The Plague: Dead Solstice Page 7

  An hour after that, the dump truck began to slow down as rural houses began to fly by. A moment later, it pulled off the road and came to a stop next to a country store with a single gas pump. Kai hopped out to find Hector climbing out of the truck and inspecting the gas pump. “Where are we?” Kai yelled at him.

  “The sign said Benton,” Hector answered.

  “Why’d we stop?” Kai followed up. To this, Hector shrugged his eyebrows and pointed at the gas pump.

  Kai looked around, the town was little more than a few trees struggling to survive in the middle of the desert. The scatted homes were lifeless shacks and whoever had lived there had probably died and wandered off days ago. Kai saw Jaden and Elias walking back down the road from where they came from, Jadon was looking out into the twilight with a pair of binoculars.

  “You actually see anything?” Kai asked as he joined them.

  “I can’t,” Elias answered. “But apparently this old man’s got better eyes than me.”

  Jadon cleared his throat and said, “Not that much better.” Jadon lowered the binoculars and stared into the night. “I don’t think they’re following us. But I wouldn’t take that as anything more than a guess. Let me see that map.”

  Elias reached behind him and retrieved a travel map and handed it to Jadon. As Jadon unfolded it, Elias wound up a flashlight. The three men stared at the map trying to find where they were. “We’re in Benton,” Kai said.

  Jadon found the small town and stuck his finger on it. They were at a crossroads along Highway 6, seven miles south of the Nevada border. Jutting out of Benton’s western flank was Highway 120 which followed a valley back up into the mountains.

  The men studied the map for a moment before Elias suggested, “What if we took the 120 west to the 395? It would take us north around Mammoth, maybe we could head all the way for Tahoe.”

  “We could do that,” Jadon agreed.

  “And what if they’ve got a blockade set up there, too?” Kai looked up to see Dean had joined them and was craning his neck to look at the map. Lately, he seemed to only interject himself at the worse times. Dean reached in and placed a finger on the map, it was shaky and pale. “Right here, where the 120 meets the 395,” Dean said and then moved his finger to a smaller line coming off the road just to the north of the interchange. “That road right there, the 158, it circles around to June Lake and meets up with the 395 further south. If it were me, I’d place a barricade north of there at the river to cut off both roads. I’d set up a separate barricade on the 120 in case anyone comes from our direction.”

  “And what makes you think they’d have that much manpower?” Kai questioned with a taste of condescension on his tongue.

  “You saw them down there. You think they’re going to blockade one road and leave the other side wide open?”

  “What I think is that they’d put their blockade way farther south. South of June Lake. Closer to Mammoth. That way they’d only have to guard one road instead of two.

  “I doubt they’d give up all that land.”

  Kai’s patience left him. “Look, I really don’t care what your opinion is,” he growled. “We’re going west.”

  “That’s a mistake.”

  “How about you just go back to sleep and let me take care of things, huh?”

  Dean raised his eyes to look for support from the group around him, but other than the death stare coming from Kai, Dean couldn’t manage to lock eyes with anyone.

  Finally, Elias broke the silence, “I say we go with Kai’s plan.”

  “Me too,” Jadon seconded.

  Dean tried to protest, “If we’re being followed, we’ll be trapped.”

  “There’s no one back there,” Elias answered. To this, Dean began to scratch the back of his neck in nervous irritation.

  “Dean, we should take the 120,” Quaid pleaded, trying to calm the situation down. “Mammoth didn’t work out, but we can go to Tahoe. We can make it there.”

  Dean stared at the ground for a moment and then, in a defeated whisper he spit out a single word, “Fine.”

  Dean quietly loitered as Hector finished up with the gas and then climbed up into the cab with him. The rest of the group methodically followed suit and climbed into the back of the White Whale. The truck jolted forward and picked up speed as it climbed back onto the highway. But as Kai expected the truck to slow and turn onto the 120, he was surprised to see the crossroad fall away into the darkness behind them and soon the town of Benton went with it.

  “What the hell?!” Kai shouted in anger.

