The Onyx Seed - A Story of Survival by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 14

 

The day drew itself out into evening and evening into night. The sky once again burst forth as it birthed a hundred million stars. Marty had witnessed this celestial sky-scape many times but was still enamored by its beauty. Lucas, however, was still not accustomed to their glowing brilliance, when all he had seen from beneath the streetlights of L.A. was a field of black. Save for the endless cycles of the moon. They spoke briefly of the next day’s events and how important it was to be properly supplied before their journey east.

“Do you think we’ll have time to go to the college?” Lucas asked.

“I thought you didn’t want to go in there,” Marty answered.

They had built a small fire for warmth. Dry wood was hard to find in a place that was largely a mound of exposed rock.

“Yeah,” Lucas replied. “I was just thinking of going to the bookstore.”

Marty nodded his understanding. The idea of education was, for the most part, dead. But, Lucas was still in need of intellectual stimulation. Civilization had come to a grinding halt, yet ideas were still available for examination. Learning is accomplished for the benefit of sharing ideas with the intention of bettering the world. Now, in the absence of civilization, had learning become obsolete? Perhaps, if life presents the possibility of achieving a common goal, a system of learning might again be established.

“I guess my head needs something to do.”

“Well,” Marty began. “I’d like to stay out of large buildings, rather than get lost. So in the morning, were going into town first. Maybe well run into a bookstore."

“Yeah," Lucas replied. “There has to be at least one. I mean, this is a college town, right?” Marty nodded his response.

“We’ll find one.”

A long silence went by as the fire crackled and the stars moved slowly overhead in their endless, circular tracks.

“Are we taking the mountain bikes with us?” Lucas asked.

Marty explained that the only reason for having them was to make a quiet escape from Los Angeles and now that they were in Whittier, they could find a car and dispense with the mountain bikes. “Besides,” Marty continued. “They’d take up too much room.”

That night, they turned in early. Marty wanted to go into town during the day, thinking that more light would mean fewer surprises. If there was going to be any trouble, he wanted to see it coming, instead of waiting for something to leap out of the shadows. The night was cold and still. The air carried a strange silence that Lucas found somewhat uncomfortable. Yet, it wasn’t as nearly unnerving as the terrifying sounds of L.A. The lack of any sound that now lived in Los Angeles screamed loudly enough to drive one into madness. But, out among the trees. Under the blanket of a starry night, the silence soon brought an almost maternal comfort. Lucas was simply not accustomed to it. The night before, it was exhaustion that drove him into sleep. Now, he would have to get used to the absence of the things that terrified him the most -- the occasional gunshot, police sirens, screaming neighbors and nameless footsteps hesitating in damp, black hallways.

Marty had advised him against the cold by suggesting he wear a hat when sleeping. He also had the foresight to grab a couple of wool caps during their shopping spree at the camping supply store back in L.A. It worked like a charm. Marty, on the other hand, was fast asleep. Not only was he quite accustomed to the woodland silence, he also celebrated it. He lived for it. The outdoors was his temple. His sanctuary. It was where he went to escape everything he despised about modern life. The traffic and noise. The people and attitudes. That, more than anything else, was something Marty found intolerably deplorable. The idea some people held the belief that they were somehow special, that they were better than everyone else. But death, being the great equalizer, had resolved that issue. And secretly, Marty was very pleased with the solution life had chosen for what he thought of as a nasty human habit. The next morning came early, as they both rose with the waking sun. Of course, coffee was the day’s priority. Above all else, coffee was as valuable as water, as important as breathing. It could easily be said that coffee is what blows breath into the waking mind. To a committed coffee drinker, life would be anything but easy without it. After breakfast, Marty showed Lucas how to fold up the tents. He folded it in sections and rolled it up tightly enough to fit it into its nylon carry bag. Lucas caught on quickly.

The skill-set for outdoor survival was enormous and there were many things he had to learn. If something happened to Marty, Lucas would be left to his own devices. So, learning to be self-reliant would be a constant process. They loaded their packs, evenly distributing their contents for proper balance. Upon approaching their mountain bikes, Lucas felt slightly surprised that they were still there. In L.A., they would be long gone by morning and likely sold for drug money. But, this was not L.A. And strapping on their packs, they walked the bikes down the western slope to the beginning of the switchbacks. “It’s all downhill from here,” Lucas said, with a noticeable degree of relief.

“Luke,” Marty began. “You can’t go too fast down these trails. Just go slow and steady. Remember how much weight you’re carrying”.

Lucas mounted his bike.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “This is the easy part!” Marty started out slowly while Lucas raced ahead. Some things have to be learned the hard way and Lucas had fated himself to a painful lesson. As he sped down the first switchback, missed the turn and careened across the bare rock.

