Year One (12 page)

“I think you need to cut yourself a break there.”

“A journalist—”

“Kind of an apocalypse going on right now,” Fred reminded her, “so everybody gets cut a break.”

When they reached the lobby, the dark of night had fallen. Arlys headed for the door, paused.

“I didn't question why nobody's busted in here. I've just been glad no one did. Did you do something? Like with the market?”

“I had help. It's a lot bigger than the market. You probably didn't look up high enough to see the symbols. It won't last forever, but it's holding so far.”

“You're full of surprises, Fred. Will it keep out the cops, the military, whoever tries to get in?”

“I didn't think of that!” Doing a hip wiggle, Fred punched Arlys's arm lightly. “I think so. I'm not absolutely a hundred percent, but yeah, they'd mean harm, right? Maybe some of them, it's just duty, but even then … I think ninety percent. No, eighty-five.”

“I'll take it. Let's go.”

“Where, exactly?”

“Hoboken.”

“Yeah? I went to an art fair there once. How are we getting there?”

“We're taking the PATH.”

“None of the subways are running.”

“The tracks are still there. We're hiking it. We head to the Thirty-third Street station, go down, follow the tracks. It'll take us awhile.” They slipped out, headed west again, trying to keep out of the glow from any of the streetlights still operating. “But we've got time. My source isn't going to meet us until three a.m.”

“We're meeting up with your source? Excellent! I never met with a source.”

“Don't get too excited. I'm counting on having understood his code about where and when—and that he watched the broadcast so he knows I'm coming. If any of that didn't pan out? We'll have to keep going. I need to get to Ohio.”

“I've never been to Ohio.” Fred shot Arlys a sunny smile. “I bet it's nice.”

*   *   *

Lana wept in her dreams. She sat under a dead tree with skeletal branches jutting toward a starless sky. Everything dark and dead, her own body and mind aching, exhausted.

Nowhere to go, she thought, in a world so full of hate and death, so swollen with grief.

She was too tired to go on pretending, to walk another step. She'd lost everything, and the hate would hunt her to the grave. What point was there in fighting it?

“You don't have time for this.”

Lana looked up.

A young woman stood over her, hands fisted on her hips. Raven black hair cut short and sharp formed a dark halo around her head. Though she wore black, she was light. Luminous. In the moonless dark, she shimmered with light.

She stood slim and straight, a rifle slung over her shoulder, a quiver on her back, a knife sheath on her belt.

With them, she carried a palpable strength and an almost careless beauty.

“I'm tired,” Lana told her.

“Then stop wasting your energy on tears. Get up, get moving.”

“For what? To what?”

“For your life, for the world. To your destiny.”

“There
is
no world.”

The woman crouched so they were eye to eye. “Am I here? Are you? One person can make a world, and we're two. There are more. You have power in you.”

“I don't want it!”

“It doesn't matter what you want, but what is. You hold the key, Lana Bingham. Get up, go north. Follow the signs. Trust them. Trust what you have and are, Lana Bingham.” The woman smiled on Lana's name, and Lana felt a flash of knowing, of recognition, that rippled away. “You have all you need. Use it.”

“I … Do I know you? Do I?”

“You will. Now get up. You need to get up!”

“Lana, you have to get up.” Max shook her shoulder. “We need to get going.”

“I … all right.”

She sat up in the lumpy bed in the musty-smelling room. They'd found a run-down motel far enough off the main road that Max felt it was safe enough to stop, to sleep for a few hours.

God knew they'd needed it.

“There's bad motel-room coffee.” He gestured to the pot on the TV stand. “It's better than none—barely.” He took her face in his hands. “It's still shy of dawn. I'm going to go out, see if there's anything in the vending machines. Ten minutes. All right?”

“Ten minutes.”

She took the coffee into the bathroom, splashed water on her face. It smelled metallic; but like the coffee, it was better than none.

She looked in the mirror, saw hollow eyes, pale skin. She did a subtle glamour—not for vanity this time, but for Max. If she looked too tired, too weak, he wouldn't push.