  “What is it?” Jadon asked in a startled voice.

  “We missed the 120. They’re taking us East.” Kai climbed to his feet and stumbled deeper into the truck, toward the cab. He banged against it, hoping that Dean and Hector would hear his protest. But the truck didn’t stop. “I’m gonna kill you, Dean!” Kai erupted.

  Kai shouted and banged on the wall against the cab some more, but eventually, he realized he had no option but to fume as he watched the road move further away from the 120. Scenarios ran through Kai’s mind; Did Hector knowingly agree to go east? Or did Dean just lie to him and tell him that this was the plan the group agreed on? Either way, Kai had come to the conclusion that Dante had been right, something had awoken in Dean, and Kai didn’t trust it one bit.

  Kai stared out at the moonlit desert for another hour and a half before the truck began to slow. On the other side of the highway, he spotted a sign, “Thank you for visiting Tonopah.” It was a desert town, devoid of even more trees than Benton. But it was bigger, an actual town rather than a scattering of houses around a gas station.

  The truck pulled into a gas station and came to a stop. But before the engine could be choked, Kai was out on the pavement with his gun in hand. Kai could hear Jadon calling after him to slow down, but it was too late, Kai could only see red.

  Kai caught Dean as he was climbing out from the cab. He grabbed him and jerked him down and then let a fist fly into the side of Dean’s cheek, dropping him to the ground. “Why the hell are we out here?!” Kai shouted at the top of his lungs. “You were there when we all agreed to go west! Who the hell do you think you are? You think you can just defy the group?!”

  Dean grabbed onto the side of the dump truck to pull himself up and then spit out some blood, he had bitten down on his tongue when he was punched. “We are being followed,” he choked out.

  Kai raised his fist to punch Dean again but somehow held back his anger and lowered it. “I’ve been at the back of the truck the whole time! There’s nothing back there!” Kai took a few breaths to calm himself down and then said, “When we get filled up, we’re going back.”

  “No,” Dean answered.

  Kai’s fists clenched tight again. “Do not make me hurt you!” he said in a stone-cold voice. “I will.”

  “Will you shut up and listen!?” Dean erupted.

  Momentary confusion flooded Kai’s face, but it was soon replaced by a renewed rage. What the hell was wrong with this guy? He really thought going east into the desert, into hundreds of miles of nothingness, was the right thing to do. He was going to get them all killed. Kai raised his gun up to Dean’s face. He wasn’t sure what he would do with it. Of course, he wouldn’t actually shoot him point blank, but maybe this would scare him. Maybe this would bring him in line. Something had to be done, by force if it came to that.

  “Kai!” Jadon shouted. Slowly, the world began to come back to Kai. He could hear the terrified voices of the group all around him.

  Dean looked back at the road and then met eyes with Kai for a moment. “You don’t hear that?” Dean shook his head dismissively and then turned his back to Kai and headed to the cab. There wasn’t so much as a single hair raised from Kai’s attempt to intimidate him.

  Kai wanted so badly to ignore the pleas of everyone around him and to squeeze that trigger, but then he heard it- A car engine getting louder by the second. Kai swung his head around just in time to see a rust brown stati
on wagon fly out of the darkness. Its headlamps were off, and its interior was packed with a group of men armed to the teeth.

  The station wagon jumped the curb as it barreled into the other side of the gas station’s lot and slid to a stop next to an abandoned tractor-trailer. Immediately, the doors flew open and the men began shooting at the group standing around the dump truck.

  There were shouts and cries as the group panicked and scrambled for cover. “Get behind the truck!” Kai yelled as he turned and begun firing his gun at the station wagon, hoping to hit someone. When the magazine was depleted, Kai searched desperately for cover, but he couldn’t find anything that wasn’t already taken. The best he could do was duck behind a three-foot-tall cement pole. He knew it did little to protect him, but it was better than risking sharing cover with someone else and putting their life at risk.

