Yes. There had been something. A few stores and…a gas station, right?
She started the car, drove to the intersection with the highway, and looked left. She could make out a few buildings in the distance, maybe three or four miles away.
God, I hope I’m right, she thought, then turned north on 395.
About a quarter mile before she reached the buildings, a sign along the road read: PEARSONVILLE.
The town wasn’t a thriving metropolis by any means, more a wide spot on the highway. Like everywhere else since they’d left the cabin, it was devoid of activity. It did have a gas station, though.
She pulled up to pump number one and hopped out. While the station still had power, the pump needed a credit card to activate it. Martina’s ATM card would have worked, but it was buried in the sedan’s trunk under the water and bags of food. Instead of digging it out, she decided to go inside the attached minimart to see if she could turn the pump on.
The door whooshed open, and a bong announced her arrival, but there was no one else there to hear it. The cash register and pump controller was in an area sealed off from the rest of the store by a Plexiglas partition. She tried the door that led into it, but it was locked.
Food’s free today,but not the gas, apparently, she thought.
She frowned and took a look around. Near the back was a short hallway with one door to a bathroom, and a second that was unmarked. She opened the unmarked door.
Maintenance room — mops, buckets, cleaning supplies. On the floor under a shelf was a toolbox. She opened it up and found a hammer.
She knew the Plexiglas wouldn’t give way, but the handle on the door was no match for her softball-enhanced swing. It broke off quickly, but the latch remained in place. Using a flathead screwdriver from the same toolkit, she inched the latch back until it finally popped free. With a simple push, the door opened.
Would have been easier to just use your card, she thought. But the truth was, she didn’t know what the future held, and the few hundred dollars still in her account might be needed for something else. It was better not to use it if she didn’t need to.
The next trick was figuring out how to turn on the pump. It took a few tries before she let out a whoop of triumph as the light next to pump number one turned green.
“What are you doing?” The voice was muffled but still made her jump.
Riley was standing outside the store, looking through the window.
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” Martina said.
“Why are you in there?”
“We need gas. Had to turn on the pump.”
Riley looked around. “Where’s the attendant who works here?”
“They’re all gone.”
For a second it was as if Riley had forgotten all about what was happening. Then it seemed to click.
“Right,” Riley said. “Oh, shit.” She grabbed the wall as if she’d suddenly lost all her strength.
Martina rushed from the booth and out of the store, the door bonging again as she left. When she reached Riley, she grabbed hold of her friend to steady her. “Look. You’re alive. I’m alive. That’s all that’s important right now.”
Riley stared at her for a second, then looked back at the car. “Where are the others?”
Martina hesitated. “There are no others. Only you and me.”
“But…but my mom. Pamela.”
“And Donny and my dad and my mom.”
Riley gaped at her. “All of them?”
“Yes. All of them.”
This time, Riley did lose the strength to stand, and almost took Martina down with her as she dropped onto the ground.
Martina wanted nothing more than to slump down next to Riley, but she knew one of them had to keep her head. “Stay here. I’m going to get the gas started.”
The pump worked flawlessly. As it filled the sedan’s tank, Martina kept an eye on Riley, deciding it best to let her friend have a few minutes alone. The girl stared at the ground the entire time, unmoving. When the pump clicked off, Martina replaced the nozzle in its holder and walked back over.
“You going to be okay?”
For a second, Riley’s expression didn’t change. Then she looked up. “What?”
“Are you going to be all right?”
“All right? No. No, I’m not.”
That’s when the tears started.
Martina knelt in front of her. “I didn’t mean it like that. I know we can’t be all right. I just meant…” She stopped, thought about it. “Hell, I don’t know what.”
She started to cry, too.
How long it lasted, she didn’t know — ten minutes, fifteen — but at some point the tide receded, and she was able to get control of herself again.
“I think M&Ms are in order,” she said as she wiped her face and rose to her feet.
“Skittles,” Riley blurted out. “I’d like Skittles.”
It was tempting to clear the shelves and take as much as they could fit in the car, but neither girl could bring herself to do that yet. Deep down, they were both hoping that everything would go back to…if not normal then something close. Martina didn’t let herself think about it too much, though, because deep down, she knew normal would never return.
Riley switched to the front passenger seat for the final leg of their drive. Her flu symptoms had been replaced by a general weakness one would expect after such an illness, similar to how Martina had felt after the spring outbreak.
That got Martina thinking again about her own condition. She still had no symptoms. It was like the virus had passed her by completely. It reminded her of something her mother had told her about chicken pox. Though Martina had received the vaccine when she was young and had never had the disease, her mom had said that wasn’t always the case, and that everyone used to get it as a child.
“Your grandma made me go play with the neighbors’ kids when they had it so that I’d catch it, too,” her mom had said.
“Why would she do that?” Martina asked.
“So I’d get it over with and wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.”
Martina still hadn’t understood, so her mother explained, “Usually you only get chicken pox once. After that, your system builds up an immunity and you never get it again.”
Could it be that after surviving her first brush with Sage Flu, Martina’s system had built up immunity? If that were true, then…
She stopped herself, not wanting to hope too much. She could test the theory soon enough.
They saw their first body as they drove through Inyokern. Two bodies, actually. Both were sitting in a car parked on the other side of the road. Though they may have just been sleeping, neither girl believed that. The tiny town itself seemed otherwise deserted.
Once they passed the bed where the old railroad tracks had been, Martina increased their speed and raced down Inyokern Road toward Ridgecrest.
In disaster movies, when the world seemed to be coming to an end, streets would always be packed with abandoned cars. That wasn’t what they found. The streets were completely empty. It was clear that the president’s order for a nationwide curfew had been heeded and people had stayed home, where they had probably become too sick to venture out again.
At least it gave Martina and Riley clear sailing into town.
Though it was evident Riley no longer needed to see a doctor, she still wanted to go to the hospital. That would be where her father had taken her sister on Christmas Eve, and she hoped that would be where the girls would find them.
Like the roads, most of the parking lots they passed were empty. But that wasn’t true of the lot surrounding the hospital. It was jam-packed. There were even cars along China Lake Boulevard, where neither girl had ever seen any parked before.