The Hunted (13 page)

Shy's dad shoved him onto the dirt behind the fake horse stables as shots rang out around them. Shy scrambled to his feet in a panic, watching his dad hop on his bike and kick-start the engine and motion for Shy to get on. Shy peeked around the side of the stables. The two men were advancing across the horse run. They stopped firing their weapons long enough for one to shout directions at the other. Then they split up, the leader moving toward the perimeter of the lot.

“Come on!” his dad shouted, smacking the seat behind him. “Lemme get us outta here!”

Shy's breath came in great, rapid gulps. Behind the shed was a slight hill that led to a small, barn-style house. He peered around the side of the stables again. The other man was heading directly toward them, gun raised. Shy didn't know what to do or who these people were or what they wanted. But he knew he couldn't leave with his dad.

“I said get on!” his dad shouted again. “Now!”

Shy took off up the hill instead, a few shots ripping through the trees to the right of him. He dove behind a large camera crane and lay there, sucking in breaths and looking up at the sky and listening. He heard the sound of the idling truck, and he heard his dad's bike zipping out from behind the stables, and he heard a faint commotion down near the main lawn.

The one thing he
didn't
hear was gunfire.

Shy gathered himself and lifted his head to take another look. He spotted his dad gunning it right at one of the armed men. The man fired two shots, missing both times, then turned to run just as Shy's dad barreled into him, sending the gun and the man flying.

His dad swerved so sharply he had to put a foot down to keep his balance. The gunman scrambled across the dirt for his weapon.

Shy's dad took off, but just then the other gunman emerged and shot him in the shoulder.

“Dad!” Shy shouted.

He watched his dad instinctively reach for his shoulder, causing the bike to crash right into the driver's-side door of the idling truck. He quickly righted himself and lurched forward again, busting right through the flimsy wooden fence that surrounded the lot.

A wave of relief passed through Shy as he watched his old man gun it down the path that led to the main lawn.

The man Shy's dad had hit slowly picked himself up off the ground and stood there, fumbling with his weapon. The other man was still marching toward the part of the fence Shy's dad had just toppled, firing random shots. He turned toward an older man who stood frozen in the middle of the paved path and shot him in the forehead. The old man buckled instantly, the back of his head cracking against the pavement.

Shy scurried out from behind the camera crane and took off running the other way.

He raced through a few nearby lots, no idea where to go or how to escape, until he found himself on the Cruise Ship set again, where he ducked behind a café cart. He kneeled there trying to catch his breath, trying to think. He needed to get back down to the trailers to find Carmen and Marcus and Shoeshine, but he was afraid to take the main path. The men were shooting at anything that moved. And they'd eventually make their way down to the lawn, where they'd find the greatest concentration of people.

Darius had warned them about people throwing bottles and shooting out lights, but this seemed different. These guys were trying to
kill
everyone.

Shy imagined Carmen down there somewhere, caught in the cross fire. His heart pounded inside his chest. He had to protect her.

Then he pictured his mom.

And the things his dad told him about back home.

All of it wiped out.

Which meant…

Shy heard a few more pops of gunfire. They sounded farther away now. He sucked in a deep breath and forced himself out from behind the cart, out of the Cruise Ship lot.

He hurried down the main path, in plain sight. He kept waiting for someone to pop out of the bushes and blast him in the back. But there was nobody.

When he got down to the main lawn he slipped behind a skinny tree and took in the chaotic scene. One of the gunmen was hunkered down behind the back wall of the cafeteria, firing shots into a screaming crowd of people running every which way. There were a few bodies motionless on the ground. The other gunman lay facedown in the grass about twenty yards from the cafeteria. He wasn't moving either. Three security guards were on the opposite side of the lawn, firing at the remaining gunman.

Shy cut through the row of caution-taped office buildings, emerging near the back row of trailers. He found his own and flung open the door and stuck his head inside, shouting his friends' names, but the trailer was empty. Even their things were gone.

He let the door slam closed and looked around, anxiously. Where
were
they? And where was his dad?

People all around him were opening and closing their own trailer doors and calling out names, some openly sobbing, others slinking by, their eyes darting all around. One man raced past Shy carrying a screaming toddler over his shoulder. Shy was about to take off in that direction, too, when he heard someone shout his name over the commotion.

He spun around and saw Marcus hurrying toward him.

“Take this!” Marcus shouted, tossing Shy his backpack. “Follow me!”

They cut through the edge of the main lawn, where the guards were taking cover behind the massive trash bin. His dad was there, too, reloading a handgun. He glanced at Shy before turning back to the remaining gunman and firing.

