The Nightworld (7 page)

Chapter 13

I take a sip of my beer. “I don’t really have a plan anymore. My plan just backed out of the driveway.”

“Ahh.” The guy nods. “Well, the car wouldn’t get you too far anyway, I bet. Haven’t you been watching the news? Almost all the freeways are blocked with abandoned vehicles. Pretty sad state of affairs in terms of the potential of the youth of America if that’s all you had up your sleeve.”

The last thing I need right now is a lecture. Especially from some old fart who’s probably just here for my beer. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Name’s Gus. You?”

“I’m Nick. You have a better plan, Gus?”

“Nah.” Gus shakes his head and takes another swig. “Not for me, anyway. I figure I’m staying right here.” He stares at the tabletop for a long minute before he looks back up at me. “I don’t know,” he says, his voice catching just once, “where my boy went, or whether he plans to come back here. It’s a wide world out there for sure, and I figure the best thing I can do is to wait for him here. I don’t even have the first clue where I’d head if I were to start off looking. But you—you obviously thought you had a place to go in that car. Am I right?” He waits for my answer.

“I guess. I thought I’d head into the city, see if I could find a friend of mine.”

“The city.” Gus sits back, contemplating his bottle. “The city sounds rough, from what they say on the television.”

“Looks to me like it’s getting pretty rough out here,” I say, but I know what he means. The news coverage is all flaming storefronts and roaming gangs.

“Well.” Gus sets the leather bag on the table and pushes back its flap. “I brought some things that might be useful to you. I figured I could make a trade for some food, if you have any to spare, but I’d actually just take beer if you have any more.”

“What if I didn’t have anything to trade?”

Aw, hell, then I’d just give you the stuff. Not like I’ll be needing it.” He pulls some maps out of the bag, and a ring with two keys on it.

I don’t see what good any of it will do me. But I’m starting to feel bad for the guy. “I have more beer. You’re welcome to it.”

“That’s good news, son. Now listen up. If you’re going to go to the city, you’re looking at a journey. It’s not so easy, like just zipping in there in your car, now. You’d best stay off the roads, and I would say travel at night, but it looks like that won’t be required advice now. I dug up some maps for you.” He points to a well-creased map of the county. “And here’s something you might want to keep very safe.” He reaches into the back and pulls out a road atlas—the kind that’s bound with a plastic spiral. The words
United States Road Atlas
are printed on the cover in red letters.

“What am I going to need that for?”

“One never knows, son.” Gus takes another drink. “It looks to me like what we have here is an apocalypse. Do you know what that is?”

It’s all I can do not to laugh. “Are you kidding me? I’m the generation who gets to hear it predicted every forty seconds on some news show. So yeah, I think I’m familiar.”

“Fair enough.” He smoothes the cover of the atlas. “Knowledge will fade, wisdom will falter.” He shrugs. “I forget the rest of the poem. But you’ll need all the information you can get, and if the power goes, and people keep burning shit up, you better keep what you can close. This atlas might be one of the last ones that survive, depending on how bad this thing gets.”

“Wow. You’re not serious, are you?”

Gus just looks at me. “Why in the world would I be joking at a time like this? The world is ending, my friend. The things we take for granted now, like that atlas, they are going to be gone like
that
. In a wink of your eye.”

We both take a big gulp of beer.

“Now this . . . this is also important.” He picks up the key ring. “This will open a locker in the city, the contents of which could be helpful. I’ll write down the address for you.”

“What’s in the locker?” I’m thinking maybe this guy has watched too many sorcerer movies.

“It’s a bike. A very special bike, to me. Never thought I’d be handing it over to some kid.”

I don’t know what to say. If Gus thinks some ancient ten-speed is going to help me out, I’m going to let him think it.

Gus spends the next few hours reviewing my supplies. He adds a few things from his son’s house, like a hatchet and a small pistol. When I tell him I already have two guns, he says without the pistol he’ll still have five.

“Can’t have too many guns, son.”

He makes several trips back and forth between houses as he sees what I do and don’t have. He brings three half-full disposable lighters, four cans of tuna, and some rope. It’s stuff I know I can use, but I’m feeling a little guilty about taking it.

