After Days (The After Days Trilogy) (14 page)

             
“Ah, that makes sense,” Luke said, making no attempt to get out of his own sleeping bag, or to pursue his friendly ribbing.

             
“Do you know where Brooke and Ben got off to?”

             
“I think they had something to do with Arthur and John this morning,” Luke replied. “Looking for supplies in the office building across the street, or something like that.”

             
“What kind of supplies do they hope to find there?” Office buildings don’t seem like a good place to look for food or survival gear.”

             
“I couldn’t tell you,” said Luke. “Anyway, I don’t have any plans this morning so I’m just going to lay here, comfy and warm.”

             
I stood on my tiptoes and stretched, working the kinks out of my muscles. Sleeping on the relative comfort of the practice mats had done me a world of good after my days of sleeping on hard floors.

“Stay comfortable,” I said to Luke, as I headed out the door to find Sonny. I wanted to talk to him about the conversation I had overheard the previous evening well before noon, the time the woman had said she would be removing the surveillance from the parking garage.

              His office was empty, so I wandered to the kitchen to find myself something for breakfast. Samara and Mark were already there, eating bowls of cereal moistened with condensed milk from a can. Mark and Samara were Sonny’s youngest students, both aged fourteen. They could hold their own on the mat but Sonny chose not to take them on missions because of their age and smaller size. They were nice kids.

             
“Is there any milk left in the can?” I asked, grabbing a bowl of my own from the countertop.

             
“Yeah, maybe a quarter of the can,” Mark replied. He moved the can of milk toward where I had just seated myself. Samara did the same with the box of cereal.

             
“Thanks a lot,” I said, fixing myself a bowl of cereal to eat. The condensed milk had a much stronger flavor than the 2% that I was used to putting on my cereal at the Foster’s house, but it was still edible and soon the sugars and cocoa from the cereal itself overwhelmed the taste of the milk anyway. “Have you seen Sonny?” I asked.

             
“He went up into the attic early this morning,” Samara said. “That’s where we keep the training weapons; he likes to go there to be alone.”

             
“Thanks,” I said, and took another bite of the cereal.

              I found Sonny sitting in the lotus position, meditating in front of a stand holding a pair of nine ring broad swords of Chinese make. He looked up at me as I entered the room, his face placid. I looked around, taking in the racks of ancient weapons lining the walls.

Samara
had said that the Academy stored its training weapons here, but all of the weapons in the attic looked frighteningly real to me. There were long staves and short fighting sticks, spears and strange pole arms, nunchaku, sais and daggers, and an assortment of different Asian styles of sword. A large corkboard on one wall held dozens of throwing stars and other shuriken.

             
“I have decided,” Sonny said. “We will go with you, and in my mind, the sooner we leave better.”

             
“I know about Huian,” I said. “I overheard part of your conversation with her last night.”

I half expected him to be angry at my spying and braced myself for an argument as he stared at me expressionlessly. In the end he just nodded, a thoughtful look on his face. Perhaps there is something to that meditation stuff after all, something calming…maybe I’ll have to give it a try someday.

“Did you overhear the offer she made to me, about the truck?”

“Yes, do you think we can trust her?” I asked. “I am worried it might be a trap, but it seems overly elaborate if she already knows where we are.”

              “The same thoughts crossed my mind,” Sonny said. “That is why I came up here to think, I find meditation brings clarity when my mind is clouded. In the end, it seems to me that we have to trust her. We have very little choice in the matter because stealing a truck would be impossible with the army on alert.”

             
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” I said with a grimace. “When are we going to go get the truck?”

             
“I figured we would go this evening as soon as it gets dark,” Sonny replied. “We’ll bring it back to the alley and load it with the supplies we’re bringing tonight. With me wearing a Chinese uniform, and driving while the rest of you stay in the back, we should have few problems. If all goes well, it should be safe for us to get started North before noon tomorrow.”

             
“That timeline sounds good to me,” I said, going over it mentally. “I’ll let Luke know. I would like for me and him to go with you to get the truck.”

             
“You know it could be dangerous?” Sonny said. “Even if it’s not a trap, that parking garage is in Tiger territory. After what happened when you found Indigo, they’ll be on the lookout for you.”

             
“I know, but everything is dangerous now, Luke and I won’t let you down, you can count on us.”

             
“All right, you can come,” Sonny said, nodding his head. “I want to bring at least one more person with us though, I am thinking Arthur.”

             
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Now I think I’m going to go see if I can sleep a bit more. It sounds like we’re going to have a long night ahead of us.”

             
“I will try and come up with something more resembling a plan,” Sonny replied. “I’ll wake you up around noon and fill you in on the details.”

13

              Allie woke me up around eleven thirty, and told me that Indigo was asking to see the guy that had rescued her. I thanked Allie and went to the bathroom to make myself look presentable. This consisted mostly of patting down my sleep tousled hair, while looking at my reflection in the stainless steel mirror above the sink.

Finally, I decided that I had done all I could and walked the short distance from the bathroom to the supply closet that Sonny had given Indigo as a room. Strange, I felt as nervous as I had when we had faced off against the gangbangers. I knocked on the door.

