With care and consideration, Alex turned the key in the ignition. A spare hand felt for the ring in his pocket. It was still there. Checking the mirrors, finding the gear, the ride back was nothing special. Blissfully uneventful. Alex wanted to bottle the feeling and keep it locked up. He knew he’d need it soon.

  Chapter 16

  Alex didn’t knock. He walked right in. There was a crashing sound from the kitchen, the sound of boots on tiles, and then Timmy burst through into the hallway, shotgun primed to fire.

  “No, no, no,” Alex shouted. “It’s me, it’s me!”

  “Oh, for f—” Timmy lowered the gun and turned back to the kitchen. “You can’t be serious. Where’ve you been? I thought something had happened. I was freaking out.”

  “You nearly shot me.” Alex followed his friend.

  “You’re damn right I nearly shot you. You’re lucky I didn’t. Christ.”

  The two of them entered the kitchen, each muttering under their breath. All of the bags were packed, stacked, and ready to go. Even breakfast had been attempted, which meant unpacking a couple of the meals and arranging them on a plate. The cracker and the spread were staring up, beguilingly. To hungry eyes, it almost seemed tempting.

  They sat and ate. Alex told his friend about the trip. The man, stuck in his bed. The hospital, packed with people. The trucks, the police, and the roadside stop. It was a lot to cover. Occasionally, the conversation would pull up to a halt and they’d have to discuss some minor detail. The symptoms. The black bags. The lockdown of the city.

  “So this changes everything, doesn’t it?” Timmy had licked the spread off his cracker.

  Nodding, Alex knew he was right. It didn’t just mean that they’d struggle to get out of the city, but the police had taken his plates. They knew his car. It must be on some kind of list by now. First attempt to drive anywhere and he’d be pulled over. The Chevy was a no go.

  But the SUV wasn’t getting anywhere either. They’d locked down the city and anyone trying to escape was going to be stopped. In the age of electrics, there wasn’t a less subtle vehicle on the road than Timmy’s SUV. The vehicle demanded the attention of everyone else. That was the last thing they needed.

  “You said he was gray, man? Must be weird seeing it up close. Was it like the TV? I got the chills, man.”

  Again, all Alex could do was agree. There was no way of knowing whether he’d been able to help. The man had water and food. He had Alex’s phone now, for what that was worth. Whether the hospital would send anybody out to help, who knew? The white cross on the door might do something.

  “This is no flu, man,” Timmy repeated. “There’s something happening. We really need to get out of here. We’re so screwed.”

  Pushing his food around on the plate, Alex couldn’t help but agree. Seeing the man, stuck in his bed, his eyes riven with blood. If that was what was coming, then he needed to be as far away as possible. Even when driving through the last few blocks, he’d seen a group of masked people ripping the wooden boards from a store. This was just the morning.

  The meal had come with a cake. There was a fruit puree, too, designed to be mixed in together. Mashing one substance into the other, the plastic fork did all the work. Alex wasn’t even sure whether he wanted to eat. But he went through the motions anyway.

  They’d been all packed and ready to go. Right now, Virginia seemed an even better plan. The house, in the middle of the farm. There was no one there. No roving bands of people to rip boards from windows. No police patrols. No crowded hospitals. Just a few walls, a roof, and enough space to sit this whole thing out. That farm meant survival. It always had, in one shape or another. Now more than ever.

  Timmy had not cleared the table properly. Under the plates, the map they’d scrutinized the previous night was still there, acting as a table cloth. Fork still playing in one hand, Alex stared at Virginia. The thick forests between here and there. The mountains. The rivers. For some people, that meant heaven on earth. Wide open spaces. No people. It might be the difference between life and death, right now.

  But there was something else. The space. The empty space. Alex stared at the map. For the most part, it was just empty space. That’s all it was. Sure, there were the roads, pumping people across the country like the air from a pair of lungs. But between the roads? There was nothing.

