They made it to the outskirts of Lake Dulcet around five. Not quite within the city limits anymore, but not quite in the boondocks just yet, either. Lorelei was still grumpy about having to walk, though Keo was impressed with her and Carrie’s stamina. With the sun already starting to dip in the horizon, he began looking for a place to hide.
They walked under the open sky along a street flanked by ancient looking power poles. Trucks were sprinkled in the parking lots of businesses and industries around them. He glanced backward, remembering the suburbs they had passed an hour ago, and thought about going back. Last night’s run across the rooftops had convinced him he needed a place with a basement. Or, failing that, a place that could be easily defended. He couldn’t hope to survive in attics the rest of his life.
“What?” Carrie said, walking beside him.
“The suburbs,” Keo said. “I’m thinking we might have to backtrack to one of the houses we passed earlier. One with a basement.”
Lorelei had stopped in the middle of the street. She put her hands on her hips and looked around. With her hair in a ponytail, she was actually a very pretty girl, if a bit too thin. The boots she was wearing that they had liberated from a shoe store a few kilometers back looked two sizes too big, but that was only because her legs were toothpicks.
“What about that?” Lorelei said, pointing.
Keo looked over at a large building inside some hurricane fencing.
“The warehouse?” Carrie said.
“No, the RV,” Lorelei said.
It was a white recreational vehicle housed inside a garage with an open wall attached to one end of a warehouse. The RV sat in the shade, which only reminded Keo that he was sweating badly under the heat.
Carrie glanced over at him. “What do you think?”
Keo walked over and scanned the area. The grass inside the fence was burnt, mostly dead, with the occasional spots of weed. There were two, maybe three dozen groupings of gray cinderblocks, as if their owners had planned to build something in the wide-open spaces but never got around to it. Two swinging gates were closed tight with rusted-over chains and a large padlock. There was a gas station next door, its windows broken some time ago.
“What do you think?” Carrie asked again.
“Let’s check it out,” Keo said.
The fencing was cheap and stood only six-feet high. It was easy for Keo to scale; he waited on the other side as Carrie and Lorelei did the same.
“Couldn’t you just shoot the lock?” Lorelei said as she struggled up the fence one inch at a time.
“Too noisy,” Keo said.
“This is so hard…”
“It’ll be easier if you climbed without talking.”
“Whatever,” she said, and threw her legs over the top and dropped down into his arms.
He set her down. “See?”
She made a face and looked around them.
Next, he caught Carrie as she came down. She was surprisingly light and he probably held onto her longer than necessary. He also noticed that her arms had conveniently gone around his neck as he lowered her to the ground.
“Thanks,” she said, and actually blushed a bit.
“Sure.”
He thought about Gillian, waiting for him on the beaches of Santa Marie Island…probably. For all he knew, she had never made it to the island. For all he knew, she and Jordan and the boat were somewhere at the bottom of a river…
Keo unslung the MP5SD as they moved across the wide-open spaces. Like the last five hours, the only sound he heard was a minor wind and their footsteps. The warmth against his face was growing unbearable, and he wiped at a fresh bead of sweat.
There were zero vehicles (other than the RV) inside the lot, which told him that the place was being used for storage. The lack of a sign or company logo was a bit confusing, though. Then again, if they weren’t doing business out of here, the people who ran it wouldn’t necessarily need to advertise. Even with all those excuses, the emptiness, combined with the encounter with the soldiers this morning, made him jumpy.
And I thought the woods were dangerous…
“You think the fence can keep them out?” Carrie asked, glancing backward.
“Not in this lifetime,” Keo said. “But maybe it’ll deter them anyway. If they’ve been through here before — and chances are they have — they won’t bother coming in again unless we give them a reason to.”
She gave him a doubtful look.
“What?” he said.
“You talk about them like they’re smart. Like they can think.”
“Carrie, look around you. What do you see?”
She did. Then, “I don’t understand.”
