Tourists of the Apocalypse (28 page)

…

Weeks pass, but Izzy doesn’t return. I see Lance several times, but word is that she’s overseeing something out at the Hive, which is still a stupid name. I sleep late and then wander downstairs for some coffee. Fitz and Violet are doing just that, my mother clanging pans in the kitchen.

“No storm troopers this morning?” I mutter, referring to the protection detail that also enjoys coffee here at shift change.

“That’s because it’s the afternoon,” Fitz points out.

Nodding understanding, I shuffle into the kitchen and pour myself a cup. Lance always has four guys out here. They work in two teams patrolling a one block radius around us. There is nothing behind their houses but a retention pond, but they keep an eye out. Lance sends a truck with supplies to town once a week to control them. He even gave them some guns and sent a few guys to organize the men. The town sits between our location and the highway. With them as a barrier, we are relatively safe. Just in case, there are a dozen quarter sized Goliaths they call pea-shooters, active around our homes. Everyone is wearing Tabs to keep them from firing on us.

It was curious to me why they don’t just take Mr. Dibble and their guys back to the Hive.
Why defend this cluster of homes? Why not just fall back to their nest?
This inconsistency bothers me, but there isn’t much I can do about it. As long as the power and water stay on here we are better off than anywhere else. Retreating to the dining area, I blow on my coffee and listen the girls gossip.

The sound of Dickey’s Mustang rumbles down the street, ending the chattering at the table. Pushing the curtain to one side, I watch him pull up in front of T-Buck’s. Blister wanders out of the garage and receives an envelope. This is most likely correspondence from Lance. Graham limps out his front door and waits for his orders. Dickey joins him, passing another envelope, then returns to his car and unloads several boxes, setting them in front of Graham’s garage. This is a pretty typical occurrence. The boxes are supplies for whatever Mr. Dibble is making. I have a strong suspicion it’s computer chips of some kind, but everyone involved is tightlipped on the subject. The packages he sends back with Dickey are just manila envelopes and the few peeks I have gotten inside the garage reveal what looks like a clean room.

The girls set out across the cul-de-sac to greet Dickey. I watch as he receives a hug from Fitz that lingers far longer than it should
. She’s still keeping a plan B on the table and the B stands for Batman.
Violet disappears into the house with Graham, leaving the two of them to kibitz in the front yard.

Fitz sits on the hood of his car while Dickey tells her a story about some dare devil maneuver out on the highway. He moves his hands illustrating how the car zigged or zagged. It’s at least 100 miles down the highway to the Hive’s parking lot. Then a wee bit less than an hour in the Jeep over barren terrain, although word is they are going to build a road. Lance’s guys, an army recruited from towns all around, have cleared the highway and made it an easy drive. They have at least one helicopter, but mostly when Lance comes and goes it’s in a truck.

I watch until my coffee runs out, and then change into jeans and a t-shirt before joining them. There is huge hole dug in the front lawn of T-bucks house, but it’s half filled with water after a rain storm last night. I can’t decide what it would be for, but keep forgetting to ask. Dickey is weaving a spine-tingling tale as I get close.

“Thuh, thuh, they,” Dickey stammers. “They had no shot at catching me.”

“Hey Dickey,” I interrupt. “Got anything for me?”

Fitz frowns and sticks out her tongue, annoyed at my interruption.

“Ruh, ruh, right,” he nods, tapping a finger on his forehead. “Yes.”

He pulls a sheet of paper out of the inside pocket of his denim jacket. He hands it over and winks like it’s a huge secret. I wander a few steps away to read it while their conversation resumes. I usually receive a letter several pages long from Izzy, but this one is just one page.

Hey D, it’s so boring out here. I can’t seem to find an excuse to come back there. How about you hitch a ride out this way? I promise to make it worth your time. Love Izzy.

When I turn around Fitz is behind me holding out a lighter. She’s pushes it into my hand and crosses her arms. All correspondence is destroyed so as not to get into the wrong hands. She’s bossy about it, but as part of the conspiracy, she stands to suffer if we are found out. I read over the letter one more time, then light the corner on fire and watch it burn. When it gets to my fingers I release it, watching the last bit float away on the breeze. She nods and kisses me on the cheek, before heading back into the house. Out of the corner of my eye I see Dickey slipping between Graham’s and Lance’s houses.
If I want to accept her invitation, I’m going to need a ride.

