After Days (The After Days Trilogy) (7 page)

             
“We should grab another one too,” Brooke said, “A backup never hurts.”

6

              The sun rose the next morning to find us preparing to leave the Walmart. We were all packed, each of us had a full backpack and bike baskets loaded with supplies.

“Where is Luke?” Ben asked

“I think he went to the bathroom,” Sarah replied. “Here he is.”

Luke emerged from one of the aisles holding up a box triumphantly. “Crossbow,” he said
and knelt on the floor and began to rip open the cardboard packaging. At first I thought it was a toy, but when he pulled out the camouflage patterned weapon, I saw that it was indeed real, as were the short arrows or bolts or whatever they called them. He slung the crossbow over his shoulder and secured the Velcro belt of eight holstered arrows to his thigh. 

“Where did you find that?” Ben asked, “I could do with one of those too, the bows are too big and clumsy to take with us.”

“Sorry, this was the last one. It was tucked behind a counter. All the shelves were cleaned out, probably in the panic after the outbreak. Here, you can have this though.”

He handed Ben the shotgun. The English boy took it gingerly. “Don’t worry, the safety is on.”

I wasn’t sure about giving up a firearm for what was essentially a medieval weapon, but I could tell from the loving way he handled it that Luke wouldn’t be persuaded to give the crossbow up. We got started not long after.

A mile down Highway 102, it crossed the Quaker Highway which would lead us, after another half mile or so, to the Providence-Worcester Turnpike. This would give us a fairly straight shot across the semi-rugged and forested southern Massachusetts countryside. It was cold and overcast as we left the Walmart parking lot, weaving our bikes between the silent cars that littered the highway. It started to snow before we reached the turnpike.

              “This could be some tough sleddin', boss,” Luke said, pedaling up beside me. “Bicycles can be hard to ride in the snow.”

             
“Nothing we can do about it now,” I replied. “If it gets too bad we'll find someplace to stop until it lets up.”

             
“What if it doesn't let up till spring?” he asked. “It's still January after all.”

             
“Heck, I don't know... maybe we'll come across a place with Snowmobiles.”

             
The snow did let up before it started sticking to the road, but that conversation with Luke kept playing on my mind. Somehow, I was beginning to feel responsible, not only for myself, but for our entire ragtag little group. What if I led them astray? The thought nagged at me as we rode. It was nineteen miles from where we got on the turnpike to the edge of Worcester, and we planned on staying on it the entire way. That's not the way it turned out though.

             
We had only been on it for three or so miles when Brooke's keen eyesight caught something coming towards us down the freeway. We had just passed an off and on ramp, so we turned our bikes around and high tailed it back. We sped down the ramp and hid our bikes in the bushes near the underpass.

From the bushes w
e watched the turnpike, the others looking as apprehensive as I felt. Five minutes later a bulldozer and two trucks came into view. They were moving slowly, the dozer making sure the breakdown lane was clear, pushing the occasional abandoned vehicle out of the way. Behind them rumbled four tanks. American tanks! I could see the flags, and with a surge of joy I started up from our hiding position, all ready to wave them down when Luke grabbed me by the sleeve and pulled me roughly to the ground.

“Dude,” he whispered harshly, “look at the sentry!”

One of the tanks had its hatch open, and the soldier leaning out of it was clearly Asian. When I peered into the truck cabins I saw the same. Chinese soldiers. I nodded sheepishly, aware just how close I had come to getting us all captured, or worse, killed.  

             
“I bet the Chinese are commandeering any American military hardware they find,” Luke said.

             
We watched as the tanks continued past, followed by a few more trucks, and finally a single jeep. A man with a pair of binoculars stood up in the back of the jeep, looking around at the edges of the road. My breath caught as his gaze swept over us and, in my mind at least, seemed to linger just a bit too long. Finally the man turned his attention to the other side of the freeway and the jeep moved on. I slowly breathed out. 

             
“Holy crap, that was close,” Luke said.

             
“I wonder if there will be more of them using that motorway,” Ben wondered aloud, echoing the same thought that I had.

             
“Luke, does your map show a way to get to Worcester from here without taking the Turnpike?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the road. We waited while he rummaged around for the atlas in his pack.

             
“Yeah,” he said finally, “but it’s going to be longer and take us through a lot of farmland and some small towns.”

             
“Longer we can definitely deal with if it helps us avoid patrols,” Brooke said.

             
“I'm hungry; can we stop and eat something?” Sarah asked. Typical kid, I thought, food always at the top of their minds no matter what else was happening.

             
“Let's get a bit further down this road away from the Turnpike and we will,” I said, aware of my own stomach growling.

             
“Looks like we follow this road about a half a mile and then turn left,” Luke said. “That looks like a good spot to stop for a rest and some grub.”

             
“Alright, let's go,” I said.

I'd like to tell you that the rest of the day passed uneventfully, but I'd be lying.

             
It was just after noon and we were leaving the small town of North Uxbridge behind us, when we first noticed that we were being followed by dogs. It was, of course, Brooke that saw them. They followed us from a distance, a pack of mangy mutts and dogs of differing breeds, but all of them had a lean and hungry look. I saw at least one Alsatian and two other big dogs that I couldn’t make out the breed of. They didn't come close to us that afternoon, just followed behind, sniffing at our trail.

