Domino Falls (13 page)

Just a dream. Just a dream.

Shadows played in the darkness, tricking her eyes with ghostly faces and grasping arms. But the door was closed. The
dream had seemed real because the darkness made everything look like a dream. But she was awake now.

Kendra stared at the door a long time so her eyes could see it and believe.

Yes, the door was still closed. With freakproof locks.

Kendra's hand reached for the nightstand, where Ursalina had left her 9mm—
Better be close enough for any of us to grab it,
she'd said. Kendra chambered a round and slid it beneath her pillow. Her heartbeat slowed, but she stared toward the door.

She would keep watch tonight.

Terry and Piranha were going into town. They would be waking in only a couple of hours, in the dead of night, and the trucks outside would rumble.

If she stayed awake, she might be able to open her door and wave good-bye.

December 21

T
erry
was so caught up with shaking hands and learning names that he didn't notice Kendra waving in the open door at the motel until they were near the corner.

Terry leaned out of the pickup's bed to wave back. To make sure she could see him in the near darkness, he waved a long time.

Piranha chuckled. “How are you gonna act when she gives it up?” he said, biting open the foil wrapper of his protein bar. The other guys laughed, and Terry didn't mind the joke. He doubted Piranha had seen Kendra, so he was guessing to fool the other guys. Terry wouldn't have seen her if she hadn't been bathed in moonlight.

“Stay focused, man,” one of the other guys said, giving Terry a playful slap.

There were two trucks filled with the scav crew, six in each
truck. Terry was relieved when he and Piranha were teamed together. Terry had never taken part in an operation with so many other armed men. They were a war party.

The driver put on old-school Ice Cube, “It Was a Good Day,” and turned it up loud, with his windows open. Terry had never heard a truck's stereo go so loud, booming across the farmland. There was no one to wake up. They all yelled the lyrics to the wind.

Even the Gold Shirt bobbed his head to the beat until the other young guy, a kid named Bobbie, said he'd jump out of the truck if he didn't hear Metallica. For the next few miles, rock once again hailed supreme. All the stalled cars had been cleared to the side and stripped, so they had nothing to do but play air guitar and sing “Enter Sandman” at the top of their lungs.

They got ten minutes of music, about ten miles' worth of freedom.

Then they hit the 101, and the music died.

“Playtime's over,” the Gold Shirt said.

Fifteen minutes later, they peeled off in what was left of Sausalito, and the trucks went in opposite directions at Martin Luther King Park. Alpha truck was going north, Beta truck, their truck, south through deserted, windblown streets.

Terry hoped their truck would land near contact lenses. They twisted and turned, heading toward the bay and then inland again to a business district. Piranha had told him the kinds of places that would have them: Optometrists' offices. A 7-Eleven. Kmart. Drugstores had saline solution and a moderate range of contact lenses. His were too strong to be common . . . but that also meant less likely to have already been scavenged. When in doubt, Piranha had said, just grab what he could.

But these were no ordered city streets. The area seemed desolate, more
like a warehouse district. Where would they find contacts here?

“Downtown's been thoroughly picked over,” the Gold Shirt said. “So we're sticking to outlying areas. Put on your scav sacks. We'll hit a few cars on the way that haven't been cleared. Hopefully the owners are gone too—but grab a hankie out of this bag to keep down the smell.” The bag smelled of Vicks VapoRub.

Terry had forgotten about the corpses.

During their road trip from Seattle, they'd never left gas behind unless they had no choice, but they hadn't picked over corpses since Vern and Molly. When they found cars, they'd taken what they wanted, but they left the bodies alone. They didn't have use for wallets and wedding rings. Now, picking over bodies was part of his job description.

“I'm not gonna forget this,” Piranha said quietly, knowing.

“No—you won't,” Terry said.

A dark-haired man in his forties raised his hand. He wore glasses, and his black jogging suit looked new. “I'm Riley. If we see freaks . . .”

“We
will
see freaks,” the Gold Shirt said. “Get used to it.
If
is just you in denial. What's your question?”

