BLAINE
He left Lancing with plenty of sunlight to spare. The Toyota was in good working shape, with plenty of gas in the tank when its owner had abandoned it eight months ago. The car battery hadn’t worked when he had found it, but Will and Danny carried spares in the back of their trucks, along with solar-powered chargers that delivered trickle charges to keep them filled until they were needed.
It was a pretty smart setup, and it didn’t surprise Blaine that a pair of Army Rangers would think of something like that. Back when Blaine was traveling with Deeks and Sandra, they had simply swapped car batteries. Not exactly Boy Scout always-be-prepared, but then again, he was just some guy from the bad part of Dallas, so what the hell did he know about preparedness?
Blaine had the map spread out in the front passenger seat, not that he really needed it. From Lancing, it was a straight shot up US 287/Route 69 back to Grime. If Sandra was headed back there — back to where he was shot — she might end up in Grime again after not finding him on the road.
He drove as fast as he could, which was about forty miles per hour. When he didn’t see anything looming on the road up ahead, he gunned it up to fifty, but even that was pushing it. Going fast was the reason he was separated from Sandra in the first place, a fact that weighed him down like a devil on his shoulder.
For some reason, he hadn’t been shocked when the girl had told him Sandra was gone. That was his Sandra — spirited, full of passion and independence and fire. Suddenly free of the clutches of Folger, the first thing she would do was go back for him. Even if she thought he was dead. It made perfect sense only if you knew Sandra the way he did.
After a while he drove past the familiar two-story house from last night. It looked bigger, more isolated than he remembered. Blaine made a mental note of the house’s location. You never knew when you would need a house for the night…
He glanced at his watch: 3:26 p.m.
Blaine began to slow down as he approached the old Jeep sitting in the middle of the road. Folger’s Jeep. Exactly where Folger had left it. There were no other vehicles and no signs of Sandra.
He felt deflated and shot all over again. For some reason he had been almost certain she would be here, waiting for him, as if she knew he would be coming for her.
God, what was he thinking?
He drove slowly through Grime. He had no idea what kind of car she was driving. The girl had been too afraid to come out of the basement when Sandra had driven off. And the kid, Josh, had never bothered to check the garage, so he didn’t know what car was in there, either.
Grime wasn’t a particularly big town, but it did cover about four square miles, according to the map. That meant too many stores, buildings, and houses that weren’t connected to Pine Street, the main road through town.
Blaine drove as slowly as he could, honking his horn as he went. If she was here, she would hear him. Probably. Or maybe she would think it was some crazy person and stay exactly where she was — hidden. After Folger, he wouldn’t blame her.
It all added up to the same thing — finding her was going to be next to impossible.
But what choice did he have? Sandra was out here, somewhere, and he had to find her. Losing her to Folger and his men was like a knife through his gut, more painful than the bullet that had gone through his side or in his shoulder or thigh. No painkiller was going to dull that sensation. And to have been so close earlier today, only to lose her again…
It was maddening.
It took a while, but eventually he reached the end of Grime and stopped in the middle of the road. Blaine sat still for a moment, looking at the rearview mirror, back at the town behind him.
Would Sandra keep driving? No, that didn’t make any sense. Why would she go backward, in the direction they had come? There was nothing back there. Dallas, maybe, farther back. But why would she go back to Dallas? The city, with its massive population, was more dangerous than out here, where the people were spread out and the buildings weren’t thick with the monsters — or ghouls, as Will called them.
No, Sandra wouldn’t go all the way back to Dallas. So where would she go next? He didn’t think she would leave Grime just yet. The closest big city farther down US 287 was Woodville, which was too far away to make in the daylight left. Sandra wasn’t stupid, so she would stay in Grime at least until tomorrow. He was almost certain of it.
Blaine put the truck in reverse and headed back into town. Except this time, instead of sticking to Pine Street, he started taking smaller roads, still honking his horn, looking for signs of survivors. Any damn sign at all.
He drove along dirt roads, passing homes that had been here for decades, possibly longer. A church that looked more like someone’s house and a long building with a bright red roof. A Family Dollar store advertising a sale, a Chevron gas station at the corner of a busy four-way intersection.
Blaine slowed down and glanced at the truck’s gas gauge. He was almost down to a quarter tank. Jesus, how long had he been driving?
He glanced down at his watch: 5:16 p.m.
He was pushing it now. Pretty soon, he would need to find shelter for the night, and that meant stopping his search. If he didn’t find her today, she might be gone by tomorrow morning, and that knowledge hung over him like a black cloud. Sandra would be looking for a place, too, if she hadn’t found one already.
Blaine stepped on the brake.
He had been looking at this all wrong. Sandra would know night was coming, too, so she would be looking for a place to spend the night.
A safe place.
Blaine drove back up north along Pine Street with renewed purpose. This time he was looking for a building that looked safe, that could last the night. Sandra would be looking for the same thing, and from the main road, just like him.
He passed two, three churches, surprised that a town this small had more than one. He kept driving, until he realized he was almost out of Grime completely — again — and began to slow down. He saw a Shell truck stop to his right, with a parking lot dotted with two, maybe three dozen semitrailers and big rigs. The stop was in a somewhat deserted part of town, surrounded by undeveloped land and woods in the back.
But it was the semitrailers that got his attention.
He remembered what Miguel had said, about why Folger and the others were dragging a semitrailer around with them: “Have you seen those semitrailers? You can’t tear into those things. They’re like a moving safe.”
Blaine remembered seeing the look on Will’s and Danny’s faces. They hadn’t thought of it, but were wishing they had. And Sandra was kept in a semitrailer before she escaped. She would have known about their potential as a safety net.
There were cars in the Shell parking lot, sprinkled among the hulking semitrailers, as he pulled inside. The pumps served mostly diesel, which was probably why he didn’t see very many cars frozen in line waiting for service. There were a couple of trucks, one with a pump dangling from its open tank.
He parked next to a big rig with hot rod flames shooting along the sides — it looked new, like it had been in service for only a few years — and a black big rig dragging one of those trailers with cars in the back, though this one was only half-full.
He got out with the AR-15 and began walking along the row of vehicles, banging on the sides as he went. He also started screaming, hoping that if he made enough noise, she would hear him.
“Sandra! Sandraaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
His voice bounced off the metallic sides of the semitrailers, and he stopped to listen for a reaction. There was nothing, so he continued, rounding the back end of a trailer and banging on the next one, opening the back doors of the ones that weren’t locked, though most of them were.