Mass Extinction Event (Book 9): Days 195 to 202 Page 7

  In the distance, there's another loud bang.

  “Sorry!” Riley shouts.

  Figuring that I should go and help him, I turn to go over to the counter. At the last moment, however, I see that one of the chairs has been left pulled out from a table, as if there was once someone sitting there. Even though there's no sign of anyone being here now, the sight of that solitary chair is a little creepy and – as I head over to take a closer look – I can't help wondering whether maybe there was a person who got stranded here after everything went wrong.

  I look down at the chair, but there's no sign of anyone now. Then again, what was I expecting? A note?

  There's a dark stain on the floor, however, and when I crouch down I realize that some blood has been spilled. Not a lot, but enough to suggest that someone here was injured, although the blood has turned a kind of brownish color so I guess it can't be too fresh. Still, I look around one more time, just to make doubly certain that there isn't a face peering at me from some hidden spot.

  Getting to my feet, I wander back between the tables. I can still hear Riley trashing the back rooms as he continues his search, but I can't shake the feeling that somehow we're intruding. This whole place has a kind of cemetery-like vibe of stillness.

  I stop near the counter, where more spiders are scuttling across the surfaces.

  “Hey, little guys,” I say with a faint smile, “how are you doing? Are you liking the new world, now there aren't so many humans to mess it up for you? Well, I've got news for you. We hung on and we made it, and now we're gonna be coming back. There won't be as many of us, though, not for a long time, so I guess you guys should make hay while the sun shines.”

  That was a phrase Mom used to use a lot, back on the farm. I still miss her a lot, and Dad too. And Joe. And Martha, except I still believe that Martha's out there somewhere, still alive. Still fighting.

  “Dude!”

  Suddenly Riley bursts through one of the doors, holding up two white plastic packages.

  “Burgers!” he says excitedly. “There are loads of them, and they're all sealed! The expiry dates are, like, still another six months away. This stuff must be processed to hell, it's like astronaut food or something, but they're real, actual burgers! My friend, we are going to have a feast tonight!”

  Thomas

  Riley lets out a low, pleasure-filled groan as he bites away a chunk of the burger. Juices are already dribbling down his stubble-covered chin, and he looks like a man who's experiencing absolute pure ecstasy.

  “I've dreamed of something like this,” he says after a moment, with his mouth still full. “I don't understand the science that kept these things fresh, or at least edible, but I'm not complaining. Thank the heavens for scientific progress, right?”

  “I've got to admit,” I reply, “these things are okay.”

  I take another bite of my own burger, which was cooked with the others on a makeshift grill that we assembled in the parking lot. It's been a long time since I actually truly enjoyed something I was eating. Lately, I've been mostly living on the rations we were given in New York, and they were fine enough. But a burger feels like a total miracle right now, and I'm starting to remember all the other amazing things I used to enjoy eating.

  Hot dogs.

  Pizzas.

  Steaks.

  Maybe all those things will come back some day soon.

  “I think we should stay here tonight,” Riley says, with lots of food still in his mouth. “The sun's already pretty low, and we've been walking for hours. I know we're in a hurry, but there's no point pushing ourselves to breaking point.”

  I look over at one of the windows, and I have to admit that the sun is low enough to cast long shadows across the entire restaurant. A moment later I spot the solitary chair over in the far corner, still left where it was standing when we arrived.

  “Plus,” Riley continues, “we need to figure out how we're going to transport twenty-five cases of these amazing burgers, because I am not leaving a single one of these things behind. Hell, I would happily eat these for the rest of my life and then just, like, keel over and die.”

  He laughs, and then he starts trying to lick burger juice off his own chin.

  “We should set off early in the morning, though,” I tell him. “At sunrise. We're still a few days from my place, and I want to get there as soon as I can. If there's any chance of finding my sister...”

  My voice trails off. I've talked to people about finding Martha so much lately, I'm starting to feel like a broken record.

  “So what's your sister like?” Riley asks.

  “She's cool,” I reply. “She's smart.”

  “Is she hot?”

  I turn to him.

  “It's a totally legitimate question,” he continues with a grin. “Is she a total babe?”

  “She's my sister,” I point out. “I do not want to talk about that kinda thing.”

  “I get it,” he replies, but I can see that he still wants to know more. “What color hair does she have?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Is she tall or short?”

  I can't help but sigh.

  “What about her, like, body shape?” he continues. “Is she -”

  Before he can finish, there's a sudden banging sound in one of the back rooms, as if a metal pan just fell to the floor. Startled, Riley and I both turn and look toward the door that leads into the rear area of the restaurant, and then after a moment we turn back to one another.

  I can see from the look in his eyes that he's worried.

  He slowly swallows the last of his burger, and then he puts a finger against his lip before getting to his feet.

  I stand up as well, and for a moment we both listen to the silence of the restaurant. There's no sound of anyone now, but there's also no mistaking the fact that something just fell off a surface somewhere. Or rather, something was pushed off a surface.