For a moment, Riley forgot his question. No one said anything. Terry felt a bizarre mixture of terror and exhilaration.

“How many?” Terry said in Riley's silence.

“Sometimes a few, sometimes a lot,” the Gold Shirt said. He was round, jolly, rubber-faced, like the love child of Jim Carrey and Jack Black. “Be ready for anything. Be on the lookout for explosive triggers from pirates. Chances are, by the time you've taken three runs, you've seen somebody bitten or shot. Not everyone who drives out always makes it home. If the crew is
compromised, you'll be left behind. There's a reason this is the toughest job.”

“But we get to keep half?” Bobbie said. The kid in back.

“Bobbie, how old are you?” Gold Shirt said.

“Eighteen, sir.”

“You're a liar. You're sixteen. Your father ought to know better.”

“Wasn't up to him,” Bobbie said.

The Gold Shirt tossed a glove at Bobbie, and he caught it before it bounced into the road. “Yeah, you get to keep half—so make it something worth keeping. Scrap metal. Batteries. Medicines. But don't line your pockets. Holding back is pinching, and that's the same as stealing. You'll get your half, but bag it and tag it. Thieves won't just get banned from the scavs, you're bounced from town. Any of you.”

But probably not the locals, Terry guessed. Any town went easier on its own.

As Terry glanced at the other scavs, he wished he'd worn more layers. He had on good jeans and a sturdy jacket, unlike people he'd seen dressed in rags, but the more seasoned scavs were wearing two pairs of jeans—harder to bite through—and had their gloves taped to their sleeves. Terry cursed himself. If he hadn't spent so much time thinking about Kendra and Piranha, he might have remembered what was waiting.

Piranha's face was grim. If these guys found out how little Piranha could see, they might leave Piranha outside for endangering the crew. Which meant leaving him too, because Terry would stay with him. He hoped getting stranded was the worst thing that could happen today.

The sky was growing gray and light pink by the time they reached South Sausalito, just in sight of the Golden Gate Bridge. The severed cables and shattered concrete dangled into the bay.

“What happened to it?” Piranha asked.

Horatio shrugged. “No one really knows. Just one day the Sausalito side was fighting off freaks on the bridge, and the next, someone had parked a fertilizer bomb in the middle and blew it the hell up.”

“Terrorism.”

“One man's terrorist is another man's freak fighter,” he said. “If you fill up your scav bag, you come get another one. The idea is to fill up as many bags as you can. Everybody partners up. No one goes out alone. Ever. It's the quickest way to get left in the cold. If we get swarmed, I guarantee we won't stick around because we're feeling sentimental.”

Only the seasoned scavs laughed. Riley and Bobbie looked gray in the face, and Terry thought he might look the same way. The truck's swaying made his stomach hurt.

A vehicle appeared in the road ahead, but it was off to the side. There was movement in a window. Their truck swung to the lane farthest away but didn't slow.

Terry stared as they sped past. At least three women were huddled around a Ford SUV with the hood up, hissing steam. The movement he'd seen in the window was from two small girls. The children waved frantically as the truck drove past.

“We're also not a rescue service,” the Gold Shirt said. “Out here, no good deed goes unpunished. The best way to get hurt is to divert from the plan. So if you feel sorry for those ladies and they're still here when we come back, toss 'em a bag of your loot. Food or bottled water. Other than that, you can't help them. And if they don't have guns, only God can help them anyway.”

“But . . .” Terry started.

The Gold Shirt raised his voice to be sure he was heard. “They will offer you the world! They will scream and cry! They
will look just like friends and loved ones you haven't seen since Freak Day! But repeat after me:
I will not bring home strays!
”

The experienced scavs sounded robust as they repeated their mantra, stomping their feet in unison on the last word. Piranha said it loudest of all. Terry was still trying to forget the sight of the waving women and children. His sister could have been in a car like that.

“Young man?” The Gold Shirt was looking at him.

“Sir?”

“I want to hear you say it.”

Terry's tongue felt flat in his mouth. “I will not bring home strays,” he said.

