“There is a hospital facility roughly four miles from here with a generator array of the size and type we need. A party will be leaving Town Square at dawn to cross the city, enter the hospital, and secure the necessary parts to make the repairs. I am assured by the engineering department that we can bring back enough material to keep us functional for the better part of a year.” A year was as far into the future as any of them dared to look. A year would take them through most of their water, and virtually all of their food. None of them were farmers. Even if they could convert the landscaped parts of the Park into gardens, it wasn’t going to be enough.
But Walt wouldn’t have given up. Walt would have fought tooth and nail for that year, for the chance that something might change, and the world might magically come alive again.
Amy looked out at the crowd of battered, weary survivors, trying to guess how many of them would be there in the morning. Come on, Anthony, she thought. They need a tipping point.
And Anthony rose to the occasion, as he had so many times before: “What about you, Madame Mayor?” he shouted. “Will you be sitting safely in City Hall, waiting for your delivery people to come back?”
“I’ll be leading the expedition,” said Amy. A low murmur spread through the crowd. She turned away, allowing herself the shadow of a smile. Maybe this would work out after all.
The next morning, fifteen people were waiting for her in Town Square: thirteen citizens, Anthony, and Clover. Tiffany and Skylar walked them to the gates of Disneyland. The sixteen raiders stepped outside. The sisters locked the gates behind them, and they were alone.
Most of the cars near the Parks had long since been scavenged for parts and fuel, but the Cast Member parking area was relatively untouched — in part, Amy admitted, because she had more respect for Cast Member property, but also because they had known, almost from the start, that one day raids like this would become necessary. Disneyland was designed to stay operational even during a blackout or other civic emergency. It was never intended to operate through an apocalypse.
They split into three teams, each of them taking the largest operational vehicle they could find. Amy wound up sitting with Anthony, Clover, and two others in a red SUV, wondering even as she fastened her seatbelt whether there was any good waiting for them in the silent city streets. Anthony glanced over at her as he turned the key in the ignition.
“It’ll be okay,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Amy, relieved that he’d drawn the wrong conclusion from her face. She turned in her seat, looking out the window, and tried to make her shoulders unknot as the car rumbled to life and Anthony drove them into the deserted streets of Anaheim.
The first thing any of them noticed was the silence. It was almost a physical thing, so heavy across the deserted city that it felt as if it should have been visible, an obstacle they could see and drive around. The engines of their borrowed cars were obscenely loud, and Amy couldn’t shake the feeling that they were violating something sacred by even being here.
They passed the first body when they were less than a block from the parking lot. It was — it had been — a woman in a flowered dress. She was slumped over on a bus stop bench, so dried out by the weather that she might as well have been mummified. The bodies came quickly after that, until everywhere that Amy looked there was another one sprawled in the street or sitting on a patch of sidewalk, their empty eye sockets turned up at the sky. Crows perched on the wires overhead, watching with casual fearlessness as the cars went rolling by.
“It was never about the meek inheriting the earth,” said Clover, sounding disgusted. “The whole thing went to the scavengers.”
Amy, who had been dealing with reports of coyotes skulking in the landscaped underbrush of the Jungle Cruise for weeks, said nothing, and they rolled on.
The piles of bodies continued to thicken for a while, and then began to vanish as gradually as they had appeared. The last was a man, lying face down in the gutter outside the hospital gates. Anthony stopped just outside the parking lot, frowning.
“What is it?” asked Amy.
“Look.” He indicated the lot.
She looked.
The hospital should have been mobbed during the crisis. Not only patients, but staff and family members should have clogged every available parking space. Instead, half the lot was empty, allowing them a clear line of sight to the glass-fronted Admissions Building. Amy squinted. Nothing was moving on the other side of the glass.
“Do we go in?” asked Anthony.
“I don’t think we have a choice.” If there were people living in the hospital complex, maybe they could make a deal. Some generator parts for Park tickets, or for food, or for a share of the bedding they’d scavenged from the Disneyland hotels. Whatever the cost, they had to try, because if they lost one more generator, they were going to lose a lot more than a few lights.
Anthony seemed to have been thinking much the same, because he didn’t argue. He just nodded, and said, “All right,” and rolled on into the parking lot.
They waited outside their borrowed SUV until the other teams were parked and ready. The volunteers assembled in a loose crowd on the sidewalk, most of them looking substantially less sure of themselves than they had when still safely behind the gates of Disneyland. Amy felt like she should be making some sort of inspirational speech, but all she could really manage to do was clutch her promotional Mickey Mouse tote bag full of scavenging gear and try not to let them see how terrified she was.
The parking lot was the problem. It was too empty. Even the lots at Disneyland weren’t that empty, and the Park had been virtually deserted by the last days of the outbreak.
Anthony and Clover moved to stand at what had become the de facto head of the group. They made a curious pair, the short, slender man and the hulking, freckle-faced woman. There was no better engineering team in the Disney complex.
“You know what we’re here for,” said Anthony. “We’re not sure exactly where in the building it will be located, but structurally, assume you’re looking for ‘down.’ Basements, lower levels, engineering rooms tucked into non-load-bearing parts of the foundation. If you find something, use your walkie-talkie, and call us. If you’re too deep for the signal to get through, move until it can, and call us. Clover and I will come as fast as we can, and we’ll figure out where to go from there.”
“If you see signs that people are living in the building, or have been living there recently, do not scavenge anything other than generator parts,” said Clover. “The lights aren’t on inside, so we can safely assume that either there’s no one here, or that anyone who is here doesn’t have the technological skills to get the generator up and running.” Unspoken went the cold, simple fact that if someone didn’t know how to operate the resources they had, they couldn’t be allowed to keep them. Disneyland needed the generator. Disneyland was going to have it.
“Does anyone have any questions?” asked Amy. She didn’t really have anything to add, but she felt she should be seen to be taking part in the process — it would be good for morale if she was involved. Also, talking helped, at least a little bit. It drew attention away from the blind eyes of the building in front of them, where maybe their salvation would be found.
No one had any questions. Two by two, they turned and made their way to the door. Clover was the first to reach it. She tried the handle, then nodded to herself and turned to mouth ‘It’s unlocked’ to the others, using the sort of exaggerated lip motions that used to allow them to communicate across restless crowds and during fireworks shows. Pulling the door open, she stepped inside, her partner beside her. They were visible through the window as they crossed the lobby unmolested and without signs of trouble. Then they vanished into a hallway, and were gone.