Dutchie’s growling woke me. I startled awake, sitting bolt upright and blinking against the darkness. Only it wasn’t completely dark, as the pillar candle still burned bravely in its dish on the coffee table. Thank God for that, because the dog was sitting in front of the door, teeth bared in a snarl, a deep, bone-rattling growl rumbling within her throat.
Without thinking, I pushed back the blankets that covered me and grabbed the shotgun. Yes, the .357 had great stopping power, but I knew anything I hit with that shotgun would go down and stay down. Well, except for the parts that got splattered on any nearby walls. And if I did somehow manage to miss, that Remington would make a pretty decent club.
My heart was hammering away in my chest, but I made myself go to the peephole in the front door and attempt to peer out. Fat lot of good that did — the night outside was pitch black, with not a hint of a moon. I couldn’t even see the rose of Sharon bushes on either side of the doorway.
But the whole time Dutchie didn’t stop growling, although as I backed away from the door, shotgun still clenched in my right hand, she moved as well, padding toward the back of the house.
Great. The front door was much bigger and heavier than the back door. Anyone sufficiently motivated could kick in the door off the service porch.
I had a feeling that if he was still ambulatory, Chris Bowman would be feeling really motivated right around now. Maybe I was just being paranoid, since I had no idea how he could have even found me. We weren’t exactly what you could call listed in the phone book; cops tended to be circumspect about that sort of thing. Then again, Chris seemed like the type who might have mastered the finer points of hacking into secure databases, and considering his apparent obsession with me….
Shit.
Dutchie trotted ahead of me. Her ears were up, nose pointed directly toward the service porch at the rear of the kitchen. And that was when I heard it, too — a faint scratching noise coming from the back door. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it was one of the other neighborhood dogs trying to get in. But after seeing that whole “peaceable kingdom” bit at the PetSmart up in Sandia Heights, I knew Dutchie wouldn’t be growling like that if it was simply another dog on the other side of that door.
I’d already loaded the shotgun before I lay down to sleep, so all I had to do was pump it to bring a shell into the chamber. Even though I could feel my heart still wailing away in my chest, I managed to call out in what sounded like a reasonably steady voice, “Whoever that is, back away. I’m armed, and I will not hesitate to shoot.”
There. My father would’ve been proud, if he’d been around to hear that.
No reply, of course. Dutchie sat down on her haunches, then looked up at me and gave a questioning whine. It seemed obvious she thought she’d done her job in warning me that something was out there, and now it was my turn to do something about it.
Not unreasonable of her, but no way was I going to reach out and open that door. If I had to stay here all night with the shotgun pointed at the back entrance to the house, I would.
That odd scratching noise started up again. I gritted my teeth, wondering if I should send off a warning shot. But all that would do was mess up the back door, and what if that scratching noise was coming from an ambitious rat or something? I’d look like an idiot, and worse, I would’ve completely compromised my home’s security.
I dragged out the step stool and sat down on it, shotgun still pointed toward the back door. Dutchie stayed where she was, although she did send me an inquiring look over one shoulder. I shook my head at her, and she settled down in a sphinx-like position, still at attention, snout in a direct line with the doorknob. In that moment, I wondered whether I should even be trusting Dutchie’s instincts. Obviously, she was a very good dog, but she wasn’t my dog. I didn’t know if she was a great watch dog or the type to go off half-cocked at every random sound. Yes, there was something outside, but it didn’t necessarily have to be anything threatening. For all I knew, it could have been a branch from the willow bush just outside the back stoop scratching on the doorframe or something.
But then the door creaked open, and my breath caught in my throat. Standing there was Chris Bowman, face puffed and bruised, pale eyes glaring at me. Something glinted in one hand, reflecting the faint light from the jar candle I’d left lit in the kitchen.
Lock picks. Son of a bitch. Trust a maladjusted bastard like Chris the Creep to know how to pick locks.