  Kai ejected the clip from his gun and then fished out another clip from his pocket. He heard a bullet ricochet off the pole as he shoved the fresh clip into the gun. He turned and took aim at a big, chubby guy wearing a loose tank top with the word “California” spanning three lines in a massive font. Kai unleashed a volley of bullets at the man and he collapsed like a ragdoll. Nearby, another man went down with a shot from Dante’s rifle and seconds later, a kid using the tractor-trailer as cover fell down and begun screaming in pain when someone from the group shot his legs out from under him.

  A short, bald man with a sleeve of tattoos running up his arm stood near the hood of the station wagon staring Kai down and shouting curses at him. The man began firing off his revolver at Kai. Kai stood and returned fire as he tried to ignore the sound of bullets ricocheting off the small cement pole in front of him and the gas pump behind him. For some reason, Kai’s mind became consumed with the action movies where it took only a few bullets to ignite some gasoline and cause a massive explosion. But something stung his gut and jerked his mind in another direction. Had he been hit? Was he bleeding out? Kai refused to look down, he just gritted his teeth and continued firing at the man until his magazine was empty.

  When the bald man saw this, he flashed a smile full of small, jagged shark teeth and took a moment to focus his aim at Kai.

  But before he could fire, half of his skull exploded out of the side of his head and he went limp. Dean walked calmly up to behind the car with a pistol in his hand and then circled to the kid who was still screaming in agony on the other side of the car.

  Kai searched around for any more men and then took a sigh of relief. He looked around at the group, there were no cries for help. No one face down in a puddle of their own blood. Somehow, the fight was done and they all survived. No one was hurt…

  And then Kai remembered being stung in the gut. He put his hand on his stomach before looking down. From a hole in his shirt, a trickle of blood leaked out of his body.

  16

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Kai moaned as he pulled his shirt off to get a better look at the wound. What he expected was a small dark hole, but when he wiped away the blood with his hand, what he found was an irregular shape. It was more the shape of a “G” with a ridge of metal jutting out along one side. He breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s not too bad.”

  “You’re hit?!” Jadon called out as he ran to over to him. “I need some help over here! Kai’s hit! Where’s Teddy?” When Jadon reached him, he pulled out a rag and handed it to Kai. “Here, lie down and put some pressure on it.”

  “I don’t think…” Kai started, but once he saw the grim look on Jadon’s face, his relief left him, and he did as he was told, backing up to a concrete island and slowly sliding down and unwinding onto his back. To his side, Kai saw Irene, her eyes wide with fear. Kai tried to shoot her a smile, but it seemed to do little to comfort her.

  “Paper towels! I need something clean!” Jadon yelled to her, but Irene didn’t move. “Hey! Irene, get me towels!” Jadon shouted, louder this time.

  This shook Irene loose, she ran to a nearby gas pump and started pulling towels out of a dispenser. After a few pulls, Irene rushed back to Jadon and handed them over. Jadon wasted no time bunching them up and wiping away the blood.

  “Damn it, that hurts!” Kai yelled. “Where the fuck is Teddy?”

  “I’m coming,” a call answered as Teddy slowly slid out of the back of the truck. He jogged over, showing as much of an effort as he could- given the pain his severed arm was still giving him. Teddy put his arm on Jadon’s shoulder to slowly lower himself down. “Get that out of the way,” he said, gesturing to the paper towels Jadon was using to apply pressure. “Let me get a look at the wound.”

  Teddy’s eyes went wide as he got inches from the wound. After a few seconds, he got back up and sighed. “Lucky you,” he said. “It’s not deep. It was just some shrapnel off a ricochet.”

  “So, what do we do?” Jadon asked with a look of confusion on his face.

  “Use your fingers to pull it out. Then pour some alcohol on it and superglue it shut.” Jadon pulled a pint of whiskey from his pocket, took a swig and then thrust it at Jadon. “Here- now all you need is the glue.” After giving the wound one final look, Teddy put his weight on Jadon’s shoulder to stand up and then he hobbled toward the convenience store at the edge of the gas station.

  Jadon let out a sigh and shot Kai a look of relief. “Well, good thing I’m not the doctor. Irene, see if you can find some superglue. I’ll get to work pulling this thing out.”

