Deadlocked 7 (10 page)

“No worries,” said Hero. “It’s not there are any patrols sneaking around checking out cars anymore.”

“It’s weird, right?” Billy was standing behind the counter, his pockets replete with stolen snacks. “I thought we’d have to tuck tail and run after our first few attacks, but they’re not putting up any sort of fight. It doesn’t make any damn sense.”

Reagan continued to look out the window, the crepuscular rays shining in on him. “Worse than that,
I think they’re retreating. Not just hiding, but actually planning on leaving the area.”

Hero chuckled, though neither of his friends joined him. “How is that a bad thing? Isn’t that what we wanted?”

“Why are they scared of us?” asked Reagan. “These are supposedly the people that killed most of the world’s population, but they get scared by three assholes with pipe bombs? Billy’s right, that doesn’t make any damn sense.”

“Someone write this down,” said Billy as he feigned awe. “The old man just said I was right about something.” He put his hand over his chest, crunching a bag of chips that was tucked into the breast pocket of his jacket. “Be still my beating heart.” He acted like a southern belle moments from feinting.

“Settle down, Ms. O’Hara, being right once a year isn’t worth getting excited about. And you’re still not making up for wrecking the van.” Reagan walked away from the window, his rifle still in his hands as if on patrol. The old man rarely let up his guard, even when they were certain they were safe.

After the first week of sabotaging the military’s buildings in the mountains of Colorado, they had expected to be forced to flee. To their surprise, the military presence here had no interest in retaliation. Instead, they abandoned their posts and retreated to within their walls, leaving their supplies to be plundered. Reagan had insisted it was a trap, and chose to wait and watch rather than move in to take anything. That was almost a month ago, and still the base on the outskirts of Estes Park was quiet.

“What makes you think they’re planning on leaving?” asked Hero.

“They disabled the transformers
in the area. I noticed it when we got back from meeting up with the girls.” The three of them had returned to Lyons to meet up with Laura and her daughters after first attacking the military base. They had expected to be forced to leave, pursued by the military, but that never happened. After a week, they returned to Estes Park to discover the base all but abandoned.

“I thought you said survivors did that for water,” said Hero.

Reagan had told them that the bullet holes in the bottom of the transformers on the telephone poles in the area had been put there by crafty survivors in search of fresh water. The garbage-can style transformers all had a reservoir in the bottom that could be shot into, providing anyone below with a good amount of sterile water.

“I thought that at first, but it doesn’t make much sense,” said Reagan. “It’d take you all of fifteen minutes to find a fresh source of water out here, no need to go shooting up all the transformers. No, they disabled them because they’re going to run.”

“And leave all that stuff for us?” asked Hero. “There’s a whole arsenal out there.”

“I doubt it’s safe to take,” said Reagan. “Might be trapped, not worth the risk.”

They heard a metallic rattle from the other side of the station before Clyde came out of the bathroom. He had a satisfied smile as he pat his stomach. “I can’t tell you how good it feels to shit on a toilet instead of behind a bush. And they’ve still got toilet paper in there. Plumbing’s turned off now though, so if you go in there just stay away from the first stall.”

“The plumbing was working fine all around here a month ago,” said Billy.

Reagan nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure we convinced them to pack up and leave.”

“That didn’t take long,” said Clyde.

“Somehow, I feel like we’re the ones being made the fool here, fellas,” said Reagan. “I don’t know how or why, but it doesn’t make any damn sense for a base that big to just close up shop after losing a few trucks and buildings.”

“What do you think’s going on then?” asked Billy as he made his way out from behind the cashier’s counter.

“They’re handing this area to us,” said Reagan. “A big fucking mousetrap.”

“Then why not leave the electrical grid up and the plumbing on?” asked Billy.

“They don’t want to make it obvious,” said Reagan.

Billy was about to say something else, but his back gave out and he staggered. He caught himself against a rack of magazines and groaned as Clyde ran up to assist him.

“You all right?” asked Clyde.

“Yeah, fine. I just twisted the wrong way or something. I’ll be okay.”

“Look out,” said Hero. “He’s gonna wreck another van.”

Clyde glowered
at Hero and then shook his head. “I told you this was a bad idea. I know you think you’re fine, but even with that brace I think you should be taking it easy.”

“It’s been half a year,” said Billy. “I thought you said my back would be like new by now.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not an orthopedic surgeon. There’s no way to know just how bad your back is. It’s not like I’ve got an x-ray of what sort of damage you’ve got going on back there. You could be one wrong twist away from paralyzed as far as I know.” Clyde tried to support his friend until Billy pushed his hand away.

“Maybe you should stick with Laura and the girls from now on,” said Reagan.

“Fuck that,” said Billy. “I’m not missing out on all the fun out here. I’m fine guys, really. Don’t worry about me.”

