The Junkie Quatrain (5 page)

There was a card-reader on the third floor door that had been smashed. Probably the outsiders. The door pulled open with no problem. She grabbed Angie’s shoulder and shoved her into the hallway beyond. As the door settled shut behind her, she heard nonsense voices echoing up the stairwell.

She slowed her pace a bit and pushed each door handle as she passed it. The fourth one opened and they crossed into a small reception area. Holly gave Angie a prod with the bat, guiding her deeper into the office.

‘Where are we going?’

Holly jabbed her with the bat again. ‘Keep quiet,’ she said.

Angie glared at the bat, but dropped her voice. ‘What are we doing?’

‘Hiding.’

They slipped through two more doors and found themselves in a small office with a large desk. A dusty computer tower stood by the window. Holly pushed the other woman down so the desk would be between them and the door.

Angie looked up at her. ‘Do you think it’ll work?’

‘Maybe,’ said Holly. ‘They don’t like enclosed spaces. I’m hoping the deeper they get into the building the less they like looking for us.’ She slumped to the floor and let the bat fall between her legs. Her chest was heaving.

‘If it doesn’t?’

Holly closed her eyes and let out a low sigh. ‘They were going to leave us alone. Why’d you scream at him?’

Angie squirmed. ‘I... I didn’t mean to. He just got me so mad and I didn’t care. I just wanted to—’

‘Impulse control,’ said Holly. ‘Completely shot. You’re heading into stage three. Are you still hungry?’

‘Of course I’m still hungry. We haven’t—’

‘Probably already there.’ She shook her head. ‘Just like everyone else.’

Across the office, down the hall, they heard the stairwell door. The pneumatic arm near the top, designed to make it close quietly, hissed as it opened. The noise echoed in the silent hallway.

‘It’s always the same,’ said Holly. ‘You just keep using me and then you go away. One way or another you all go away.’

‘Shhhhhh,’ said Angie. ‘I think they’re in the hall.’ Her voice rose on the last syllable and she slapped her hands over her mouth.

Holly glared at her. ‘You’re just like Paul,’ she hissed. ‘Telling me what to do.’A series of mutters echoed through the office door. They were nonsense noises. They sounded sad. One was almost whiny.

Angie’s eyes pleaded with Holly to be quiet.

‘Telling everyone I’m away too much,’ muttered Holly. Her gaze dropped to the baseball bat. ‘I’m under too much stress. I’m not a good mother. He got them to take Lisa away from me. I think he was hoping I’d get caught in China.’

A few slow footsteps thudded in the hall. A lone voice moaned, and the replies sounded distant. The junkie padded back down the hall and the sound of its feet faded.

‘Then I thought he wanted to make up,’ said Holly. ‘He comes back a week later and we have this wild, crazy couple of days and I think everything’s going to be good again.’ She shook her head hard enough that the short wisps of her hair stood on end.

In the distance the pneumatic arm hissed again, and the door clicked against the latch plate.

Angie lowered her hands. She opened her mouth and slapped her fingers across her lips again. Her eyes clenched shut in concentration. ‘I think,’ she whispered, ‘I think they’re gone.’

‘But everything wasn’t good,’ said Holly. She was still staring at the bat. Her fingers traced the dark, sticky spots on the blue weight. ‘He was just infected. He was like you. No control. He just wanted sex and didn’t think about me at all.’

‘I don’t feel good.’

Holly climbed to her feet and looked down at the other woman. ‘It’s not fair,’ she continued. ‘Why do you get to become one of them and I don’t?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Holly glared at her. ‘Junkies stay together,’ she said. ‘They make packs. I could’ve been with my family all this time. We could’ve been together.’

Angie trembled. A vein pulsed in her neck. Another one throbbed on her forehead. She looked up at the woman.

