Zero Trilogy (Book 2): Day One Page 2

  The woman’s arm began to shake from supporting the weight of the gun with her forearm. “If you’ve got goods to barter,” she said, lowering the barrel of the weapon, “you can come inside and look around. But then you’ve got to be on your way.”

  Elle nodded.

  The shotgun was now pointed at the ground, and Elle’s fingers twitched.

  Grab your gun and make a run for it, she thought. Or…

  The woman took several steps forward, limping. Ragged, muddy boots scraped the ground. “Come on,” the woman said. “We don’t have a lot, but it’s probably more than you got in your pack.”

  She tromped past Elle, hauling the shotgun over her shoulder. Elle raised an eyebrow. Should she follow her? She thought of her empty canteen. Dehydration was deadlier than going hungry for a few days. Maybe she could barter for something valuable…

  Elle cautiously followed the woman into the store. The woman opened the door and stepped inside, into the shadowy building. Elle paused at the threshold, taking a deep breath. A dark, slumped figure sat in a chair in the back, snoring loudly. Rows of shelving were stacked with produce boxes and plastic jugs of water.

  Elle stepped inside.

  “How do you stay alive?” Elle whispered. “Don’t people try to take this stuff from you?”

  “Tried and failed,” the woman replied. She walked behind the main counter. About a dozen packs of cigarettes were beneath the protective glass. “If you know the right people, the wrong ones stay away and let you mind your own business.”

  Whatever that means.

  “What about Omega?”

  “Like I said, if you know the right people, you can do what you want.”

  The store smelled of wet dirt and rotting feed. Odd, considering there were no animals in sight. Elle walked straight to a small aisle of metal shelving. There wasn’t much left here, except a few thin blankets and containers of sealed crackers.

  “I need water,” Elle said.

  “What have you got?”

  The woman leaned over the counter, and it occurred to Elle then how young she actually was. She couldn’t be older than twenty. Her skin was pale, eyes sallow.

  “I’ve got a map,” she shrugged.

  “A map is useless to me,” the woman replied. “Got food? Bullets, maybe? Everybody wants bullets.”

  Elle had bullets. A limited amount, and she wasn’t about to trade those for anything. Even water. Ammunition was almost more precious than food.

  “No,” Elle said. “Sorry.”

  “You don’t have anything I want, then,” the woman said. “You’d best be on your way.”

  The snoring figure in the back of the store choked, coughed, and continued snoring again. Elle looked at the small jugs of water. Her parched throat and bloody, cracked lips wanted them so bad.

  “Hey, you’re not one of those kids what got picked up by the Slavers, are you?” the woman asked. There was suddenly fear in her eyes. She backed up several feet from the counter.

  “Slavers?” Elle narrowed her eyes. “I haven’t heard of them.”

  “You’ve never heard of…” the woman trailed off, raising an eyebrow. “You come from the South?”

  “Los Angeles,” Elle replied carefully.

  “That would explain the clothes.” The woman gave Elle a once-over. “You should be careful, girly. They’re everywhere, looking for lone travelers. Picking them up, one by one.”

  “Who?”

  “The Slavers.”

  “Who are the Slavers?”

  “You’re from L.A. right?” the woman says. “You’ve got big gangs down there. We’ve got Slavers here. They round up the weak ones and take them off.”

  “Where do they take them?”

  “The desert.”

  “Why?”

  “How should I know?” she shrugs. “Why do people enslave each other to begin with? Power, I guess. There’s a rumor going around that there’s something big in the desert. Something the militias can’t stop.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody really knows.” The woman shakes her head. “They’re dangerous though. Better be on the lookout for them. They dress like local militias, draw people in. And then they take you.”

  Elle shuddered.

  And then she thought of the overturned jeep and of Pix’s dead, bloody body. The haphazard golden star spray-painted across the chassis of the charred vehicle. Militia, she’d thought. Now…she wasn’t so sure of that.

  “Where exactly do the Slavers take their prisoners?” Elle asked.

