The Zero Trilogy (Book 3): End of Day (7 page)

By the time they reached the Civilian Ward again, flames were leaping out of the windows. A support beam smashed to the ground, right in front of Elle. She jumped out of the way, barely missing the blow. She jumped over it, and they stopped at the entrance to the Ward. There were flames everywhere, illuminating the building in the darkness.

The double doors were unmoving.

“Bravo,” Elle said. “Search.”

They were all dead. Whatever had detonated had sent an explosive that tore through every building, sending shrapnel and flames through windows and doors. Dead bodies were everywhere. The interior of the Civilian Ward looked like a mass grave. Men, women and children were dead, either burned, shot or blasted.

Either way. Dead.

The sickening stench of burnt flesh and blood hung heavy in the smoky air. There were no survivors, as far as Elle could see. Bravo had searched through every building he could, using his nose to track down anyone who might still be alive. But there was no one. It was a slaughter.

“How could this happen?” Luli moaned.

They were standing at the doorway of the Civilian Ward. Elle walked out of the building. Luli stumbled outside, vomiting on the steps.

Elle shivered, trying to scrub the images from her mind.

But they were there to stay.

She’d never seen so many dead in one place before. In Los Angeles, she’d seen dead bodies or people getting murdered…but this was different. This was a slaughter.

Cheng stood, silent as a stone, overlooking the smoking remains of Bear Mountain Military Base.

“What do we do?” Luli said, holding her stomach. “Where do we go?”

Elle shook her head.

She was more concerned about how Omega had found Bear Mountain.

“We leave,” Cheng stated. His tone was flat and hollow. “We survive.”

“But where will we go?” Luli asked.

He didn’t answer. He descended the steps.

“Cheng,” Elle said.

Her voice stopped him.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” she went on. “Do you know how Omega found us?”

Her voice was trembling. In an instant, everything that she had begun to love had been torn away from her. Safety, security and warmth. Gone.

“Omega will always find us,” Cheng said darkly. “There’s no place left to hide.”

Elle swallowed.

Bravo sat still on the last step.

They are the predators. We are the prey
.

The air became cold, and it turned Elle’s heart to ice.

When they left the base behind, Elle felt numb. She ran alongside Bravo, through the darkness of the trees, keeping pace with Cheng and Luli. Tears streamed down her cheeks as they moved. Tears for the dead. Tears for the militia. Tears for a place she could have called home.

It was all gone. Taken, in an instant.

They ran through the night, until their muscles screamed for mercy and sweat slicked their shirts. Bravo never complained, never stopped. They all pushed through the pain, aware that Omega could be anywhere, lurking in the woods, observing them from a distance.

At last, when the sunrise touched the tips of the trees, they stopped. They were hidden in the woods that followed the creek. The small brook gurgled and tossed itself down rocks and muddy slants in the earth. It was quiet and peaceful, a stark contrast to the utter destruction they had just fled.

Elle stood with her hands on her hips, catching her breath. Her mouth was parched and dry. Bravo panted, his soft, pink tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth. She rubbed his head and scratched the fur behind his ears.

“Now what?” Luli said.

Her paper-white skin was burning red with the strain of physical exertion. Her colorless hair hung in limp strands around her face. She looked almost elfin. Cheng knelt by the brook and stared into the water. He was sweating like they were, but somehow it didn’t seem that he was tired. He appeared to be almost pained.

“Cheng?” Luli demanded. “What do we do now?”

“Falcon Point,” Cheng replied, standing. But he didn’t look at her. He looked at Elle.
“That’s the closest settlement. We can hide there.”

“What’s Falcon Point?” Elle asked.

“It’s a trade settlement in these hills,” Cheng explained, pushing strands of sweaty, black hair away from his face. “For lack of a better term, it’s the black market of the apocalyptic world we now find ourselves so joyfully living in. A black market in the sense that people like you and me can find food and supplies without turning to Omega.”

He flashed a dull smile.

Elle knelt at the brook, testing the water. She cupped her hands and drank from the cool stream. It wasn’t sanitary – she knew that. But she was weak from thirst, and dehydration could be just as deadly as a bullet. Bravo loped over, testing the water with his nose. He didn’t find anything offensive, so he dove in snout first.