Slowly, I got to my feet, the gun still trained on him. “Get out, Chris.”
His eyes were still fixed on my face, as if he hadn’t even registered the Remington pump-action shotgun in my hands. “No. We’re the only survivors. We’re meant to be together.”
My finger was resting on the trigger. Just the slightest squeeze, and he’d be splatter on the doorframe. Could I kill someone, though, just like that? Before, when I’d thrown the rock at his head, I’d only meant to slow him down, to give myself enough time to get safely away. The shotgun was an entirely different story.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Chris,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady, just as I willed my hands not to shake as I gripped the shotgun. “The two of us being immune? It’s just an accident of biology. It doesn’t mean anything. So please, go back home.”
For the first time, he glanced away from my eyes, down at the gun I held. A look of almost comical confusion passed over his puffy features. “But I want you.”
My stomach twisted, and right then I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything more than that bread and jelly sandwich a few hours earlier…or whenever it had been. I wasn’t wearing a watch, and of course the digital clocks on the appliances in the kitchen had died along with everything else when the power went out.
“But I don’t want you, Chris,” I said, and right then my voice did contain a betraying tremor that I hated, although I couldn’t do anything about it. “I told you, I don’t want to hurt you. But I will. My dad was a cop, and he taught me how to use this. And I will.”
During this little speech, Chris’s eyes grew narrower and narrower, as if he was finally processing my rejection of him. His lip curled, and he said, “You don’t have the guts,” right before he lunged at me.
Without thinking, I let my finger jerk on the trigger. At the same time, it was as if a powerful hand had grasped the barrel, pointing it away from Chris so all I did was blow a hole in the ceiling, destroying the combination light/fan fixture there and raining drywall everywhere. I blinked, sure the creep was going to come after me, now that I’d missed so heinously, but instead something seemed to grab him by the neck, squeezing so his eyes began to bulge and his feet scrabbled helplessly against the linoleum of the laundry room floor.
A few gurgling moans came from his throat, and then once again he was flung away from me, this time with so much force that he flew across the backyard, hitting the corner of the garage before tumbling in a heap into the irises that still half-heartedly grew there. Shaking, I tightened my hold on the shotgun and started down the back steps toward him, only to hear the voice say,
Stop, Jessica. There is no need.
I paused on the bottom stair. “That — that was you?”
Yes.
“And he’s — ”
Yes. I did what I should have done back at your aunt and uncle’s house.
My breath seemed to go out of me in a whoosh, and I found myself sitting down hard on the step, the concrete cold even through my jeans. Thank God at least I’d gone to bed fully dressed, except for my hiking boots. I looked over at the gun I still held.
“I wouldn’t have missed, would I?”
No. You would have killed him, had I not pushed the gun away. I did not want that on your conscience.
So…a being who would go out of his way to protect me, but didn’t think twice about killing someone else. Not that Chris Bowman was exactly a wonderful specimen of humanity, one worth saving.
“Are you an angel?” I asked abruptly.
Another of those low chuckles. Hardly. But you are safe now, so you should go back inside and try to sleep.
“You seriously expect me to sleep after that?”
Yes. You are safe now. No one else knows of your presence in this house. You can sleep here, and then leave tomorrow morning.
I knew I’d exhausted all my arguments. After pushing myself to my feet, I glanced over toward where Chris Bowman’s body lay, twisted and limp in the ruin of what was once my mother’s prized bed of irises.
I will take care of that. Go to sleep, Jessica.
Bowing my head, I nodded, then went back inside and locked the door. Even though the voice had told me I was safe, I still took the step stool and wedged it up under the knob of the back door. Maybe it was a foolish gesture, but it made me feel a little bit better.
Dutchie looked up at me and wagged her tail, teeth showing in a doggy smile. “Okay,” I said. “You get a treat for the warning.” I got out a dog biscuit and gave it to her before heading back to my makeshift bed on the living room couch, where I leaned the shotgun up against the sofa’s arm once more. Maybe I wouldn’t need it, but I knew I’d sleep better if it was there.
