“Works for me.”
The radio squawked. “Anything yet?” Dad asked. “Over.”
“All clear thus far,” Mike answered. “Gonna poke around a little more. Will advise, over.”
“Copy.”
We drove through empty streets, harsh hot winds sending streamers of dust over the sunbaked pavement. Aside from a few startled rabbits and one prowling, mangy coyote, we saw nothing. Finally, we turned down Main Street and drove past the Cimarron County Courthouse. I tapped Mike on the shoulder.
“Hold up, let’s stop here.”
“Why?”
“Looks like this place was the county seat. There might be info on what happened here.”
As I said it, I noticed a hastily erected sign built of plywood and four-by-fours standing in the brown grass in front of the courthouse. The nails supporting one side of the sign had given way, leaving the plywood message tilted at an angle, the wind banging it against a post. I said, “Look over there.”
Mike did, eyes squinting. “Can you tell what it says?”
“No. Get us closer.”
He did, jumping the curb and driving straight over the dead lawn. The Humvee slowed to a halt a few feet from the sign. The words were spray painted in black over bare wood. It read:
Infected coming. Town evacuated.
If you are reading this, leave now and head for Colorado Springs.
God be with us all.
“Well, nothing surprising there,” Mike said as he put the Humvee in reverse. “There’s abandoned cars here and a couple of gas stations. Let’s call the others in and get what we need.”
I stared at the sign a moment longer, a queasy feeling in my gut. “All right. I guess so.”
We drove back to the street and Mike radioed for the others to converge on our position. For reasons I did not understand at the time, I had a nearly overwhelming urge to slap the radio out of his hand and tell him to drive as fast as he could for the edge of town. Back then, I had not yet learned to trust my instincts. If I had, it would have save me a world of grief.
Dad and Blake rode to the courthouse in Blake’s Jeep, Sophia bringing up the rear in her father’s truck. Evidently, they had swapped out somewhere along the way. They stopped their vehicles in the opposite lane while Blake pulled up next to our Humvee and rolled down his window.
“Where should we start?” he asked.
“There’s enough cars around here we should be able to get what we need from the tanks,” Mike replied. “Mostly gas vehicles, but a few diesel trucks as well. We’ll stick together, it’ll make things go faster. You and me can fill the gerry cans while the others keep watch.”
Blake gave a single nod. “Sounds good to me.”
We drove a short distance up the street to where two SUVs were parked on the side of the road, one of them diesel driven. There were buildings on either side of us, two to three stories each. The only way out was a cross street ahead and the intersection of two streets behind. I looked back and forth between them from my position in the turret and felt my sense of unease begin to grow.
“Uh, guys? Maybe we should look somewhere else,” I said.
“What’s the problem?” Blake said as he forcefully jammed a Phillips head screwdriver into the diesel SUV’s fuel tank, jerked it free, and shoved a bucket beneath the draining liquid.
My eyes darted around nervously, my heart beating faster, an inexplicable desire to flee rising within me. “I don’t like this,” I said. “Something isn’t right.”
“Settle down,” Dad said, exiting Blake’s Jeep and scanning the street, rifle in hand. He had also affixed one of the grenade launchers under his M-4 and wore a bandolier of shells slung over his shoulder. “It’s just nerves. We’ll be out of here in no time.”
I looked to Sophia. “Why don’t you get in the Humvee? Just in case.”
She frowned at me. “Why are you being so paranoid?”
I hardened my tone. “Sophia, please.”
She rolled her eyes, said, “Fine,” and stepped out of her father’s truck.
The big gray pickup was parked behind the Humvee. Blake’s Jeep sat with the driver’s side door open and the engine idling ahead of us. My father walked along the sidewalk, rifle held at the low ready, eyes scanning the distance. Mike squatted next to Blake, another bucket in his hands ready to go when the one under the SUV was full.
I stayed in the turret as Sophia climbed in the Humvee. The alarm bells in my head refused to stop ringing despite all the rationalizations I threw their way. My eyes strayed to every window, doorway, corner, and alley. There were too many to monitor all at once. A few times, I thought I caught something, a shadow of movement beyond the light. But when I looked back, I saw nothing.
Then, on the third story of a multi-use office building up the street, I saw a curtain move. The M-240 made a squeaking sound as I swiveled it and took aim. “Guys! We have company.”
My father looked at me and followed my gaze to the office building. He held a hand over his eyes to block the sun. “What is it, son? I don’t see-”
A shot rang out. High caliber, not more than fifty meters away. We all jumped. Dad and Mike ran around the near side of the vehicles and took cover behind the engine blocks. Blake didn’t move.
“Blake!” I shouted. He looked down at his chest in shocked disbelief. As I watched, a red circle expanded on his back, straight in line with his heart, and began flowing downward. There was blood spatter on the fender of the car in front of him, an impossible amount. The surprise never left his face as he fell onto his back, arms limp. He stared at the sky blankly, all the light gone out of his eyes.
“YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!” I sprayed the wall of buildings across from us indiscriminately, triggering the SAW in short bursts, aiming at every window and doorway above the ground floor. Dad popped up over the front of Blake’s Jeep and fired a grenade. It blasted the third floor of a storefront half a block up the street and reduced a car-sized section of brick wall to rubble. I was pretty sure it was the same place the shot that killed Blake had come from. I poured a dozen or so rounds into the hole just for good measure and was rewarded with a chorus of screams.
“Come on, let’s get the fuck out of here!” Mike yelled. He ran for the Humvee, climbed in the driver’s seat, and started the engine.
I heard the phump of someone across the street triggering a grenade launcher, and had barely a second to register panic before Blake’s jeep erupted in an explosion of flame. The blast knocked me backward, my vision going white, then orange, then gray. A searing, scattered pain spread up the left side of my body from my hip all the way to my face.
There was a hollow pressure in my ears as hands gripped me and pulled me down into the Humvee. I think I was unconscious for a few moments. Then there was movement, and I remember groggily watching my father reload his grenade launcher and blast another section of storefront. Small clouds of dust erupted all around where he stood, holes appearing in the walls and concrete behind him. He ducked for cover and shouted something I couldn’t understand at Mike. The Humvee moved and stopped next to the Jeep. Sophia fired her carbine out the passenger’s side window as Mike climbed over me, grabbed the M-4 I had equipped with a grenade launcher, and plucked a couple of shells from my bandolier. I heard him stand up through the turret, launch the grenades, then take hold of the SAW and began concentrating bursts of fire at places where muzzle flashes gave away the positions of our attackers.
Dad jumped into the driver’s seat, tossed his rifle back to me, and put the Humvee in gear. I tried to catch his weapon as it flew toward me, but my hands were too slow. The barrel hit me across the mouth, and I felt my lip begin to swell. Finally, I wrapped my arms around it and was dimly aware of buildings passing us by as we sped through the streets.