Year One (13 page)

“City, aren't you? Snow chains. You might need 'em on the way. And a couple shovels wouldn't hurt. Sand if we can find it. Or a couple buckets of this gravel maybe. I'm handy,” he told them. “And I'm gonna be straight. I don't want to travel alone. It's getting weirder than shit. The more people traveling together the better, I figure.”

Max looked at Lana, got a smile. “Let's see if we can find some chains.”

“Yeah?” Eddie lit up. “Cool.”

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

Eddie found chains, some tools—whoever had abandoned the gas station had left behind a well-stocked toolbox.

Then he dug out a three-gallon gas can, filled it.

“Don't generally like carrying gas in the trunk,” he said as he stowed it there. “But, you know, circumstances. Say, okay if me and Joe go relieve ourselves before we hit the road?”

“Go ahead,” Max told him.

“He's all right, Max. I just don't sense any harm in him.”

“I've got the same sense. We're both still getting used to having more than we did. And for now, at least, we're going to have to deal with strangers. But he fell in with a group of strangers, and I think he's telling the truth about them turning on him, beating him, leaving him for what he had on him. We're going to need to hone what we have, hone that sense we've started to develop. Because he won't be the only one we come across.”

“You're worried about Eric, because you don't know who he's with.”

“He'll be with us soon. Get in the car, it's cold. And I want to start it before he gets back. No point showing him, showing anyone, right now, what we have.”

They got in. Max watched in the rearview, held his hand over the ignition to start it when he saw Eddie and the dog trotting back.

“Jump in, Joe.” Eddie slid in after the dog. “Gonna say thanks again. It's going to feel good making some miles sitting down instead of on my feet.”

As Max pulled out of the lot, Lana swiveled around to look at Eddie. “How far have you come?”

“Don't know exactly. I was up in the Catskills. Friend of mine got an off-season caretaker job at this half-assed resort up there. Like something out of the movie—you know the
Dirty Dancing
movie with the cabins and all that?”

“‘Nobody puts Baby in a corner.'”

“Yeah, that's the one. This place wasn't as nice as in the movie. Kinda run-down, you know? But I went up to help him out—we were doing some repairs, too.

“We didn't watch much TV, and the Internet was pretty much jackshit, but then we heard about people getting sick when we went into the town nearby one night to toss back some beer.”

Joe stretched out over his lap, and Eddie stroked and petted with his long, bony fingers.

“I guess that was about three weeks ago—lost track. I called home—had to go into town for that, too—the next day because I couldn't get through that night. Cell reception was buggy back at the resort, and the owners shut down the landline phones in the winter. Cheap bastards. Anyway, I couldn't reach my ma, and got
more worried. Then I got ahold of my sister. She said how Ma was real sick in the hospital, and Jesus, I could hear Sarri was sick, too.”

He kept stroking the dog, but turned to stare out the side window. “I went back, to pack up, tell Bud—my friend—and I could see he wasn't feeling good. This bad cough. But we packed up, started out before nightfall—left his truck there because he wasn't feeling up to driving by then. He got sicker, sick enough I detoured off to find a hospital.”

He shifted back to look at Lana. “It was crazy, man, just nuts. This little Podunk town, and everybody's trying to get out any way they can. I could see, like, boarded-up houses and shops—and some busted into—but they had a hospital, and I got Bud to it.”

He took a slow breath. “I couldn't just leave him that way, but my ma and Sarri … I couldn't reach either of them when I tried from that place. Called half a dozen people before I got one to answer. My second cousin Mason. He said—God, he sounded bad, too. He said my ma and his both were gone, and Sarri was in the hospital and it didn't look good. He couldn't get out, he said not to come home, it was bad there. Nothing I could do. No point trying to call my old man. He took off not long after Sarri was born, and I wouldn't know where to … Anyway. Bud didn't make it. Sarri or Mason, either.”

“I'm sorry, Eddie.”