Assuming I slept at all, of course.
I did, finally, and awoke to bright sunshine peeking around the edges of the living room curtains. The clock above the fireplace was battery-operated, and so had no problem telling me that the time was ten minutes until eight.
When I’d laid my head down on the sofa pillow the night before, I had no idea I’d sleep in that much. The confrontation with Chris Bowman must have taken more out of me than I thought. Speaking of which….
After pushing the blankets covering me off to one side, I rose and padded in sock feet to the back door. The step stool was still there, shoved up under the doorknob. I removed it and set it to lean against the wall, then opened the door and looked outside, toward the garage. The bright morning sunlight clearly revealed the clump of smashed iris plants where Chris Bowman had landed the night before, but his body was gone. No blood, no nothing.
If I looked more closely, would there be a pile of ashes half hidden among the blade-like iris leaves? But no, he’d died from severe head trauma, not the Heat. The body had been simply…taken away.
Deciding it was best not to contemplate exactly how that had happened…or what had been done with him…I went back inside and poured Dutchie some fresh water from one of the bottles in the pantry, and gave her a good helping of dry dog food. She wolfed it down, tail wagging the whole time, so obviously she hadn’t been irrevocably scarred by the events of the night before.
I wasn’t sure I could say the same for myself, but I had other things I needed to focus on. The day before, I’d told the voice I would pack up and leave this morning, so that’s what I needed to do — assess what I would take with me, based on how much I could fit into the Cherokee. With the back seats folded down, I really could haul a good deal of gear, so I didn’t think space would be too much of a problem.
More bread and butter for breakfast, supplemented with some dried apricots I found smashed into one corner of the pantry. My mother had been a very organized woman, but Devin was a source of chaos that could defeat even the most orderly person. I started stacking what was salvageable on the breakfast bar: the rest of that bag of apricots, a pile of granola bars, an unopened bag of blue corn chips, the remnants of the dry food and the dog biscuits for Dutchie. That would get us started, and I figured I could always stock up on a few more things in the food section of the Walgreens.
Truly, you do not need that much. The voice sounded almost amused this time.
“Well, until you’re telling me how far I’m driving, I’m going to over-pack,” I said, setting the half-used flat of bottled water next to the dog food.
Jessica, do you not like surprises?
“Not particularly, no.” I surveyed the meager pile and thought I really wasn’t overdoing it by anyone’s standards. True, I could start piling up the economy-sized cans of tomato sauce and beans my mother had bought at Costco, but I could get that stuff anywhere if necessary. It wasn’t as if there was going to be a lot of competition for the enormous stockpiles of canned food left behind by the mostly deceased people of New Mexico.
Well, I think you will like this surprise.
Since that reply just annoyed me — what was I, five? — I made a noncommittal sound in my throat and headed out the back door, up to my apartment. This time, Dutchie didn’t seem too inclined to follow me. I guessed the reason why when I saw her nose around the backyard, then squat to pee. The second movement, so to speak, would probably follow shortly, but I didn’t see any need to hang around for that.
Like an idiot, I’d left the door to my apartment unlocked, but, as far as I could tell, Chris hadn’t made it up here. It was possible that he’d detected the faint glow of the candles from inside the main house and realized that was where I’d bunked down. Just as well, because I didn’t know if I could have brought any of my belongings with me if I’d known he’d pawed through them.
In my closet I had one of those airline-regulation hard-sided suitcases, the kind with wheels, as well as two largish duffle bags. I filled one of the duffle bags with underwear and bras and socks, along with a couple of sleep shirts. The other duffle bag got shoe-carrying duty — which turned out not to be much, since I only packed my trail shoes, a pair of knee-high boots with rubber soles, and one pair of flip-flops. And…well, I didn’t see where I would ever wear them again, but I didn’t want to leave behind my pretty black flats with the scallop detail, or the high-heeled sandals with the jeweled embellishment. Maybe I could just take them out from time to time and fondle them. I loved those sandals.
