“There!” he shouted, pointing in the direction of the Archers.
She saw it — a police car, its lights spinning and siren shrieking, parked in front of the warehouse store.
“I see it.”
She nosed the Jeep into the strip mall, sticking to the looping driveway to avoid the cars parked in front of the Walmart. As she neared the Archers, the traffic lessened and she was able to leave the driveway and cut across the parking lot. She came to a stop by the police car parked across the No Parking lanes in front of the store.
Kate put the Jeep in park but didn’t get out or turn off the engine. She looked over at Luke, who had reached for the lever on his door. “Wait.”
He froze. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. But just wait a moment.”
He took his hand off the lever and sat back in his seat. He stared forward with Kate. At the police car, and the Archers behind it. They could see through the glass windows and doors and into the store beyond. Clothing racks and gym equipment. In the sunlight, it looked inviting and open and homely.
And empty.
She couldn’t see signs of people inside, and that worried her. With the siren on and the lights spinning, there should be people here. Other survivors lured over, the way she and Luke had been. She remembered the gunshots from last night. Were they from the same people?
“Are we going to just sit here all day?” Luke asked.
“Where is everyone? Where are the guys who turned on the siren? They should be here.”
“Maybe they’re inside.”
He was probably right. The noise of the siren would have prevented anyone inside from hearing their approach. No one was coming out to greet them, because no one knew they were there.
It all made sense, but it also did nothing to comfort her.
“Okay,” she said finally. “Let’s stay as close to the Jeep as possible, just in case.”
“Just in case,” Luke repeated.
She left the Jeep running (just in case), opened her door, and stepped outside. Luke followed suit, but she detected a little hesitancy in the way he opened the door. She glanced back at the machete lying between their seats where she had left it, but thought better of it. One person with a sword was enough. Two might give the wrong impression.
“We’re being watched,” Luke said.
He pointed up at the roof, where a man stood at the edge with a rifle. It looked like a military rifle, the kind Kate had seen soldiers carry in news reports on Afghanistan. The man wore cargo pants, T-shirt, and some kind of assault vest. Stray blond hair stuck out from underneath a wool cap. She was relieved he wasn’t pointing the rifle at them, but kept it aimed at the sky in a non-threatening manner.
Luke’s sword against a rifle. I wonder who’d win?
The man waved down to them. She looked across at Luke, who looked as relieved as she was. She shrugged, and they both waved back.
It was all so absurd. The two of them standing by the Jeep, Luke with his sword, waving back at a stranger with a rifle standing on the roof of a store.
She looked back down at the store’s front doors as another man in similar dress stepped outside. He had a shotgun at his side and wore a gun belt around his waist, a holstered gun on his right hip and a knife, which actually looked more like a cross, in a sheath on his left leg. Short brown hair blew in the breeze.
He walked over to the squad car, leaned inside, and turned off the siren. Blessed silence.
The man walked around the hood of the police car toward them. He had an easy smile. Closer, he was handsome. Tall, like the one on the roof, with a confident gait that was dangerously close to swagger. He had soft brown eyes and some kind of black plastic band wrapped around his throat. A wire ran up to his right ear, where an earbud dangled, and another wire connected to a radio clipped to the front of the assault vest.
“Nice katana,” the man said to Luke.
Luke glanced down at the sword, gripped tightly in his hands. “Thanks. Nice shotgun.”
“It has its moments.” The man looked over at Kate. “My name’s Will. The guy on the roof is Danny.”
She gazed up at Danny, already looking through binoculars at the street beyond.
She turned back to Will. “I’m Kate. This is Luke.”
“We’ve been chasing your siren since yesterday,” Luke said.
“Danny’s idea,” Will said. “You guys hungry?”
“Depends,” she said. “Is it jalapeno flavored?”
He gave her a quizzical look. “No.”
“Thank God,” she said.
The black band around his neck was a throat mic, the wire connected to a receiver in his ear, and a Velcro strap held the radio in. The gear ran on batteries, which allowed them to communicate even with the rest of the city blacked out.
Luke said, “You got anymore of those?”
“Couple,” Will said. “I’ll grab you one.”
“Thanks. You guys cops or something?”
“We were SWAT before all of this.”
“Cool.”
“Are you two the only ones left of the police?” she asked.
“Pretty much,” Will said. “We barely got out alive ourselves.”
He led them through the aisles, passing racks of clothing, hats, and sports gear. She resisted the temptation to run off and look for clothes to replace the second-hand shirt and pants from the pawnshop.
“Do you know what happened?” she asked. “Why this is happening?”
“We know as much as you do,” Will said. “We rolled out to this building the morning it went down. After that, it was run and fight and try to stay alive. Sorry. I know that’s not what you were hoping to hear.”
“Is this it? Everyone who survived?”
“Everyone we’ve managed to find so far.”
“What about Uncle Sam?” Luke asked.
Will shook his head. “We haven’t been able to reach anyone in the state government, much less the federal government.”
“So it’s not just here, it’s everywhere,” she said.
“Seems that way,” Will nodded.
Will led them to the back, where clothing racks had been pushed aside to make room for a small circle of camping gear and tents. A little girl looked up from the floor where she was lying on her stomach, coloring in a book. She had large blue eyes and blonde hair and reminded Kate of a cartoon come to life.
“How’s it hanging, Vera?” Will asked the girl.
“It’s hanging,” the girl said, returning her attention to her coloring book.
“That’s Vera,” he said to Luke and Kate.
A young woman came out of a tent next to Vera. Despite the baggy hunting clothes, she was pretty, with a shock of red hair and brown eyes. She walked over with her hand outstretched. “Let me guess — the police siren? Us, too. I’m Carly.”
Kate shook her hand. “Kate. This is Luke.”
“Hey, Luke.”
“Hey,” he said. Kate thought he might have stuttered a bit (?).
“You guys hungry?” Carly asked.
“Famished,” Kate said.
“Come on, we liberated some tacos from the Taco Bell across the street earlier. Might as well eat as many as we can before everything goes bad.” She glanced down at Vera. “You wanna come?”
Vera shook her head.
“I’ll bring you a couple, okay?”
Vera nodded, but was already back at work coloring in Dora’s rain boots.
“Come on,” Carly said to them.
“You guys go ahead,” Will said, “I’ll be on the rooftop with Danny.”