Martina thought her friend would start crying, but Noreen’s eyes remained dry.
“Let’s finish up,” Martina said. “We’re closing in on noon. I’d hoped we’d be on the road for a couple hours by now, at least.”
“Have you decided which way we’re going?” Riley asked.
Martina nodded. “To the coast, I think. If Ben heads south, that’s the way he’d come.”
Ben spent one last night in the house he’d grown up in. Maybe he’d come back. Maybe he’d never see the place again. He wasn’t sure which he preferred. He just knew at that moment the place held nothing but memories of death and loss.
South was where he wanted to go. South to the desert, to Martina.
What happened after he found her, they could figure out together.
He loaded up his Jeep with supplies and clothes and camping gear. As he walked through the house for the last time, he considered grabbing photo albums and mementos, but, in the end, the only thing he took was a framed family picture of the five of them. It had been taken at a neighbor’s barbecue. Nothing fancy, just his mom and dad on one side of a wooden picnic table, and he and his sisters on the other. A quick “look at the camera and smile” kind of thing, but his mother had always loved the shot, had said more than once it was her favorite.
Climbing into his Jeep, he tucked the photo under the front seat and started the engine. He had to force himself not to look at the house again. If he did, he knew he would probably be sitting there all day. So he kept his eyes forward, shifted into gear, and pulled into the street.
Even though it had been days since he’d seen anyone else moving around, it was still surprising to be the only one driving down the freeway. Here and there he’d pass abandoned cars, most pulled over to the side, but a few left in the middle of lanes.
A straight drive to Ridgecrest would be, at most, an eight-hour trip, but he wasn’t going straight there. He needed to make a stop at his place in Santa Cruz.
As he moved out of the city and into the hills, he turned on his radio. Like always, it automatically synced with the phone in his pocket, and began playing the song it had left off with last. In this case, Green Day’s “American Idiot.” He dialed up the volume and blasted it. It was something he would have never done in the past, but who would care now?
Thirty minutes later, as he entered the city of Santa Cruz, the Arctic Monkeys gave way to Adele singing “Someone Like You.” The song was too maudlin for his current mindset, so he reached toward the radio, intending to skip to the next track.
His finger had barely touched the button when something darted into the upcoming intersection.
“Oh, crap!”
He slammed on the brakes, the tires squealing and the Jeep shimmying from the sudden deceleration. For half a second, he thought the back end was going to swing around and he’d flip over, but he was able to keep control and bring the vehicle to a stop.
Ten feet.
That was all that separated his front bumper from the large, brown horse that had run in front of him. Instead of continuing on its way, the animal stopped in the middle of the road, looking at him much like he was looking at it, as if neither could believe the sight of the other.
A bray, not from the horse in front of him, but from back the way the horse had come. A moment later a second horse and then a third ran into view, both nearly as big as the first. Behind them a fourth jogged out, this one clearly younger, half the size of the others. Dark gray halters were strapped around each of their heads and noses. The second horse had a dangling rope that looked like it had been cut so it wouldn’t drag on the ground.
The three joined the first on the street, and as a group they continued on.
Ben sat there, parked in the middle of the road, watching in near disbelief until they passed out of sight. Had their owner, knowing he or she was about to die, used a last bit of strength to let them go?
Ben suddenly realized there must be other horses trapped in stables and corrals, unable to get free and forage for themselves. Not just horses — goats and cattle and sheep. Dogs and cats, too, locked in backyards and houses. He had thought about nothing but his family and Martina since the outbreak had begun, hadn’t considered what had happened to all the animals that relied on humans to survive.
He looked around and saw several houses down the road the horses had come from. Were there animals in them? Should he check?
It was a Pandora’s box, he realized. Check one and he’d have to check the next and the next and the next. He made a pack with himself. Any home he came close to in the course of doing something else, he would open a door, or, if it was locked, bust out a window. If there was anything inside, it could then come out if it wanted to.
As the adrenaline that had coursed through him began to subside, he started to laugh.
A horse. He was the only driver on the road and he’d nearly run into a horse. That was not something that happened every day.
The apartment Ben rented was a small, one-bedroom place over the garage of a house about a mile from the university. His landlords, the Tanners, were a newly retired couple who had treated Ben like one of their family, often inviting him down for dinner.
As he pulled into the driveway, he wondered if they had survived. Probably not, but at least their bodies wouldn’t be inside the house. They had gone to their daughter’s place in Los Angeles for the holidays before all this had begun.
Instead of parking in his usual spot, he drove all the way up to the garage and pulled around the side where the stairs leading up to his place were located. The moment he shut off the engine, he was enveloped once more in the near silence that had taken over his world. The sound of leaves rustling in the trees, the squawk of a distant bird, but that was it.
He headed up the stairs, anxious to get back on the road. The main room of the apartment served as living room, dining room, and kitchen. A small bathroom was directly opposite the front door, and taking up the back half of the available space to the right was the bedroom.
He headed to the latter and went straight to his dresser. The item he’d come for was tucked in the bottom drawer. He moved a pile of sweaters to the side and pulled out the box. Palm-sized and only an inch thick, it was wrapped in red Christmas paper, with a white bow on top that was bigger than the box.
Martina’s Christmas present — a pair of small but brilliant diamond earrings. He’d spent over a week searching for just the right ones. They had cost him more than he had intended on spending, but they were perfect.
It was ridiculous, really, coming back here for this. He could have stopped at a hundred places on his way to Ridgecrest, and picked out something ten times as nice for free now. But he had chosen this, had paid for it himself. To him, that meant something more.
After he slipped the box into his jacket pocket, he grabbed his favorite sweater, a couple T-shirts, and his UC Santa Cruz hoodie before heading back outside. He stuffed everything into the duffel that had the most room, and was about to climb back into the driver’s seat when he remembered the promise he’d made not fifteen minutes earlier.
He looked down the driveway. The Tanners didn’t have any pets, so he didn’t need to worry about their place, but he knew some of the neighbors did.
Three houses in either direction and the ones directly across the street, that’s it, he told himself.
The people right next door had one of those small dogs, a Yorkie or something like that. It was a yappy thing that had kept Ben awake more than once. He went there first. The front door was locked, so he let himself into the backyard and tried the sliding glass back door. It was also locked. He found a gardening trowel and used the butt of the handle to smash the window.