More silence.

They were all thinking about the mass graveyard they had left behind. The hundreds of innocents who had died in the smoldering
remains of a military base that had dedicated the entirety of its existence to helping survivors.

“Why would Omega kill them?” Elle said at last. “It was a refugee camp! We weren’t hurting anybody. Why couldn’t they just leave
one thing alone
?”

Cheng’s lips tightened.

“Omega is like a viral infection,” he remarked, flat. “It wants to devour everything in its path. There’s no stopping it.”

That wasn’t an adequate explanation, and they all knew it. But it would have to work for the moment. Right now they had to focus on staying alive, and on reaching the place that Cheng called Falcon Point.

“If it’s the black market,” Elle said, “then it can’t be a safe place, necessarily.”

Cheng stood.

“That’s what makes it fun, Elle,” he replied, but there was no real joy in his words. “The most interesting part about Falcon Point is also its most attractive attribute: anonymity. We can slip in and out of town relatively unnoticed.”

“How far is it from here?” Elle asked.

“No more than one day,” he answered.

“What will we do once we get there?”

“Lay low for a while.”

“Omega doesn’t know we’re alive,” Elle pointed out, “so I don’t think they’re tracking us.”

Cheng didn’t falter.

“We’ll still lay low,” he insisted. “We have to, if we’re going to survive.”

Luli seemed to agree, and Elle didn’t want to cause an argument, so she said nothing. Inwardly she wondered what Falcon Point would be like, and how they would fit in there. Three teenagers and one dog. In her experience, any large gathering of people in the apocalypse was a red flag. She didn’t trust Falcon Point, but she trusted Cheng…to an extent. She would follow him into the settlement and see what it was like. If she smelled danger, she would leave, and Cheng and Luli could survive together.

Without her and Bravo.

After they rested, they slowly began moving again. She walked in the back of the group, keeping her eye on Cheng, who was in the
lead, and Luli, who trudged behind him with a veiled expression on her face.

Elle looked at Bravo. He trotted ahead, sniffing trees and shrubbery as they walked, breaking out of the forest, into the open spaces of the foothills. He was alert, making sure the environment was safe. This was his element, and his senses were working overtime. Elle smiled. It was nice to see Bravo working, especially after the grisly events of the previous night.

The open spaces disturbed her. Ever since she had left the city, she feared exposure. The close, puzzle-like layout of Los Angeles had provided shelter and thousands of hiding places. Out here, the only option for hiding was the tall grass.

It unsettled Elle. She checked constantly over her shoulder to make sure no one saw them, dark specks moving across a yellow canvas. Cheng sensed her unease, but he said nothing. The hours dragged by, cool and slow, none of them talking.

They climbed higher into the foothills, taking a small dirt path up the mountainside,
creeping into trees and shrubs again. It was dark and quiet here. Cheng wove the small group through dozens of twists and turns until their feet ached. Bravo never lost his enthusiasm, though. He still sniffed everything in sight, trotting ahead on the trail to make sure the path was clear and safe.

At last, they emerged onto a dirt road crisscrossed with tire tracks and footprints. Bravo sniffed the road, looking up and gazing at Elle.

People. Horses. Smoke
.

The dog sniffed again.

Guns. Lots of guns
.

“Bravo’s concerned,” Elle said. “He smells weapons and animals.”

They followed the road, and as they moved, Bravo became quieter and quieter, settled into stalking mode, his trot more predatory and his mood careful. Bravo’s reactions to his environment would tell her what she needed to do.

The road widened a bit, the trees thickened, and then Elle saw it. Buildings, dust
and people. She could hear the murmur of their voices, and she could smell the sweat. The mud. The diesel.

A multi-level fence made of twisted barbed wire surrounded the edge of the town. A crude sign was staked into the ground. The sign read:

FALCON POINT

ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK

“Well, that’s real cheery,” Luli commented.

Guards stood watch at the front gates. They were obviously not militia – just civilians with weapons. As they approached the front gate, Elle felt herself wind tighter and tighter. If anything happened, she would go left, into the forest, and she and Bravo would escape…

“Stop where you are!” the first guard said. “State your intentions!”