“
All right,” said Hero. “What’s the plan then, old man? Are we going to keep putting the hurt on these guys or do we back off now that they’re packing up and leaving?”

Reagan turned to look out the window again. “I can’t ask you three to go with me any further.”

“What?” The three asked almost in unison.

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Billy.

Reagan stayed facing away. “I’m going to find a way into their base. It’s a dumb move, and I don’t want you three getting hurt.”

“If it’s a dumb move, why you doing it?” asked Hero.

“Because I need to figure out what the hell they’re up to.”

“I’m going with,” said Billy.

“No,” said Reagan. “I don’t think you…”

“Me too,” said Hero.

“Same,” said Clyde.

Reagan finally turned to look at them. “
This is a suicide mission. You three are dumb as shit, you know that?”

“Learned from the best,” said Hero.

*   *   *

August 24
th
, 20 years after the apocalypse

Hero is confronting Beatrice in the cabin above the transfer facility.

“
So you’re just going to shoot me?” asked Bea. “That’s your answer? I offer you paradise, and you point a gun at me?”

“I’m a complicated guy.”

“You’re a thug.” Bea sneered and made a gun with her hand that she tapped against the side of her neck, referring to the tattoo that Hero had on his.

“
Yep. Now let’s talk about how we’re going to stop this new virus. We can purge this facility, but how many others are out there?”

She crossed her arms. “And why in
heavens would I tell you anything?”

“Because until five minutes ago, you were under the impression you’d live forever.” Hero tapped the barrel of his pistol against his temple. “It’s got to be a pretty big mind fuck to be sitting there now, knowing you’re going to die. I’m willing to bet you’d do whatever it takes to live just a few more weeks.”

“I’m not afraid to die,” said Bea.

Hero smirked and tilted his head. “Bullshit. We’re all afraid to die. That’s wh
y you and the other members of The Electorate tried to figure out a way to live forever.”

She scowled and shook her head. “You keep saying that, but it’s not true. I came here to die, you daft brute. What do you think this is all about?” She motioned to the cabin around them.

“This is where you recover after the transfer,” said Hero, although he sounded unsure of himself. “Right?”

“No, not exactly. You’ve got it in your head that the procedure plucks my brain out of my head and puts it into Cobra’s. That’s not how it works. The final transfer is when I go brain dead, and the last bits of my memory are put into my host. In a sense, I live on, but only as much as a computer hologram of me would. Does that make sense?”

“None of this shit makes sense,” said Hero.

“Those of us that will be transferred are only doing it so our memories are recorded forever. It’s a way to preserve what we know, but not just by writing it all down. By doing this, everything we know can be kept on record, and we’ll always be able to explain what we’ve done. The Dawns are our way of communicating with our
successors, of explaining how we hoped the world could live on without us.”

Her
o’s expression was unmistakable; he didn’t understand what she was talking about.

Bea sighed and continued, “You were alive before the virus. You must remember how politicians would use leaders from long ago as examples of how to govern. In America you called them your Founding Fathers, right?”

“Sure,” said Hero.

“And all of your politicians would cite the Founding Fathers, saying that they meant this or that by the laws they wrote.
Your damned constitution was written hundreds of years ago, but the idiots you elected kept insisting it was still relevant. As if men that lived two or three hundred years ago somehow had any clue what life would be like centuries later. How was Benjamin Franklin supposed to understand how the internet would affect free speech, or how automatic weapons would challenge the idea that everyone should be able to own a gun? We didn’t want that to happen in our Age of Reason, which we worked so hard to create. That’s why we started the Dawn program. We wanted to provide future generations with a way to consult us, and allow us to guide them forever.”

Hero smiled and nodded, his eyes alight as he came to a realization. “Holy shit,” he said and shook his head before he chuckled.

“Do you understand now?” she asked.

“Yeah, and I think I understand better than you do.”

Bea was confused and her expression soured. “What do you mean?”

“
Reagan told me about your Age of Reason, and how you guys built a monument in Georgia that was like some sort of Ten Commandments.”

“The Guidestones,” said Bea. “Exactly.”

“You brought Moses up the mountain, but didn’t trust him any further than that,” said Hero.

“What are you getting at?” asked Bea.

Hero sat in a chair across from Beatrice and shook his head. “You’re playing God.”

She was about to respond, but then stopped and closed her mouth as she settled back in her seat.

“And not just in the way a lot of power hungry people do,” said Hero. “You’re really doing it. Calling the next apocalypse the Noah Initiative, wiping out mankind and setting yourselves up as some sort of ever-living, omniscient super power. No joke, you guys are seriously playing God here.”

She smiled. “Someone has to.”