  “Timmy,” he said. “I think I’ve got something.”

  The map sat there. Alex took a forkful of food. He chewed.

  “Get the bags.”

  * * *

  The dealership was halfway across the city. They took the SUV, bags in the back and covered with blankets, a strip of carpet, and other junk. Driving slowly, trying to avoid any patrols, it took some time. They were stopped twice, had to tell masked cops that they were heading home, heading to see family, heading to pretty much anywhere else. With everything covered in the trunk, they hoped the cops wouldn’t be able to see the Kevlar body armor they were wearing. It seemed to work.

  The idea had belonged to Alex but it was Timmy who provided all the detail. Trying to find a motorcycle was easy. There were plenty of those places around. But trying to find this kind of specific bike? Much harder. This was where Timmy’s connections came in handy.

  There was someplace out in Riverside. All Timmy’s favorite places were out in Riverside. Wasn’t quite near the GUNPLAY warehouse, but it was close enough. The warehouse district was massive and – more importantly – almost abandoned. The same sort of post-industrial detritus, the same old relics of the trade war. Broken businesses with new ones built on top.

  Even as Alex had explained his idea, his friend was butting in with names and models. Triumph, he’d said, that’s the one. They’ve got this Tiger, Timmy had said, she’ll go over anything you throw at her. Space on the side for a couple of bags. Not many. We’ll have to cut down. But, boy, we’ll get there in some style. The enthusiasm was palatable.

  Motorcycles seemed like a reasonable solution, Alex had told himself. He’d learned to ride on his farm, one of those gold standard memories, sugar-coated in a thick skin of nostalgia that even tragedy couldn’t shatter. Dirt bikes along beaten up tracks. One hundred and twenty-five ccs of teenage adrenaline.

  As they drove along, Timmy was searching through his phone for details. The company was one he knew, one he’d visited a few times. The display models, he said, they had these huge chunky tires on them. Real off-roading types. But they do a job on the streets, too. Alex had sat and listened. After his friend had pulled the address, he’d asked for him to try and look up any more information. But it was hard.

  Unlike the phone that had been left behind, Timmy’s phone was American. This made it more reliable, as Alex was sick of hearing. But it actually worked. Not well–most of the networks were still as slow as a creeping death–but there were none of the reboot loops which plagued his life. Driving the SUV to their destination, Timmy read what he could out loud.

  But the stories told them nothing. New York Times, CNN, the Post, the rest. They all said pretty much the same thing. Stay inside, wait for further information. So, Timmy tried the foreign news networks. They just didn’t work. Error messages.

  Not to be perturbed, Timmy tried a workaround. It was the baseball blackout all over again. Something he’d read about once. Tunneling in from another connection, a virtual one. That was Timmy’s plan. It worked. They loaded one page, some Chinese site. Neither of them could read Mandarin. Just propaganda anyway, Timmy proclaimed. But the pictures were clear enough. The Statue of Liberty. That familiar skyline. Smoke rising. Towers burning.

  They got to the next page. There was some software available, a translation on-the-fly. Timmy tried it. It was far from perfect. The sentences were disjointed, the syntax broken. But they managed to piece together bits of information. Like a jigsaw puzzle, they started with the edges. The cold, hard facts.

  There were words which repeated. Aerosolized, that was one. Mortality rate was another, which kept appearing alongside a 60% figure. Virus. Lockdown. Cartels. Internet. Riots. The word cure was conspicuous by its absence. The words man made appeared, in the very last sentence. The way it was phrased, however, neither man was sure what it meant. “Americans man made plague kills.” It didn’t sound good.

  Next, the phone uncovered pictures. Videos. Taken at street level. Shared. Overdubbed with translations into languages they didn’t understand. But shouting. Screaming. Rioting. That was clear. Timmy moved through the photos, getting faster and faster. And then it stopped. Instead, a blank page appeared on the screen. The seal of the United States. An error message. Nothing else worked. They focused on the road.