‘But I’m immune,’ said Holly. ‘I never get to be with them.’ She held up the bat with one hand. ‘No one gets to be with them. If I could’ve been infected, I wouldn’t’ve had to—’

Angie’s tremble grew into a shake. She gritted her teeth and twisted up into a crouch, wrapping her arms across her stomach. ‘Holly,’ she hissed, ‘I think I’m—’

Holly jabbed her with the bat. Right on the breastbone, just above her boobs. Angie dropped back to the floor.

The baseball bat poked out again. And again. Angie knocked the aluminum shaft away. Holly smacked her in the shoulder with it. It made a thick, meaty sound.

‘Everyone leaves me,’ she snapped. ‘Everyone!’

She pulled back and swung the bat again with both hands. It caught Angie in the side of the head. Her cheek sagged and a pair of teeth pitter-pattered across the carpet. One of them clicked against a desk leg.

Angie snarled through her broken mouth and leaped up. The bat caught her in the head again and she spun on one foot. It was a graceful move that ended with her collapsing on the desk.

Holly raised the bat over her head and brought it down hard. The desk echoed with the impact, even padded by Angie. She tried to roll over and brought her hand up to ward off the blows. The bat mangled three of her fingers. She let out a grunt that became a wail.

The next strike shattered her elbow. The next one cracked her collarbone. The next one came in from the side, hitting the soft tissue of her belly. It knocked the air from her lungs and something ruptured inside her.

It took five minutes for Angie to die. Holly kept beating the body for ten. Just to be safe.

* * *

She left Angie in the office building. There were no junkies in the hallway, or in the stairwell. She found one asleep in the lobby, a young man, and crushed his skull with a pair of blows from the bat. Then she wiped the weapon clean on the dead man’s shirt.

Not far after Universal City the Cahuenga Pass became Van Nuys Boulevard. She spent the night in the back room of a grocery store that had been picked over by looters. An hour of searching in the morning gave her a few lone mystery cans and some chocolate bars that had fallen behind a register. They went in her backpack and she continued north.

Holly kept her eyes peeled for a bicycle. She couldn’t believe she’d never thought of that before. Such a perfect way to travel these days. Van Nuys Boulevard was too shopping-oriented, though. Not many apartments. She found a sports store later that afternoon, but it had been looted. It didn’t look like the type that had bicycles anyway.

Another day of walking. Three more grocery stores. Five times she had to hide from junkies. Once was a huge pack, like the start of a marathon. They were chasing a pair of cats. She watched from a small restaurant patio. She hoped the cats got away and got back to their families.

She was in the heart of the valley, at the intersection of Van Nuys and Sepulveda, when she saw him.

A man stood in the southern half of Sepulveda. He was young. His dark hair was cut short. He was wearing a rumpled suit. An expensive one, like Paul used to wear.

‘Hi, there,’ he said. He didn’t call out. His voice carried across the silent intersection.

He was moving slow. There was a pistol tucked in his belt and a dark gym bag slung over his shoulder. He was calm and rational.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘I’m a doctor. I can help you if you’re hurt or—’

‘I’m okay.’

‘Good,’ he said with a nod. ‘My name’s Sam.’

‘Holly.’

He nodded. ‘It is really nice to meet you, Holly. Which way are you headed?’

She pointed up Sepulveda with the bat. ‘North.’

‘Anywhere in particular?’

‘Maybe.’

He spread his arms in a gesture of trust. ‘I’m headed that way too. Sacramento. Maybe we could travel together.’

Holly closed her eyes and gripped the tape-wrapped handle of the bat. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Things ended messy with the last person I traveled with.’

It had been six months since the world ended.

For Barney and his team, it had been some of the best months of their lives.

Of course, the current delay made that easy to forget. He came back down the hall and gave Monica a questioning look. She shook her head and her long braid swung back and forth like a pendulum. Barney rolled his eyes. ‘What’s the hold-up, guys?’

Big Jay and Derek looked up from the lock. ‘Hey,’ said Derek, ‘it’s not a normal office door. Sue me.’ He tried to sneer, but with his buck teeth and sharp nose it just made him look more like a rodent.

