Jacob's Odyssey (The Berne Project Book 1) (7 page)

The chain link fence wasn't very high and I tossed the gun over and climbed the fence. I dried the Glock off as best I could and put the gun back in the backpack. I stood on the safe side of the fence in the rain and wondered which direction I should go. If I stayed in this neighborhood and tried to find a house to stay in, I'd still be very close to the hordes of infected now roaming 9th East. And that thought made me nervous. To get to another neighborhood, I'd have to cross another street or two and that had risks of its own. It didn't take long for me to make a decision. The sudden sound of shattering glass prompted me to move and I raced toward the gate. They were in the locksmith shop now and it wouldn't take long for them to get to the back door. I opened the gate that led to the front yard and slipped into the shadows of some shrubbery next to the house.

After a few moments, I heard them push through the back door of the shop and spill into the back parking lot. And then I could hear some of them bumping clumsily into the dumpster and the chain link fence. I was fairly certain they couldn't see me, but I couldn't be sure. I edged slowly along the side of the house and moved toward the front yard, keeping to the shadows. The tenor of their moans remained constant and I grew confident they hadn't seen me. Their moans would have spiked dramatically if they'd caught even a glimpse of me. When I arrived at the front edge of the house, it appeared that 10th East was free of the infected, at least as far as I could tell. And for once, I didn't hesitate. I sped across the street and made my way into the nearest backyard.

I kept going till I had crossed 11th East. I didn't have any problems with the infected, and I assumed it was because of the shrill, insistent alarm still blaring away down on 9th East. The infected were drawn to the annoying sound as if it were the pied piper of Hamelin.

I found the home I was looking for on 11th East. Lights were on in the front living room and the picture window curtains were open. It was a brick, ranch style home with a basement. I checked out the windows in the back of the house but couldn't see much of anything. Mostly dark shadows. A thread of light found its way into the kitchen, but that was about it. The rain had now dissipated into a light drizzle as I stood by the back door soaking wet and hesitant. I reasoned that if anyone were still in the house, those lights in the living room wouldn't be on and the home would've been shuttered up, but even my sound rationale couldn't get me to move because the thought of breaking into someone's home, even if they'd left town or had been infected, chafed against my moral core.

The back door had a knob lock but no dead bolt and for that I was thankful. I tried the door one time to see if it was locked and it was. I rubbed my bruised knuckles as I stood there feeling jittery about breaking into someone's home. And the thought crossed my mind that maybe I should knock softly on the door once to see if anyone was home. But it wasn't a serious thought. I was just stalling. A stinging pain pulsed near the surface of my left cheek and I gingerly brushed the wound with the back of my hand. It hurt like hell and part of me couldn't help but wonder what my face looked like now. I was shaken and a bit of a mess, but at least I was still alive.

After a few more minutes of stalling, I knelt down by the back door and took the backpack off and removed the bat and set it down next to me. The bat would be for protection. I fished the lock pick set out of my pocket and opened the tri-fold and grabbed a tension wrench and the rake pick. The articles I'd read suggested the rake pick would be the easiest pick for amateurs to learn to use. And I'd probably watched the various how-to-pick-a-lock videos fifty or sixty times, so I felt pretty comfortable about what was supposed to happen. It was quite dark in the backyard and I suddenly wished I'd thought about packing a penlight. But it worked out. I managed to fit the tension wrench in the bottom of the keyhole and remembered to maintain a slight amount of tension on the wrench. The wrench would turn and open the lock once the pins were all pushed up. I inserted the rake pick in just above the tension wrench and felt for the pins. I jiggled the rake pick upward again and again. Quite suddenly the alarm stopped and there was just the sound of the rain and the moans. And while I played with the pins, I wondered what a homeowner would do if they knew someone was trying to break into their home. And what if they had a gun? But I knew no one was home here. The tension wrench moved slightly and I kept moving it clockwise just as if I were turning a key to open the door. And then I turned the knob and I was in.