I filled up the remainder of the duffle bag with my toiletries, although I left behind all the hair-prep tools. What was the point, when there was no more electricity? Maybe if I got really bored I’d invent a solar-powered blow dryer, but in the meantime, that was a whole lot of stuff I didn’t need to drag along.
I took the same no-nonsense approach with my clothes: jeans and T-shirts in both short- and long-sleeved varieties, a flannel shirt I’d inherited from my ex-boyfriend (he was an ass, but that shirt was soooo soft), the all-weather anorak I used when going on hikes. If I really was going north, I’d need some protection, so I added my dark green plaid cashmere scarf and lined leather gloves to the pile, along with the black knitted cap that Elena had once complained made me look like I was about to hold up a liquor store.
Getting it all to fit was a challenge, although leaving out the anorak helped. I could always lay it down in the back of the SUV. When my gaze traveled back to the closet, where all my “fun” clothes still hung, looking a bit forlorn and abandoned, it lingered on the black dress I’d worn out for drinks on my birthday. All right, I knew there was no reason I’d ever need to wear that dress again, but I loved the way it fit, the way it seemed to follow all the curves of my body without clinging too much. But it was made of knit fabric and wouldn’t take up that much room.
Off the hanger, it did roll up into a surprisingly small ball. I tucked the dress into a corner of the suitcase and then zipped the thing closed. A sound outside on the landing made me start, but it was only Dutchie, coming up to investigate what I was doing.
“Just about done,” I told her, lugging the suitcase off the bed and picking up the lighter of the two duffle bags, the one with my underthings in it. I’d come back for the other duffle bag and my coat.
The dog ran ahead of me down the stairs, tail wagging. It seemed she knew what these preparations meant — that I’d be going in the Cherokee soon, and that meant she’d be going along as well.
I set the luggage down by the breakfast bar, then returned to my apartment and gathered up the rest of my things. Sitting on the small side table next to the couch was a wedding photo of my parents, my mother with impossible big ’80s hair but looking beautiful even so, and next to it a snapshot taken last year of the whole family at a football game, Devin wearing his shoulder pads, sweaty and grinning proudly. My heart clenched when I looked at their faces, and yet I knew I couldn’t leave them behind. What if I began to forget what they looked like?
Fighting back tears, I shoved the pictures, frames and all, into my oversized purple purse; I wasn’t sure why I was bringing it, since the backpack I was taking with the rest of the camping equipment was a lot more practical. But that purse seemed to be the last reminder of the “old” me I had — the cell phone, useless now, although a few days earlier I would have said I couldn’t have lasted more than a few hours without it; the tube of lip gloss; my wallet; stubs from movies I’d seen over the last few months; a pen and some tissue, because my mother told me I should always carry a pen and Kleenex.
And my keys. I went out onto the landing, closed the door behind me, and then locked it. I couldn’t really say why, as I doubted any survivors — if there were more besides me and the late Chris Bowman — would bother coming all the way back here to loot the apartment. Our house was one of the more modest ones on the street; there were plenty of better pickings elsewhere.
But that thought only served to depress me, as if the things my parents had worked so hard for had turned out to be worth very little in the end. The first stinging pinpricks of tears told me I’d better abandon that line of thought, as I still had a lot to do.
And maybe, just maybe, I’d feel better once I was gone and away from the place that now only served to remind me of everything I’d lost.
In the end, the Cherokee was full but not filled. I put two bottles of water in the cup holders, patted the passenger seat so Dutchie would know it was time to get in, and shut the door behind her. After that, I climbed in behind the wheel and closed my own door.
All the exertion had made my wrists start to ache again, but only slightly, which just proved some sort of supernatural healing must be going on. Not that I was going to argue. Heading out into the world while even partly incapacitated wasn’t a very good idea.
