The day after: An apocalyptic morning (21 page)

              "Do it," she said softly.

              He did it, reaching across his body and unsnapping the quick-release catch. He slid the weapon from its holster and carefully placed it on the ground. He then raised his hand back up.

              "Now kick it over here," he was told.

              "Uh... if you don't mind," he said apologetically, "would you just have me step away from it and then you can come and pick it up. I'm rather fond of that weapon and I'd rather not scratch it all up."

              "Oh Jesus Christ," she cursed, obviously quite flustered. "Go ahead. Back up!"

              He backed up about ten feet, moving slowly. The woman without the flashlight came forward to retrieve it.

              "You shouldn't cross in front of your partner's line of fire like that," Skip warned.

              "Shut up!" barked flashlight. "Missy, do you have the fucking gun?"

              "Yes," Missy said, scuttling quickly back over to her friend.

              "Okay, Mister," she told him. "Start walking. We'll tell you where to turn."

              "You're the boss," he said lightly, moving out.

              He was marched to a three-story building that stood in the middle of a small park just inside the main gate to the subdivision. Several vehicles, including a green fire engine and a grass fighting truck that had belonged to the California Department of Forestry, were parked out front. From the bottom floor windows came the glow of multiple oil lamps burning within.

              "What's this place?" Skip asked his captors as they entered the parking lot.

              "It used to be our community center," the woman named Missy replied. "Now we kind of use it as our headquarters."

              "I see," Skip said, noting that they at least had guards posted out here. There were two of them before the front door; a male and a female. Like the two that had "captured" him, they were wearing rain slickers and packing rifles. When they saw him being led up to the building at gunpoint they both jumped to their feet (they had been sitting in chairs under the protective overhang of the roof) and rushed over.

              "Who's this?" the male guard asked, pointing his gun menacingly at Skip's abdomen. Skip saw that he was a younger man, probably no more than nineteen or twenty. He looked scared shitless.

              "We caught him sitting on the wall," the flashlight bearing guard replied. "He wants to talk to the committee."

              "He wants to do what?" the other guard asked incredulously. "And you brought him here?"

              "I think that maybe we're going to want to listen to what he has to say," Missy said. "He was very persuasive."

              Skip stopped near the bottom of the steps that led up to the community center door. The male guard continued to point his rifle at him. "Howdy," Skip told him, eyeing the kid's trigger finger nervously. It looked like he had about four pounds of pull already applied. "I'm unarmed now and I'll sit quietly anywhere you tell me to, but would you mind pointing that gun downward a bit. I sure wouldn't want any accidents to happen."

              "Shut up," the kid said toughly, not moving the barrel. "I don't know who the hell you think you are, but you can't just come walking in here and..."

              "Actually," Skip interrupted, "I did just come walking in here. That's why I want to talk to whoever is in charge of this joint, so that it doesn't happen with someone a little more dangerous than I am. So how about I go sit on those steps there and you go get whoever that person is?" Without waiting for a reply or even acknowledgment, he turned around and plopped himself down on the cement steps.

              The four guards all looked at each other in confusion for a moment. It was obvious to them that, even though they were the ones holding all the weapons, they were somehow not in charge of the situation. It was Missy who finally spoke. "Jeff," she said, addressing the male guard, "are Jessica or Paul in there?"

              "Uh... both of them," he answered. "So is Dale."

              "Go get them," she said. "Tell them that we have a prisoner that has some information that they're going to want to hear. We'll wait here."

              Jeff didn't seem too keen on this idea. "What if he tries something while I'm gone?" he asked, as if his mere presence would be enough to prevent this occurrence.

              "We got him this far," Missy said, a little impatiently. "I think we can safely watch him for the next couple of minutes. Besides, as he so dramatically pointed out to us earlier, if he had wanted to hurt us he would have done it a long time ago. Isn't that right?"

              "That's right," Skip said, smiling up at her.

              Jeff grumbled a few more times under his breath, but finally mounted the stairs and disappeared through the double doors of the building. The three guards watching Skip kept their distance from him and said nothing while he was gone. About two minutes later the doors opened back up and two men stepped out. They both had pistols in their hands that they wasted no time in pointing at Skip.

              Skip looked up at them placidly, keeping his hands up in the air. The man who came out of the door first was in his late twenties or early thirties. He was a very average looking person, of medium build with short brown hair. He looked a little tense but otherwise calm. Immediately behind him was a much taller man, a man who looked big enough to be a professional football linebacker. He had a head of dark blonde hair and he looked nearly as scared as Jeff, the young male guard who had retrieved him. Again, Skip became cognizant of just how filthy and disgusting he looked, especially in contrast to the townspeople. They were all clean. Not just un-filthy, but clean, as if they had been bathing regularly.

              "Who the fuck are you?" the linebacker demanded, stepping forward and towering over Skip. "And how did you get in here?"

              "My name is Skip Adams," he said, keeping his voice mild. "Before the comet I was a deputy with the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Department. Before that, I was a warrant officer in the US Army. I got in here by walking unobserved over the canyon bridge."

              "You're lying," the man accused. "There's no way that anyone could walk across that bridge without us seeing it. You came in from the north side."