A fragile and disquieting stillness hovered over the valley. For once I didn't hear the ubiquitous moans drifting through the air. And their absence made for a remarkably quiet morning. I couldn't remember it being this quiet since the crisis began and I didn't trust it. It was an anomaly, a counterfeit calm, like dwelling in the eye of a hurricane. And I knew the eerie silence was nothing more than a temporary reprieve. I found the silence more foreboding than calming.

I sat on a cement back porch underneath a roof-extended awning and waited. A little over a week had passed since I'd first broken into someone's home, and I'd become quite proficient at it. I'd already laid the gun next to the back door and had taken my backpack off. And I'd set the tension wrench and rake pick in the keyhole. Now all I had to do was wait for the air conditioning to come on.

The shade on the porch was a welcome relief from the late morning sun. And while it wasn't eleven o'clock yet, the temperature was rising quickly. Quite a change from yesterday's dry wind storm. It had been a bizarre, threatening sort of day. Plenty of roiling clouds along with random thunder and lightning, lots of wind, but not a drop of rain. Today was utterly silent. I was a little surprised the air conditioning unit hadn't switched on yet, and I wondered if it was even working. But I realized none of the other air conditioning units in the neighborhood had switched on either. I was simply being impatient. I would use the hum of air conditioners to mask the tinkering sounds I made whenever I picked a lock. And even though I was fairly certain there weren't any infected in the vicinity, I wasn't about to take the chance of them hearing me when I picked the lock, no matter how far away they might be.

The winds from yesterday's storm had cleared out the hazy valley air and had left today's sky an incredibly pristine blue. It was the kind of beautiful day that would prompt college students to play hooky and drive up one of the canyons with a six pack or take a ride up to Park City. That was before the virus had turned the world topsy turvy. Alex and I had occasionally played hooky on days like this when we were in college together, usually opting for Park City and a few cold Buds in one of the bars on Main Street. The cooler mountain air was always a nice respite from a hot summer day in the valley, and during the summer months, Park City wasn't overrun with tourists and skiers.

From the backyard porch, I had a great view of the Wasatch Mountains, especially Mount Olympus. Mount Olympus was the highest peak in the Salt Lake Valley and its upper third was beautifully stubbled with Ponderosa Pine and Douglas-Fir. The mountains were a verdant green this year thanks to a generous snowfall from the past winter. And even in a deteriorating, apocalyptic world, the mountains were still breathtakingly beautiful. I'd always thought the valley was as Edenlike as any place on earth. The mountains had always been the thing I loved most about living in the valley. No matter where you were in the Salt Lake Valley, you had a view of the mountains, the Oquirrh Mountains to the West and the Wasatch Mountains to the east. The valley was cradled by the mountains in a way that had always felt comforting to me. But not anymore. While they were still beautiful, the mountains had become like silent sentinels, keeping everyone trapped in the valley. But the mountains hadn't changed. They were steadfast as always, indifferent to the folly of human drama.

*****

The house was perfect. No one was living here. All the curtains and shades were open as if nothing had ever happened, as if everything were still normal. The house had a single lock which would make breaking into the house a piece of cake. I made it a practice to avoid homes with dead bolts or a back door with two locks. And as I traveled through the valley, I was shocked at how many homes there were to choose from. With all the abandoned homes, it was easy to find homes with a single lock. I also made sure to avoid homes with screen doors. Screen doors were squeaky and would likely alert any infected in the area.

My preference for homes included basements and upstairs. While it was a pain to have to scout out three floors to make sure a home was secure, basements and upstairs held great advantages. The basement was the safest area of the home as long as it had windows to the backyard that were easy to exit from if the need arose, and I found it easy to relax in basements. I could walk around without having to worry about being seen by the infected. As long as I made sure to keep the door to the basement closed and locked if possible, basements made for perfectly safe havens. If there were ever any suspicious noises coming from upstairs, I could always make a hasty retreat out a back window into the relative safety of a backyard. Other than the day at Alex's house when they were about to bust through the fence, I'd yet to run across any infected in a fenced backyard.