Cutting through the lawns; I go around the big hole in Graham’s yard and catch up to Dickey. He turns left and goes through Lance’s back yard, coming out on the next street over. Two houses down he uses a key to open the side door on a garage and slips inside. All the houses on our street and the ones close by are deserted. People relocated closer to town when supplies began to trickle out from Lance’s army. To be honest, the idea of a roving gang passing through is the main reason.

Reaching the door, I listen, but there isn’t any sound loud enough to penetrate the thick steel. When the knob won’t turn, I knock. The door moves a crack and I pull it open revealing a surprised Dickey.

“Wuh, wuh, what gives?”

“I wanted to ask you something,” I explain, but step past him. “What is all this stuff?”

The garage is filled with wooden crates from floor to ceiling. Various sizes with some open and others still sealed. Looking ominous in the corner is a huge Goliath gun hanging off the beams.
Is Dickey planning a revolution?

“Sto, sto, storage,” he explains. “T-Buck has all his crap over here. Well, not just here. It’s in several of the garages on this street.”

“What’s the deal with the heavy artillery?”

“Thuh. thuh, that one was supposed to be set up in Graham’s front yard, but they decided we didn’t need it,” he reveals, shaking a finger at it, then pausing to think. “They just used the little ones. That’s what the hole in the front yard was for.”

“Good to know. When are you heading back?”

“Aff, aff, after I grab some lunch,” he shares, shaking his head and squinting his eyes closed. “Dibble has some stuff for me to take back.”

“Good, I am going to ride back with you.”

“Suh, suh, says who?”

“Me and Fitz,” I tell him firmly, deciding to bring her into it in case Dickey balks. “We have several matters to take care of at the Hive.”

“Wuh, wuh, Well, I guess if Fitz is going.”

This ends the discussion, and I have to get to her before Dickey so I can tell her about my plan. It turns out as long as she gets to go, Fitz is in. We all eat lunch at my place and bail as soon as Mr. Dibble sends out a large manila envelope for us to take. Graham winks at me as he hands it over. Before I can get in the car, he slips up next to me and tugs my arm.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he whispers. “There will be eyes everywhere.”

I climb in the front seat and nod. Dickey taps his forehead and then points at the windshield. The car lurches forward and rumbles down the street. We have to pass along the backside of town to get to the highway. There are people in their yards chatting. Many bicycles prowl the streets, waving pleasantly as we pass.
The normality provided here is surreal
. Once at the entrance ramps, two guys move a saw horse to the side so Dickey can pass. They must see him a lot as they wave and smile. The highway is deserted; all dead cars have been pushed to one side or the other. Dickey rolls through the gears until the speedo hits ninety-five.

“Things look pretty normal back there,” I offer, peeking back at Fitz.

“Just wait,” she suggests. “Another month and the second shoe is going to drop.”

“Pray tell what might that be?” I ask, noticing Dickey is also listening intently behind huge copper sunglasses.

“No pharmacies,” she suggests. “How many months of medications do you think people have?”

“I don’t know. One or two refills?”

“Nowhere left to refill them. So how many days’ worth do you think people had at home when the world ended?”

“Thirty,” I toss out. “Maybe sixty?”

“Minor stuff a month, but blood pressure meds or serious stuff maybe sixty days,” she explains. “It’s almost August, which means oppressive heat. People with heart conditions will start going first. Not to mention anyone with type-one diabetes is already on the clock. You have to keep insulin bellow forty degrees to store it.”

“How much insulin would people have in their homes?”

“One, maybe two months,” she guesses. “When it warms up it becomes less potent. Anything left is nearly useless by now, unless of course they figured out how to keep it cool.”

“How would they do that?”

“If it was me,” she thinks hard, pausing. “I would find a basement with a bathroom and float it in the toilet tank. Might be cool enough in the short term. Once it’s degraded, they would have to take triple the dose to keep their sugar down.”

“Suh, suh, so,” Dickey stutters. “You’re saying all the sick people are gonna start dying?”