So…had my unseen guardian speeded up my healing process so my injuries wouldn’t slow down my departure?
I didn’t know how I should feel about that.
No point in brooding over it now, though. I was just glad that I was able to back out of the driveway without my wrists or hands hurting too much. Today, although the sky was mainly blue, I could see clouds beginning to drift in from the northeast. I hoped they didn’t indicate some kind of weather was on the way; bad enough that the voice expected me to head out of town in a direction of his choosing without having to handle driving in heavy rain as well.
He — or it — had been conspicuously silent so far this morning. It could simply be that he had no reason to intervene while I was packing, since I was already doing his bidding by prepping to get out of Albuquerque.
The local Walgreens was around a half mile from my house. Its parking lot backed up to a middle school, and it felt stranger than strange to get out of the SUV and not see a bunch of kids running around on the soccer field and the track. At least it was far enough away that I couldn’t tell if those fields had little piles of gray dust scattered around on them. No, I realized they probably wouldn’t, as the schools had been closed down fairly quickly…not that it had made much of a difference in the end.
As I approached the drugstore, I saw that the front doors had been smashed in. Glass was strewn everywhere. My hackles went up, and I almost reached back and pulled out the Glock, which I’d tucked into my waistband. The whole incident with Chris Bowman had put me more than a little on edge, and I’d decided to drive with the gun on me. The S&W was way too big for that, though, so I’d gone with the Glock. It would still flatten someone, especially if I hit them with multiple rounds.
But as I entered the store, glass crunching under my hiking boots, it seemed the place was deserted enough. Dark, too — I supposed I should have been expecting that, but in my mind’s eye the Walgreens was always brightly lit, blazing with fluorescent illumination. I paused by the checkout counter, which was close enough to the door that I could see what I was doing, and plucked one of the keychain flashlights off the display there. Not as good as my father’s Maglite, which was buried deep in the cargo area of the car, but it would do.
I turned on the flashlight, grabbed a cart, and made my way to the back of the store where the pharmacy was located. All around me, I could see evidence of looting — empty shelves, racks overturned, aisles filled with discarded bags of Doritos, rolls of toilet paper, kids’ toys. My heart sank. If so much had been taken, what would be left for me to collect?
As it turned out, not a heck of a lot.
There were still some generic medications left in the first aid aisle — ibuprofen, allergy remedies, sore throat lozenges. I grabbed boxes haphazardly and threw them into the cart I’d picked up at the front of the store, figuring something was better than nothing. All was chaos behind the pharmacy counter. I didn’t know if all those items had been taken by people who were sick and trying desperately to alleviate their symptoms, or whether any survivors had realized there was a lot of heavy-duty stuff here just ripe for the picking.
Pretty much anything with an opiate in it was gone, I realized as I ran the flashlight’s beam over the shelves. I could forget about easing the pain of armageddon with a little Oxycontin. All of the high-powered stuff was gone, except for one bottle of codeine-laced cough syrup high on a shelf. I took that, figuring it might come in handy.
The antibiotics were also ransacked, although I found a couple of bottles of tetracycline. Old school, but it would still work just fine for an infected wound or a bout of bronchitis. They got added to the growing pile in the cart.
A lot of the medications had names I didn’t even recognize, so I passed all those by. What I really wanted was the birth control pills, and I found those when I went around a corner, on a set of shelves that were a little disorganized but mainly intact. It made sense; most people probably weren’t thinking of family planning when they were being beaten down by the modern-day equivalent of a Biblical plague.
A small sigh of relief escaped my lips when I found the Ortho-Novum, and I gathered up every little packet they had. Enough to last me for a year, from the looks of it. After that, well…I’d worry about that then.
Like you’re really going to be alive a year from now.
I pushed that thought out of my head. Two days ago, I was sure I’d be dead along with everyone else, and yet here I still was. Never say die.
That had been a favorite phrase of my mother’s. How woefully inappropriate.