Seven months after the apocalypse

Reagan led the group back to Estes Park to investigate the base.

They snuck through the brush beside the concrete building where they’d seen soldiers gathered a month earlier. The area was desolate now, a dead town populated only by the elk that roamed the streets. It was cold, the final days of fall, and the grey sky threatened snow. The brush was stiff, as if the weather made it brittle and louder as they crunched through it.

Reagan held up his fist as he neared the corner of the building. Then he pointed two fingers to the left, past a
short expanse of paved area to a small guard shack beside the gate. They were already inside of the restricted area, having snipped through the fence a few yards back. Reagan wanted to make sure to search the outside before moving in, worried they were being goaded into a trap with the promise of easy supplies.

Hero and Clyde moved fast to the shack, hunched as they went. Hero knelt beside the shack’s window and then sprung up to look inside. He got back do
wn and gave Reagan a thumb’s up; the shack was empty.

There were crates littering the area, each filled with weapons that any survivor would be happy to have. As Hero glanced at them, he was certain Reagan was right. This was too easy, and certainly a trap.

They weren’t interested in the guns or ammo. Reagan was intent on getting into the facility, and Billy was carrying a pack of tools they would use to break in. This was a cargo hold, with a line of garage doors raised above the ground so that trucks could back up to them. Beside the corner where Reagan crouched was a steel door that they were going to try and pick the lock on. If that didn’t work, they would wire it with explosives and then retreat to blow it open, then spy on the entrance for days if necessary to see if anyone inspected it.

Billy moved to the door as Reagan covered him. He set his pack down and unzipped it, prepared to start trying to pick the lock, but then he tested the handle and found the door unlocked. He glanced at Reagan, puzzled, and shrugged.

Reagan motioned for Clyde and Hero to join them as they went inside, all of them uneasy with how easy it had been to sneak in. The building was nondescript within, a cavernous warehouse with zinc oxide racks that stretched for what seemed like hundreds of yards. The shelves were almost entirely bare, except for a few wooden cases filled with straw. Hero searched through a few, but then turned to Reagan and shrugged.

“Nothing here,” said Hero.

Reagan angrily put his finger to his lips, shushing Hero. Then he led them deeper into the building. It was oppressively dark, only slightly illuminated by windows near the ceiling, and the area smelled of oil, as if this had been where the military vehicles had been worked on. They moved to a wooden door on the far side, opposite of where they’d entered. Reagan took point and counted down with his fingers before rushing in.

Hero and Billy followed, covering the corners as Clyde covered their rear. It was a choreographed entrance that Reagan had trained them on as they perfected how to deal with the zombies that infested most towns.

After they escaped Georgia in the helicopter, Reagan had insisted on training the group in military tactics. He scoffed at Clyde’s insistence that he had already gone through basic training, and said that what the medic went through was the equivalent of a Boy Scout summer camp. Reagan taught them a lot about combat, both with weapons and hand to hand. As much as Hero liked to chide the old man, he had to admit that he learned a lot from him.

 
The door led to a non-descript office, with a desk and a dead computer. Hero was going to turn and leave, but saw that Reagan was studying the room. The old man walked to the table and then to the filing cabinet against the wall. He slipped off his glove and put his hand on the yellow painted wall and then started to walk around the room.

“What are you doing?” asked Hero in a whisper.

“This room’s bullshit,” said Reagan as he continued to walk with his hand on the wall. “And they can’t be dumb enough to think we wouldn’t realize it.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Billy.

“Look at the wear in the carpet.” Reagan pointed at the poor condition of the Berber carpet of the room’s entrance. The rest of the building had concrete floors, and the office was the only carpeted area they’d seen inside. It was severely worn, apparently by near constant traffic. “And nothing else in this office looks used up like that. The desk doesn’t look old, and the computer’s keyboard looks brand new. And the carpet leading over to the desk doesn’t look all worn out, just up here. It’s like hundreds of people just came in here, paced in front of the desk, and then left. Doesn’t add up.”

“What are you thinking?” asked Clyde.

“That they used to walk through here a lot, because this wall wasn’t here before. Hero, you got any bombs with you still?”

“Yeah, why?”

“We’re going to blow this wall up,” said Reagan.

“And what if you’re right and we bust in on their little party,” said Billy. “I doubt we’re going to last long against them
if they’re all hiding in there.”

Reagan thought for a moment and then nodded. “You’re right. No sense getting us all killed. As much as I want to go see my wife and son in heaven, I’m pretty sure they’re willing to wait. Here’s what we’ll do; let’s take out this wall,” he slapped the yellow wall behind him and then pointed across the room, “and that one too. That should give us a vantage in here from outside. It’ll be a mess of rubble and rebar, but we can try to watch for movement for a few days. Then, when we’re sure it’s safe, we can come back in.”