“Shit!” Marty yelled. “Luke, lay it down!” Marty stopped at the first turn, got off his bike, threw off his pack and ran toward Lucas, who had applied the rear brake out of sheer reactive terror. The back tire skidded across the bare rock as Lucas leaned in toward the slope, for fear of tumbling down its steep length. He landed with only a few scrapes along his forearm and elbow. Marty approached him moments later.

“You okay?” he asked.

A fall down rocky terrain could be fatal, especially without a helmet. The one thing they’d forgotten to pick up at the camping store. Lucas slowly got his feet. He was clearly shaken by what he felt was his first near-death experience and hopefully, his last. “Fuck!” he yelled. “I am never doing that again!” In spite of the seriousness of the event, Marty tried, unsuccessfully, to contain his laughter. “I tried to warn you,” he said with a grin.

Lucas raised his arm and examined his rock burned skin.

“Shit, that’s going to need a band-aid.” He looked up at Marty, who was still trying to keep from laughing at his expense.

“Oh, well, I’m certainly glad I could entertain you with my near fucking death experience,” he said. “Luke,” Marty began. “What did I tell you?”

“I know,” Lucas answered. “I know, I was being a dick.”

Marty tried to be serious.

“Let’s take a look,” he said.

He uncapped his canteen and poured a bit of water over the scraped area. Lucas took a sudden breath through clenched teeth.

“Shit!” he said painfully. “That stings like a bitch!” He wasn’t angry with Marty, but himself. He knew that he was smarter than to do something so foolish. “Let’s get to the bottom and well take a better look at that,” Marty said.

Lucas straightened his pack and turned his bike around.

“Shit,” he began. “That was a dumbass thing to do, wasn’t it?”

Marty nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, it was.”

Going back to the trail, they got on their mountain bikes and slowly made their way down the switchbacks. Lucas took his time.

When they arrived at the bottom, Marty applied a sparing amount of antibiotic cream to the scrape running the length of Lucas’ forearm. He flinched as its coldness touched his raw skin. “Really?” Marty said. “Don’t be such a pussy. This could have been a lot worse.”

Lucas was still trembling and the last thing he wanted was a lecture.

“Yes, mom,” he replied with a bit of sarcastic humor. Marty returned the antibiotic to their first aid kit and instructed Lucas to leave it open to the air. They started out again from the top of the valley and back toward the parking lot. From there, they biked into the business district of Whittier.

“Where do you want to stop first?” Lucas asked. “Let’s look around first,” Marty answered. “We’ll see where everything is, then get a car and start packing up.”

Marty memorized everything of importance. An electronics store. A drug store. Further into town, he spotted a gun store, then a grocery store. By now, he had committed the list to memory, associating its items with the stores they passed. Before they stopped anywhere, they needed a car and the bigger, the better.

“We need something big,” he said to Lucas. “Something that’s going to carry a lot of supplies.” Just then, Lucas was struck with an idea that was as brilliant as it was odd.

“Hey!” he called. “Hang on a second.” They both stopped in the middle of the street. There were only a few cars parked along either side of the street. Whittier was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost town.

“What is it?” Marty asked.

“I know it isn’t very low profile, but what about an ambulance?” Lucas replied.

A grin slowly came to Marty’s face as he realized the genius of Lucas suggestion.

“That is fucking brilliant.”

“Hey,” Lucas replied. “I’m not just another pretty face, you know.”

“Alright,” Marty replied. “Don’t go patting yourself on the back too soon.”

Marty made a quick survey of the downtown district. “Now, where is the fire station?”

He assumed that fire stations and ambulances were either in the same place or very near each other. He also assumed they would be centrally located. They knew little to nothing about the area. However, within the next few blocks, they discovered the town’s ambulance service. Its doors were open, but its ambulances were not to be found. “Shit!” Lucas said, disappointedly. “So much for a good idea.”

“I’m not surprised,” Marty replied. “They’re probably at the local hospital.”

Lucas looked at him with a shocked expression. “I am not fucking going there,” he said. After everything they’d seen in L.A., the last thing Lucas wanted was to go was a hospital. Marty thought hard about the kind of vehicle they needed. He looked at Lucas in a moment of inspiration. “We need a van,” he said. “Something big, like a camper.”

“So, where do we find one around here?” Lucas asked.

Marty looked around for anything that might point them in the right direction.

“I don’t know,” he answered.

After another moment, he turned back to Lucas. “I got an idea, followed me.”

“Where are we going?” Lucas asked. Marty began pedaling his mountain bike down the street, with Lucas following behind. “The college. I thought we weren’t going there,” Lucas said.

