Hollow Men (9 page)

Chapter Eight

The worst part of getting on the road was having to weave through the stalled cars and obvious carnage on the residential streets. The military and the local government kept crews out as often as possible to keep roads clear, but shit happens and sources were limited. So there were always things to see.

Trucks waylaid either by opportunists or hollows, cars simply broken down and abandoned. Always something.

The good news, they said, was that this was finite. This was not some zombie apocalypse where the illness would spread from bites or contact. The folks infected would be the only ones infected. They were limited, and they were being…dealt with. Once they were gone, they were gone.

Problem was no one had one-hundred percent pinpointed what happened. Beef had been taken off the market. People were encouraged—
ordered
—to dispose of canned or frozen beef in their stockpile or turn it over to military officers at collection points.

The question was, as time went by and hunger increased…would they? Food was touch and go at times, severely limited at others. People were prone to panic and disobeying rules.

We’d immediately dumped all canned beef, frozen beef, burgers and anything that included beef the moment they’d narrowed the outbreak down to processed beef. But as my father had reminded me, people, especially those who were stretching every dollar to make ends meet, were hesitant to throw out ‘good’ food. So some of the tainted stuff was probably simply tucked away hoping the news would change, and we’d find out beef was indeed safe.

A cluster of vehicles came into view. The way they were parked bringing to mind the phrase “circle the wagons”. “What’s that?” I asked, ripping my mind from the worrying.

“That’s an impromptu camp,” Evan said, piloting the bus down the narrow residential street. Heads poked out of trailers and vans. We raised a hand to show we were human and meant no harm. Two people raised a hand in response, a few watched us roll through and the rest just went back to what they were doing.

Hostility and fear were the overriding emotions these days.

It took us over an hour to drive the usual fifteen minute drive to the interstate. The closer we got the clearer the roads were. The interstate was needed for personal travel, military and government travel, and as always our commerce. But it was still scarier than it used to be. Military checkpoints, tanks rolling through, Jeeps full of armed soldiers. When we started toward 83 North one pulled abreast of us, and Evan gave him a short wave and a nod.

After a moment, the soldier returned the gesture, and they moved on past us.

“Man, talk about making me feel as if I’ve done something wrong when I haven’t!” I laughed, but it was just for show. My heart was lodged firmly in my throat.

“Yeah. Cop syndrome,” Evan said, pushing his speed up a little.

The freeway gave the illusion life was normal if you didn’t look too hard. People racing from the suburbs to their jobs. Some on cell phones—cell service was spotty now, but still worked. Only a few cell towers had been compromised, and in some areas it was too dangerous to try to send workers to service them. There were people carpooling—
safety in numbers
—and city workers on the road. Fire fighters in vans instead of big trucks, police officers, state police, metro police and sheriff’s cars. It was when you stopped to view how many patrol vehicles were present that it felt dangerous.

“Cop syndrome?” I asked, watching a van full of kids go by. They did not wave or preen in front of the windows the way kids often did. They stared straight ahead, hands in laps, eyes scanning.

Like soldiers on patrol…

“That guilty feeling you get when you see a cop even though you’ve done nothing wrong,” Evan said. He grinned at me, but I noticed his knuckles were white from gripping the oversized steering wheel.

“Oh, I get that,” I said. I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Can I get you anything? Can I help?”

He looked surprised, and that broke my heart. Was my nicety so shocking? Was my concern so stunning?

“I’m fine, El. Just…it’s crazy out here, and I’ve never driven a bus!”

“Me either or I’d offer to drive.”

“I figure we’ll go for about few hours. The drive to St. Albans where my family is should take us about eleven hours or so, but there are checkpoints, traffic, et cetera. If we bed down for the night—I should say
when
— we can start fresh in the early morning.

“Sounds good to me.” Being on the road had me uptight and anxious. I was jittery and trapped in an oversized tin can with about a million windows. There’s only so much you can do with a window and still see out of it. Big Xs of packing tape crossed the safety glass. A meager bit of reinforcement. “I’m going to go watch behind us. Just to be safe.”