  The woman pushed a greasy strand of hair behind her ear.

  “You don’t want to go there,” she warned.

  “I didn’t say I was going there.”

  “I can tell.” The woman placed her hands on her hips, exhaling heavily. “Who are you looking for? It’s written all over your face, girly.”

  Elle blinked. “I’m just asking a question.”

  “The desert. San Jacinto Mountains,” the woman replied. “You know. By Palm Springs and all that. Pretty much abandoned, so I’ve heard. Slavers took it over. The real militia doesn’t have time to worry about what’s going on in a dried-up area of California and Omega sure as hell don’t care, either. So it belongs to the Slavers.”

  A bolt of electrified adrenaline shot through Elle’s body.

  So that’s where Jay, Georgia and Flash had been taken. No wonder she’d lost their trail. They weren’t in Los Angeles. They weren’t in the Central Valley. They were in the desert.

  “How far is it from here?” Elle asked.

  “A few hundred miles, at least.” The woman raised an eyebrow. “Don’t go, girly. You’ll wind up dead.”

  “Thanks, but I can handle myself.”

  Elle swung her backpack around and dug down, reaching for her map. She pulled it out. It was a crude depiction of the California Central Valley and the highways running in and out of the southern area of the state.

  “That won’t do you any good,” the woman said. “Here.”

  She reached under the counter and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Elle took it. It was a bigger map – a detailed one.

  “I don’t have anything to trade for it,” Elle replied.

  “Just take it.” She smiled. “And the name’s Sienna, by the way.”

  Elle nodded, but she didn’t offer her own name. It didn’t feel right.

  Not yet, anyway.

  “Thank you,” she said instead.

  “That’s Bob,” Sienna continued, gesturing to the snoring figure in the back of the darkened store. “He doesn’t notice anything these days.”

  Elle looked at Bob, the silhouette of a man slumped forward in a chair, surrounded by empty bottles of booze. “Husband?” Elle asked.

  “Brother,” Sienna answered.

  Elle opened the map and spread it across the floor, kneeling down to study it. Sienna was still behind the counter, watching. Elle felt a twinge of fear, being alone in a building with two people who could very well be plotting her death…but despite that fear, she stayed where she was. She had a gun and a katana. If something happened, she was well prepared for it and she could move faster than Sienna.

  She would win any fight they brought to her.

  Chapter Three

  “So. You’re not a thief. You’re not a carjacker,” Elle said, smiling slightly over the flames of the small campfire. “What are you, Jay?”

  Jay shrugged, dark eyes glimmering against dark skin.

  “Why do you have to keep it a secret?” Elle pressed.

  It was late. The night was cold. Georgia lay asleep next to Flash and Pix, a tangled mass of blond curls and long legs.

  “Because,” Jay replied, “secrets are the only things I have left.”

  Elle pressed her lips together.

  “You know,” she said, “my family was rich. Before all of this. Before Day Zero, when everything went insane.” She shook her head. “Didn’t do us any good. When the
EMP hit, our bank account just stopped existing. There was nothing my parents could do to stop it. My dad and my older brother. They died in the first two weeks, trying to get food from a grocery store that was overrun with looters.” Elle leaned her chin against her knees, staring at the fire. “All of it – civilization, I mean. It took five thousand years to build it and two weeks to tear it apart. It’s depressing when you think about it.”

  Jay turned his gaze from the fire, looking at Elle.

  “It didn’t surprise me,” he said. “That’s what man is. We’re just as feral as any wild animal out in the forest. We just like to pretend we’re not. And when something happens to shatter the illusion, everyone acts so shocked.”

  “So you believe people are inherently evil?”

  “Basically.”

  “But what about us? We’re not evil. We’re just trying to stay alive.”

  Jay shook his head. He lowered his voice.

  “But look at what we have to do to survive,” he whispered. “We kill.”