After swiping at his damp eyes, he went back to stroking Joe. “I just started driving, wasn't thinking straight. Then I got to this place in the road, all blocked with cars so I couldn't get through. Turned the truck around, headed another way. I just kept hitting roads that were blocked up, then the truck broke down on me. Better than two weeks, I guess, I've been on foot. Learned to stay clear of your bigger towns—bad shit happening, man, serious shit. Back roads are better. I think about heading home—that'd be a little spot called Fiddler's Creek, outside of Louisville. But I don't think I
could stand it knowing my ma and my sis are dead. Don't think I could stand going home knowing they're not there. You lose anybody?”

“I lost my parents a few years ago,” Lana told him. “I'm an only child. Max can't reach his parents—they're in Europe. We're going to meet up with his brother.”

“I pray he's well. I'm not much good at praying, though my ma tried to make me a God-fearing churchgoer. But I've been practicing just lately, so I'll pray he stays well.”

Max flicked a glance in the rearview. “Thanks.”

“I figure we got to try looking out for each other now.” Eddie rubbed his bruised jaw. “Some don't see it that way. Sure glad you do. You're city—it shows. What city?”

“New York,” Max told him.

“No shit? I heard it was, like, real bad there. When'd you get out?”

“Yesterday morning, and it
is
bad.”

“It's bad everywhere,” Lana added. “More than a billion people dead from this virus. They keep saying the vaccine's coming, but—”

“You ain't heard.”

She turned again to look at Eddie, saw his eyes had gone big, wide as an owl's. “Heard what?”

“Right out of New York, too. I found me and Joe a little farmhouse yesterday. My ribs were aching like a bitch, and I thought maybe they'd let me sleep in the barn or something. Nobody there. They'd cleared out, so I stayed in the house. Had a generator, so I got that going, had my first hot shower in a week, and goddamn that was sweet. Had a TV, and I figured to watch some of the DVDs they had—left all that behind. But I turned it on and it surprised the shit out of me I got this news on there. The girl giving the report—ah … funny name.”

“Arlys? Arlys Reid?” Lana asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I thought I'd watch awhile, see what was what maybe. Plus, she's pretty hot. And while she's talking, this guy comes up, sits down. Skunk drunk. I've seen him before. Bob Somebody.”

“Bob Barrett? He's the anchor—the main guy,” Max said.

“Yeah, well, the main guy was skunk drunk, and pulls out a freaking gun.”

“Oh my God!” Lana turned around as far as she could. “What happened?”

“Well, like this.” Shifting, Eddie got comfortable for the story. “He's waving the freaking gun around, spouting off a bunch of crap, threatens to shoot the hot chick. Gloom about the Doom, you know what I'm saying? It's like watching a damn movie now, scary shit, but you can't
not
watch, right? She lets him bullshit on—chick's got balls—and it looks like maybe she's going to talk him down, maybe. Then he puts the gun…” Eddie stuck his index finger under his scraggly beard. “And
bam
. Right on the air. Guy shoots half his face off right on TV.”

Snow began to drift down, slithering over the windshield. Max turned on the wipers.

“That ain't the worst,” Eddie continued. “The hot chick—Arlys? She says to, you know, keep it rolling, to put the camera on her. I guess so people who can watch won't be looking at the dead guy. She's got blood on her face where it splattered like, but she starts talking. She's talking about how she hasn't been telling the whole truth, but now she will. How she has this—what do you call it—this source? And how it's not like a billion dead, it's more than two.”

“‘More than two'?” As it jumped, Lana pressed a fist to her heart. “But that can't be true.”

“If you'da been watching her, you'd believe it. More than two, she said, and how there's no vaccine coming because it—the Doom—it keeps, like, mutating. And how the guy who was president after the other guy died? He's dead, too, and some woman—like,
the agriculture woman—is president now. How they're starting to round up people like, well, I gotta figure like us.”

Max's eyes narrowed in the mirror. “What do you mean ‘like us'?”

“Who aren't sick. Who aren't getting sick. They're rounding us up, taking us places to test us and shit. Whether or not we're okay with it. Martial law and all that happy shit, man. Hell, I saw that for myself a couple times the last week or two. Freaking tanks heading east, big convoys of military trucks and shit. It's why I started going west. Anyway, she said all that, and how it would probably be the last broadcast, 'cause they'd get shut down for her saying all this, letting it all out. And when she finished, the station went blank.