  Riley nudges me and gestures for me to follow, and we both head over to the counter. Riley's slightly ahead, so I turn and look back the way we just came, bringing up the rear just in case someone tries to sneak up behind us.

  When we reach the counter, Riley very carefully climbs over, and I do the same. He gestures for me to go around the other way, and I realize that he wants us to try to create a little pincer movement of our own. I'm not entirely sure that this is the best idea, but then Riley grabs two mops and hands one to me, and he turns his around as if he's planning to use it as a weapon. I raise a skeptical eyebrow, but he turns me around and gently pushes me to go the other way, and I figure that we can't exactly stand here and have an argument.

  Reaching the far end of the soda machine, I peer around the corner and see a row of preparation spaces, which I guess is where the burgers used to get made in this place.

  I glance over my shoulder and see that Riley is already going through to the main part of the kitchen. For all his faults, he certainly doesn't lack courage, so I take a deep breath and then I head around the other side until I find myself standing in an open area with several plates set out on a nearby counter. A moment later I spot a metal tray on the floor, and I realize that this might well be the thing that fell a couple of minutes ago and made so much noise. I try to tell myself that we're panicking over nothing, that perhaps the tray just happened to fall, but deep down -

  “Ugh!”

  I spin around and look back the way I just came.

  Was that Riley?

  I heard a voice, just for a moment, and it sounded as if someone was in pain.

  I wait, listening to the silence that now fills the room. I want to call out to Riley, to check that he's okay, but at the same time I don't want to give away my position. Raising my mop, I tell myself that maybe Riley's playing some kind of prank, that that's exactly the kind of thing that someone like him would do. Yeah, I bet he's a real practical joker, I bet he's someone who'd go to elaborate lengths in order to pull a little trick on me. He's probably hiding so
mewhere and watching me, struggling to keep from laughing his ass off.

  He really is a lot like Joe.

  I take a step forward.

  Suddenly there's a loud, heavy thudding sound over my shoulder. I spin around again, and this time I see a door swinging on its hinges at the far end of the room.

  “I'm armed!” I blurt out, before I have a chance to stop myself. I adjust my grip on the mop. “You wanna mess with me? Give it your best shot!”

  Damn, I am so not good at sounding tough.

  I hear a faint squeaking sound coming from somewhere over on the room's far side, and a moment later there's a soft, almost imperceptible thud.

  I look all around, and now I'm starting to get a little mad. Either Riley is messing with me, or some asshole's trying to get a jump on me, and neither of those prospects seem too appealing right now.

  I glance at the counter, hoping to spot something I can use as a weapon.

  Something more solid than a mop.

  And then, behind me, someone growls.

  I turn around, just in time to see a large naked man running toward me. I take a step back, only to bump against the counter, and I can already see the pure hatred in the man's eyes. He's only a few seconds away, so I adjust my grip on the mop and get ready to swing at this asshole's head. Whoever he is, he's picked the wrong guy for a fight.

  I slam the mop into the side of his face, just as he reaches me and grabs me by the throat, and we both scream as we fall back onto the tiled floor.

  Day 198

  Elizabeth

  When I was a kid, I used to sleep with my window open, and I used to let the sounds of Manhattan lull me out of sleep. It was like the reverse of those calming alarm clocks. As the sound of traffic began to build, I'd stir and wake until the city's noise hit a crescendo and then finally I'd open my eyes. I was comforted by the noise of the city, by it's constant purring reassurance that it was still there. Maybe that was a weird system, but it worked for me. Maybe I'm weird that way.

  But now?

  Now it's the silence that wakes me, every morning at dawn. It might sound odd to talk about silence being deafening, but in this case it's really true. And now, as I open my eyes, I listen to the absolute silence that's roaring in through the window, and finally I sit up and look out at the ruins of the city. Bright morning light is bursting through the cracks in the skyscrapers, bathing the city in a cold orange glow, and I know that people are out there. The city is waking up. It's just that they do it so much more quietly these days.

  I should be glad of the silence, but I'm not. I miss the noise.

  ***

  My name is Elizabeth Marter, and two hundred days ago my morning routine was something like this:

  - Wake up.

  - If it's a school day, force myself out of bed.

  - If it's not, stay in bed for a while and think of all the reasons why my life sucks.

  - Finally roll out around nine or ten and go through for some breakfast.

  - Endure my annoying little brother Henry.

  - Go meet my friends.

  Of course, now things are somewhat different. Now the world has pretty much collapsed, civilization is on the brink, and I'm all alone. So my routine is more like this:

  - Wake up.

  - Look out at the ruined city for a while.

  - Attach my makeshift artificial foot to my (still bloodied) stump.

  - Go down to the communal breakfast area and eat whatever's available.

  - Try to avoid Nadine and Julius. As nice as they are, they talk a lot.

  - Think about Henry, and about Mom, and wonder where Dad is right now.

  - Go to work, helping to clear old buildings and gather anything that's useful.