Marcus grabbed Shy by the arm. “This way!” The two of them raced toward the front gate.

A large crowd had gathered around Darius and several other guards who were trying to calm them down. “Trust me, people!” Darius shouted. “It's still safer than outside!”

“Shy!”

He spun toward Carmen's voice. She and Shoeshine stood about twenty yards to the left of the crowd, half hidden behind a cluster of baby palms. Shoeshine had the duffel bag.

As Shy and Marcus hurried toward them, Shy saw a rolled-up sheet hanging down from a thick tree branch on the other side of the brick wall. “Shoe says we can use it to scale the wall!” Carmen shouted.

Shy nodded watching Marcus grab ahold of the sheet first and start climbing. It only took him a few seconds to make it to the top, where he pulled himself over the side and dropped out of sight.

Carmen went next.

Then Shy.

After Shoeshine finally made it over, still gripping the duffel and favoring his stitched-up leg, they hurried down the middle of the road, past the front gates.

At the first intersection, Shy spotted a second black SUV—same model as the one that had crashed into the lots. A trailer hitched to the back carried two brand-new metallic-gray motorcycles. The eyes of the man inside the SUV grew wide as he watched the four of them hurry by.

They ducked down a narrow residential street, and Shy kept glancing back, expecting to find the SUV on their heels, the driver leaning out his window aiming a gun at them.

But it never happened.

The street behind them remained empty.

Eventually Shy quit looking.

There weren't any trains running.

That much was clear right away.

During their hour-long walk to Union Station, Shy had prayed there might be
something.
But Marcus was right, it was a pipe dream. The roof of the tall, iconic building was half caved in, and a train that had apparently crashed into the station lay wrecked on its side across several tracks.

Shy studied the sloppy red circles painted all over the walls and doors and windows. The mess of flies buzzing around the exterior. There were more bodies inside. Probably a grip of them.

He watched Carmen and Marcus approach the high arcing front doors, thinking about the last time he'd been at the station. The day his old man dropped him off at the curb with a one-way ticket back to San Diego. The station had been packed with people coming and going, wheeling their luggage around, hugging loved ones.

Now it was a ghost town.

Carmen waved for Shy to join her and Marcus, but he was done with dead bodies. Anyway, he needed a minute to himself. He was still shook from getting shot at like that. Out of nowhere. And he kept replaying what his dad had told him about back home. Which made him question
everything.

What did he expect would happen when they made it to Arizona?
If
they made it to Arizona. Yeah, they'd pass along the vaccine to scientists. And maybe it would save some lives. But would those people be any more deserving than his mom and his sis and nephew? Or what about all those innocent babies in the nursery?

Then there was the issue of Carmen.

He'd have to tell her what he knew. That everyone back home was gone. Including their families. But how do you break that kind of news to the girl you're trying to protect?

Shoeshine sat against a palm tree behind Shy, writing in his journal. The guy looked so peaceful. His pen moving methodically across the page. The tree's large fronds swaying in the wind above him.

Shy wondered how Shoeshine had become so emotionally detached about everything. Was it a trait that came with age? Was it his time in the military? Or were some people just born that way?

“Jesus!” Carmen shouted.

Shy turned and watched her rush out of the train station and lean over the cracked concrete and throw up. Marcus was right behind her. He slammed the door closed and marched away covering his mouth.

“Are there a lot?” Shy called to them.

“They're stacked on top of each other,” Marcus said. “Must be thousands, man. It's even worse than the hospital.”

Carmen was on her hands and knees, staring at the concrete in front of her face.

Shy turned back to Shoeshine, who was still just sitting there, writing in his journal. He probably hadn't even bothered to look up.

Now that his family was gone, Shy needed to become more like this.

Callous to the world.

It was the only way he'd be able to keep going.

Shoeshine led them east along the train tracks that emerged behind Union Station. The sun beat down on Shy's face and his thick mess of tangled hair. The air was so dry his lungs were on fire. If he started coughing, he'd never be able to stop. The plan was to walk the tracks until they were past the congested part of the city. Then they'd jump over to the 10 Freeway, which also ran east, and look for a car with keys and gas or some older model that Shy might be able to hot-wire.

But for now they just walked.