Mouth tightening, I moved the flashlight I carried over the shelves once more to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. The problem was, I didn’t get sick all that often, and even when I did, regular over-the-counter stuff worked just fine for me. I could be leaving something valuable behind here and wouldn’t even know it.
You can’t take everything, I told myself. Anyway, it was creepy in here, blundering around in the dark with only a single small flashlight to relieve the gloom. Better for me to just cut my losses and get out. It wasn’t as if there wouldn’t be more drugstores between here and…wherever I was going.
That thought reassured me somewhat, so I stepped out from behind the counter and made my way two aisles over, where the feminine products were located. I didn’t pay attention to brand or type, but just tossed boxes of tampons and packages of maxi pads into the cart until I was almost out of room. That should do me for a while, and I still needed to see if anything edible had been left behind.
I began walking toward the far left of the store, where I knew the food was located. Anything in the refrigerated case would be spoiled — and I was glad the doors were all shut, as otherwise the smell probably would have been nasty as hell — but there could still be chips and crackers and cookies, probably some beef jerky and other things of that ilk as well.
Not the healthiest of diets, but sometimes you had to take what you could get.
Figuring I should try to pick up some food for Dutchie as well, I stopped at the aisle where the drugstore usually stocked dog treats and a few brands of dry and canned food — not the stuff I would have chosen to feed her under ideal circumstances, but it would have been better than nothing. However, for some strange reason, those shelves were completely picked over. I even skidded on some scattered pellets of dry food before I regained my balance and glanced down to see that a big bag of Purina had been torn open, its contents scattered across the floor.
Muttering a curse, I left that aisle and went to the snack food section, which was in slightly better shape, and started gathering up what I could. By the time I’d dropped a couple of packets of beef jerky and a box of Ritz crackers on top of the pile in my basket, it was full, and I figured I needed to get going. It was almost noon, according to the watch I’d fished out of my nightstand and strapped on my wrist. A while back I’d almost stopped wearing watches, since I could just look at my phone, but now the watch was the only thing telling me what time it actually was. Yes, I had the clock in the Cherokee, but that only helped when I was driving.
I’d just passed the checkout counter — trying to quash my very real sensation of guilt over walking out with a bunch of stuff I hadn’t paid for — when a shadow filled the doorway. Almost without thinking, I reached back for the Glock tucked into my waistband. Yes, Chris Bowman was still dead and gone, but all sorts of predators could still be out there. Or at least as many as the Heat had allowed to survive.
Then my eyes adjusted, and I saw the shadow was that of a man, probably in his late forties, smiling at me nervously.
“I’m sorry I startled you,” he said, seeming to take note of how I remained rooted in the spot where I’d stopped by the checkout. “It’s just — I haven’t seen anyone else alive for two days. I thought I was the only one.”
“There are a couple of us, I think,” I responded. He looked pretty harmless, with his thinning dark hair and worried eyes, but I was still wary. “I never heard anything about the mortality rate. Everything went so…fast.”
He nodded, his gaze traveling to the cart in front of me and then back up to my face. I stiffened, worried I’d see the same sort of predatory stare that Chris Bowman had given me, but this stranger only seemed relieved that he wasn’t the only living person left in Albuquerque. “It was 99.8 percent. Or at least that was what the reports said.”
“Reports?” I asked. “What reports?”
“Not on the news,” he said. “I worked in the emergency-management bureau downtown. Those were the latest figures we got before everything just…stopped. By then there were only two of us left out of a team of twenty-seven, and Lydia died soon afterward. There was no way to let anyone know…not that there was anyone left to know, I suppose.”
“There were a few of us.” I had to stop then, the enormity of it threatening to overwhelm me. With a mortality rate like that, it meant there were maybe two thousand people left in Albuquerque. That sounded like a lot, until you realized there used to be almost a million people living in and around the city center. “But you’re right — I suppose it wouldn’t have made much of a