              “Come in,” I recognized Indigo’s voice immediately.

             
“Okay,” I said, and opened the door. I found her sitting upright on a folded mat that was her makeshift bed, warm blankets gathered around her legs. She looked up at me and smiled.

             
“Isaac, right?” she said. “I just wanted to thank you again. I say ‘again’ but in all the hustle and bustle of last night I am not sure I even managed to thank you the first time.”

             
“Don’t mention it,” I said, cracking a smile. “Luke and I, that’s kind of our thing. You’re not the first damsel in distress that we’ve saved.” My smile faded a little bit, as my boastful jest reminded me of Sarah. I regretted what I had said almost immediately.

             
“Still, thank you,” she replied, her voice had softened and I think she might have noticed the sadness written in my expression. “One day you’ll have to tell me about these other damsels that you have saved.”

             
“Does that mean that you plan on sticking with us then?” I asked, trying to not sound overly hopeful, the last thing I wanted to do was to frighten her away by coming off as some sort of lecherous weirdo.

             
“Yeah, if no one minds,” she replied. “This place seems safe and comfortable…” she paused as she saw me bite my lip. “What is it?”

             
“We are kind of planning on leaving the Academy tomorrow morning some time,” I said. “It’s getting too dangerous here, we…found out something and it means we have to get out, and quick. You can come with us, of course.”

             
“Um…okay,” she said, a confused look on her face.

             
I started talking, I told her about Huian and the Chinese Army moving a division to Worcester. I told her about the truck, including my fears about it but acknowledging that it was perhaps our only option. I even talked about traveling to the safe haven.

She seemed as excited as I was about the prospect of a place where we could again relax in safety, especially as it was as close as just a hundred or so miles north of us. In the end I tal
ked to her for over an hour that day, about the future, but also about the past. I found myself opening up to her and telling her about my life before the Infection. It seemed I wasn’t good at keeping secrets from pretty girls, but it wasn’t just that – even though I’d only known her for a few hours, I felt that I could trust her with my life.

             
She told me about her life as well. She had been born and raised right there in Worcester. Like myself, Indigo had just turned fifteen years old; in fact, her birthday was two days before mine. While she had not been a total loner in school like me, she had not been one of the popular kids either.

From our talk I began to realize just how smart she was, it became obvious to me that she was way more book smart than I was, yet she didn’t seem to have that in-your-face smarty-pants attitude th
at so many smart people have. She told me she had grown bored of school. She had let her grades slip despite her natural intelligence and the fact that she was perfectly capable of doing the work. Too many missed days and late assignments had torpedoed her marks to the point that her near perfect test scores just were not able to compensate.

             
Her family had been a large, tightknit family, with many aunts, uncles and grandparents, along with a dozen or so cousins, all living in the same neighborhood. Despite this, Indigo was like myself, an only child…and now, she too was all alone in the world. She began to cry as she told me how close she had been to her cousin, Chloe, and I came to realize just how deeply it affected her when she had been murdered by the Tigers. To Indigo, that must’ve felt a lot like losing a sister.

I asked her what had happened to Chloe. Rather than getting more upset, I saw hot anger dry the tears in her eyes. They had been gathering food in a small supermarket when three Tigers had happened upon them. The Tigers had been rude and suggestive about the girls and Chloe, always the sassier of the two cousins, had smart mouthed the ringleader. He had shot her. Just like that. Indigo and even his gang mates had stood, frozen in shock before Indigo ran for her life. She had been shot at as she escaped
, but she had managed to elude them until the day Luke and I had rescued her.

Talking about it seemed to help and we changed the subject, but I felt a seething anger at the dumb cruelty of the gang.

Speaking of loved ones made me think of my own sister, Rebecca. I almost had trouble picturing her face in my mind now. Even the memories of my Mom and Dad were slowly fading in the same way, like old photographs gradually losing their color, browning to sepia in a forgotten shoebox.

I also remembered Amy, the Foster’s foster daughter, and how she had tried to act so much like a big sister to me that last Christmas Day. I felt a little guilty about how unfriendly I had been. It was almost certain that she was dead now, after all, she had already started to feel ill before she left for home that afternoon.

But the loss of none of them, not my real family, not the Fosters or anyone else, came close to feeling as bad in my heart as the loss of Sarah. I wondered if that meant something was wrong with me, or if it was just the fact that, for the first time in my life, I had lost someone that was in
my
care. Someone that had looked up to me...trusted me with their life.

             
A knock on the door broke the spell of our intense conversation. Karen stuck her head into the room. “Sonny would like to see you in his office, Isaac,” she said. “I already told Luke and Arthur, they’ll meet you there.”

             
“Thanks, Karen,” I said, before turning back to Indigo. “I’ve got to go, but I’d like to come back and talk to you some more later, if it’s okay with you?”

             
“Yes sure,” Indigo said. “I’ve been enjoying our talk. It feels so good just to be talking about what happened and remembering the people we lost. It feels… cathartic? I think that’s the word.”