“You scared me, old man,” said Billy. “For a minute there, I thought you had a deathwish.”

Hero laughed, but then was sobered by Reagan’s expression. Hero
was suddenly worried that Billy was right, and that Reagan really did want to die.

They set the bombs, blew the wall open, and evacuated. They found a place to camp in an apartment complex across the street. It was a comfortable apartment, still adorned with pictures of the family that had once lived there. Reagan seemed intrigued by the pictures, and spent time walking through the abode, staring at the frames as if he knew the people in them.

Hero and Reagan took first watch, using binoculars to spy on the wrecked building from their vantage. The moon was full, providing a surprising amount of light to see by.

“Getting cold out there,” said Hero.

Reagan sat on a couch by the open window, watching the building below. “Guess so,” said the old man. No one would ever mistakenly call him talkativ
e when he wasn’t barking orders, but he seemed particularly distant that night. No matter what Hero said, Reagan always responded with a two or three word answer. His mind was elsewhere, and he kept staring at the pictures on the walls.

They heard shuffling from down the hall and saw Billy appear in a pair of sweats and no shirt, his white back brace strapped around his mid-section
. “Howdy.”

“What are you doing up?” asked Hero.

“Couldn’t sleep,” said Billy. “My back’s acting up.”

“You should seriously think about trying to stay off your feet,” said Hero.

“Fuck, it’s cold in here,” said Billy, purposefully ignoring his friend’s advice. He took a blanket off the couch and wrapped it around his shoulders.

“You two Georgia babies don’t know shit about the cold,” said Reagan.

“And you do?” asked Hero. “I thought you lived in Georgia too.”

“I did, but I spent a lot of time up here in the mountains. Beautiful up here.”

“How come you didn’t move your family out here?” asked Billy.

“I went where the job took me.”

“You must’ve been close to retirement though, right?” asked Hero. “I mean, you’re old as balls, man.” Hero and Billy laughed.

Reagan smirked as he looked back at them. He set the binoculars on the armrest and sat down. They didn’t need to watch the building at all times, and were only looking for signs of someone clearing the debris near the site of the explosion.

“I’m not the retiring type.”

Hero chuckled and then glanced around the room. “It’s weird in here, man.”

“What?” asked Billy.

“Look at the pictures and shit. This used to be someone’s home, you know? Some family lived here. Kind of gives me the creeps.”

“Seem like good people,” said Billy as he looked around at the pictures of the family. “Loved their kids and all that. Kind of reminds me of my place, before my parents got divorced.”

“How was that?” asked Hero. “Was it tough for you when they split up?”

“Not really,” said Billy. “They were polar opposites. Honestly, when they split it was sort of a relief. I stayed with my mom, but my dad lived across the bay. Still saw him all the time though.”

“Wish I could’ve met your dad,” said Hero. “From what you’ve told me, he seems like a good guy.”

“He was,” said Billy. “How about you? What was your dad like?”

Hero shrugged and looked away, reluctant to answer. “Didn’t know him.”

“Oh really?” asked Billy. “Did your mom say anything about him?”

“No,” said Hero. “She just told me he was a junkie asshole. I actually met him once, and he was pretty much what I expected.”

“That sucks,” said Billy. “Sorry to hear that.”

“I’ll never forget it, man,” said Hero. “I
was out playing ball with Mark – this was before he got shot - and I lost a game, which meant I had to be the one to go home and get money for drinks. We always tried to stay away from home as much as possible, so we’d play to see who had to go home for shit that we needed. Neither of us ever wanted to deal with our mom. We were pretty much on our own, but she never wasted a chance to tell us that we lived in her house, or tell us to go buy her something to eat. Anyhow, I got home and saw a dude sitting on our couch. A fucking junkie if ever there was one, thin as a rail and no shirt on, fro sticking up in ten directions, hands shaking and big black bags under his eyes. He had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and when he talked it just hung there, like it was glued to his lip or something. He had ashy elbows, and sores around his mouth, and stank like fucking mustard. Swear to God, man, I never smelled nothing like it on a dude before, but that mother fucker smelled just like yellow mustard.”

Hero laughed and shook his head as he nervously played with his fingernails. “He saw me and started to laugh, real low and slow like; weird as hell. His eyes were slits, bloodshot and nasty.
And he had this grey crust on his right eye, like he never bothered to clean the sleep out of it, and it just turned black and gross and shit. He looked at me with a smirk, like he was judging me. He just said my name three times, real slow as he nodded. Levon. Levon. Levon. Then he shook his head, closed his eyes, and sat back in his seat.  I got the money and got the fuck out of there, thinking the guy was just another one of my mom’s shitty junkie friends. That night she told me he was my dad.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “That’s the only time I ever met him.”