“We’re just checking out the parking lots,” Marty replied.

They rode back toward the Hellman Wilderness Park and turning right. And moving away from the park entrance, continued in the direction of Whittier College. They entered the nearest parking lot, finding very few vehicles. It was a small community college that, in its previous incarnation, offered its students the chance to study through an independent study program, once they received their two-year degrees. Of course, the mere idea of education had become pointless, in the wake of the infection. They circled around through the side parking lot. There were a few cars that had been left behind, but none were even close to what Marty was looking for. The back parking lot was small and the van stood out easily away from what few cars surrounded it. “That’s what I’m talking about,” Marty said. It was forest green with a black stripe across each side. Its previous owner had extended the back end by about a foot and a half. The side door appeared to be missing its handle. Not by accident, but apparently by design. Marty and Lucas stopped and dismounted their mountain bikes. Laying them down on the pavement, they cautiously approached the van. A curtain had been mounted and drawn between the seats and the back. Marty cautiously peered through the driver’s side window. Both seats were empty. However, there was no way to see past the curtain. He circled the front of the van and looked in through the passenger window. This view was also obstructed. He did notice one, almost insignificant detail. The top of the passenger window was open barely by a slit so thin that a fly would have difficulty crawling through.

“What is it?” asked Lucas.

“Probably nothing,” Marty answered. He motioned for Lucas to come over to the passenger side. Marty stood off to the side with his back to the passenger door and tapped on the metallic green of the van’s side door. Tap, tap, tap. There was no answer. He tapped again, striking his knuckles a bit harder against its polished reflective shell. Tap, tap, tap. Nothing. If anyone was in the van, they were either too panicked to make their presence known, or they were dead. Marty turned back to the passenger window. He brought his nose near the barely visible opening separating the glass from the top of the window frame. Drawing in a deep breath, he noticed an absence of any odor of decay.

“What are you doing?” Lucas asked. “Come here,” Marty said. “Put your nose against the crack of this window.”

Marty expected to detect the smell of rotting flesh and momentarily, thought the odor may have escaped his senses.

“What?” Lucas asked.

“Just tell me what you smell,” Marty replied. Lucas also brought his nose to the very slightly open window, not being sure what he was supposed to smell.

“I don’t smell anything,” he said, with a puzzled look. “Right,” Marty pointed out. “Do you know what that means?”

Lucas was still puzzled.

“It means that no one’s died in there. And if we can get in, we might be able to start it.” Lucas’s expression suddenly changed as he realized the significance of that brief, sensory moment as though he had received direct knowledge from the divine.

“I would never have thought of that,” he said. Marty tried both driver and passenger doors but found them locked. He circled around to the rear of the van, only to discover that its door handle was on the inside.

“Shit,” he quietly said to himself. “I think we’re going to have to break a window.” There were two windows at the rear of the van. Rather than shatter the driver or passenger side window, Marty thought it best to break one of the rear windows and patch it later.

“So, how do we do this?” Lucas asked. “Do you want to just smash it with a rock?”

It seemed like their only option and Marty knew it wouldn’t be that simple. He would have to use something that came to a point, something that could be focused on a very small area of the window. After describing what he was looking for, both he and Lucas began searching along the edge of the parking lot. It abutted a thin tree line that lay at the southern slope of the ridge they’d camped on during the two previous nights. Over time, pieces of rock had broken off and tumbled down into the sparse tree-line.

There were shards of rock everywhere and it took only moments for Marty to find what he was looking for. It was smooth, with an almost triangular shape and roughly the size of a grapefruit. “I got one!” he called.

Lucas found two slightly smaller rocks, but similar in shape. Returning to the van, they compared the rocks and Marty reached the conclusion that a larger rock would produce more force. He dug into his pack and pulled out a small towel. Wrapping his hand and wrist with it, he held the rock with a firm grip. As he carefully aimed the rock at the center of the glass, his mind briefly flashed back to the camping store. It happened only days ago but now seemed like a distant memory. Lucas, also remembering the break-in, instinctively took a few steps back as Marty swung the rock against the laminated window. The pointed rock found its mark, resulting in a catastrophic collapse of tiny glass fragments. Most of which fell inside the van.

Marty brought his hand away from the window frame, dropping the rock to the pavement. He unwrapped his hand and wrist and breathed a sigh of relief at the absence of any injuries. Lucas slowly walked back to the rear of the van without saying a word, as though he might startle some great evil lurking inside. They glanced at each other as if neither knew what the next step should be. Marty brought up a hand, motioning Lucas to remain at a safe distance. He peered into the now empty window frame and found only darkness.

