Earth's Survivors Apocalypse (20 page)

As soon as he shot the first one, the second would be up and on him. He looked from one to the other, lowered the gun and shot the first one in the head.

The woman screamed as he turned, a high piercing sound that distracted him for the briefest of seconds. She began to come up off the floor, her eyes wild, her hands fumbling with her pistol, and he nearly let her get him. He became so distracted that she was very close to having him before he finally pulled the trigger and shot her.

The first shot took her in the chest and flung her back like a rag doll. But that was all it did.

Body armor, Adam thought as he stepped back quickly. She was scrabbling for her gun where it had been flung from her hand as Adam stepped into her path and pushed the pistol into her head, squeezing the trigger as he did. She flew back this time and didn't rise again. She slid down the wall, her eyes seeming to accuse him as she did.

Adam stood for a second, his breaths coming in long, ragged pulls. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, then turned and went back to the stairwell. His concern was whether he should leave the door open or closed. Open and they might get in, closed and he would have to smash the handle set off himself when he got back so that he could get inside. And that made him wonder if he
would
be back. If he would find her, take care of her, and then make it back to here. He had no way to know.

A minute later he kicked the board from the propped open door, and stepped back into the lobby. It closed with a solid steel clunk. If he came back, he would have to bring an ax with him to break in. Better that than leave it open for the gangs if he didn't make it back before nightfall, or if they came looking in the daylight. It was the only safe place he had. He walked across the lobby and stepped out onto the cracked city sidewalk.

He walked a short distance north before he found a stalled delivery truck at the curb. The keys dangled from the switch. The shattered driver's side window and the blood smeared down the door told the story of what had happened to the driver. Scattered sheets, towels and uniforms had tumbled from the shelves and fallen into the aisle of the truck when the driver had driven it into the curb, but there was no one lurking in the back of the truck.

The battery was flat. He pushed the truck a few hundred yards before he came to a long slow downgrade. He jumped in, put the truck in second gear, and then popped the clutch out a few seconds later. The motor roared to life. The transmission whined, the truck jerking and bucking, throwing him against the dashboard. A second later he downshifted into first and began to wind his way around the traffic that clogged the intersection at the bottom of the short hill. He began looking for her, convinced that he would find her, be lead to her somehow.

Oswego NY: Mike and Candace

Late Morning

They spent the morning scouring the store for useful items. After they had loaded the Jeeps, they had left the abandoned shopping center and began to work their way through the seemingly empty city, when they reached the first bridge they were forced to stop.

The bridge was still standing, that was not the problem. The problem was that it was packed bumper to bumper with wrecked and burned out cars and trucks. A large city bus also sat within the wreckage. Dave and Mike scrambled over the cars to see what had caused the huge accident.

At first it seemed that the wreckage went on forever. But as they neared the second bridge the problem became apparent.

The bridge, or more properly put, the twisted steel girders and huge chunks of concrete that had been the bridge, lay at the bottom of a deep gorge, partially submerged in the water. Reluctantly they scrambled back over the cars to tell the others that were waiting.

“Think we could move them?” John asked, as Mike and Dave returned. “I saw a wrecker back up the highway a bit; we could go back and get it.”

“Wouldn't do any good,” Mike said his voice somber. “The second bridge is nearly gone. Even if it weren't, I don't see this one standing much longer either. We took a look at the underside from the other bridge, and a couple of the pilings are cracked pretty badly. I wouldn't trust it. There is another bridge though, looks like only a couple of blocks over. It's still up, but I can't tell from here whether it has traffic on it, the sides are enclosed.”

“Which way, Mike?” Bob asked.

“Looked like down a little way,” Mike said, pointing back the way they had come. “Take the next right, and it should be only a couple of blocks away.”

“Well,” Candace said, trying to sound positive, “let’s go find out.”

They piled back into the Jeeps, and after some careful maneuvering, managed to turn them around and head back the way they had come. Mike made the next right and started down the street, while Bob and John, as well as Candace, watched for a bridge on the side Streets that bisected the one they were on. Mike had just slowed to cross a set of rail road tracks, when Candace suddenly yelled out.

“There!” she shouted, pointing down the tracks.

Mike looked in the direction she had pointed, which happened to be down the tracks.

“Shit, that figures,” he said, “a rail road trestle.”

The trestle was a newer one, and the sides were enclosed steel with concrete reinforcements. Probably why I didn't realize it was a train trestle, he thought, and then said aloud. “Well that blows that, but there ought to be other bridges. This can't be the only one.”

“Actually,” Bob said, from behind him, “it ain't necessarily bad news.”

“What do you mean?” Mike said, staring back down the tracks at the bridge.

“Well, just what I said. It's still a bridge ain't it? It's not a rickety old wooden one either, solid steel and concrete, it'll hold us, and it does cross the river right?”

Mike looked at the bridge doubtfully. “I suppose so, but... You think we could fit across it?”

“I've seen cars and trucks both on trains,” Candace exclaimed, “they would have to fit, or else how could they carry them on the trains without smashing the hell out of them?”

“Good point,” Bob said, “how about you park this buggy, Mike, and we go take a look at the bridge.”

The other two Jeeps parked, and all of them walked off down the tracks to look the bridge over.

The wooden ties, and the tracks that lay upon them, were well supported. Heavy steel girders ran the length of the bridge, and were supported by massive concrete pilings sunk into the river bed far below. Mike peered down through the ties at the concrete. It was cracked in a few places, but all the pilings seemed still to be firmly anchored in the river bed. “Do you really think it would hold us?” he asked.

“If it will hold a train, Mike, it will hold us,” Bob replied.