“I don't know if the people still working shut it down or if the military or whatever did. But it was still off the air when I tried later. I thought about staying there, hiding out there, but I got antsy. Me and Joe got antsy and headed out early this morning. Started walking and walked into you guys.”

“Two billion people.” Lana's voice came out in a shaky whisper. “How could anything kill so many so fast?”

“It's global,” Max said flatly. “We're global. People travel—or did—all over the world every day. It passes from person to person, and the next person spreads it wherever he goes. A handful of infected—maybe not knowing they're sick—get on a plane to China or Rio or Kansas fucking City, and the rest of the passengers are exposed, the flight crew, the people at security, in the airport gift shops, bars. And they all spread it. It wouldn't take long.”

“You're saying … We're saying,” Lana corrected, “that it's going to keep spreading, keep killing until … Until there's no one left but people like us. Immune.”

“That's the word I couldn't pull out,” Eddie said. “
Immune
. I have to figure I am because I was with Bud the whole time. Before he got sick and after. And where I took him, the hospital? A lot of sick people there. But I didn't get sick. Yet.”

“From what I've read, and heard,” Max told him, “you start showing symptoms between twelve and twenty-four hours after exposure.”

“I guess I should feel good about that. I guess I do,” Eddie continued. “Even though it all sucks out loud.”

“What happens next?” Lana turned to Max. “You're good at figuring out what happens next.”

“Not fiction but real this time.”

“You're good at what happens next,” she repeated. “I haven't been prepared for the worst. I imagined we'd spend a few weeks in the mountains until things got back to normal, or as normal as they could be. But now … There isn't going to be anything resembling normal, and I need to know what to expect.”

“If it keeps on spreading, there could be two billion more,” Max said flatly. “It's impossible to say how many will be left. Half the world population? A quarter? Ten percent? But it's possible to speculate that, as we've already seen beginning, the infrastructure will collapse. Communications, power, roads. Medical facilities overrun with virus patients will struggle to treat them, and other patients. People with injuries, with cancer or other conditions. More of the looting and the killings we saw ourselves in New York. The government collapses or reforms into something we don't know.”

He took a hand off the wheel to squeeze hers. “Getting out of the city was the right call. Cities will fall first. More people spreading the virus, more people looting or reverting to violence. More infrastructure to collapse. More people to panic, the military coming in to try to keep order. And that chain of command frays as those in authority fall to the virus.”

“It's the old ‘head for the hills.'”

Max nodded at Eddie. “You're not wrong. You find a place, a safe one—or as safe as you can—and you supply it, maintain it, defend it.”

“Defend it against who?”

Max gave Lana's hand another squeeze. “Against anyone who tries to take it. You hope like-minded people come together, build communities and their own infrastructure, laws and order. You scavenge, you farm, you hunt. You live.”

If she'd hoped Max would offer a less dire scenario, she had to admit the one he painted sounded all too real. “And if you're like the two of us, and haven't the first clue how to hunt or farm?”

“You find other ways to contribute, and you learn. We've gotten this far. We'll survive the rest.”

“My ma kept a garden—grew some nice vegetables every year. I can get things to grow, I'd guess, and show you how it's done. I hunted some as a kid, but that was awhile back. I'm one of those rare country boys who don't much like guns. But I know how to use one.”

“It's still possible they could have a breakthrough on the vaccine,” Lana insisted.

“It is,” Max agreed. “But if there are already two billion dead, there'll be more before they can dispense and inoculate, even if they broke through tomorrow. The center can't hold, Lana. It's already breaking down. Hell, the Secretary of Agriculture is now president. I don't even know who that is.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Eddie began, “but we ought to stop and put those chains on before it gets any thicker on the road.”

Max eased to the shoulder as the snow continued to fall. “You'll have to show me how.”

“And me,” Lana added. “If I'm going to have to learn what I don't know, I might as well start now.”

“No problem, nothing to it.”

He showed them how to unkink the chains—simple enough even if the cold, the snow, the wind added a nasty element to the chore. Then how to fit the chains over the top of the tire. Though
her fingers felt numb even with gloves, Lana insisted on doing one herself.