The truth was I needed to put some distance between me and Evan. Being uprooted from my home was fucking with my head. It was hard to ignore the urge to wrap myself around him and let him hold me. Even when he was piloting a big-ass bus. Even when we were out in the open instead of secure in the safe room of my house.

We’d locked up tight. My hope being no one would fuck with my house. That no one would go in there and loot or destroy. That the good memories and feelings and healthy vibes that were created by it always being a place of love and welcome would remain untainted. And maybe one day I could return.

I doubted it, but I could hope.

I watched as the bus barreled north. Heading farther and farther away from where I called home. Putting more and more distance between me and the place that made me what I am.

* * * *

“Passports,” the guard said.

We were at Dogwood View Camp Ground, and I had a moment of panic thinking I had not brought my passport or my ID. You don’t need to prove who you are often when you hang out in your basement watching life go by on the closed-circuit system.

Evan nodded and dug his out. He glanced at me and seeing my panic, gave me a smile. “Back near the bags your dad and Mr. Peterson assembled. It’s in your pack. Front pocket. I triple checked before we left.”

My driver’s license would have worked, but the military preferred passports. I guess they were harder to counterfeit. Though I doubted hollows wander around with fake IDs in their pockets. They were usually too busy eating things.

I shivered, found the book and took it up front.

The guard looked them over, looked us over, then the bus. “Where y’all headed?”

“St. Albans, Vermont. Family there,” Evan said, sounding just as clipped and all business as the soldier.

“There are open spaces near the back with hookups that still work. Go down the main road. When you hit bath house three, you can choose a spot.” The man nodded. I say man, but he was really just a kid. Probably a few years younger than us. “You lucked out. They start to go fast once lunchtime sets in. People want to be off the road ASAP these days.”

I tried to smile at him. My stomach was in knots. My head ached. I didn’t want to stop, but I didn’t want to be on the road, either. He was right. We still had many, many hours of daylight left, but the later in the day it got, the more twitchy I felt.

“Wonder why that is,” Evan said, more to himself than the kid.

“Mostly because if you break down later in the day the cops are busy. They’re dealing with attacks in rural areas, wrecks and the like. So you’re more likely to be sitting there waiting for help. And it might not be help that finds you.”

Despite the heat of the sun, I felt goose bumps prickle along my skin. I cleared my throat. “Thanks, sir,” I said to hurry this along. “I think we’ll go hook up and get some food going. If you’re hungry, feel free to stop in and grab some. We have plenty.” I offered because I knew he wouldn’t.

He tipped his hat to me. “Much obliged, ma’am.” He leaned in closer to Evan. “But I wouldn’t go advertising that if you get me.”

“I get you,” Evan said and pulled away when the soldier gave him the go ahead.

“Do we even need a hook-up?” I asked.

He shrugged. “We certainly have stuff we can hook up. That toilet back there is chemical, but still, wouldn’t mind some coffee from a coffee pot in the morning. And the TV tonight. Why build a fire if you don’t have to?”

The thought of sitting in the open around a fire at night spooked me. This was not my safe room. This was not the secure little bunker my father had built. This was being on the road. This was…different.

I bit my tongue to sharpen my focus and keep my mind off my sudden panic. Who knew I’d become a shut-in, basically. Not me.

“You okay?”

I smiled. It felt stiff and fake as shit. “Fine.”

“You look beat.”

“That kitchen floor was not what I’d call comfy.”

“I hear ya.” He piloted the giant vehicle into a spot nearest the bath house. He put the bus in park and cut the engine. Only then did he let out a huge breath. He was as pent up as me.

“Shower? Food? Explore?”

I looked out the window. “No. I don’t want to explore. Or a shower yet. I do want to sleep,” I said. What I didn’t say was I wanted to sleep because I was sad. The more time that ticked passed, the sadder I felt.

It hurt my heart to think of the home I’d left. Even if it had been time to go, for safety sake.

“I’ll watch, and you sleep.”