“People on blood pressure meds, immune suppressants, blood thinners, diabetics and any number of other things,” she lists off. “Not to mention a far bigger problem.”

“And that would be?”

“More than half of Americans take some sort of anti-depression medication,” she points out.

“Some people being bummed won’t kill anyone.”

“Maybe not, but many of those medications require you to ween off them slowly. I doubt people will realize this until they are almost out. There will be plenty of sick people from that, not to mention the really crazy types who are violent.”

“That had not occurred to me.”

“Oh yeah,” she smirks. “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest and that’s not the worst.”

“I’m listening.”

“Prisons,” she remarks, widening her eyes.

We ride in silence as this idea sinks in. After a bit, I notice the envelope we are taking out to the Hive isn’t sealed shut. I look from Fitz to where it sits, stuck between the seat and the center console. She frowns and shakes her head, but I pick it up and peek inside. Trapped in tiny clear plastic packs are computer chips and circuit boards. The plastic looks green from the reflected light off the boards. I pull one out and turn it over in the light. Dickey doesn’t seem to care so I hand one to Fitz.

“Mr. Dibble is making lap tops?” she mutters.

“Thuh, thuh, they’re for the reactor. They try them and if they don’t work I take them back. I have been shuttling these things back and forth for years.”

I’m surprised by this as it had never crossed my mind to ask Dickey anything. Fitz hands it back and I replace them in the envelope. The car suddenly swerves, tossing me into the door. Dickey downshifts, then the engine roars as we pick up speed. He is glancing in the rearview so I turn and look out the back. An old looking sedan has entered the highway and come up behind us. We quickly pull away, leaving the car a dot on the horizon.

“What was that?” Fitz mumbles.

“Ev, ev, every now and again we get a band of idiots trying to run us off the road,” Dickey grumbles. “Nowhere near fast enough to catch me.”

“They could conceivably push dead cars out in the road,” I mention, thinking of my own experience. “Or just block it and wait.”

“Lan, Lan, Lance has this whole stretch of road patrolled by drones,” he explains. “If there’s any monkey business they let me know.”

“Military drones?”

“Nuh, nuh, no,” he chuckles. “The little helicopter kind like Amazon used to use.”

“And they have a chopper,” Fitz adds.

“Thuh, thuh, they, they don’t waste the helicopter on that. They do fly it over Abilene every now and then to see how bad it is. Sometimes they fly up and down some of the roads between here and there to keep track of the wandering gangs.”

“How bad is it?” I ask, wondering just how dangerous this is.

“Oh, oh, oh man. I saw some footage a week ago and it was right outta the Old Testament.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Depends on whether it was from Genesis or Leviticus,” Fitz suggests, rolling her eyes at me in the rearview mirror.

…

We switch to the Jeep, leaving the Mustang in the small dirt parking area. I notice two pea-shooters along the clearing, probably to protect any cars left there. We ride out to the Hive, passing the line of Goliaths. Once we get to the huge cement building that makes up the better part of the complex we park and Dickey takes his delivery inside. Fitz asks around as I lean on the Jeep. People tend to be more inclined to help her than me. It could be the red pony tail or the tight yoga pants, but since I’m not willing to try either one, hers will have to do. After five minutes, she returns having been told Izzy is a supervisor out in the agriculture division. It amuses me to think of her with a rake over one shoulder instead of a shotgun. From what we’re told it’s a long walk so we head out.

We don’t go far before a golf cart offers Fitz a ride. She chats with the driver while I ride along on a back facing seat. It’s over a mile to the Agriculture area, and we travel outside the circle protected by the Goliaths. Golf cart guy explains that a perimeter of pea-shooters stand watch over the fields as well as human patrols. Word around the Hive is that this will become more necessary later, but better safe than sorry. He lets us out in front of a complex consisting of three pole barns. There are fields in every direction and the parking lots around the buildings are littered with tractors and farm equipment, but no cars. Fitz goes inside the centermost pole barn to track down Izzy.

Wandering down the path I see what looks like a life guard tower on a beach. Sitting atop it with a pair of binoculars is Izzy. She sees me coming before I can sneak up on her. Pretending to ignore me she scans the fields. When I’m close enough, I stare up at her from the ground, at least twelve feet above me.