Having an upstairs was important as a lookout in the mornings because I could see further down the street from an upstairs window than I could from a living room picture window. Upstairs windows offered a better angle and a more comprehensive view. If there were a large group of the infected nearby, I'd likely be able to spot them. I avoided large packs of the infected at all costs. If I spotted a big group of infected, I'd alter my route for the day, making sure to stay a few blocks clear of them. The more infected there were, the less chance I had of getting cleanly away. Using my binoculars, I could usually see as far as two blocks down the street.

I was drifting in and out of a daydream when the air conditioner switched on. It caught me off guard. I collected myself and moved to the back door, making sure the gun was within reach. After my first night out, I'd decided the Glock was the best option in the sometimes tight confines of a home. Even though a gunshot would draw the infected, I could escape out the back door and put plenty of distance between myself and the house.

I lightly scratched my fingernails against the door panel and waited. If there were any infected inside, they'd likely hear the scratching and be drawn to the source of the noise. After waiting twenty seconds, I scratched at the door a second time. I waited another thirty seconds but didn't hear a thing. Then I began to work my magic with the tension wrench and the rake pick. And as soon as the tension wrench began to inch upwards, I turned it all the way and unlocked the door. I picked up the Glock and turned the knob and pushed the door open.

I let the door swing open as far as it would go without hitting anything. The kitchen was empty and I didn't hear any noises outside of the persistent hum of the air conditioning. I made sure to leave the back door partially open in case I needed to leave in a hurry. The kitchen was empty and I moved through it into a hallway junction. The living room was straight ahead and there was a hallway to the right. There was a door to my immediate left, likely the garage. I turned to the right with my gun in a firing-ready position, a round already in the chamber. After my first night out, I'd decided to keep a round chambered at all times since chambering rounds could be noisy, and there might be situations where I might not have time to chamber a round. The hallway was clear. There was a thermostat a few feet down the hallway and then a door to the right and another door at the end of the hallway. The first door was open and I kept the Glock pointed in its direction. I changed the thermostat setting to sixty degrees to make sure the air conditioning would stay on while I scouted the house. The constant hum of the air conditioning would help mask the sound of opening doors.

I kept my back pressed against the opposite wall and moved cautiously down the hallway. The first door was a bathroom. I stepped a little closer to get a better view, but there was nothing to see. It was empty. I guessed the second door to be a bedroom and I followed the same procedure as I did with the back door. I scratched the door panel and waited. There was only silence. I opened the door and made sure the room was clear. It was a bedroom that had been turned into an office. I went over to the computer desk and opened the two drawers and looked to see if there might be anything useful in them.

I learned to be a scavenger the first night out. I needed bandages for the cut on my face and found them in a medicine cabinet in a dimly lit bathroom on the main floor. The cut was deeper than I'd anticipated. A horizontal cut about an inch-and-a-half long and the skin was separated wider than I liked. After applying some Neosporin to the wound, I cut the adhesive ends of several band-aids off and used them to help hold the skin of my cheek together. After that, I stuffed the Neosporin and the pack of band-aids in my backpack. And that's what got me started. I'd only taken a few things since, an Arizona Diamonds baseball cap to shade my face from the sun, some nose clips for the occasional awful smell, and an extra fully-loaded magazine for the Glock. That was the real prize. I always felt the requisite guilt for taking something that didn't belong to me. And then I thanked the home's owners quietly for the food and hospice they'd left me. I really didn't think they'd mind.