“What about you?”

“I’m not tired. White-knuckling it for this long has left me uptight. I can flop down in that chair and read.”

My father or Mr. Peterson had bolted two big recliners to the floor near the makeshift bed. Being secure and on the go was one thing, but they were both men’s men. They needed comfort.

“You sure?”

“I am. I can think of nothing better than a cold soda from the cooler and some…” He perused a shelf of paperbacks with its bungee cord restraints. “Stephen King.”

I rolled my eyes. “Wow. That’s what you need in this day and age…shit to scare you.”

Evan grinned. “What can I say, I dig the King.”

I lowered the table and put the bed roll over it. There were sheets and blankets and pillows in the cabinet. I made it swiftly, relishing the smell of dust on them. It was a comfort smell to me, bringing to mind my dad’s supplies and camping. I also liked the smell of old books and men after they’ve been out in the cold. I’m not a roses and perfume kind of girl.

I flopped down and stared at him. He was already reading, his feet up in and his posture relaxed.

“What?” he asked, without looking up.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t even know I was going to say it.

His brown eyes found me. His look was direct…kind. “For what?”

“For yesterday. For being so harsh. For…all of it. I really don’t feel like explaining myself to anyone, not even you. But I know you didn’t deserve that, and I am sorry I was so…” I blew out a sigh. Then I laughed. “I’m sorry I was so much myself.”

“I wouldn’t want you to be anyone else, El,” he said, returning his gaze to the book. “And it’s fine. But I need you to know how I feel. About you. About all of this. About us.”

There can’t be an us.

I left it unsaid. I rolled on my side, so my back was facing him and pulled a blanket over myself. I put a pillow over my face to block the light. I just needed a little nap.

It felt as if no time at all went by before gunshots woke me.

Chapter Nine

“Stay down.” Evan didn’t just say it. He had planted a hand on my back and was holding me flush to the bed.

“Let me up.” Panic flared through me.

“Wait, Eleanor.” His voice held no room for argument. I turned my head as far as I could to see him as he stared out one of the bus’s many windows.

I blew out a breath and tried to focus on not freaking out. If he was holding me down, it was for a reason. By the way he crouched over me, keeping his body low and mostly below the sight line through the windows, he was worried for both of us.

Another gunshot and I felt him flinch. “Shh,” he said, though I’d said nothing at all.

People were shouting. Someone was wailing. I had to pee. A hell of a time to realize that because the anxiety produced by the situation just made it worse.

The hand on my back lightened a little. I didn’t try to sit up, though. I waited, now a little calmer, and focused on my breathing and trying to slow the rapid-fire beating of my heart.

“What is it?” I whispered.

I realized the sky was growing purple. It was dusk. I’d slept for hours.

“I’m not sure.”

“Why’d you let me sleep so long?” I hissed, fixating on something less frightening than gunshots at a campground.

He laughed softly. “Yeah, sorry about that, guess I was more tired than I thought. I dozed off too. That chair is pretty comfortable. No wonder your pop wanted to make sure he had it.”

His hand came off my back, and Evan sat back on his haunches. “I think we’re good.”

I heard the feedback whistle and pop of a bullhorn and then: “The situation is under control, folks. There will be an update by bathhouse two in ten minutes. Please watch your surroundings, check on your neighbors and contact a soldier with any problems or suspicions.” A murmuring could be heard even in the bus. Then: “Please proceed in an orderly fashion. Please do not panic. Chaos will not be tolerated.”

I sat up, finally. Evan looked me over and suddenly grabbed my face in his hands, pulled me in and kissed me. I kissed him back, caught up in the moment and flooded with enough adrenaline to feel that relieved show of affection all the way through my body. It glowed in my chest, shimmered through my belly, settled in my pussy.

I pulled back, gasping for air. “I have dog breath!”

“My dog breath cancels yours out,” he said, grinning.

The fear that had been stamped all over his handsome features was fading. “I’m sorry. I’m just glad you’re okay. Let’s call that kiss a celebration of life.”