             
“They look terrible,” Sarah said when we stopped to rest a couple hours after we first noticed the dogs following us. “Who's been taking care of them, you know, since the flu killed all the grown-ups?”

             
“Probably no one,” Luke responded. “That's probably why they are so skinny.”

             
“Maybe we should feed them,” Sarah said, a sadness creeping into her voice.

             
“We barely got enough for ourselves, love,” Brooke said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

             
“Besides, if you feed a stray it'll follow you around forever,” Luke said. “At least that’s what my dad always said.”

             
“I hope they bugger off, I think they are creepy,” Ben said, mirroring my own feelings.

             
“Me too,” I replied. Feeding them was the last thing I wanted to do, the thought of them being close to us terrified me in an irrational way. I had been bitten by my grandmother’s Collie when I was six and still had the scar of a puncture wound on my wrist. “We aren't going near them, and tonight we are going to find a place with a door to sleep in.”

              When we stopped for the night a couple of hours later it was just starting to get dark. We found a farmhouse with a large detached garage behind it, the house was locked up tight but the garage door was wide open, so we wheeled our bicycles inside and pulled the large roller door down behind us.

A couple of dirty windows set above a workbench on one wall allowed the dying sunlight to filter in as we set out our bedding and ate a meal of beef jerky and potato chips. Once it was full dark, it was pitch black in the garage. Both Ben and Brooke had thought to bring flashlights, but we had decided not to use them unless it was an emergency to save on our limited supply of batteries.

              The dogs began howling and barking sometime in the middle of the night. We could hear them growling and scratching at the garage door and what sounded like a vicious fight ended in high pitched yelping.

None of us got much sleep after that. Sarah was curled up whimpering next to Brooke who was doing her best to comfort her, while Luke and I sat upright with our weapons close by, staring intently through the darkness toward the door and windows respectively. Ben was ready with his flashlight should the sound of breaking glass or splintering wood be heard.

The sound of the dogs finally died down just as dawn was breaking. I heard one final sniff under the roller door and they seemed to disappear. Everybody but Luke and I fell into a fitful sleep.

             
“We should let them sleep a while,” Luke said. “We can get started again in a few hours.”

             
“Okay, everybody's exhausted from yesterday’s ride and last night’s... excitement,” I replied, stifling a yawn.

             
“You should sleep too,” he said. “I can keep watch.”

             
“Are you sure?”

             
“No sweat, man, I picked up a few energy drinks before we left the Walmart. If I feel myself crashing later I'll just slam one of them.”

             
“Alright, if you're sure…”

Lying down in my sleeping bag I found myself not caring that it was laid out on a concrete floor, my eyes closed for what seemed like just a second and suddenly I was being shaken awake. I glanced around in bewilderment, everybody else was already up and had their sleeping bags repacked. “What...”

              “It's about noon,” Luke said. “Time to rise and shine, sleepy head.”

             
“Okay, okay,” I muttered, shaking my head, trying to clear the cobwebs in my mind. Sometimes I think a little sleep is worse than none. I got up and stretched; I was no longer quite as exhausted as I had been, but still felt like I'd been worked over by a burly man with a baseball bat. Muscles that I never knew I had were aching. I rolled up my sleeping bag and tied it before returning it to the basket on the front of my bike. “Any sign of the dogs?” I asked.

“Nope,” Luke replied. “When Ben woke up I got him to watch my back while I went outside to take a wizz and have a look around. They must have found something better to do.”

              “Well then, we should probably be heading out, we've already wasted too much daylight as it is.”

             
“I figure we got maybe five hours of light left,” Luke said, “We might be able to make it close to Worcester by nightfall.”

             
Luke was getting ready to pull up the door when we heard the first thrum of a helicopter in the distance. I motioned for him to leave it closed, and he nodded in agreement. The chopper flew low over the house and garage we were in, and in truth I was waiting for huge bullets to begin tearing the garage apart at any moment, but after what seemed like an eternity we could hear it moving off into the distance.

             
“Are they going to come back?” Sarah asked.

             
“I don't know, but maybe we should wait a while before leaving, I don't want them to catch us riding down the road if they fly back by here,” I said.

             
“If we wait too long we won't make it very far before dark, man,” Luke said.

             
“Maybe we shouldn't try,” I responded, thinking of my aching muscles. “Wait out the day here, spend another night and leave early in the morning.”

             
“As you yanks would say, I’m down with that,” Ben said, massaging the back of his leg.

             
“Please, can we?” Sarah asked, her eyes brightening slightly for the first time since I had met her.

             
“Wouldn't bother me,” Brooke chimed in.

             
“You're the boss,” Luke said, shrugging. He pulled the sleeping bag off of his bicycle basket. “If we're staying here though, I'm going to get some sleep. I'm bushed.”

             
“I’m not the boss.”

             
“It's just a figure of speech, man,” Luke said, shrugging and unrolling his sleeping bag onto the floor. “I’ll take the watch tonight.”

             
“You do kind of take charge and be bossy, though,” Sarah said with a nod of her head. The way she said it didn’t make it sound like it was a bad thing.

              It was cold in the garage and we spent most of the day huddled in our makeshift beds and talking quietly. We were out of the wind, which was a blessing, but a fire was out of the question. The windows didn't open and we didn’t dare open the door to let smoke out. Luke slept most of the afternoon, and towards the late afternoon I also nodded off.