“Hello!” he called. “Anyone in there?” The silent response seemed to go on forever. Certainly, the sound of shattering glass would have roused the attention of anyone who might be inside. Marty dared not reach into the van without being certain of whom, or what might be inside. He called again.

“Hello, anyone there?”

Silence. He whispered to Lucas to retrieve a flashlight. When he returned, Marty aimed it into the van. Lucas was ready to leap out of his skin with the anticipation of something truly unimaginable. Marty carefully fished a hand in through the window, found the latch and opened the doors. The floor of the van was covered by a thin, brown carpet. Occupied only by empty space, it displayed numerous signs of wear along its interior.

For its age, it had been well cared for. Marty brushed the many bits of glass out with the towel he’d used to shield his hand.

“Anything in there?” Lucas asked. “No,” Marty answered. “It’s empty.” Lucas walked up to the open doors and examined it for himself.

“This is huge!” he said. “You could almost live in this.”

Marty climbed into the back of the van and making his way toward the front, drew open the curtain and found the seats and dash to be spotless. He sat in the driver’s seat and unlocked the passenger door. He glanced into the side mirrors. If for no other reason, then as the reaction of a healthy degree of paranoia. The silvered glass revealed nothing surprising. Marty and Lucas were still very much alone. As Marty briefly inspected the vans forward interior, Lucas had also made his way up into the passenger’s seat. Unsurprisingly, the keys had not been left behind. The previous owner’s caution did not lessen Marty’s determination. However, the one thing the Army did not train him for was how to steal a car. Lucas, making himself comfortable in the passenger’s seat, noticed Marty’s frustration.

“Problem?” he asked.

Marty let out a flustered sigh and sat back in his seat. “No keys.”

“Oh,” Lucas replied.

Marty’s frustration began to approach its boiling point. After all the preparation, the risks that had been taken, everything that had gone into making their escape from Los Angeles was going to be for nothing over a missing set of car keys.

“Did you think they were just going to leave them in the ignition?” Lucas asked.

After a tense silence went by, Lucas opened the door and stepped out.

“I guess not,” Marty said.

Lucas walked about the front and opened the driver’s door.

“What are you doing?” Marty asked.

“Come on out,” Lucas said. “I got this.” Marty looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “You got this?” he asked in disbelief. “Really?”

“Come on,” Lucas replied. “Get out.” Marty nodded in resignation.

“Okay,” he said.

He got out of the van and as Lucas got in behind the wheel, Marty stood leaning back against the side, just behind the door frame. Lucas sat fishing his hands under the dashboard. Disconnecting three wires from the vans fuse box. He touched two together while gently pushing a foot on the gas pedal. The engine suddenly came to life as Marty’s jaw dropped in disbelief. Lucas turned to Marty with a surge of confidence.

“So, you getting in or not?”

Marty nodded his head and grinned as he calmly walked around the front of the van. Putting a hand on the passenger door handle, he was suddenly startled by a loud hydraulic hum. The sound was followed by the sight of the vans side door breaking away from its frame. It unfolded upwards on a set of steel hinges. Marty watched this transformation in unqualified amazement, having seen nothing similar since armored personnel carriers during the Iraq war.

During this display of mechanical ingenuity, Marty opened the passenger door to find Lucas with one hand on a ceiling-mounted lever and a broad grin on his face.

“See what I found?” he said teasingly. Marty climbed into the passenger seat, looked down at the driver’s side dash, then at Lucas.

“Alright,” he began. “How the fuck did you do that?” Lucas continued in his shameless display of satisfaction.

“Hey,” he started. “You forgot I grew up in the hood.”

Marty continued looking at him with a slight grin. “Yeah,” Lucas continued. “You may now worship my genius.”

Marty turned away slightly while rolling his eyes. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Alright, alright. You can get over yourself now.”

Lucas chuckled a bit as he pressed a button on the end of the lever. He pushed it back up into place as the door made a hissing sound, slowly falling back down into its latch. Lucas took the opportunity to express himself with two simple words. “Fucking awesome!”

“Okay,” Marty replied. “You ready now?”

“Oh, yeah,” Lucas answered.

“Open that door again and let’s get our stuff,” Marty said.

Lucas pulled the lever down and once again, the hydraulics came to life as the side door opened. “Hang on a second,” he said.

He wanted to see if the door would stay in place when he let go of the lever. Both the door and lever remained in place. It seemed to be designed to release only when the button was pushed, allowing the lever to be guided back up, similar to an emergency brake. “Okay.”

Marty threw their packs into the van and climbed back into the passenger’s seat. Closing the door, he glanced down at the stick shift.

“You know how to drive a standard?”

“Yeah,” Lucas answered. “How hard can it be?”

“Shit,” Marty replied. “Alright, come on.” He opened the door, got out and walked around to the driver’s door.