After yesterday, she understood they needed to push.

They'd finally gotten across the river on the 202, just after the all but deserted city of Peekskill. Deserted, she'd discovered, as they hadn't been the only ones trying to get across.

Wrecked cars, abandoned cars, some with bodies at the wheels.

They'd had to leave the SUV less than halfway across and carry their belongings around an overturned semi blocking the way. She'd realized while some had fled west—or tried—others had been rushing east.

Barricades erected on the east side lay smashed. Someone, she thought, had gotten through. But to what?

It took them eight hours to travel from Chelsea and make that final crossing of the Hudson River.

They took another car—bald tires, but a half tank of gas—and began to head west, then north, sticking to back roads, avoiding populated areas—or what had been populated.

When she insisted he needed to stop, rest, eat, they turned toward what looked like an abandoned house in an area with a winding two-lane road. Boarded windows, unshoveled snow. But as they bumped along its pitted drive, a woman, wild-eyed and armed with a shotgun, stepped out on the sagging porch.

They drove on.

They hadn't stopped until full dark, at a two-pump gas station alongside the dingy motel called Hidden Rest.

Lana made chicken and rice on a hot plate in the motel's office. The dust and grime on the check-in counter told her they were the first guests, more or less, for weeks.

But they ate, and they slept.

Now they'd keep going. They'd find Eric, and Max would figure out what to do next.

She heard the seven-knock signal, gathered up the bag they'd brought in when Max opened the door.

“I'm ready.

“Got some chips and sodas, a few candy bars. And we've got another car,” he told her. “It's in better shape than the last one, though dead out of gas. But I got one of the pumps going, so we can fill it up once we get it to the pump.”

“Okay. You need to eat something besides chips and candy.” She pulled an orange out of her bag.

“Split it with you,” Max said.

“Deal.”

“Let's get the car moved, loaded, and gassed up first. You look rested.”

She smiled, glad she'd done the glamour. “Who wouldn't look rested after a night in this palace?”

She walked out with him, shivering in the cold despite her jacket. “It smells like snow.”

“Yeah, we could get some, so gassed up or not, if we see a four-wheel, we switch again.”

“How much farther, do you think?”

“About three hundred and fifty miles. If we can use major roads, we'll make decent time. If we can't…”

He let that lay, picked up a red can marked
gas
, then led her about thirty feet down the road where a car sat crookedly on the skinny shoulder.

“They almost made it,” she murmured.

“Wouldn't have made any difference if the pumps had been turned off. I managed to move it magickally about ten, twelve feet, but that's about all I could do. We could probably do better together, but this is just as fast.”

She said nothing, as she knew he pushed himself too far, too hard. Power, they'd both learned, didn't come free.

He gave the tank the gallon of gas, stowed the can in the trunk.

“I can drive awhile.”

He slanted her a look. “We tried that yesterday.”

Until yesterday, she'd never driven a car. She lived in New York. “I need the practice.”

He laughed, kissed her. “No argument. Practice by driving back to the gas station.”

They got in, and Max nodded to the ignition button. “You do it—you need practice there, too.”

She'd left the starting of engines, gas pumps, and boosting of electricity to him. But he had a point—she needed to practice.

She held a hand over the ignition, focused. Pushed. The engine sprang to life.

Riding on the flash of power, she grinned at him. “Practice, my ass.”

He laughed again, and oh, how the sound of it steadied her. “Drive.”

She gripped the wheel like a falling woman grips a rope, squealed and inched, lurched, and swerved her way to the gas station.

“Don't hit the pumps,” Max warned. “Ease up, a little to the left now. Stop!”

She hit the brakes hard so the car jerked, but she'd done it.

“Put it in Park. Engine off.”

They both got out. Max put the nozzle in the tank, flipped it on. At the hum, he put an arm around Lana. “We're in business.”

“I never knew I'd be thrilled to smell gas fumes, but—” She broke off, pressing a hand to his chest. “Did you hear—”

Even as she spoke, he spun around, shoving her behind him. He pulled out the gun from his hip.

