A chain link fence waited for her at the end of the decaying asphalt. It had to be at least twenty feet tall, with barbed wire across the top. It stood just beyond a frozen patch of prickly-pear cacti—part of some ancient landscaping plan, she figured—an entrance to a sprawling salvage yard, one that formerly welcomed paying customers on a daily basis.
Dozens of scrap metal piles towered beyond the fence, most several stories in height and capped with ice from the overnight drizzle and freeze. They were statuesque reminders of a civilization gone extinct. A wasteful civilization. So many cars. So many people. So much junk. All of it useless or dead. None of it relevant any more.
She scanned the barbed wire as she shuffled in a fast step. It looked intact and formidable. Not something she had the time or desire to defeat.
The owners obviously thought it prudent to protect the now-defunct business from would-be trespassers, but she scoffed at the idea, her eyes continuing their hunt for an entrance point.
She wondered if the owners back then had only known what the future would hold for them and everything else that drew in air for life, would they have changed their minds and spent their money on an underground bunker instead? Something formidable. Something buried deep and unmarked. Something to help them withstand the Frozen World that would come soon after.
Probably not, she surmised, just as she spotted a vertical slit in the metal lattice near its base. It was on the right—in the same direction she was trotting—ten paces away.
There’d been a breech. But when? No way to know. At least the gap was partially hidden and low to the ground, like her. Maybe the Scabs might miss it.
“Gotta chance it,” she mumbled, bringing her feet into a full skid, feeling like some soon-to-be-dead cartoon character running from Wile E. Coyote.
A quick peek behind told her she still had time—nobody there—but it wouldn’t last long. The hairs on the back of her neck were on alert. They were close. She could feel it. Closing fast.
Summer took off her pack, then bent down and pried the two sections of fence apart, making sure the sharp edges didn’t tear into her hands. Her tattered wool gloves only provided limited protection, especially with the cutouts for her fingertips.
The passage was only a few inches wider than her shoulders, but she was able to squeeze through after a couple of attempts. It took longer to slip inside than she’d hoped, but maybe she’d done so in time.
Another glance back told her the answer. The gang had eyes on, their faces locked onto hers.
Shit! They’d seen her.
Her legs were exhausted and so were her lungs, but she couldn’t give up. She put her hand back through the fence and grabbed her pack, then yanked it through and slung it on. Her sprint resumed, tearing around a rusted ambulance lying sideways in the road.
If she had to guess, she figured it had been rocked by a starving horde until it tipped over. Then whoever was inside became that night’s dinner. A bloody dinner, one filled with tissue tears and bones breaking.
That visual brought a whole new meaning to the word “crunchie,” a gory term she’d heard Krista Carr, the silo’s Security Chief, use many times.
It usually meant death by tank treads—an old military term, something that no longer had meaning in the new world. Neither did rules of engagement, another phrase Krista had mentioned during Seeker Training.
The back door of the ambulance was splayed open with a wind-blown collection of ice resting inside the threshold, protected by a northerly shadow. Summer wasn’t surprised. The burn of the sun hadn’t melted it yet after the nightly freeze, its surface just out of the sun’s reach.
The ground used to be perpetually covered in snow, but then the thaw started. Almost like magic. That change in temperature seemed to bring out the Scabs from wherever they’d been hiding after The Event took out most of the planet. The string of sightings since meant the cannibal problem wasn’t going away. In fact, it was getting worse—a problem that her boss, Professor Edison, said he pondered daily.
The next street took her into an old warehouse district, the kind that used to make assembly line stuff. Stuff the world needed back when it actually had a population.
Normal life, she thought, sifting through her memories as she ran. Populations need food, water, shelter, families, and governments. Summer still remembered what all that was like, even if the others in the silo couldn’t or wouldn’t.
“You can’t change the past” was the motto in her group. It was an optimist’s attitude—one she understood, even if she didn’t believe in what it meant.
The next building ahead was a multi-story parking garage. The structure had collapsed along the front, its foundation and walls in tatters. She cruised past the damage, breathing heavily, pumping her arms like a jackhammer. Chunks of cement and rebar slowed her pace, but she was able to sidestep the threats to keep pushing ahead.
She was almost to the end of the building when she heard the echoes of death behind her. It was the Scabs closing ground, with metal clanking, mouths growling, and lungs screaming.
Her panic convinced her to charge right, ducking out of sight, just past the end of the garage.
She was now in a narrow passageway with four piles of dirt in her way. Huge piles—twenty feet tall. They looked like a soiled version of ski moguls on a twisted obstacle course, only these had patches of brick and rock mixed in.
Summer slowed, switching from sprint mode to climbing mode, one that involved hand grabs and knee bends. It took extra effort and time, but she made it over the mounds, draining more of her energy than she hoped, especially the last one—the tallest—its downslope side the worst, taking her careening forward with off-balance foot plants and wild arm swings.
She fell to her knees at the bottom, struggling for air, her eyes surveying the area ahead. At first, she didn’t know what she was looking at, but then it came to her, from the deepest recesses of her mind.
An old skateboard park with curved ramps, rusted hand rails, cement dips and rises, and other useless inventions.
Before her next breath, she froze, hearing a clattering of noise behind, on the other side of the dirt mounds she’d just traversed. Damn it! The gang was close. Their gorilla-like grunts and heavy footfalls could be clearly heard.
Summer took one last breath to recharge her lungs, then got to her feet and brought her thighs into motion. It only took a handful of seconds to tear across the cement park, where she found a long corridor on the right. There was no light inside. Nothing she could see, except a patch of light at the far end—at least two hundred yards away.
The hairs on her neck tingled out of control as her feet found their way into the tunnel. She knew the decision to enter was a tactical mistake, but there was no choice. A reversal of course would take her into the teeth of the Scabs.
The cement inside the tunnel had been invaded by a stretch of ice down the center. Her feet slipped a few times, but she managed to keep them wide to maintain traction. She emerged at the far end, feeling lucky. Unfortunately, that feeling vanished when the sun landed on her face and exposed the next segment of her route.
The tunnel had led her to a cavernous spillway, the kind that dumped into a giant cement canal. Trash, tree limbs, and other debris littered the area, the recess acting like a natural collection point.
“More like a garbage heap,” she muttered, correcting her own logic. “At least there’s no wind down here.”
The left side of the spillway was awash in sunlight, its vertical walls standing fifteen feet tall and smooth. The few puddles of water were nothing to be concerned about, unlike the complete lack of ladders and handholds.