Those in the mob who hadn’t been shot or fallen to the ground slowed, for the first time uncertain what to do. The group mind’s spell had been broken, at least for a brief moment. Holly could only hope that tiny window would be enough.
Chapter 8
The snowmobile made life infinitely easier for Nate and Dakota and certainly also for Wayne. Neither of them were prepared to abandon the horse to a certain death and so they had opted to take him along. A length of paracord they’d scavenged from Roger’s cabin offered a workable, if far from perfect, solution. One end was tied to the back of the snowmobile while the other was tied to Wayne’s reins. Dakota’s job was to make sure the line always had some slack, a process made a little easier by paracord’s inherent elasticity.
But Wayne hadn’t been rendered entirely obsolete. The animal was lugging most of their gear: food, water, clothing and extra ammunition. Any weapons remained with them, since chasing a horse spooked by gunfire and explosions was the last place anyone wanted to find themselves in a fight.
Still, cutting through the loose powder on a mechanical stallion had presented its own unique challenges. Nate’s first hard-won lesson had been a simple one. Always stand when driving through deep snow, never sit. Kneeling also worked. Otherwise the snow kicking up the front and over the visor left you with little to no visibility. He also quickly appreciated Dakota’s insistence on taking the goggles and face masks left behind by the dead men.
They must have travelled two to three miles before stopping briefly at an empty farm to gather more hay for the horse. For the most part, the landscape was windswept and barren. It wasn’t until they started moving south along Highway 23 that things changed. The first sign was the increase in the number of buried wrecks. Much like they’d seen in Byron, people seemed to be fleeing north, but from where? Back home, folks had been rushing to escape the ever-widening reach of radiation from the nuclear plant. That meant many of them were heading east towards Chicago and some north, towards what, only God knew.
Soon, the hints of buried vehicles gave way to the sight of arms and legs poking out from wintery tombs. It was a miracle many of them had gotten this far. Had this been summer, Nate might have stopped to offer aid and maybe a scrap of food. But sustenance was far less of an issue when lack of shelter was certain to do you in within a matter of hours.
They were moving steadily past a Winnebago with all of its doors open when the engine on the snowmobile cut out. Dakota lurched forward as the machine came to a sudden halt.
“Hey, why we stopping?”
The gas gauge needle was at the halfway mark. Puzzled, Nate turned the key. In response, the engine turned over several times but never caught. He’d once heard from a friend who owned a snowmobile these things were prone to breaking down. It seemed his friend had been onto something.
“It’s dead, isn’t it?” Dakota asked, a nervous edge to her voice. She had no interest in getting back on that horse if it could be avoided.
“Shouldn’t be,” Nate replied. He tried the key again and this time the engine roared to life. Relieved, they continued on for another mile before the same thing happened. Now an engine light came on.
“There’s something wrong with this thing,” he told her, feeling at a complete loss. Nate could field-strip an AK in fifty seconds flat, but besides the obvious, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do with an engine.
“Keep trying it,” Dakota pleaded.
Nate lifted his goggles, setting them over his forehead. “There’s a guy I know from my days on the force in Chicago. Jason Diggs. He was a police mechanic who worked on our patrol cars. Guy was a genius. We lost touch about a couple months back, but last I heard, he was living in Marengo.”
“Is that close?” Dakota asked.
Nate pointed ahead of them. “No more than a couple miles up this road. Highway 23 runs right through the city.”
“City?”
“More of a small town, really. Truth is it’s just a touch bigger than Byron.”
“Maybe your friend can help us.” There was hope in her voice.
Nate gave the engine another go and it worked. On they went, and with every meter, the number of cars and bodies only multiplied. They were driving through a graveyard. Under any other circumstances he might have skirted around Marengo, a city only twenty miles from the outskirts of Chicago. But given the threat posed by their final destination, avoiding a pimple of a town like Marengo was a difficult argument to make. If anything, it might provide a hint of what the Windy City had in store for them.
Nate and Dakota were relieved the snowmobile cooperated long enough to get them safely into town. A few twists and turns off the highway brought them to Jay’s house, a picturesque marine-blue home with an enclosed porch and a peaked roof. Nate killed the engine and tightened Wayne’s lead so the horse wouldn’t wander into the middle of the street. Better to be safe since you never knew what might come barreling along.
In the driveway sat two vehicles interred beneath several feet of snow. That was hardly a surprise. The state of Jay’s front walkway, however, struck Nate as odd. There were tracks in the snow, but none of it had been shoveled.
He stopped, considering how unlike Jay it was to let that happen, grid down or not.
“What’s wrong?” Dakota asked, rubbing her hands together. All she wanted was to get inside as quickly as possible and warm up. A curl of smoke from the fireplace only magnified her desire.
“Never mind,” he said, shaking his head and continuing toward the front entrance. Nate knocked and waited for someone to answer. For a moment, he swore he could hear the faint sound of voices bickering inside. Sounded like a man and a woman.
Could his friend have transformed his life and abandoned his old bachelor ways? Jay had sworn up and down he’d never get married. Although barely forty years old, he hated being told what to do, how to dress and what to say. Nate supposed anyone with that dim a view of relationships and marriage would be inclined to avoid the institution altogether.
Seconds later, a woman answered, peeling the door open no more than a crack. “What do you want?”
She sounds like a real charmer, Jay, he thought sardonically.
“I’m a friend of Jason’s,” he began.
“Who?”
“Jason Diggs,” Nate said, feeling like he’d entered an old black and white episode of The Twilight Zone. “He also goes by Jay.”
Nate caught a man’s voice booming in the background. “What do they want?”
“Jay don’t live here no more.”
Nate’s only view of the woman was through the narrow slit in the door, but it was enough to see she had dark rings around her eyes and the raspy voice that came from a lifetime of self-abuse.
“When did he move?” Nate asked, not entirely sure what to make of all this. Second to Jay’s love of cars was his love for renovating his house. He always had one project or another on the go. New wood floors, refurbished stairs, a modern bathroom, the list was never-ending. Jay liked to keep busy and over the years the long list of projects he’d ticked off his list gave testament to that.
“What are you, a cop?”
“Maybe,” Nate lied.
“He sold us the house about a month ago. Moved away, but don’t start asking me where, ’cause I got no idea.”
She had lots of class, Nate thought, grimacing. Too bad it was all low.
He raised himself up on his tippy toes and peeked past her. Behind the woman stood a skinny man with a scruffy chin. His eyes were wide and nervous. He looked like a bird. But that wasn’t the main thing that caught Nate’s attention. “He sell you all his furniture as well?”