“Move over. The last we need is for you to go burning out the clutch.”

“Fine,” Lucas replied. “But, I’m doing this under protest.”

Marty climbed in and disengaged the lever, lowering the side door. He checked the gas gauge as he put the van in gear. Surprisingly, the tank was nearly full. He circled around the edge of the parking lot as they drove off the campus. Having arrived in the downtown district once again, they stopped first at the electronics store. Marty led the way as they entered cautiously after noticing the door had been left unlocked.

“Hello?” he called. “Anyone here?” The replied was silence. He motioned Lucas up next to him.

“We need batteries,” he said quietly. Lucas nodded and quickly walked to the display rack where packages of batteries had been methodically arranged in symmetrical rows and columns. He was relieved that the display rack was full and emptied it of everything he could carry. Marty walked around the end of the glass case where the register sat. Anyone of lesser intelligence might have tried to empty it of its contents. But Marty knew that things being the way they were, money had become more valuable as tinder than currency. Behind the glass display case, he found two multi-band radios. AM, FM, and shortwave. He grabbed both of them as Lucas filled a plastic shopping bag with batteries. “Why two?” Lucas asked.

“In case one breaks,” Marty answered. On their way out, Marty noticed how quiet it was. He found the silent solitude of the mountains comforting, but a town or city without the typical sounds of human activity made him feel as though he was being watched and felt haunted by it, knowing that every building they entered would be filled with the shrieking sound of silence. He had experienced it time and again during night missions in Iraq and learned that the enemy can, quite effectively, hide within its cloak. The silence of the city -- any city -- was one of the few things he truly hated. They went to a nearby pharmacy, obtaining first aid supplies. Gauze, tape and roller bandages, among other things. Finding the only grocery store in Whittier, Marty reminded Lucas to stay alert. With the power out, the pneumatic doors had to be pushed open. As they entered, Lucas turned to Marty with an odd question. “I know this is going to sound stupid, considering the circumstances, but do you want to get a cart?” Marty looked at Lucas as though he’d just discovered some great truth.

“Sorry,” Lucas continued. “That was kind of stupid, wasn’t it?”

“Actually, it wasn’t,” Marty replied. Anyone else would likely run in and back out with only an armload of whatever they could grab. In Marty’s mind, this had to be organized and calm. “Let’s get two.”

They each grabbed a cart and started down the aisle of canned food. Some shelves had already been cleared by people who had been caught up in a state of panic. They wanted to survive but had given no thought to a plan. The grocery store was not without one or two of its employees. And as Marty and Lucas reached the end of the aisle, they encountered an unfortunate clerk who had met his demise near a large open-top freezer. Upon sudden unconsciousness, the human body has a propensity for crumbling downward, not over. Yet, this seemed to be an exception, as the middle-aged man lay sprawled across a now thawed freezer of Butterball turkeys. His legs splayed akimbo over its edge, at the knees. The combination of rotting turkeys and the stench of human decay was overpowering. Marty and Lucas raised a hand to their noses as if trying to filter out the smell.

“Shit,” Lucas said, while trying not to gag. “That is fucked up.”

Just then, Lucas learned a valuable lesson. When in a closed area and in the midst of a rotting corpse, never inhale through your mouth. Smelling it is bad enough. But an odor strong enough can be tasted and Lucas discovered this the hard way.

The beginning of this experience was marked by a sudden episode of gagging, as Lucas spun around with his mouth open and tongue protruding slightly. This led to the violent contraction of his stomach muscles, as he soon began retching. The end result was now an eventuality and out of panic, Lucas ran down the aisle toward the front of the store, only to be stopped by the sudden projection of the contents of his stomach. Marty calmly walked up behind him but was forced back a few steps by the acrid odor that rose up from the floor, as it glistened with its fresh coating of vomit. Lucas looked back at Marty, who was busy trying to maintain a straight face. “Son of a bitch!” Lucas said. “Why the fuck aren’t you puking?”

Marty leaned an elbow against the nearest shelf, removing a warm bottle of flavored water. He twisted the cap open as Lucas began to recover, with only a strong feeling of nausea remaining. He took a quick mouthful of the colored water and directed his attention back to Lucas.

“You alright?” he asked.

Still bent over as he held himself up by one of the shelves near the middle of the aisle, Lucas momentarily rolled his eyes in response to Marty’s question.

“Fuck you,” he said.

His words came out with both deliberateness and frustration. Marty turned away in an attempt to hide a grin he could no longer contain. Lucas might have felt better about the experience had Marty been there to join him. Marty grabbed another bottle of water off the shelf and handed to Lucas.

“Here,” he said.