“Don’t you think you might need some of this?”

He brushes me off. “Not as much as you will, son. I plan to hole up and sit next to the fire, keep my toes warm burning that cord of wood my son bought for next winter. I have enough to get by for quite some time.”

I can tell he’s just trying to make me feel better. I bet his son’s house is stocked about the same way the Holzers’ house is, which means he’s going to run out of food soon. I don’t have the heart to tell him the Subaru had enough supplies in it to keep us both going for weeks. I don’t want to think about how stupid I was not to put the car in the garage. Or whether the goons who stole it will come back to the neighborhood, looking for more. What will Gus do then?

“What if you came with me?”

He smiles at me, but he doesn’t make eye contact. “I need to wait here, son. I might have family coming back.”

For a while, we just sit together, drinking our beers, thinking our thoughts. I don’t know what his are about. Mine are about my dad.

I wish he were here. Gus reminds me of him, in some ways. My dad would help me out too, if I were a strange kid who showed up next door. He would try to make sure I was okay. He would give me supplies he could probably use himself. He was a good guy. No matter what his part was in the darkness coming, I know he didn’t mean to cause any harm. I know he’d try to fix it if he could.

Chapter 14

It’s eight in the morning, but it looks like it’s around ten o’clock at night. My backpack is stuffed with everything we could fit into it and I’m wearing a set of Charlie’s thermal underwear beneath my jeans and sweater, along with a down jacket that belongs to Gus’s son. Gus showed up really early today to cook me a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs and sliced ham and toast that he brought from next door. He’s a pretty good cook.

For the last two days Gus has been helping me—showing me different routes into the city on the map, drilling me with facts: keep hydrated but don’t waste water, eat small meals all day while I’m walking, sleep well hidden from all vantage points, with my back against something like a wall or a rock or a hill if possible.

The television is out more and more. When we check the internet, the stories seem even more dated than the ones on TV. I show Gus the notes Mr. Holzer scribbled and the Geothermal Systems site. I show him the last text I got from Charlie. All he says is that it sounds like a place to start.

I hold the curtain back from the sliding glass door, staring out at the backyard. The grass looks weird—sort of limp and gray—and the dandelions sprouting in the lawn are a creepy white color, like plants that have been growing under a rock. They’ll all be dead before they form their third leaves. Some of the ornamental plants have already succumbed to the colder temperatures. The only things that look sort of normal are the pine trees; so far they seem okay.

I don’t want to go out there. But it’s time for me to do just that. I don’t know if I’ll find Lara, but I have to try. If I don’t find her, I’m heading to Detroit. Maybe there’s something there—maybe Charlie’s there.

Gus comes out of the kitchen, drying his hands on a dish towel. “Make sure you stay off the roads like I said, son.”

“I will.” I let the curtain drop. “Sure you aren’t coming?”

Gus doesn’t answer.

When I turn around, he’s staring at the tabletop, shaking his head. “I should, son. I know I should go with you instead of letting you face the trip alone. But I’m old. And if I’m going to die, I expect I’ll do it next door, waiting for my son.” He looks up and his eyes are shining in the dim light. “I’m sorry to let you down.”

Part of me wishes he would come, because I
am
scared and I don’t want to be alone out there. But he doesn’t owe me anything. He’s tried to help me as much as he can. He could have shot me that first day and taken the supplies in the Holzer house for himself.

“You’re doing the right thing, Gus. I’ll be fine.”

He nods, a little too eager to agree. “I know you will be. Just stay off the roads, and keep one of the guns at the ready.”

I pick up my backpack and shrug it onto my shoulders. It’s pretty heavy now, packed with everything we could think of that might prove important. I slip on some gloves and it’s time to go.

“Well.” I’m not sure how to say good-bye. “Take good care of Tank.” I rub the top of the dog’s head. He’s been watching us all morning, getting my stuff ready to go. He knows something’s up.

Gus doesn’t seem to know what to say either. He keeps his eyes on Tank. “He’s gonna miss you.”