“I mean the cracks, wise ass,” Mike said. “The pilings are cracked. They seem to still be solid, but... I don't know,” he finished lamely.

“Tell you what. You drive one, and John and I will drive the other two. Everybody else can walk across. I'll go first even. If it looks the least bit shaky we call it off, and search for something else, okay?” Bob argued.

Mike thought for a moment before he replied. It might be a good idea after all. Where else were they likely to find a bridge that wasn't blocked off with traffic? The bridge did seem solid, and it couldn't hurt to try he supposed.

“Okay, but I'll start out. You watch, and you damn well better let me know real quick if she starts to go. I'll be pretty pissed if you dump me and my new truck in the river,” Mike finished, smiling widely.

“Wouldn't think of it,” Bob said, solemnly.

“See you on the other side,” Candace said, and before Mike could reply she quickly kissed him. “For luck,” she said, a bit breathless. She turned and along with the others started walking across the bridge.

Mike watched her go. The kiss had taken him by surprise.

“Ah, Mike,” Bob said grinning, “better close your mouth before the bugs start flying in.” Mike closed his mouth with a snap, and looking a bit embarrassed, walked off towards the Jeep.

John threw Bob a wink, and they both walked out onto the bridge to wait. Mike started the Jeep, backed around, and drove slowly over the ties towards the bridge, straddling the rails as he went, and he was still thinking of the kiss as he edged slowly out onto the bridge. He looked across and saw Candace waving from the other side. He waved back and then brought his attention back to the truck.

“How's she look, Bob,” he asked out the open window, as he inched cautiously out onto the trestle.

“You might scratch the paint a little, but the deck didn't budge a bit when you eased on to her,” Bob replied. “I don't think they brought too many auto-carriers across this deck though, more like freight cars. You only got a couple of inches on either side.”

“Well here goes nothing,” he muttered under his breath as he moved further out onto the bridge. “Still okay?” he asked.

“Good as gold,” Bob replied. Mike was not entirely blocking the bridge, and Bob and John squeezed by on one side of the truck. “We'll be behind you,” Bob said, as he paused at Mike's window. “I'll wait until you're off, and John will wait until I'm off.” Bob looked at both men as they nodded their heads.

“Let’s do it,” Mike said.

He eased off the gas and let the Jeep idle its way across the bridge. When he reached the other side he angled off the tracks, parked, and walked back to the bridge. He stood quietly beside Candace and watched until the other two Jeeps were across. As he stood next to her, he noticed how much more aware of her he was. Funny what a little kiss can do, he thought. In fact, he noticed, she seemed to be a little flushed, and with that thought, Mike began to wonder just exactly what the kiss had meant.

Harlem River: Tosh

Near Midnight

She opened her eyes. The moon was high in the sky. A silver, blue-tinged orb. A glow rose up to meet it, brighter than the moonlight. She lay quietly and watched it for some time, content to watch it move slowly across the sky - at least for the time being.

It occurred to her, after some time, that the man who had shot her - she recalled that now, lying here in the quiet night; one of the men had shot her when they were through with her... after they had
raped
her... he had bent over her and shot her... - but, the man that shot her must have done a bad job of it. Must have missed her completely, or skinned her, as they used to say when they were kids. Or a flesh wound. She had heard that used in countless movies on television.

“Bobby! ... Bobby, are you shot bad? Are you?”

“Naw, John. Naw. It's only a flesh wound. A flesh wound is all.”

Who hadn't heard that in a movie before, she asked herself. And she had grown up in the projects. She had seen people get shot and live through it, even get shot in the head and live through it. And she had not been shot in the head, she remembered that.

She tensed for the pain and then sat up all at once. Pain, but it wasn't so terrible that she couldn't handle it. The moonlight was bright, but at the street level she was laying in shadows. She gazed down at her chest. Her shirt was plastered to her chest with dried blood. She sucked in a breath and heard the whistle from the hole in her chest and the pain spiked higher. She groaned and went to one knee. She wondered if she could make it back to the apartment and Adam. Maybe... Maybe...

She watched as blood dribbled to the pavement from the hole in her chest. It baffled her because the blood on her shirt was dry, and no way could the blood be dry. Why... why the man had just shot her a few minuets ago. She had left the apartment and...

She couldn't make it all come back. She had left to keep Adam safe. To stop him from taking care of her, having to do that, maybe getting caught by the gangs as he did. It had seemed a crazy thought, but the longer she had thought of it, the less crazy it had seemed. The more it seemed to make sense to her.

They had come at her down by the river, three blocks... four blocks from the apartment. Surely it had been no more than that. Her heart had begun to skip and beat irregularly. She had hoped she could make the river. She thought if she could throw herself in, it might work, but it was clear she wasn't going to make it. She had stumbled into an alley, slumped against the wall, pulled the pistol Adam had gotten for her from her pocket, and slipped the barrel into her mouth.

The taste of the steel, and the coldness of the barrel had made her gag, and that had been her mistake. She had not seen them when she stumbled into the alley. As soon as the gun left her mouth, one of them, the same one who had ended up shooting her -
shooting her with her own gun as a matter of fact -
had stepped from the shadows and snatched the gun from her hands. The others had surged forward then. They had dragged her deeper into the shadows and taken her.

She stared up at the full bloated moon hanging directly overhead. Except it had been early evening, and now it was not early evening. The moon did not hang in the middle of the sky during the early evening. She touched her chest, felt across the swell of her breast and found the bullet hole.

A big bullet hole. A scary bullet hole. She tried to suck in a deeper breath and panicked when her vision started to dim. Not being able to breath was not possible. People could not live if they could not breath. The panic rose fast and hot, bright in her thoughts.