Someone spoke from behind him. “Hello there.”
Louie spun around, shocked. “Hello?”
“Saw you climb up out of that mess,” the stranger said. “Surprised anyone could live through that. You okay?”
“Yes, I suppose I’m fine… yes.”
The big bald man looked concerned. “You sure about that, buddy? You seem a little confused to me.”
Louie looked back down through the opening he’d come through. He thought he could see something moving down in the stairwell shaft. He hadn’t seen the ticks overtake the others, but he was sure they had.
They’re dead, all of them.
He could’ve sworn Richard was dead, too. But he’d seen his boss come back with his own eyes. He had seen his limbs move, and he’d watched him sit up. The ticks did that. They took Richard over, and they’ll take the others over as well.
The man spoke again, softly. “You ready to get out of here, pal?” He held his hand out.
Louie took the hand. “Yes, I’m ready to leave.” A piece of masking tape was stuck over a name tag on the man’s chest. Three letters were scrawled there in red marker. “Thank you… Roy.”
Chapter 19
They had spent their first night together sleeping in the ditch. The night after, Angela and the children slept on the seats of an abandoned minivan. They stayed on the highway, taking water and food from cars, avoiding buildings altogether and sticking with what they could find from the openness of vehicles. Angela no longer wanted to sleep in houses, and the Fulger twins didn’t argue. They had all had enough of the terrors of being trapped inside strange houses and shopping malls.
Angela wouldn’t let Michael and Amanda talk to strangers. It wasn’t safe, she’d told them. And the further they traveled out from the city’s center, the more people they found. There were more survivors on the outskirts where the bomb’s effects hadn’t been as devastating. The three hadn’t met anyone dangerous since fleeing the shopping center, no more needle-stabbing teens and fat gun-wielding maniacs, but nor had they encountered people wanting to help them. Everyone was in it for themselves now. There were no more friendly neighbors or concerned strangers. People seemed as scared of Angela and the children as they were of them.
“I don’t think we should go out any farther,” Michael said as Amanda handed them each a bottle of water from a shopping bag of groceries sitting in the backseat of an old Chrysler Intrepid. “There’s not going to be as much stuff farther away from the city.”
Angela shut the car door quietly and nodded. “I know we’re limiting ourselves. There’s lots to eat and drink in the city, but do you kids know what radiation sickness is?”
“It’s when people’s hair falls out and they start throwing up,” Amanda answered. “Me and Michael have seen tons of movies about nuclear war and zombies taking over the world.”
“I’m sure you have.” She ruffled the girl’s dirty hair. “I’m not all that worried about a zombie Apocalypse, but I don’t want you guys getting sick. I want to get out of the city where the air’s cleaner.”
Michael drank a quarter of his water. “I don’t think the air will be any cleaner anywhere we go. That grey snow is everywhere, and when it rains, my skin stings.”
We’re leaving the city because I don’t want anyone to murder you, she thought. We’re getting out as fast as we can because I think that big lunatic is still after us. “Just trust me on this, okay, Michael? Let’s see what things are like in the next town.”
“Next town isn’t for fifty miles, and I bet it’s snowing grey shit there, too.”
“We’ll see about that,” Angela replied, “and please don’t swear.” Angela thought she’d seen Roy the security guard poking his big bald head into cars the night before while the twins had slept in the minivan. She couldn’t swear to it since it had been dark at the time, and he was in the opposite lane—the one heading into Winnipeg, not the one leading out where they were hidden away. Odds were it hadn’t been him, but Angela wasn’t taking any chances. Roy had killed over a hundred people in the North Kilpatrick Shopping Mall—the children’s mother among them—and the crazy bastard had said he would find them. I’ll find you thieving fuckers! You’ll pay for the stuff you took, and then I’ll fucking tear out your throats with my goddamned bare hands! Those had been his exact words, and Angela believed every one of them.
You bet he’s still after you, girl. He’s going to find you, and he’s going to keep his promise. You should just wait where you are and let him get it over with.
Angela’s stepfather wouldn’t shut up inside her head. The more frightened she became, the more hopeless things seemed, the louder he got. “He’s not going to find us.”
“You’re talking to yourself again,” Amanda said.
“Sorry.” She took the girl’s hand and the three continued walking west.
He’s got guns, remember? I’m sure it will be quick and painless. Stay where you are and let him catch up. Let him end your worries with a bullet between the eyes.
“Can I see one of the guns?” Michael asked.
Angela was rubbing the skin between her eyebrows. “Guns? Why do you want to see one of the guns?”
“I just want to hold one… see what it feels like.”
They had two guns. One they had taken from Roy after Michael incapacitated him with an oversized golf driver swing between the shoulder blades. Angela had picked the other from the waistband of a teenager she had murdered with a knitting needle through the heart. “It feels like a gun, cold and heavy. There, now you know.”
“You know what I mean, I want to hold it on my own. One of us should know what we’re doing in case we need to defend ourselves.”
“I’m perfectly capable of defending all three of us, and you’re too young to be handling guns.”
Angela and Michael hadn’t gotten along all that well since the three had been stuck together. He was continually challenging her, testing her ability to look after them. Angela had never had children of her own, and the twins had never been without a mother up until a few days ago. They were both adjusting, Angela realized. She would have to patient; their parents were gone, and she would have to fill the void as best she could.
“Leave her alone,” Amanda said. “She’s kept us safe. She’s kept Roy away.”
Michael didn’t say another word. He trudged on beside his sister as they made their way to the city’s outskirts, silently stealing from cars and trucks along the way. Sometime just before noon the lines of stalled traffic became more backed up. They were getting close to the airport. The drivers and passengers had left their vehicles and headed for the towering ruins of collapsed hotels ahead, or so Angela thought. They had probably believed it would be safer to take cover in the concrete and steel structures, that the bomb’s effects wouldn’t be so devastating this far out from the city’s center. The buildings here looked as destroyed as any Angela had seen further back. She started to wonder if more than one bomb had dropped. Perhaps she was leading the children into an even more lethal zone of radioactive fallout.
A group of four people were heading towards them in the opposite lane. Two adults, a man and woman, and two children—both girls—not much younger than Michael and Amanda. The man called out to them. “They’ve got a shelter set up in the parkade under the Sandman,” the man called out. “Lots of food left and plenty of mattresses to sleep on.”