He was young. Not much older than Elle.

“Business,” Cheng replied, flashing a charming smile.

“We don’t allow dogs.”

Elle raised her eyebrows. Bravo huffed.

“Like hell you don’t,” Cheng said. And then he threw his head back and laughed, and he and the guard exchanged handshakes and pats on the back. Elle rolled her eyes, releasing a tense breath. Bravo looked annoyed.

“What, did you go to kindergarten together?” Luli said.

“This is Leif,” Cheng said, grasping the boy’s shoulder. “He is a good friend of mine.”

Leif was tall and lean, with bright, luminous green eyes. His face was dotted with red freckles. “Hello,” Leif said. “Welcome to Falcon Point.”

The other guard could have cared less about the reunion. He walked away and stood several yards off, staring at the road.

“Leif,” Cheng said, “this is Luli, Elle, and our stalwart, fearless companion Bravo.”

Hearing his name, Bravo’s tail began bobbing back and forth, a smile on his face. He sniffed Leif’s outstretched hand and dipped his head, approving.

“What brings you to Falcon Point this time, Cheng?” Leif asked.

He cradled a rifle in his arms, and Elle didn’t take her eyes off it.

“Again?” Elle whispered.

Cheng didn’t hear her.

“Bear Mountain,” Cheng replied. “It’s gone.”

Leif stared at him.

“Are you…serious?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Omega. Used a cruise missile. Killed everyone.”

Leif licked his lips.

“Except for you three, am I right?” he asked.

Bravo barked low.

“I mean,
four
,” Leif corrected, amused. “But, Cheng…even the children?”

Cheng’s silence confirmed the tragic news.

Leif closed his eyes.

“God, that’s horrible,” he said. “How did they find the base?”

Cheng swallowed, looking stricken for a moment.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t care. It’s over.”

Elle got the feeling that he did care, though. Very much.

“Come on, I’ll set you up in town,” Leif said suddenly. “All of you.”

He rolled the gate backward and Cheng followed him in. Elle stood at the fence for a moment, hesitating. This was a sketchy situation, but she didn’t have much of a choice. Luli passed her, and Elle took one step, then two. And she was walking, Bravo trotting beside her.

Inside.

Elle’s heart raced in her chest. Falcon Point looked like a western town, with small, squat buildings lined up in a neat row on each side of the road. They were clapboard and makeshift. The streets were covered with muddy pebbles and potholes. Horses were tied to posts in front of stores.

People walked about, openly armed. She saw families. A mother, a father and a young girl. The horses whinnied, the adults talked, and they all stared as the newcomers strolled through the front gates with Leif.

Elle kept her head high and her face steely. She would not be intimidated.

She would
not
.

Leif led them to the end of the strip of buildings. Here there were corrals and animals. Sheep, chickens, cows and more horses. It smelled of feed and wet straw. It was a comforting scent. To Bravo, is was a smorgasbord of smells, and the animals in the corrals presented tasty snacks.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Elle said under her breath, a half-smile on her face.

Wouldn’t dream of it
.

They walked on a path that threaded through the corrals, down a hill. A large cabin was nestled here. Terrifyingly huge, gray mastiff dogs prowled around the property. They were at least twice the size of Bravo, with massive, intimidating snouts and white fangs. Bravo’s fur
stood on end and Elle placed her hand on his leather collar.

“Don’t worry,” Leif said, “they know me. They won’t hurt us.”

Yeah, right
. Elle kept a firm grip on Bravo’s collar.

“Be quiet,” Elle said firmly. “Just keep walking.”

Bravo kept his eyes on the mastiffs, but he did not growl or bark. The canines silently trotted alongside the group, boxing them in – escorting them, so to speak. Cheng and Luli were just as tense as Elle, although Leif seemed to be oblivious to it.

They rounded the front of the cabin, climbed its massive wooden steps, walked onto a porch, and stood before a huge door. Their footsteps echoed on the deck.

“The Lodge,” Leif said. “There’s a room for you, Cheng.”

Cheng nodded.

“Have you been here often?” Elle asked.

“More than I’d like to admit,” Cheng replied, cocking his eyebrow.