Lucas blindly reached out a hand and took the bottle, quickly opening it and washing down the foul taste that filled his mouth.

“I think we’ll pick up a couple of toothbrushes too,” Marty said.

Lucas raised his head between swallows of water.

“Oh, that’s funny, asshole!” he said. “That’s real funny!”

Marty began walking back to the shopping carts. “Come on, Luke,” he said, still trying to keep from laughing. “We got a lot to do, and we’re not going to get anything done with you waxing the floor. “ Lucas wasn’t so much angry as he was embarrassed. Marty returned, pushing one cart while pulling the other. He stopped and gave Lucas a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It was bound to happen. Especially after what happened at the hospital.”

He continued his way down the aisle, toward the front of the store. Lucas soon followed, still clutching his now aching stomach muscles. He caught up to Marty near the front of the store.

“How come you didn’t puke?” he asked. He thought that Marty had somehow become hardened not only the sight of death but the smell as well.

“Something you learned in Iraq?”

“Not really,” he began. “A little advice: when you’re around a dead body, don’t breathe through your mouth.”

Lucas nodded his understanding as he felt the beginning of a throbbing headache grip his brain. “Let’s get all this into the van,” Marty said. They didn’t have time for neatness and organization. The day was beginning to run late, and they needed more supplies before making one final stop.

Lucas took a few minutes to recover outside the grocery store, where he sat on the sidewalk with his back against its brick facade. Marty unloaded the contents of one cart into the van. Having accomplished this, he asked Lucas to unload the other while he returned for more canned food. When he was finished, Lucas went back in as well, in spite of how he had reacted to the purulent aroma of decaying flesh laying sprawled out across a collection of warm, swollen turkeys. He caught up to Marty as they, again, began filling their carts with canned goods and other essential items. He assured Marty that he’d completely recovered from what he hoped would not become a repeating event. After loading the van with four cartloads of food and supplies, Marty had one last stop to make. He hadn’t told Lucas where they were going, or what he was looking for. The only list these items were on was the one in Marty’s head. Marty pulled over to the side of the street, about two blocks from their destination.

“What’s up?” Lucas asked.

Marty tried to choose his words carefully. “Luke,” he began. “You know, we’re not the only people to survive this, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Lucas replied. “I mean, if we’re still here, then there’s got to be other people around, somewhere.”

“Right,” Marty said. “And you do understand that not everyone out there’s going to want to help us out.” Lucas’s expression grew somewhat confused. “Yeah,” he replied. “I’ve been trying not to think about that. To be honest, I don’t know what I’d do if I ran into someone who was out killing people, just because they could. I think I’d end up dead.” A momentary pause passed as Marty considered his next words.

“Luke,” Marty continued. “We have to be armed.” Lucas looked over at Marty with both fear and concern.

“Yeah, I know.”

Marty pulled out into the street again and drove the remaining two blocks to Whittier’s one and only gun store. It was a white, two-story building with an addition that had been constructed as a firing range. The parking lot was as empty as the rest of the town. They drove in and stopped next to the store. Approaching it, Marty saw that its second floor had been left untouched, remaining as an apartment and assumed that the store’s owner lived there. Marty turned back as Lucas opened the van’s passenger door.

“Stay here a minute,” he said.

Lucas closed the door. Marty wasn’t sure what to expect and was more than a little nervous, breaking into a gun store just days after a bioweapons attack had destroyed civilization. What he was certain of was that gun owners had a tendency towards paranoia. They collected guns with the belief that they were soon going to war with the government. What was more ridiculous was that they also believable that they actually had a chance of winning this imaginary war. And it always seemed to be those who thought they knew more about the law than those who had created it. Marty peered through the store’s front door and saw the racks that securely held all varieties of shotguns, hunting rifles and even a few military weapons. The store’s owner was absent. Probably upstairs. Probably dead. He tried the door and found it locked. Locating the building's back door, he discovered that, it too, was locked. However, Marty discovered that both doors were very different from each other. The front door appeared similar to that of the grocery store entrance. It was constructed of quarter-inch laminated plate glass, mounted in a stainless steel frame. On the other side, near the top, was an air-filled piston, used to slow the door as it closed. The buildings rear door, however, was a much simpler design. Constructed of oak, it held one pane of window glass and two-bolt locks. Both of which had been engaged. Returning to the van, he tapped on the passenger side window, instantly attracting Lucas’ attention.

“Come on, I need your help.”

Lucas stepped out with a bewildered expression. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Remember how we got into the camping store?” Marty asked.

Lucas was now following him toward the building. “How could I forget?” he replied. “Good,” Marty said. “Because we might have to do that again.”

Lucas continued to trail behind Marty. “Are you fucking kidding? Breaking into a gun store?”