The Gold Shirt stared at Piranha. Then his eyes went back to Terry.

“See that you don't,” he said. “There's no room for strays on this truck.”

Much of the morning fog had burned off by the time they reached the knots of cars, lanes tied up in both directions. At first, their truck's driver was able to steer around the stalled traffic by driving on the shoulder, but then he stopped behind a multicar tangle. Terry remembered the Siskiyou ambush.

“One crew clears the left lane, two crews cover,” the Gold Shirt said. “Who's clearing?”

“We will,” Piranha said, raising his hand. They knew how to clear cars—it would be easier for Piranha to steer or push than it would be to see an attacker in the distance. As an afterthought, he looked at Terry: “Right?”

“Yeah,” Terry said. His voice wasn't nearly as reluctant as he felt.

“Don't forget your bags,” the Gold Shirt said.

“The cars are empty, right?” Piranha whispered to Terry as they hopped out of the truck. Terry looked at the shadowed forms
behind the tinted windows of the PT Cruiser stalled closest to them. At least two people. With any luck, they were dead.

When Terry didn't answer, Piranha cursed. They tied kerchiefs around their faces. “Sorry, man,” Piranha said.

“Sorry doesn't even begin to cover it,” Terry said.

“Make sure they're dead!” the Gold Shirt called.

Guns chambered as the crew covered them. Terry almost vomited when they opened the PT Cruiser's door. A family of four. By the looks of it, the father had shot his wife and two young daughters in the head with a .38 and then shot himself—the gun still dangling from his hand. They were huddled in the backseat as if they were sleeping. Terry couldn't stand to look at them. The smell in the car was unholy.

“Strip it,” the Gold Shirt called.

“I got it,” Piranha said, slipping on his gloves, and Terry didn't argue.

“When we're done, I'm steering,” Terry said. “You push.” He didn't want to spend one second longer with the corpses, but at least he could see the road to steer.

The next car was empty, and they only had to clear two to make the path. The other scavs patted them on the back when they climbed back into the truck's bed, making jokes about popping their cherries and the aromatic smell on their clothes.

A digital wristwatch. A wedding ring with a fingernail-sized diamond. An iPod with a quarter of its battery power remaining. A GPS navigator. An unopened box of Froot Loops. A wallet, a purse stuffed with cash (useless, of course), and two cell phones. A toy called a Leapster.

That was all that was left of the PT Cruiser's family of four.

No contact lenses.

Terry wished he could warp himself ahead in time: day over.

It was barely light outside. The day hadn't even started.

T
he
route to the docks and warehouses was familiar to the crew—many of the lanes had been cleared on their last trip and hadn't been tampered with. Threadville's scav crews were like ants burrowing into a tunnel, taking pieces at a time. The Gold Shirt, whose name was Cliff, told them to keep talking to a minimum. It was hard to hear each other in the bed of the truck anyway, but they had to keep watch for pirates and freaks.

They didn't have to wait long to see freaks.

In Sausalito's lost neighborhoods, the infected walked streets that gleamed with broken glass. They weren't the collected horde at the Barracks, but there was movement almost everywhere Terry looked. Crossing the streets. Hovering near mailboxes. Pawing at storefronts. Tangled in downed power lines.

And they had enough ammo on the truck to light up the city. Dean and Darius weren't the only ones who could gain fame as shooters in Threadville.

“Let's clear this area out,” Terry said. “Right?”

“What did I tell you yesterday?” Cliff said, annoyed.

“A gunshot is a dinner bell,” Piranha said quickly. “Freaks who hear gunshots gather, and a gathering of freaks will attract others. If more than ten come, it crosses some kind of a threshold, and you're likely to get a swarm.”

“Glad one of you was paying attention,” Cliff said.

Yeah, and only one of us can see your face,
Terry thought.

Cliff went on. “Getting swarmed in the city is a problem that can get very big,
very
fast. A wall of shamblers can stop this truck and jam every street in sight. When are the only times we pop off in the city?”

“To create a diversion, or to save our asses!”
the veteran scavs said in unison.