“They did this. One night. That was all it took. Now tell me — can stupid, mindless creatures that can’t think do something like this?”
“I guess not.”
“These things — these ghouls — might not be the smartest kids in class anymore, but they can still think and reason. Never, ever underestimate them.”
She nodded solemnly.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s see what’s in the bus.”
“It’s an RV,” she smiled.
“Same difference.”
The RV used to be white, but it was now a faded gray color with long brown and black patterns, like the Nike swoosh, from front to back. It was about thirty feet long and eleven feet high, give or take a few inches, and parked along the length of the garage, taking up the entire space with a few feet to spare up front. Despite the deflated tires and dust-covered windows, it seemed to be in relatively good condition.
“It looks cool,” Lorelei said. “I’ve always wanted to travel around the country in an RV. My parents used to—” she stopped and didn’t say anything else.
Carrie walked over and put an arm around the girl, and the two of them exchanged another one of their brief, private smiles.
“Stay here,” Keo said. “I’ll check the warehouse first.”
He left them at the RV and walked around the warehouse. He ran his free palm along the building’s side, feeling the heat that the metal walls had been absorbing all day. There were closed windows at the top, but too far to reach from ground level. Both front doors were locked, and pulling at them didn’t get him anything. More layers of dust along the doors themselves and there were no telltale signs that they had swung open recently.
He located a smaller side door and two large ones at the back, but all three were similarly locked. It wouldn’t have taken much to pry them open, but if the creatures — or one of their human lackeys — stumbled across the damage, they might know someone had taken up residence. If that happened, he’d have to defend a large property by himself. He could probably count on Carrie to lend a hand, but Lorelei, not so much.
I should just dump them. Both of them. Gillian would understand.
Probably…
He headed back to the girls.
“Anything?” Carrie asked when he reached them.
“Doors are locked.”
“Can we break into them?”
“We could, but we shouldn’t. It’s a big warehouse with too many access points. I doubt it’ll have a basement or anything more secure than an office or a bathroom. If they catch us in there, we’re sitting ducks.”
“So where, then?”
“Let’s check the RV first.”
He wiped at the thick layer of dust over the security window on top of the RV’s door. He peered through it, but despite the bright (falling) sun, he couldn’t see more than a few feet inside. He glimpsed the driver’s seat, the big steering wheel, and what looked like an empty can of Diet Coke on the floor.
“Stay out here,” he said to the girls.
They looked back at him, as if to say, “What, you thought we were going to go in there with you?”
He smiled to himself then tried the door. It clicked open without a fight. He pulled it all the way open and slipped inside, sweeping the immediate area with the MP5SD. He took out an LED flashlight from one of his pouches and ran the beam over the seats in the middle. He was greeted by the very good sign of dust along the headrests and the smooth surface of a table to his right, half-encircled by a booth with plastic seats.
He moved up the aisle, boots squeaking softly against the vinyl flooring. There was a small kitchen complete with sink and range to his left. A dining table was fastened to the floor across from it, and more booth seating. Two doors at the very back. One opened up into a small bathroom and the other into a surprisingly spacious bedroom with a twin-size bed that had a wooden frame in one corner and an oak dresser on the other. There was a single window at the back, but it was blocked by the warehouse wall on the other side.
He rasped his knuckle on the solid fiberglass door and liked the sound he heard. It had a 12x21-inch tinted window at the top and a deadbolt lock on the inside. The odds of it withstanding a prolonged assault were good, especially with the dresser and bed as reinforcements.
Keo headed back to the front door.
Lorelei was leaning through the opening, giving him an anxious look. “Is it safe?”
“Safe enough,” he said.
Carrie followed Lorelei up the steps. “Okay?” she asked.
He nodded. “It’ll do. We only need it for one night, anyway.”
“So,” Lorelei said, “can we eat now? I’m starving.”
Carrie smiled wryly at Keo. “I told you. Like a horse.”
“Hey!” Lorelei said.