  - Hope that society doesn't collapse, and that I make it through one more day.

  That's quite a big change, and it's taken me a while to adjust. Still, it's better than actively running from zombies, or living in the besieged ruins of a city (Boston) that could get blown up at any moment. Either way, the point is this: I've never been much of a morning person.

  ***

  “It's terrible,” Nadine is saying up ahead, as I enter the breakfast room on the ground floor of the building. “With everything that's going on, how can someone have this urge to -”

  “Wait!” Julius hisses, trying to shut her up as soon as he spots me.

  “Hey, guys,” I say, forcing a smile as I limp over to inspect this morning's offerings. “What's up?”

  When they don't reply, I glance at them, and I quickly realize that something seems to be wrong.

  “What is it?” I ask cautiously. “Did something happen? Is it zombies?”

  Nadine turns to Julius and whispers something, and he sighs.

  “We didn't want to bother you with this,” Julius says, “but I guess you'll hear it from someone else soon enough. It would seem that, at some point during the night, another woman got murdered.”

  “Another one?” I ask. “Near here?”

  “About four blocks away.”

  “So that's, what...” My voice trails off for a moment. “How many people have to die before this person is counted as a serial killer?”

  “Traditionally three,” Julius replies, “with a cooling off period between each of them. Over a period of a month or more.”

  “So this guy counts?” I suggest.

  “I would say so,” he mutters awkwardly. “The point is, we mustn't panic. We can't even be certain that it's the same person each time.”

  “So there might be several murderers running around?” I ask. “Is that supposed to be better?”

  “All the victims have made the same mistake,” Nadine points out. “They were all out after curfew. They were all breaking the rules. Which means that, so long as we do everything by the book, we're safe.”

  “Sure,” I reply. “Sounds easy, right?”

  “I'm sure the killer will be caught soon,” Julius says. “It's just that, in the meantime, it would behove us all to exercise a little caution.”

  “Behove?” Nadine replies. “What does that mean?”

  “It means we're all smart enough to not be victims here,” he says firmly. “The killer seems to always strike well after dark. He has a pattern, so we have to avoid falling into that pattern.”

  “I don't like it,” Nadine mutters as she turns and heads out of the room. “Look at us, we're struggling to survive as it is. And now some asshole wants to go around murdering random women? Some people just don't know when to give it a rest.”

  Once she's gone, I turn and take some crusty bread from one of the plates. Not too much, because I know there are plenty of people who haven't been through to breakfast yet. As I slice some butter from another plate, however, I start to become aware that Julius is watching me like a hawk. I want to ask if anything's wrong, but at the same time I'm also hoping that he'll simply wander away.

  “You were out late last night,” he says finally.

  I turn to him.

  “Relax,” he adds with a faint smile, “I'm not going to report you. I understand the urge to break a few rules now and again.”

  “That's not what it is,” I tell him.

  “Did you go anywhere fun?”

  “Just for a walk,” I semi-lie.

  “Clearing your head, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  He hesitates, and then he steps toward me.

  “It's just,” he continues, “you might want to play it safe for a while, at least until this killer has been caught. You don't want to end up in... difficulties.”

  “I won't.”

  “It's not safe out there.”

  “It hasn't been safe for a while.”

  “There's no need to take unnecessary risks, Elizabeth.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “I'm worried about you, that's all. If anything happened to you...”

  “I can take care of myself,” I point out.

  “Sure,” he says, but he glances down brie
fly at my leg, and I know he's thinking about my foot and about how slow I can be sometimes. “Maybe, just, don't go out late for a while,” he adds. “Just for now.”

  “I don't make a habit of it.”

  “That's good.”

  “I'm not some rebellious little kid,” I add. “I'm not breaking the rules for the sake of it, I just like going to my -”

  Stopping myself just in time, I realize that I was in danger of saying too much.

  “To your what?” he asks.

  “Never mind.”

  He stares at me for a moment, as if he's trying to read my mind.

  “I don't want to alarm you further,” he adds finally, lowering his voice and leaning a little closer, “but I heard rumors that these attacks... Well, that there's a sexual element to them.”

  I feel a shudder run through my body.

  “The bodies are found... undressed,” he continues. “Violated. I spoke to someone who said he found one of the victims, and according to him the woman's body had been... rearranged.”

  “Rearranged?”

  “It was nasty.”

  I consider the implications for a moment, and then I take a step back.

  “Thanks for the warning,” I say cautiously, “and I'll take it into account, but right now I really need to get ready for work. Have a good day, Julius. I'm sure I'll see you later.”

  “I'm sure you will,” he replies, before flashing a smile. “We all have to look out for one another, right? The world's a crazy place, and we all need friends. I hope you consider me to be your friend, Elizabeth.”

  “Sure I do,” I reply, even though I'm once again feeling a little creeped out by his attempts to be so clingy. “I'm going to eat on the go. I'll see you later.”

  With that, I turn and walk out of the room.