I followed my usual routine and scouted out all three floors. As had always been the case, the house was empty. The fridge had bottled water and plenty of food and the pantry was well stocked as well. There was even a half-empty bottle of Absolut Vodka in the freezer. The couch downstairs was comfy and I found two possible exit windows in the basement. The house had everything I needed. There was a Camry in the garage and I found the keys to it in a drawer in the master bedroom upstairs. I set the keys on top of the car in case of emergency, though I doubted I'd ever need to use a car. I believed I'd always be safer in a backyard than I would be out on a street driving a car. Car sounds would be like a magnet drawing packs of infected to you. But despite the danger, I'd begun hearing the sounds of screeching tires off in the distance, gunfire too. They must have run out of food and been desperate. Why else would anyone be out there in a car? Just the same, every day when I planned out my next day's itinerary, I made sure my target neighborhood didn't include dead-end streets or cul-de-sacs. A car wouldn't do me any good if I got boxed in.

One thing I'd learned in the past week is that every home tells a story. When you scout out homes thoroughly, you learn things about the family that lived there. And this house was no different. It told me a story I didn't like. A middle-class couple, the Petersons, lived here with their daughter, Audrey. The parents looked to be thirtyish, a few years older than me, and they doted on their daughter. Audrey looked to be around six years old. And it was easy to tell from the pictures on the living room mantle, that this was a happy family. In one picture, Audrey smiled brightly and proudly held up a new Bratz doll for the camera. She had that nurtured sheen about her that comes from being loved and well tended. Her bedroom was stocked with dolls and toys and children's books. She also had a vanity with jewelry trees sitting atop it along with a closet filled with colorful dresses. And I couldn't help but notice in some of the pictures on the mantle, how much alike mother and daughter were. They both had chestnut-brown hair and wore flowery summer dresses. And they smiled unabashedly with wide smiles.

A few small details told me what had happened. The most telling was Audrey's unmade bed and the three items laid out on the nightstand next to her bed. This was a well kept up household. It wasn't the kind of home where beds went unmade. The little girl's unmade bed was strikingly out of place. And then there were the three items on the nightstand. A wash cloth folded into what had likely been a cold compress for Audrey's fever along with a bottle of Children's Tylenol and a glass of water. At first, they likely thought their daughter had simply caught a cold. But once the fever and headaches started, they would have been worried. And by the time her face had thinned and turned gray, they would have been frantic. They probably took her to the nearest hospital or instant care facility. And without them being aware of it, she'd probably infected them too. Maybe from something as simple as a sneeze or maybe from one of them giving her a gentle kiss on her feverish forehead. It was pretty clear they hadn't tried to leave the valley. If they had, the fridge and pantry would've been cleaned out, but both were well stocked. And since the home wasn't shuttered up, it had likely happened that first week before anyone knew much of anything.

The thought of what had happened to the Petersons haunted me. I wasn't sure why. I didn't exactly know them. But I did feel a kind of connection with them. And I felt that same connection with many of the people whose homes I'd stayed in. I felt a great deal of gratitude toward them. But I also felt some guilt for breaking into their homes and eating their food and using their stuff. And even though I told myself that they really wouldn't mind, there was no way I could know that. How could I? And I couldn't help but wonder if this
connection
I felt was simply my way of pacifying the pent-up guilt I was feeling. Maybe it was. What I did know was that most of the people whose homes I stayed in had died a horrific death. Or something worse.

I retrieved my backpack from the back porch and closed and locked the back door. There was some multigrain bread in the fridge that was still good, so I fixed myself a sandwich. Black Forest Ham with a slice of cheddar cheese and mayo. I had to cut off a moldy corner of the cheese, but the sandwich hit the spot.

After I finished the sandwich, I took my toiletries from the backpack and set them up in the main floor bathroom. I examined the cut on my cheek in the mirror and was thrilled with how well it had healed. The adhesive strips had done a nice job of keeping the skin together while it was healing. I'd changed the adhesive strips three times a day and had continued to use the Neosporin. The skin was knitting back together nicely and I didn't believe there'd be much of a scar, but I didn't really know for sure. And then it struck me how ludicrous it was to be concerned about a little scar in the midst of the world falling apart. I laughed silently at my misplaced vanity.