‘It’s been five minutes.’ Barney shook his head. It made his whiskers scratch on his collar. ‘Get it open.’

They nodded. Derek pushed the pry bar along the edge of the door. The metal teeth worked down alongside the frame and he threw his scrawny weight against the bar’s length. He felt for the right vibration and gave Big Jay a nod. The large man shook his right leg. It was probably still sore from his first attempt to kick the door open. He’d almost snapped his ankle on it.

‘Move, big guy,’ grunted Derek.

Big Jay spat on the carpeted floor. He loved spitting and pissing in buildings he never would’ve been let in the lobby of three months ago. He tugged his cap down over his ears. Then he threw his weight behind his foot and planted it above the doorknob. There was a loud crack and a bang as the door slammed open and into a wall. They all winced at the sound.

Noise could mean trouble. It attracted the junkies. Granted, it was rare for them to come inside. Even rarer for them to travel through a narrow stairwell up to a high floor. But Barney didn’t have the number one team in Los Angeles because he took chances. He gestured for Epi, Sarah, and Mel to hit the exits again and make sure everything was still clear. Mel and Sarah gave him a quick salute. Epi nodded, and the spikes of his mohawk wobbled.

Six months ago a virus had popped up in China. It damaged the brain and turned people into babbling, twitchy berserkers who tried to eat everything—and everyone—they could. If they survived three or four weeks of madness without someone else killing them, the junkies still burned out and died from malnutrition, exhaustion, or fever cooking their brains. If you caught it, one way or another your number was up.

It was spread by bodily fluids, which was bad because for the first week or so the virus just made people forget their inhibitions. People in China, India, Russia, and all the Stan countries did a lot of the same things as everyone else when they didn’t have any morals holding them back. So the disease spread fast. Most places managed to restrict travel to and from Asia. Not fast enough, though. Thirteen weeks ago it showed up in North America, and in less than a month it had turned the United States into tons of isolated communities and sanctuaries.

Which was where the outsiders came in. People in sanctuaries still needed food, medical supplies, and sometimes they just needed to get themselves from point A to point B. They’d pay good money for it. Or they’d pay somehow. Every city had people who were skilled enough, crazy enough, or stupid enough to go outside and dodge the wandering packs of junkies.

Barney’s team fit two of the three categories. They were good enough to get a regular, high-paying deal from the Feds. Barney reported to Bradbury every other week or so for a list of supplies the director needed scavenged from across the city. His team did little jobs in between. And they tried to stay ahead of the competition.

Pretty good for an Iraq vet who’d ended up stocking shelves in a grocery store.

Jay and Derek stood by the door of suite 551. Charlie crouched between them. They had out their pistols and the creaky AK-47 that looked tiny in Jay’s big paws. Charlie batted some dust from his sleeve and they all watched the gray cloud spread out into the room. Nothing disturbed it.

‘Looks clear, boss,’ said Derek.

Barney walked forward and peered through the door. There was a small reception area right up front with a curving desk. A few plush chairs sat to either side. He stepped over the threshold and looked around. The others followed him in.

There were two offices on either side of the reception area. The doors were blank, but the room on the left looked slightly more ornate and executive. Behind reception was a frosted glass wall with walkways on either side. Barney peered around it and saw a long meeting table. There were more plush chairs. ‘This doesn’t look right,’ he said.

Two of the outsiders took the office to the left. Two more took the office to the right. Chit read a business card from the desk. ‘Interweave Incorporated.’

Barney looked at Charlie. ‘You sure we got the right place?’

‘Yeah, I’m sure,’ said the round-faced man. ‘Room five-fifty-one.’

Chit tossed the card at him and pulled another one from the tiny rack. ‘Says they’re efficiency consultants.’

Charlie shrugged. ‘Could be a cover.’

Monica stepped out of the left-hand office. ‘We got nothing, boss.’