I slide open the door to the backyard. One step, two steps, and I’m outside. I turn, and before I close the door behind me I take one last look: Gus and Tank are watching me with the same look in their eyes.

“See ya.” And I shut the door.

Before I even get to the back gate, the door opens. Tank flies out of it and runs to me, dancing around my feet and snuffling, almost panicked.

“He wasn’t having none of it.” Gus leans out the door, tosses me a bag of dry dog kibble. “Probably for the best. I’d just have ended up eating him when things got tough.”

I know he’s joking, or at least I think he is, but people are doing it. The latest news broadcasts—before they stopped altogether two nights ago—were brutal. One clip showed the head of a golden retriever, tossed in a gutter like garbage. There’s no food in parts of the country, and people are desperate.

I raise a hand to Gus, in a final farewell. He nods.

“Only one thing I know about life, son. And that is this: don’t ever give up. It’s always darkest right before the dawn.” He turns and disappears inside the house. The sliding door closes. That’s that, I guess.

Tank is ecstatic, pushing his nose against my hand and leaning on my legs. I kneel and try to hold him still. I shove the kibble into my pack’s outside pocket. It’s not much, but I can share my food too.

“Okay, Tank. But you better do what I tell you.”

A peek out the gate reveals an empty street. I slip through and latch the gate behind me. And I’m on my way.

We walk quickly, heading down toward the main road. Everything is strange looking. The bushes and grass all look like the backyard did—gray and flattened. It’s cold enough that I feel every breath I take as it enters my lungs. My eyes are tired within the first twenty minutes from straining to see in the dark. Gus said the best way to go would be to follow the freeway, as long as I just use it as a guide and stay off it.

Once we hit the main road out of the suburbs, it’s not long until we reach an on-ramp. I walk halfway up and try to scope out the empty freeway. No abandoned cars out there that I can see, not like the descriptions of snarled roads across the country that news reports were showing. I stand still, listening for any sound, looking for any sign that people are around, but I see and hear nothing. Tank sticks right with me, as though he’s heeling. I wish I could stay on the freeway because the road lights are still working, spilling isolated pools of illumination every two hundred feet or so. It’s comforting, and I bet it would make travel faster too.

I’m standing on the edge of the on-ramp, weighing the odds, when a green station wagon comes careening toward me from the freeway, veering crazily. Tank and I barely have time to throw ourselves into the scrub brush before it rolls right over the spot where we were standing. I hear the sound of impact and the screech of twisting metal. Before I can get up to see what the car hit, another car comes racing down the ramp just as fast as the first. Breaks squeal as the car stops suddenly. The motor idles. I risk peeking over the tops of the bushes Tank and I are hiding behind and see a red Mustang. The driver’s side door starts to open, and I duck, holding Tank down too. I hear the door shut and then footsteps, eerily distinct in the quiet after the roaring engines and crash noises. I edge upward to see if I can get a glimpse. A man is walking toward the station wagon, slowly, deliberately. The station wagon smashed into a light pole, and the front end is wrapped around it. I can hear someone trying to get one of the doors open, but it looks like they must be crunched shut.

The man has a shotgun leaning against his shoulder, barrel pointed to the sky. He’s tall and he’s wearing black leather everything. Pants, vest, hat. Some sort of white symbol is painted on the back of the jacket—it looks like a crescent moon. He stands in front of the station wagon, watching it, for the longest time. The door noises stop. I keep waiting for him to go help the people inside, but instead he lowers the shotgun and points it toward the front windshield. A muffled scream comes from the station wagon right before he unloads into it. He just keeps shooting until there’s nothing left of the windshield and no sign of life in the car.

I barely have time to duck again before he turns around. I hear his footsteps going back to the still-idling Mustang, hear the door shut. He doesn’t drive off right away, and I have a sick fear that he’s looking around, that he might be able to see me and Tank, who’s being as invisible as a hundred-pound mutt can be, but who is also, well, a hundred-pound mutt, hiding behind some scrubby bushes. Finally the motor revs, and the Mustang heads back up the ramp. I listen to it for a long time, until the sound of the engine is completely gone.

I don’t want to go look at what’s inside the station wagon.