PART SIX
RECLAMATION, CALIFORNIA
ONE WEEK EARLIER . . .
ROADBLOCK
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
—T. S. ELIOT, THE WASTE LAND
31
THE SIX QUADS DID NOT tear along at full speed.
This was the Rot and Ruin, after all, and it was not their world. They lived in it, but it belonged to a much larger, stranger, colder, and vastly more dangerous population. Calling it Tomsland did not mean that the gentleness and optimism of Benny Imura’s older brother somehow magically transformed everything out here into a garden full of hummingbirds and bunnies. Of that Benny was positive.
Once they were away from the trade routes that had been cut through the forests around Reclamation, they turned onto Route 140 West. That route took them away from the sprawling Yosemite National Park, because there were recent reports of swarms of zoms sweeping that area. Then the six of them made small turns onto various roads, heading toward Route 99 South, which they’d be on for over 130 miles. It was the clearest known route to go south to avoid the swarms and then east toward North Carolina. It also kept them well away from the nuclear wasteland of ash that was all that was left of Los Angeles 250 miles away.
Driving at half speed created a good balance between being able to outrun anything that came up behind them and being able to spot trouble ahead in time to react. The noise of the quads was a problem, though. The living dead were attracted by sound and movement.
Each of the six riders wore a carpet coat made from salvaged rugs and banded with leather, old electrical wire, and pieces of metal to protect the most vulnerable places. Lilah was the only one who wasn’t wearing hers and instead wore a heavy denim work shirt with dense plastic elbow, shoulder, and knee pads. They had football helmets strapped to the backs of their quads, ready to grab if things got weird.
Between the harsh sun and the carpet coats they were all sweating heavily, and that bothered Benny. Before setting out they’d each dribbled a few drops of cadaverine on their clothes and any bits of exposed skin. Cadaverine was a nasty-smelling molecule produced by protein hydrolysis during putrefaction of animal tissue, which was a survival fact they’d learned in school. The chemical made people smell like rotting corpses, and that usually—but not always—kept the hungry dead from targeting them as prey. As food. Zoms didn’t eat one another.
Sweat and the friction of the wind into which they drove at high speeds diluted the cadaverine, weakening it. They could only obtain so much of the chemical without raising eyebrows at home, and they had a long, long way to go. Every drop they used would be one less for the rest of the trip to Asheville.
Benny was driving point, leading the others by fifty yards, with Nix directly behind him. Lilah followed last to watch their backs. They all switched roles every two hours to allow fresh eyes in front and behind.
So, it was Benny who saw the problem first.
He slowed and raised a clenched fist. The drone of the other engines diminished at once and the convoy drew into a cluster, engines idling low.
“What is it?” asked Morgie, shading his eyes with a flat hand.
“Trouble,” said Benny.
Trouble it was.
There was a cluster of buildings on either side of the road ahead. On one side, there was the burned-out shell of a building with the cartoon heads of three smiling men on a sign above the words PEP BOYS. Several cars had long ago been pushed across the entrance to the parking lot, and there were enough scattered skeletons to tell Benny that someone had put up a good fight there. Or tried to.
On the other side of the street was a Shell station, a Starbucks, and a Denny’s. Benny knew what they were from the journey he, Chong, Nix, and Lilah had taken from home to Nevada. Gas, coffee, and food. All of them had been damaged by fire and were partially collapsed. Between the two scenes of destruction on opposite sides of the road were zoms.
At least fifty of them.
Some were dressed in the rags of ordinary clothes, a few wore the faded threads of old uniforms, but most of them—two-thirds at least—wore dark clothes with distinctive white symbols painted, drawn, or sewn onto their chests. Angels. Benny knew that even without having to use binoculars. Those zoms also had shaved heads covered with elaborate tattoos.
“Jeez,” breathed Chong.
“Reapers,” said Morgie.
“Dead reapers,” amended Chong, tugging at the neck fittings on his carpet coat. Sweat ran in lines down his cheeks, and his oddly colored face had flushed from grayish yellow to a kind of purple.