I smiled, one thing that Indigo and I had in common was a love of words. I can remember reading through a dictionary for fun during seventh and eighth grades. Yeah, it sounds nerdy I know, but it’s a fond memory, given that there are no schools now and I guess there won’t be for who knows how long. No teachers, no students, nothing except survivors and an invading army.

              “I’ll see you later, then,” I said.

Karen had already left. I looked back at Indigo and whispered, “I don’t know if Sonny has told the others about Huian yet, perhaps we should just keep that between us for now.” She gave me a wink and a smile as I ducked out the door and started down the hall.

I was amazed at how tough Indigo was, but she was also kind and sensitive at the same time… I don’t know, the more I learned about her, the more I found myself liking her.

             
When I got to Sonny’s office I knocked once and then walked right in, Arthur and Luke were already there. Sonny was sitting behind his desk with a spiral notebook open before him. Luke gave me a little wave, but Arthur didn’t look up from the notebook, he seemed to be studying it intently. Sonny glanced up and motioned me over.

             
“So I take it you came up with a plan?” I asked.

             
“Yeah, most of the details are written down right here.”

             
“It looks solid to me, man,” Luke said. “I just hope we don’t run into any unforeseen trouble.”             

             
I looked over what Sonny had written down on the pad, the plan he had outlined seemed simple enough. Barring any trouble from the Tigers or a Chinese patrol, getting the truck would be easy.

             
“So what do you think, Isaac,” Sonny said after I’d had a chance to examine his notebook.

             
“I agree with Luke, it seems solid to me, given the circumstances.”

             
“So when are we going to do this?” Luke asked.

             
“Yeah, I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible,” Arthur said. Sonny checked the watch on his wrist.

             
“We will leave here at 4 o’clock. Make sure you have your stuff ready.”

             
“Want to head over to the kitchen and grab some lunch?” Luke asked, as we left the office. “There are a couple of cans of chili con carne back there with our names on them.”

              After a hearty meal of cold chili con carne with beans, I grabbed a couple of mixed fruit cups and a spoon to take with me back to Indigo’s room. I still had a couple hours to kill before we went to retrieve the truck and everything that I planned to take with me on the road was already in a pile next to my sleeping bag. With that in mind, and remembering how good my previous conversation with Indigo had been, I was looking forward to talking with her some more.

Unfortunately when I got to Indigo’s room, I found her already deep in conversation with Brooke and Karen. Not wishing to intrude, I simply gave Indigo the fruit cups and the spoon and let her know that I would talk to her later.

Not knowing what to do with myself, I decided to go find Ben and ask them what they had been searching for in the office building. I figured if Brooke was back, he would be as well.

             
I found him back in our sleeping area, playing a game of chess against Luke and losing. I watched in silence as Luke slowly dismantled Ben’s defenses. After four moves, he called check mate and sat back with a satisfied smirk on his face. Ben glowered at him across the small table.

             
“So did you guys find anything interesting in the office building?” I asked.

             
“Not really, but I daresay we got what Sonny sent us there to get,” Ben replied. “Why he’d want all those toner cartridges is beyond me.”

             
“Toner? As in printer ink?” I too found myself wondering what Sonny could want with a bunch of ink, especially given that without electricity, printers simply didn’t work.

             
“Yes, toner,” Ben said, “Plus several parcels of printing paper, and as many rolls of tape as we could find.”

             
“Beats the shit out of me,” Luke said, and then he chuckled. “I love a good mystery, but maybe he doesn’t even need them anymore; I mean, it didn’t say anything about printing paper and ink in his plan for this afternoon.”

             
“I don’t know,” I offered. “There are probably a lot of different reasons why he might want that stuff, but none that I can think of.”

             
“Are you going to take the rifle with you this afternoon?” Luke asked.

A
short stab of remorse pierced me, as I thought about the last time I held the rifle… logically I knew that the gangbanger I had shot down deserved it, but emotionally I wasn’t quite ready to take responsibility for ending another human life so brutally.

             
“I don’t know, I was thinking about just sticking with a handgun on this one,” I replied, looking down at the chessboard.

I wondered if Luke felt the same way about the Tiger he had killed with the crossbow. In the time since, I have found that the killing gets easier, but the twinges of regret never really go away. The circumstances don’t matter really – it doesn’t matter how bad the other person was, it doesn’t matter how little choice I had for making the kill…I always regret, and I always remember.

“Do you want to play?” I asked, still looking down at the board.

             
“Naw, I already had my fun,” Luke replied. “Maybe Ben wants to play again, you know, have a chance to redeem himself.”

             
“So what do you say?” I looked over at Ben.

             
“Sure, I am always up for another game,” he said, reaching for the pieces to reset the board.

The sky had clouded over during the course of the day. This had the benefit of warming the night slightly, but at a cost. It was getting dark earlier, and there would be no moonlight. Sonny, Arthur, Luke and I, cautiously made our way back to the parking garage, keeping to the alleyways and side streets as much as possible, hugging the buildings so that none of us were walking exposed.