“That’s the idea,” Marty replied without hesitation. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Lucas began. “But, um, all those gun nuts were, well, nuts, right? I mean they weren’t exactly known for having a rational perspective on the world.”

“What’s your point, Luke?” Marty said, without slowing his step.

“Marty, hang on,” Lucas said.

There was an obvious tone of urgency in his voice. “Marty, wait a second!”

They stopped at the far corner of the building in a calm standoff between what was rational and what was necessary.

“This place could be booby-trapped,” Lucas said. “The one thing these people were afraid of was that someone would come along and take their guns away.”

“Luke,” Marty replied. “If you’ve got a better plan, I’m all ears. But, we need to be armed and I don’t like this situation any more than you do. So, trust me. I know the risks.”

Marty walked away towards the side of the building. “You’re right,” Lucas said. “We need to be armed. I just wish I felt a bit better about this.” Marty glanced into the store through the side window.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Me too.”

Marty quickly discovered that the side entrance would not allow them access to the store, only the shooting-range. And although it was attached to the building, the two were separated by what appeared to be a locked door. He motioned Lucas over. “Any ideas?” he asked.

Lucas peered through the window, tapping on it gently.

“Plate glass?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Marty answered. “But that may actually work in our favor.”

“How’s that?” Lucas asked.

“Window glass isn’t laminated,” Marty replied. “If you hit it with a rock, it makes a lot of noise. Plate glass doesn’t shatter as loudly. Like the back window of the van.”

Lucas glanced up at the second-floor apartment. “You think anyone’s home upstairs?”

“I hope not,” Marty answered. “I really don’t need to get shot today.”

Lucas quickly looked around the immediate area. “Did you notice the front door?”

Aside from the plate glass, a second door had been locked in front of it. One made of welded steel bars with a heavy padlock.

“Yeah,” Marty replied.” I don’t think we’re getting in that way.”

Marty searched the ground for a rock similar in shape and size to the one he’d used to shatter the van’s rear window.

The building’s lawn was slightly overgrown but there were no rocks, only a bed of gravel that lay between its grassy lawn and its foundation. “Shit,” Marty said quietly. “Luke, go back to the van and get a can of soup and the towel I used back at the college.”

Lucas nodded and ran back to retrieve the towel and a can of soup. Returning, he handed them to Marty, who, again, wrapped his hand and wrist. Holding the can tightly, he struck the window with the edge of the lid. It fell from its frame like a splintered curtain of shattered ice, landing on the floor in a brief torrent of sharp, irregular glitter.

“I’d feel better if we were doing this at night,” he said.

One at a time, they climbed through the window, careful not to touch the small shards of glass still clinging to the window frame. Once inside, Marty also shattered the window of the second door, reached in and unlocked it. With Lucas close behind, Marty slowly opened the door.

“Wait here,” he whispered.

Lucas nodded in silent acknowledgment as Marty stepped into the gun store. He quickly searched directly in front of him as well as the side of the door frame. Marty was deeply relieved when he found there were no booby traps or tripwires. Taking a few steps more, he continued looking for anything that would prompt a swift retreat. He was certain that Lucas would be right but was intent on taking the necessary risk. He looked back at the door where Lucas still waited.

“Luke, come on,” he said.

Lucas walked softly across the glass-strewn floor, afraid of making even the slightest sound. Momentarily, he found himself standing in the middle of an arsenal. His only exposure to firearms had been the occasional crackle of gunfire that rang out from the streets of L.A. He had always stayed clear of the kind of life that necessitated the use of a gun. And he had never considered hunting. Now, he was surrounded by weapons he’d only seen on television. He found it unbelievable that a place like Whittier was home to such a shocking assortment of lethality. Stepping over a few bits of glass from the shattered window, Lucas walked around the gun store in confused wonder. Arriving at the opposite side of the room, he found a mannequin sporting a bullet-proof vest. Pointing to it, he turned to Marty, who was busy breaking into a glass display case filled with revolvers and pistols.

“I thought these were used by the military,” he said. Marty glanced up just before breaking the glass of the display case.

“They usually are,” Marty replied. Lucas examined it closely as Marty shattered the top of the display case with the can of soup he’d used to gain entrance to the store. The sudden sound of fracturing glass startled Lucas into a gasp. “Fuck,” he said. “A little warning next time, okay?”

“Sorry about that,” Marty said.

“Why would they sell a bullet-proof vest in a gun store?” Lucas asked.

“Maybe the gun nuts were afraid the animals would start shooting back,” Marty answered. Lucas giggled a bit at Marty’s response. “What’s that?” Lucas asked, pointing to a large automatic rifle standing in a locked rack. Marty glanced over at it.