  Just then, Kai spotted Dean struggling to pull something from behind the station wagon. “I’ve got a live one,” Dean shouted and then emerged with the kid who had his legs shot from under him. He was screaming bloody murder as Dean dragged him toward the group by the collar.

  “I got some duct tape,” Elias offered as he ran up to meet Dean. He immediately got to work binding the boy’s hands together behind his back. After giving his work a once-over, he helped Dean carry him to a nearby planter, which they propped him up against.

  “Talk,” Dean said in a cold tone, but the boy instead looked away. As more people came with their flashlights shining on the boy, Kai could see that the boy had either pissed himself or got shot in the crotch; given the situation, Kai could guess that it wasn’t the latter.

  “You were following us,” Elias chimed in. “Are there more coming?” The boy was silent. “Answer me!” Elias shouted and pulled his gun out. “Answer me now!”

  “Fuck you,” the boy choked out.

  As Elias pulled up his gun, Jadon turned and yelled at him, “Elias! Leave him alone! He’s a boy.” Elias followed Jadon’s orders, but not without giving a strangely childish scowl in return.

  “Hey, there’s a radio in here!” Quaid shouted to the group. He was in the station wagon rummaging around. “A working radio,” he reiterated. Dean abandoned the boy to get a look at what Quaid was talking about.

  “Look at this thing,” Quaid continued. “They must have built it themselves.”

  “Shh,” Dean responded, “turn it up.”

  Quaid looked over the various knobs and then adjusted a dial to increase the static hum on the speakers. Suddenly, as if on cue, it came alive. “Percy, you there?!” a choppy voice asked as it fought against static. “Where the heck are you guys? Come in damn it.” The voice went silent for almost a minute before it came back. “We’re ten minutes out of Tonopah, let us know which way we’re taking.”

  “Shit! We’ve got company!” Quaid shouted to the group.

  Dean turned to the group. “We need to get packed up and going. Now.”

  “We ain’t going nowhere unless someone helps me get this fucker fueled up,” Hector announced in a matter of fact tone. To this, Cliff Will nervously offered his services.

  “Where’s the map?!” Kai yelled as Jadon finished dressing his wound with some superglue that Irene had found.

  “I’ve got it,” Quaid said, pulling it out of his back pocket.

  “Bring it here,” Kai ordered. Quaid unfolded the map and spread it out on the ground near Kai bef
ore pulling out a flashlight to illuminate it. Kai looked it over and then addressed the group. “Okay, which way are we going? We can’t go west, thanks, Dean. So, we just have east, north and south.”

  “Hey!” Hector yelled to the group as he abandoned the pump and took a few steps closer to them. “Whichever fucking way we go, just make sure there’s somewhere to fuel up. The engine’s been guzzling gas ever since the crash. She’s barely pushing a hundred miles on a tank now. And we ain’t getting much gas out of this stop.” With that, he returned to the pump.

  “Then we can’t go east,” Quaid announced. “There’s not enough towns. There’s no way we’ll make it to the next one before running out of fuel. The benefit there is that they’ll probably expect us to continue in that direction- so there’s that.”

  “What about north?” Kai suggested. “We make it up to the 80 and then we’ll have the option of going west or east. We could get back on the original track and head to Tahoe.”

  Quaid spread his fingers and used them to make crude measurements on the map. “I wish we could,” he said, “But it’s still too far. I just don’t think we’d make it to the next town.” He was silent for a moment and then said, “We need to go south. There’s way more stops, and hell, it’s the least likely direction they’ll expect us to go.”

  “That’s backtracking,” Dean said.

  “It’s also our only option. I mean, as far as fuel goes.” Quaid shot back. He guided his finger along the map, “Look, we can go down to Vegas and then take the 15 north toward Colorado. And who knows, maybe we get lucky down there and find a trade in- Get ourselves a shiny new dump truck with better gas mileage.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Kai questioned. “Vegas? We just left the city full of zombies. How many are we gonna find down there? This sounds like suicide.”