Shy's shirt was soaked with sweat, especially the patch trapped between his backpack and skin. He held the pack away from his body for long stretches to air his shirt out, but eventually he gave up and let the sweat streak down his ass and the back of his legs. Shoeshine limped in front of him, using a gnarled stick he'd found as a makeshift cane, the duffel slung over his shoulder. Marcus carried his radio, which played DJ Dan just loud enough so they could listen. Carmen tightrope-walked on one of the metal rails.

Shy watched how she'd wave her arms around every so often to keep her balance, like he imagined a little girl might. Seeing her this way made his secret about their families turn his empty stomach.

In an hour they were in the heart of downtown LA, and Shy was blown away by the devastation he could see. Skyscrapers fallen on their sides, creating massive craters in the earth. Streets with gaping holes. Traffic lights shattered on the sidewalks, and large stretches of scorched concrete and asphalt. Little shantytowns had sprung up in some of the empty lots, tents packed tightly together, heads bobbing in shadows behind them. A few smaller tent clusters rested right on top of a fallen church.

About a mile outside Chinatown they passed a group of little kids running in and out of a large overturned Dumpster that had been torched by fire. Shy saw motionless bodies lined up along one extended stretch of sidewalk, and he saw two kids in a nearby alley, standing over a large, bloated man, poking him with sticks, and he saw the Staples Center, where the Lakers played, covered in spidered glass, the glare coming off the massive building forcing the four of them to shield their eyes. All the red spray-painted circles told Shy that the home arena of his old man's favorite NBA team was now a giant coffin.

Shoeshine led them onto the 10 Freeway, where several cars were flipped on their hoods, many of the driver's-side-doors flung wide open where people had escaped. They checked inside all the vehicles that were still upright, but it was rare that they found keys, and when they did, the gas tanks were always empty.

At the point where the 10 intersected with several other freeways, Shoeshine broke the silence. “You all should know we're being followed.”

Shy turned around to look, but all he saw was a sea of abandoned cars and the back view of the ruined city.

“I don't see anything,” Carmen said.

Marcus turned down his radio and looked all around. “By who? The Suzuki Gang? Wouldn't we hear their bikes?”

The city beyond downtown was quiet. Even when Shy closed his eyes and concentrated, the only thing he heard was the wind.

Shoeshine peered straight ahead as he walked with his stick. “We knew that company would eventually start looking for us.” He glanced at Shy. “Going on the radio like you all did just narrowed the search.”

“LasoTech?” Marcus said. “Nah, man. They probably think we died on the island with everyone else.”

“Not when a ship with their men never returned,” Shoeshine said. “Think about it from their side. There's a letter out there that explains everything they've done. And there are syringes full of a vaccine that backs up the letter. Maybe all this is at the bottom of the ocean somewhere, but billion-dollar companies don't operate on maybes.”

Shy kept glancing behind them. He'd told Carmen the same thing, that the company would be looking for them, but hearing Shoeshine say it made it more real. He fingered the good-luck ring inside his pocket hoping they were just being paranoid.

But then another thought occurred to him. “Are you saying those guys that busted into the lots this morning were LasoTech?”

“That's right,” Shoeshine said.

Carmen shook her head. “You didn't hear what Darius told us, Shoe. They'd been having problems with people on the outside all along.”

Shy pictured the two gunmen hopping out of the SUV. They'd shot at everyone, but they went after him and his old man first. What if he'd been their actual target?

“You told them exactly where we were,” Shoeshine said.

Marcus shook his head. “On the radio? Nah, man. We purposely didn't use our names.”

Shoeshine stopped walking. “Who cares what your names are? Think about it, boy. Group of kids goes on the air talking about leaving the Sony lots. By choice. Because of an important trip they have to take.”

Shy glanced at the freeway behind them again. He still didn't see anything, but he knew Shoeshine was right. Which made him feel like an idiot. They'd gone on the radio to try and connect with their families, but their families were gone. So all they'd done was tell LasoTech where to find them.

“Shit,” Shy said. “So what now?”

Shoeshine stared at the freeway ahead of them. “We need to make a stop in San Bernardino.”

“San Bernardino?” Carmen said.

“Thought we were in a hurry to get to Arizona,” Marcus said.

Shoeshine pointed his stick east. “It's on the way, about sixty miles from here. We don't find a car that runs, we're looking at two-day walk at least. So it's best we get moving.”

“What's in San Bernardino?” Shy asked.

Shoeshine turned to him. “I know a guy there who stores weapons. We need to be able to protect ourselves.”

Shy looked up at the clear sky as the four of them continued walking. No helicopters. And he still didn't hear any trucks or motorcycles. He didn't understand why Shoeshine was so convinced they were being followed.