  “In self-defense. You said yourself that there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Of course there’s something wrong with it!” Jay’s voice went up a notch, and Elle flinched. “It’s not right. To have to kill someone so that you can stay alive? To keep them from killing you for the same reason? It’s chaos. It’s…” He trailed off, rubbing his temples with his fingers. He looked tired, weary. “It’s mankind,” he said at last. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  They said nothing for a few moments, until the unearthly howl of coyotes broke the silence. “We’re all going to die in the end, aren’t we?” Elle whispered.

  Jay looked in her eyes.

  “In the end,” he replied, “everybody dies.”

  It was late. Elle sat with her back against the wall in the corner of the general store, watching Sienna. The woman sat on the floor near Bob, who was still completely passed out. Sienna slowly cleaned the empty bottles of booze and lined them up along the wall, counting them under her breath.

  Elle wondered who the siblings had been before the EMP.

  She wondered if they’d had family. If they’d been married.

  Elle shook herself. She had to focus. She looked at the map. She’d spread it out on the floor, marked her route with a red pen from her backpack. From where she was, the San Jacinto Mountains were over two hundred miles south. It was an intimidating length to travel, especially since she had no car. Not even a skateboard. There were many ways to reach the mountains, but even if she did, the Slavers could be anywhere in those hills. It would be a wild goose chase. A ghost hunt.

  And then there was the possibility that Elle would find the Slavers, but Jay, Georgia and Flash would already be dead. That was her worst fear. To go all that way…and be too late.

  Stupid EMP. If I had a car, all of this time I would spend walking to the desert would be completely out of the picture.

  Something hit Elle in the chest.

  Her heart raced and she leaped to her feet, whipping the katana out of the scabbard. It slid out and flashed through the air. She held it steady, inches from Sienna’s pale face. The woman jumped backward and pointed at the floor, speechless.

  Elle flicked her gaze down. A protein bar lay on the ground.

  “For you,” Sienna whispered. “I thought you might be hungry.” She held out a plastic water bottle. “And thirsty.”

  Elle’s paused, gripping the handle of the katana. She slowly lowered the sword. She didn’t know what to say. She’d expected an assassination attempt. Not food.

  “Thanks,” she said quietly. And then, “Sorry.”

  Sienna nodded, swallowing.

  “If you…well, if you make it back alive,” she said, “well, make sure you’ve got better stuff to trade.”

  Elle didn’t move.

  “Okay.”

  Sienna shivered, gesturing at the door. “Winter is coming,” she said. “You might not make it alive to San Jacinto.”

  “I might not make it alive anywhere.”

  “But two hundred miles or more. On foot. It’ll take weeks.”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  “You don’t have the supplies for it.”

  Elle sat down, never taking her eyes off Sienna or Bob.

  “What else have I got to live for?” Elle whispered under her breath.

  If Sienna heard her, she said nothing.

  “You can take what you need this time,” Sienna said. Elle looked up sharply. This woman was offering supplies for the journey?

  Sienna nodded, walked to the back of the store, took a seat near Bob, and laid her shotgun across her lap. Elle stuck her hands in her pockets, her left hand closing around the handle of her Smith and Wesson. There were ten rounds in the chamber. A full magazine. The dull flicker of candlelight illuminated the walls.

  Elle waited until Sienna was asleep, and then she made her move.

  Elle moved silently. She stuffed her backpack with a pile of protein bars from the shelves, shoving as many water bottles as she could into the rest of the space. She took a box of Band-Aids and a small bottle of antiseptic. There was nothing else she needed. Nothing that she could find here, anyway.

  She cinched her backpack tight around her shoulders.

  She held her breath, pausing at corner of the general store. She felt a twinge of guilt. She was, after all, taking off into the night without saying goodbye. Elle curled her fingers into fists.

  Why do I have to suddenly have a conscience about this?

  Behind her, a row of glass-paneled refrigerator doors lined the wall. Elle bit her lip. Hmm. This might work. She dragged her finger through the thick layer of dust over each door, concentrating. She stood back and admired her handiwork.

