Faye spun around but didn’t make an effort to move. “Can someone pass the flashlight forward?”
Like a green baton, they passed it overhead until it reached the front of the bus.
Faye was smirking when she turned again. “Here you go.”
Audra’s palm closed around the warm metal. “Thanks. If it’s safe, I’ll radio for the children and you can empty the slops pot.”
Faye gasped.
If Audra had to risk her life, she shouldn’t have to lug the poop as well. Squaring her shoulders, she tugged on the metal handle and the doors folded back. Warm air rushed in. Under the ever present smoke, she detected the faint odor of calamari thrown on a hot charcoal grill. Her stomach clenched.
Somewhere close by, people had burned.
Please don’t let them have been alive at the time. She finished the prayer as her boots scraped asphalt. The last buses in the caravan pulled up until they bracketed the fast food restaurant. A man in a gas mask and camouflage exited the bus behind her. Eddie swung his shotgun left then right then rushed her.
Exiting bus seven-niner, a man in a dirty business suit waved his pistol in the air then jogged to the area behind the bus. Principal Dunn sure did like acting like a desperado, then again, after twenty-nine years, maybe he hoped he could shoot some of the more difficult parents as payback. She hoped it didn’t get him killed. A moment later, a trim woman in torn jeans and an oversized AC/DC tee-shirt jumped off the bus. Tina, her former teaching assistant, gave her a thumbs-up, swung her Louisville slugger for a moment before setting it on her shoulder.
Eddie puffed like Darth Vader as he slid to a stop next to her. A snakehead tattoo throbbed over his carotid artery. “We got twenty-two dead, Princess.”
She winced. Only he made princess sound like an insult. But she was above such things. She was a Silvestre.
“Seventeen for us.” Audra set her hand against her bandanna as the wind tried to sneak under the fabric. Her ears pricked and her heart tripped over a beat. Did she hear voices?
Tina sprinted from Principal Dunn’s side to join them. A sheriff’s deputy in faded khakis replaced her and tamed the pistol waving.
“We have ten dead on our bus. Principal Dunn thinks we can put them in the gas station.” She jerked her chin at the boarded up building. Her blue surgical mask slipped and her almond-shaped brown eyes widened as she shoved it back in place.
A hot wind bent the weeds and shook the busses. In the distance, something exploded.
Audra flinched and faced the noise. Black smoke belched from a neighborhood across a vacant lot. Evil red fireflies danced in the cloud. The sparks landed on the shingle roofs.
Frown lines appeared on Tina’s forehead. “I wonder what caused the explosion.”
“People.” Eddie wheezed. “If we stay here too long, they’ll find us. We need to complete our business before they attack.”
Chapter Two
“Why?” The man on his right wailed.
Trent Powers’ fingers tightened, crinkling the pages of the Bible. Five minutes. Couldn’t he have just five fucking minutes without some sniveling, sick bastard demanding his time? This was that damn Marine’s fault for mistaking him for a man of God just because he carried a Bible.
And what had it gotten him?
A ride with the unwashed masses of the world, dismissed by the powers that be, relegated to human cargo in a military convoy.
He should have corrected the ugly Lieutenant Sally Rogers when he first arrived at the camp. Should have but didn’t. That Marine had fucked up his plans by recognizing him, withholding food unless he kept up the pretense. Slutty Sally had encouraged it, seducing him with the promise of power. And now he was stuck.
Without power.
Surrounded by whiners who hadn’t the decency to die.
How could they not see he deserved better than this. Relaxing his hand, he dragged it down the page and watched the words exposed by his index finger. Would the idiot believe he was reading? Would he leave Trent in peace?
It had worked once.
He swayed with the motion of the truck, bumping shoulders with his neighbors, driving a sharp elbow into soft flesh. The storm compressed the air, adding humidity to the body odor, sickness and the noxious gases expelled by the corpses stuffing the back of the truck. Canvas slapped his shoulders and neck in time with the wind and the hard wooden bench drove splinters into his ass.
He needed out of here, needed to be restored to his rightful place. But how? The inner circle seemed comprised of only two people—a United States Marine Corps General and the bitch who stood for the Surgeon General. Both of them had consigned him back here with the losers of the world. The words on the thin paper blurred. Not that it mattered—the Book was boring and contained horrible English. He’d stopped attempting to read it hours after he’d acquired it.
If it wasn’t for the money tucked in the pages, he’d have let it burn. He ran his index finger down the paper. A ridge of hardness bumped against the pad. Was it another fifty dollar bill? Or… His palms itched. Or maybe another hundred? He’d already found three of them. He followed the soft edge to the middle of the page. Five would be nice. Ten hundreds would be better. He licked his lips. Maybe he could pretend to pray over the dead and take a quick peak.
He could use a little alone time.
“Reverend?” The man on his right barked and tugged on Trent’s sleeve.
His finger left the corner of the hidden money. Shit! The assholes wouldn’t leave him be. Flattening his palm against the open pages, he glanced into the narrow aisle running the length of the truck bed.
Hanging from the metal ribs, flashlights swung in an epileptic rhythm to the lumbering personnel carrier. Rain tapped tentatively on the canvas, raising liver spots on the drab green and brown covering. Near the open back of the truck, a trio of men and two women wearing dark stained scrubs and crooked surgical masks hovered over a man. Blue stained his lips and his lungs rattled with each wheeze and gasp. One woman picked up his wrist, settled her finger against the pale skin inside his cuff.
Why did they bother? Nothing they did helped. He was a dead man; he was just too selfish to die.
Others, equally sick, leaned against each other haphazardly and clung precariously to the benches. Near the cab, a handful of dead lay in fetal positions, stealing valuable space from the living.
The corpses should have been thrown out the back. They could be contagious. They could get him sick. Trent pressed against the truck wall and adjusted his face mask. Maybe that’s why the powers that be had sent him here. He snapped the book closed, the small breeze stirred his hair and he smoothed it flat. If that was their plan, they would have to come up with a better one.
He refused to die.
“Hey!” The man on his right drilled his index finger into Trent’s bicep. “I’m talking to you.”
He sighed. Whining was not talking.
The medical team glanced in his direction. One man took a step toward him.
He raised a hand. Great, that’s all he needed—another sick, mewling bastard wanting to hear God’s word, wanting him to sit next to him and hold his hand until the asshole passed on. He had better things to do with his time. He needed to find a way into the inner circle.
The male medic gave him a slight nod then turned back to his team.
Since they were going to leave him alone, Trent could work on the more immediate problem. He turned to his bench mate.
Fleshy bags hung under the man’s bloodshot eyes. Skin dripped from his narrow cheekbones as if the fat had melted rapidly from under it. His long nose pointed to his thin lips and yellow, crooked teeth.
“Did you need something?” He’d be damned if he said ‘my son’ or other such bullshit. It should be enough that he stooped to talking to the scum of humanity. Soon, he’d be sitting all comfy in the air conditioned Humvee, stretching his legs out as much as he wanted. He just needed a moment to plan his rise.