“That’s an AK - 47 assault rifle.”

“Shit,” Lucas replied. “Who the fuck would need something like this?”

If the infection that had been used to attack the world had done anything good, considering the vast number of dead, it was that gun control had been rendered a non-issue. Marty found several boxes of shells for the nine millimeter he would now carry. He walked over to Lucas, who was still staring at the assault rifle, reaching up and running his fingertips down its cold steel barrel, down to the trigger guard to the stock. He wondered what it might be like to fire a weapon such as this. To feel it against his shoulder. To smell the burning powder as the round left the barrel. He’d become caught up in the moment, dominated by images that had, for so long, bombarded him. From movies to television to news broadcasts. The fact that any store in a place like Whittier would sell something that belonged on the battlefield brought Lucas to the realization that the infection could be seen as some divine cure for a different kind of plague.

“Hey, Luke!”

Marty had been trying to get his attention for the last several seconds.

“Earth to Luke!”

Lucas reacted with a start, as Marty’s voice tore him away from the cold steel of the AK - 47 and the images of a now-deceased world. “Yeah,” Lucas replied. “I’m here.”

“You sure?” asked Marty.

Lucas still looked a bit startled, as he turned and walked toward the glass display case. “Yeah,” he answered. “What else do we need?” Marty still looked at him with concern. “We need a rifle,” he answered.

Lucas glanced back at the AK - 47, then looked at Marty with an uncertain expression. “Yeah,” Marty said. “That one, too.” Lucas reacted with surprise.

“You mean that one?” he asked. “Why would we need something like that?”

Marty was patient in his reply.

“Luke, we’re going cross-country,” he began. “We have no idea what’s out there. I know you want to think that there are still some nice people out there, but we have to assume otherwise, for now, alright?”

“I just don’t know if I could really shoot someone,” Lucas replied.

Marty briefly looked at him with an expression of seriousness.

“Trust me,” he said. “You can if you have to.” They left the building with a forty-five caliber pistol, a nine millimeter pistol, the AK -- 47 and a deer rifle with a scope.

Making one more trip into the store, they returned to the van with every box of shells they could find for both pistols and rifles. Marty made it a point to grab several magazines and some gun oil. “Just throw everything in,” Marty began. “We’ll organize things later.”

Leaving the parking lot of the gun store, they drove back to Whittier College.

“Why are we going back to the college?” Lucas asked.

“We need to regroup,” Marty answered. “We need to organize all this stuff and figure out what the next step’s going to be.”

Marty turned onto the campus and drove through the first two parking lots.

“I actually expected this to take longer, but I guess it’s good that we have a little more daylight, so we can see what we’re doing.”

As they drove into the last parking lot, Marty looked for a place near the back corner to park the van. Someplace near the tree-line, where they wouldn’t be easily noticed. Applying the brake while letting his foot off the gas, he bought the van to a stop, and raised the hydraulic door on the van's right side. The first thing Marty did was to load two magazines with nine millimeter shells. He would carry one in his pocket, while the other he loaded into the chromed pistol he’d procured from the gun store. Lucas entered the van from the back and together; they began organizing the canned and dry goods. Fruit, beans, a variety of canned vegetables and powdered milk, among other items. Marty realized that it would have been a good idea to pick up a few boxes as well. But that would have to wait.

After less than half an hour, they closed the back doors and lowered the hydraulic door. “So, what now?” Lucas asked.

“Well,” Marty began.

He was studying one of the maps and had already chosen their next destination.

“I was thinking about going to the Angeles National Forest.”

He pointed it out on the map. It was a large expanse of mountains and valleys that lay north of Whittier, with acres of pine strewn as far as the eye could see. “Have you been there, too?” Lucas asked. “Once,” Marty answered. “In this area.”

He moved his fingertip to a spot that lay in a heavily wooded area, surrounded by two sharp ridgelines, both bearing rocky peaks.

“But I was thinking we’d go here.” He moved his finger back over to a small blue shape on the map.

Morris Reservoir. It looks like there’s a clearing somewhere above the dam. Lucas leaned in, staring at the small blue blob.

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said. Marty put the map away and started the van exactly as Lucas had.

“You picked that up pretty fast,” Lucas remarked. Marty looked over at him with a slight grin. He stepped on the clutch while putting the van in gear. Again, he checked the gas gauge as the tires turned against the pavement. Bits of stone and gravel could be heard popping and grinding beneath the tires as they left the campus of Whittier College. Marty hoped for an easy escape to the northeast, but he expected a journey fraught with difficulty, and he knew that some difficulties could not be avoided. He accepted that as being part of life, an exercise in well-orchestrated damage control.