A young dog, barely more than a puppy, gamboled across the lot, tongue cheerfully lolling, eyes bright.

“Oh, Max!” She started to crouch down to greet the dog, but Max called out.

“I know you're back there. Come out, and I want to see your hands up.”

Lana stood stock-still even as the dog scrambled his front paws up her legs, wagging and yipping.

“Don't shoot. Jeez! Come on, man, don't freaking shoot me.”

At the sound of the voice—male with a twang of an accent—the dog raced back, raced around the man who stepped out from behind the scrubby brush at the edge of the lot.

“Hands are up, dude. Way up. Just a couple fellow travelers here. No harm. Don't hurt the pup, okay? Seriously, man, don't plug the pooch.”

“Why are you hiding back there?”

“I heard the car, okay? Wanted to check it out. Last time I wanted to check it out when I heard a car, asshole tried to run us over. I barely grabbed up Joe and got us clear.”

“Is that what happened to your face?”

His narrow face showed some yellowing bruising under his left eye, some still purple around the scruffy beard dangling off his jaw.

“Nah. A couple weeks ago I hooked up with this group. Seemed okay. We're camping out, got some brews. Second night, they beat the crap out of me and stole my stash. I had some prime stuff, man, and I
shared
. But they wanted it all. Left me there, took my pack, my water, the works. After they took off, that's when Joe here came up. So we hooked up. No way he's going to kick the shit out of me. Look, just don't hurt him.”

“No one's going to hurt him.” Lana crouched down, and Joe flew
to her, covering her face with kisses. “No one's going to hurt Joe. You're so sweet!”

“He's a good dog, that Joe. Can't be more'n three months, I figure. Some Lab in him. Can't say what else. Could ya not point the gun at me? I really don't like guns. They kill people, whatever the NRA says. Used to say.”

“Take off your pack,” Max ordered. “Empty it out. And your coat, turn out your pockets.”

“Oh, man, I just restocked.”

“We're not going to take anything. But I'm going to make damn sure you don't have a gun of your own.”

“Oh. No problem! I got a knife.” Hands still up, he pointed at the sheath on his belt. “You need one when you're hiking and camping rough. I had a tent, those bastards took it. I gotta put my hands down to take off the pack, okay?”

At Max's nod, he shrugged off the pack, unzipped it, pulled out a space blanket, a pair of socks, a hoodie, a harmonica, a small bag of dog food, a couple of cans, some snack food, water, two paperback books.

“I'm hoping to find me another bedroll, maybe a truck—four-wheel drive. I haven't found anything I could get started. Snow's coming in. I'm Eddie,” he said as he kept pulling things out. “Eddie Clawson. That's what I got,” he added. “Can I put my coat back on? It's freaking cold out here.”

He was thin as a rail—a long, bony man, no more, Lana thought, than twenty-two or -three. His hair, dirty blond, trailed down in tangled, half-assed dreds from an orange ski cap.

Every instinct in her told her he was as harmless as his dog.

“Put your coat back on, Eddie. I'm Lana. This is Max.” She started to walk toward him.

“Lana.”

“We have to trust someone, sometime.” She stooped over to help him pick up his supplies. “Where are you going, Eddie?”

“No clue. Had a compass. They took that, too. I guess I'm just looking for people, you know? Who aren't dead or trying to kill me, who won't beat the shit out of me for a bag of weed. How about you?”

He looked up when Max stepped over to study him up close.

“Dude, you've got fifty pounds on me easy—and it looks like muscle. And you got a gun. I ain't going to try anything. I just want to get somewhere nice. Where people aren't crazy. Where are you heading?”

“Into Pennsylvania,” Max told him.

“Maybe you've got room for two more. I could help you get there.”

“How?”

“Well, to start.” Eddie hauled up his pack, jaw-pointed at the car. “That's a nice ride and all, but it ain't four-wheel drive and snow's coming. Main roads are mostly blocked, and the side roads, a lot of 'em haven't been plowed since the last snow. I bet there're some chains inside the gas station.”

“Chains?” Lana said, baffled. Eddie grinned.