we need to live.”

“How long we gonna be here?” Darryl asked, breaking off his musing about the beer situation.

“Maybe a long time.” Bobo said.

Darryl laughed.  He couldn’t help it.  “Bobo, you totally tripping.”

“It ain’t tripping if I right.”

“Man . . . okay, look.”  Darryl took a last pull on what was left of his cigarette and dropped it into the ash can.  “You a Dog, a good Dog.  I respect you, all the way.  And not just for what you done.” he added, gesturing around at the property.  “For who you are.  But, I mean, we here.  More coming.  What you saying we ought to do tonight, tomorrow; start knocking over stores and putting up a wall or something?”

Bobo said nothing, just gazed steadily at him.  Darryl read the look, and shook his head.  “Man, that what you thinking we ought to do, ain’t it.”

“DJ, you need to listen.”

Darryl shook his head again, standing up this time.  “Bobo, I’ll help keep the peace this weekend.  No problem, I do that most of the time anyway.  I’ll even help keep an eye out for any strangers or whoever that might wander on up.  But you need to chill the fuck out.  Have a beer.  Hell, have several.”

Bobo scowled.  “Okay, fine.  Let’s just kick back and watch the world end.”

“World ain’t gonna end bro.” Darryl said.  “Everything fine.  Just one more thing that gonna keep the news busy for a few days, then everything back to normal.  Just chill.”

* * * * *

Jessica started slightly when the doorbell rang, having lost herself in a kind of fugue state as she stroked Candice’s hair and watched the increasingly troubling news that was coming across the television screen.  Candice, however, sat bolt upright in a rush so quick it caused Jessica’s slight startle to continue into a full upper body quiver of alarm.

“What’s that?” her daughter asked.

Jessica shook herself free of the surge of emotion and produced a smile she didn’t feel.  “The door, it’s probably grandma and grandpa.”

“Oh.” Candice said, leaning back against the cushions with a look that said she wasn’t entirely reassured.

Jessica remembered the television, and quickly hit the button that turned it off.  Standing up for the first time in hours, she put the remote on the side table and went into the entry hallway.  Peering through the peephole lens in the door, she saw her mother standing on the step, rummaging in her purse as she waited.

Jessica unlocked the deadbolt and knob locks, and opened the door feeling an enormous wave of relief.  “Mom.” she said.

Sharon Patterson looked at her daughter for a long moment, then stepped forward and pulled her into a hug.  It was all Jessica could do to not start crying as her mother’s arms enfolded her, and she put her face into the older woman’s shoulder.

Part of her still felt ashamed for needing the help, for needing the comfort, but she still felt dazed and numb after the day’s events.  There were things she felt that perhaps needed doing, things she should be saying to Candice or doing for her, but she couldn’t seem to focus her thoughts long enough to catch them in her mental net before they slipped away.

“There, there.” Sharon said, patting Jessica on the back.  “Don’t fall apart on me now, it’ll be better soon.”

“I’m so glad you and dad are here.” Jessica said with a thick throat, her voice slightly muffled.  She cast her eyes up without taking her head off her mother’s shoulder and saw her dad straightening from the back of the truck with a double handful of plastic grocery bags.

“Well, we would have been here sooner but the roads are a mess.  And the grocery store!  It’s like there’s snow forecast for tonight.” Sharon told her, still rubbing Jessica’s back.  “How’s Candice doing?”

“Better, I think.” Jessica replied.  “A little skittish, but I guess that’s not unusual considering.”

“Hmm.” Sharon pushed Jessica back and gave her a look that was stern in expression, but touched with compassion and a bit of humor around the eyes.  “Okay then, buck up.  We’ll get things sorted out.  Why don’t you help your father with the rest of the groceries, and I’ll go say hi to Candice, okay?”

“Okay.” Jessica said, dabbing at her eyes with her fingers, which a little moist, but her cheeks were still dry.  That was something, she supposed.

Sharon gave her a nod, and went past her into the house.  Jessica walked down the front path to the driveway as William Patterson stood watching her.  “Hey there kiddo.” he said when she was almost to the driveway.

“Hey dad.” Jessica said, a little softly, but her tone and voice were even.  “Thanks for coming down.”

“Aw, it weren’t a problem.” Her father shrugged.  “Getting all this into the house, now that might be a something of a chore though.”

Jessica peered into the back of the truck and blinked in surprise.  There were at least twenty bags resting in the truck bed under the camper top, maybe even thirty.  “Wow.  What’s the occasion?”

“Nothing’s too good for my little girl.” her father said with a smile, but she saw the serious look in his eyes.  “And I have a feeling we might be staying longer than we usually do.”