              "You have two guards stationed in a Chevy Suburban monitoring the approach to the bridge with night vision equipped video cameras," Skip said, spouting off details so they would know he was being truthful. "The Suburban has a Toyota Landcruiser parked next to it. You've run coaxial cables and power cords from the Suburban to another set of SUVs parked on the other end. That's where the cameras are. The guards watch the take on small television sets from the other end."

              The two males looked at him in surprise for a moment. The linebacker than yelled: "That doesn't mean anything! He still coulda come in from the north and seen all that!"

              Skip turned his attention away from the linebacker, shifting it instead to the smaller man, whom he suspected had more authority. "I did not come in from the north," he told him. "I walked in here to make a point to you. Your bridge defense is flawed. If I did it, others can do it. I could have led an entire attack force right to the gates of this subdivision if I'd wanted to and you would have known nothing about it until the first shot was fired."

              "Bullshit," linebacker declared. He turned to the smaller man. "Paul, we don't need to listen to this shithead anymore. I'll take him back out to the north side and throw him out."

              "No," Paul said thoughtfully. "I don't think we should do that just yet."

              "What? What do you mean?"

              "Tell me how you got in here, Mr. Adams," Paul said.

              "It wasn't very hard," he said, only lying a little bit. "I located your guard position just by watching you from the hill across the bridge. Every time you fire a shot down at someone trying to cross, you give yourselves away. You probably waste a lot of ammo as well. Anyway, the smaller hill on the east side of the canyon is mostly hidden from that position by the larger hill across the road from it. I simply walked around and placed myself on the edge when it was daylight. Once it started to get dark and your guards set up the nighttime position, I walked to the catwalk and climbed up onto it. Your cameras aren't looking at that part of the bridge and the guards couldn't see me because of the darkness. I simply walked across and came up behind your guard position."

              "You climbed up from the catwalk to the bridge in complete darkness?" Paul asked, though his tone did not seem to be one of disbelief.

              Skip shrugged. "I memorized the layout from across the canyon while it was still daylight. That's another security problem you have. I shouldn't have been allowed to even get that close to the bridge in the first place. Once I was on the surface of the bridge it was nothing more than a Micker of walking into town along the shoulder of the road. You don't have to be able to see to do that. I climbed up on the security wall when I got there and waited for your two guards to arrive." He shook his head a little. "It took much longer than it should have. You really should increase the interval of your perimeter patrols."

              "Hey, fuck you," yelled linebacker. "Our security is not any of your fuckin'..."

              "Shut up, Dale," Paul interrupted, his voice still even.

              "You can't talk to me like that!" Dale shouted, turning on his own now. Obviously he had a bit of an anger management problem. "You'd better remember who you're talking to, boy! Remember who feeds you!"

              Paul did not seem the least bit upset by this outburst. Nor did he seem intimidated by it. "I'll remember," he said. "Now why don't you go get hold of the bridge guards on the radio and make sure they're all right. I don't think Mr. Adams hurt them but it's best we make sure."

              "You're not gonna listen to this scumbag, are you?" Dale asked.

              "Let's just say that he's captured my attention for the moment," Paul answered. "Now go check on the bridge guards and then meet me in the conference room. If Jess is not already in there, send her that way."

              Dale grumbled and postured a few more times but finally disappeared back through the double doors. Paul didn't watch him go. He kept his eyes on Skip.

              "Are you carrying any weapons on you, Mr. Adams?" Paul asked.

              "Not anymore. Your two guards took my pistol from me. The rest of my weapons are back at my camp across the canyon."

              "Very good. But you'll understand if I make a quick check, just to make sure, won't you?"

              "Of course."

              While the other guards pointed their guns at him, Paul had him stand up and submit to a pat down. It was far from the efficient, all-inclusive search that Skip would have performed had their positions been reversed - Paul was squeamish about patting down the crotch area and beneath the arms - but Skip decided to keep his comments to himself. At least the man had been on the ball enough to make the effort.

              "Walk through the doors," Paul directed when he was done, stepping back and waving with his pistol. He was wiping his hands on his clothing as he did so.

              "Sorry about the dirt and grime," Skip said, mounting the steps. "Bathing facilities are a little scarce these days you know."

              "Understandable," he said, taking up position behind him. "You can put your hands down if you'd like."

              He was directed to a closed door off one of the hallways that was marked: CONFERENCE A. He pushed it open and found himself in a spacious room that was equipped with several oak tables with chairs around them. Oil lamps set at both ends of one of the tables provided illumination. Standing next to the table was a tall blonde woman in her thirties. Though she was wearing blue jeans and an old sweater there was no mistaking the look of aristocracy in her pretty face. She looked like a woman who had grown up with money and had lived with it all of her life. Skip had no trouble at all picturing her in one of the expensive houses of Garden Hill. She looked at Skip with unmasked distaste in her eyes and stepped backwards to keep from being close to him. Her nose wrinkled up as she caught a whiff of the odor he was exuding.

              "Is this our intruder?" she asked Paul in a high, nasal voice.

              "This is him," Paul confirmed. "Meet Mr. Skip Adams. He alleges to be a former San Joaquin County Sheriff's deputy and a former army warrant officer. He claims to have walked through our bridge defenses and into our town under the cover of darkness."

              "But you said that was impossible," she said.

              "No," he corrected, "I never said any such thing. I told you that it would be very difficult. Dale is the one who has been saying it's impossible."

              She let that go. "So why did you bring him in here? Why don't you take him right back out to the edge of town and put him back where he belongs?"