“I promise it’s only me.”
“It’s all right, Curran,” said Arie. “You’re fine, Ashe. You gave us a jolt, though.”
She stepped forward, hands still lifted. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I knew I’d startle you, but I had to try.”
Talus calmed immediately and trotted forward to sniff at Ashe’s shoes and pants.
“All our sneaking around to hide our camp did a lot of good, apparently,” said Renna.
“I’m sorry about that,” said Ashe. “When you were all busy digging clams, Clyde sent Novalee out here to look for your home base.
Ashe lowered her hands and patted Talus’s big back. “I only have a few seconds,” she said. “Clyde thinks I’m taking a squat in the dunes. If I’m not back in the RV soon, this’ll be the first place he comes looking.” Her voice was rushed and breathy, almost as if she were on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Something tells me we’d hear him coming from a way off,” said Arie. “He hardly seems like the sneaking-up sort.”
“You don’t want him here,” she said. “He’s cautious for now because you have the gun. And a couple of men.” She knelt near the fire so that her broad forehead picked up the light.
“Listen,” she continued, “you can’t hook up with Clyde. Believe me, there’s nothing to consider—not a single upside, no matter what crap he blows about strength in numbers. There are three things he really wants from you. He wants to get his hands on the gun. He wants whatever food you might be carrying.” She hesitated, then looked at Renna. “And he wants you.”
Renna’s head jerked up. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I think you can guess,” said Ashe.
“He’s gotten a taste for acquisition,” said Arie.
“Yes.”
“If you know how he is, why are you with him?” asked Renna.
Ashe leveled her gaze across the fire at Renna. “I have unfinished business with the son of a bitch.”
She told them a story, the words tumbling out in a rush, about the first killing days of the Pretty Pox—for so she’d heard the illness described on the news.
Nine people had taken shelter at the car dealership: Clyde and his wife Bess; Danelle, her husband Steve, and daughter Novalee; two single guys whose names she couldn’t remember. Ashe and her husband Seth had joined them at the last minute. Danelle was Clyde’s bookkeeper and Seth did specialty bodywork at the lot. It was only a matter of hours before Bess, Steve, and the two single guys (one a part-time salesman and one a lot lizard who did low-level detailing) had succumbed to the illness.
“It was horrifying,” she said quietly. “We put them on the floor in Clyde’s office. It was too nuts outside to do anything else.” Curran and Renna, who’d seen the world unravel on television and the internet, nodded grimly.
“On day three,” she said, “none of the rest of us was sick, but it was a shit show outside. The entire building seemed like nothing but plate-glass windows.” She waved a hand in front of her face as if erasing the words. “That’s not true, obviously—it wasn’t all windows. But with the craziness in the streets, it felt that way. A fishbowl, like we were sitting ducks. That’s when Clyde suggested the rest of us load into the two RVs he had on the lot and get out of town.”
They waited until deep into the night, three or four in the morning. The street wasn’t silent, but it was about as quiet as it had been for the past forty-eight hours. They gathered everything they could find that seemed portable and usefuclass="underline" two flashlights, a pathetic collection of snacks gleaned from every desk drawer and break room cupboard, stray sweaters and jackets left by former customers and now-dead employees. Seth raided his stall for the propane torch, an untapped canister of fuel, coveralls, rubber gloves, and a respirator. At the last minute, Danelle remembered the first-aid kit hanging by the coffee machine and Clyde grabbed a fire extinguisher.
Once everyone had an armload of goods, Clyde unlocked the side door. It let out onto a narrow driveway that ran the length of the building and was invisible from the street. He had the keys to one RV, Seth to the other. They ran to the vehicles and jumped aboard. Ashe was sure that either or both of them would fail to start, but for a wonder they both did. A moment later, they were moving, making their way out of Eureka, ostensibly to parts north.
Things began to sour within twenty-four hours. They were simply too ill-equipped. Clyde wasn’t keen on driving at night, reasoning it would be too easy in the dark to end up snarled in one of the myriad vehicles abandoned or wrecked along the highway. So they drove only five miles outside the city limits that first night, pulling off into a pot-holed parking lot next to the ruins of a long-defunct drive-in theater. The idea was to hit the road again at first light, but before they could even set out, Clyde was complaining there wasn’t enough food. Ashe and Seth argued for getting distance behind them while it was early, but Clyde would have none of it. Before they could truly get under way, he reasoned, they’d need to find provisions.
“For a week it went like that,” said Ashe. “Finding food was the prime directive. We were only finding small amounts at any one place, and every time we pulled over there was an overwhelming feeling that someone was going to come out of the woodwork and stop us, steal the RVs. But like I said, it was a shit show.”
The longer they fiddled around, the more tense things got between Clyde and Seth. Danelle and Novalee, traveling with Clyde, got quieter and quieter. Whatever Clyde said, Danelle went along, with Novalee clinging to her like a limpet.
“I was almost positive Clyde was sleeping with Danelle. I mean, they’re adults and all that, but Novalee had just lost her dad, and the idea they were doing it in the RV with Danelle’s teenage daughter practically within arm’s reach was nauseating. Seth and I started talking about leaving, just hauling ass after dark some night.” She shook her head. “But I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Novalee like that.”
“You’re a lifeguard,” murmured Arie. “Aren’t you, Ashe.” It wasn’t a question.
Ashe cleared her throat, once, twice. She swiped a sleeve across her eyes, almost angrily.
One morning, after ten days of almost zero progress either finding food or making miles, Clyde and Seth went on a run, leaving the women together in the transit van. After two hours, Ashe got uncomfortable. After four, she was worried sick. She walked out to the edge of the road over and over, as if scanning for the other RV would make it magically appear.
Finally, almost five hours after they’d left, all three of them heard someone approaching on foot. Danelle hid Novalee in the tiny bathroom cubicle. She and Ashe armed themselves—Danelle with a screwdriver and Ashe with a heavy flashlight. The footsteps were coming straight for the transit van without the least hesitation. Ashe pulled the edge of a curtain aside to peer out and nearly dropped the flashlight in relief when she saw it was Clyde.
But Seth wasn’t with him.
“This was the accident Clyde mentioned,” said Renna.
“It was a fire,” said Ashe. “Clyde said he thought it was a malfunction in the refrigerator. He said they’d decided to split up and forage separately, and when he got back the RV was fully engulfed. He couldn’t get inside because of the flames, but he thought Seth had somehow gotten stuck inside.
“That’s where we found him when we got there.” She wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, breathing heavily. “Everything about that scene was wrong. Seth’s body was between the two captain’s chairs, sprawled out like he was going for the door. He was dark, covered with soot, but not…” She took a deep breath. “Not burned. You could see it was him. What I saw was blood on the back of his head. I saw that. And I saw the whole front part of the RV was blackened, but more or less intact. The middle of the cabin and the bedroom space in back were seriously gone—I mean, the roof and everything, melted. Gone. But up where Sean was lying? No. Up there he had an easy path to the door.”