  HAD TO GO. TOOK SOME STUFF. WILL COME BACK WITH A PROPER TRADE FOR YOU AND BOB. I PROMISE.

  - THE GIRL WITH THE SWORD

  Yes. That was fine.

  She glanced one more time at Bob and Sienna’s sleeping forms.

  “See you,” she whispered.

  She slipped through the hallway in the back of the building, pushing an emergency exit door open. The cold, biting air slapped her cheeks. She pulled her hood over her head and quietly shut the door. The flat landscape of the Central Valley lay around her. The safety of Sacramento was north. The warring gangland of Los Angeles was due south. And the Slavers…. well, they were southeast, bringing their prisoners to the San Jacinto Mountains. Elle would have to travel through the smaller highways to reach the mountains. Her supplies wouldn’t last long. She would have to catch rainwater and eat whatever she could find; rats, lizards, bugs. She might perish in the desert. Her body might be left in the desolate wasteland, dissolving into the nothingness of the plain.

  Elle sighed.

  She knew what she had to do. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  Chapter Four

  The highway stretched on endlessly, curving southeast out of the Bakersfield area of California. What might have taken an hour to reach in a car would take an entire day on foot. The fog had finally lifted, and the golden brown of the grassy land was illuminated. Elle just stood there, in the center of the southbound lane of Highway 58, taking it all in.

  It looks like velvet, she thought. Miles and miles of golden velvet.

  It was beautiful, but daunting. The road was completely deserted. Unlike the roads in and out of Los Angeles, this highway was empty. There was no sea of cars, no evidence of catastrophic vehicle collisions. It was just…abandoned. It was wide and lonely. A strong, cold wind whipped across the valley floor and tossed Elle’s short black hair.

  “It could be worse,” Elle muttered.

  Elle tucked her head and began walking. It was a boring, monotonous march. The scenery was breathtaking. The rolling, golden mountains spread out in every direction, making Elle feel little more than an ant, a speck in the universe. The weather was clear and cool now, and the endless quiet and openness of the region seemed to make Elle’s
thoughts echo loudly in her brain. She struggled to quiet her doubts and fears, so she began searching for patterns in the hills and pictures in the clouds to soothe her overactive mind.

  The map that Sienna had given her was tucked firmly into the inside pocket of her jacket. She had memorized the route in case she lost it. Highway 58 to Highway 14, to Highway 215 to Highway 10. It was a convoluted route, one that she had mapped out in order to avoid traveling in the up-and-down, steep terrain of the mountains all the way to her destination. It was the easiest way. The entire journey would take about a week if she stayed on schedule.

  What are you going to do when you actually find Jay and the others? She mused. You’re not dealing with the Klan anymore. The Slavers are an enemy that you’re unfamiliar with. Are you sure you want to risk your life like this? You could be on your way to Sacramento.

  No. Elle had already decided what she was going to do. Life might have gone to hell in a handbasket since the EMP, but this…this gave her life some meaning. A purpose, she guessed. Something to do. More than just simple survival. Survival was a necessity. Everybody was surviving. But helping others? That was a rarity now. People just didn’t do it as much as they used to, because helping someone else meant risking your own life.

  Elle kept walking.

  Her steps were a rhythmic plod. She kept her head down, shielded from the harsh wind. She wished she had sunglasses. It would protect her eyes from the wide, sunny plain. But there was nowhere to get sunglasses…so she kept moving, tying a loose scarf from her backpack around her forehead and mouth, shading her face.

  It struck her how empty the plain was. It scared her, too. She was a moving object on a still stage, prey for any hunter who was keeping his eyes open. She occasionally stopped and kneeled near the center guardrail, studying the road behind her and around her. She saw no one, so she would continue on.

  The silence was eerie, too. Without Jay, Georgia or Flash chattering on about something in the background, the loneliness of the valley sunk in. It was different than Los Angeles. In the city, even the silence of abandonment was broken by the cries and fights of the Klan and Omega. Here…there was nothing. It was beautiful, but it was empty.