  * * *

  The SUV pulled up in the right place. The only sign of life in Riverdale had been an old homeless man, wrapped in a battered American flag, singing battle hymns with a bottle in his hand. They’d given him a wide berth. Too much noise.

  It was nearly noon. It was almost normal for this part of town. But there were differences. The gates in front of the dealership were closed, huge chain-link structures ten feet high, razor wire wrapped around the top.

  Alex looked around. They were alone. He nodded to Timmy and they unpacked the car. The strip of old carpet was thrown on top of the wire. Alex helped his friend up and over the fence. Then, with a lot of effort, he climbed on top of the SUV and threw the bags over the fence as well. Stumbling, Timmy caught them.

  Once they were both inside the compound, they crossed the parking lot. It was empty. All the bikes were inside. Alex walked to the window, a single giant pane, stretched most of the length of the building. There was no electricity inside, no lights. Cupping a hand over the eyes, pushing up against the glass, it was possible to peer into the gloom.

  There were rows and rows of bikes. All shapes and sizes. Alex was trying to count them, trying to spot these Triumphs he’d been told about. His friend was trying the front door. It didn’t move. Not a single millimeter. They shared a shrug.

  Checking around the parking lot, at the foot of the fence, Timmy found a half-brick.

  “This is it then. Alarm will be off. No one around. Up to you, man.”

  The half-brick was handed to Alex, the rough of the broken side placed flat on the palm of his hand and he tested the weight. It was a few pounds. It had corners, too. Get one of those against the window and there’d be no chance it’d stay up. But this wasn’t a question of physics.

  “You think we should?” Alex asked. “Seems like this is a moment.”

  “I’m with you, man, whatever you want to do.”

  Testing the weight again, stepping back from the glass, and stretching his shoulder, Alex searched around Riverside. They were all alone. Motioning for his friend – his accomplice, really – to step back, he checked his stance. Set his feet.

  “Here goes nothing.”

  Alexander Early threw the half-brick through the window of the motorcycle dealership. Just right, it caught the glass with a corner. The sound of the impact lasted a split second, then there was just the rain of the glass shards, hitting against the tiled floor. It all happened in slow motion. All catching the light. It was like standing beside a shimmering waterfall. They were in.

  Chapter 17

  The beams from the flashlights cut through the darkness. The midday sun wasn’t enough to penetrate into the gloom of the showroom. The two men walked across the smashed glass, which crunched and crackled with every step.

  The air inside was still. Up until the moment the brick had come careening through the window, it hadn’t moved for days. While the old air rushed out through the new opening, it tasted stale on the tongues of the intruders. It was not the only trying taste in the mouth.

  “So, we’re technically looters now?” Alex asked.

  “I guess so. I mean, we’re leaving them my car. That’s worth something. Maybe we’re not looters until we actually take something. When we cross the premises. Then we’re looters. Right now, we’re just curious.”

  Alex grinned. “Curious people smash windows?”

  “Depends on the windows.”

  Amidst the darkness, the torchlight would catch on the chrome fixtures and fittings of the bikes. There must have been fifty of them in here, all shapes and sizes. Each one stood up and ready to show off. The walls were lined with accessories.

  Timmy’s idea was to find the bikes, spend five minutes fitting racks to the sides (as well as anything else that took his fancy) and then they’d be good to go. Alex didn’t argue. To him, all the bikes looked the same.

  The bikes they wanted were in the back, perched on a raised pedestal. The display, a foot up from the ground, involved two of the bikes hanging with a wheel in the air, as though they were ready to clamber up a mountain at a moment’s notice.

  The bodywork, the thickness of the tires, and the exposed intricacies of the huge engine caught the eye right away. The machines screamed barely contained power, panthers crouched with their shoulders low to the ground, about to pounce.

  These bikes were nothing like the dirt bikes back on the farm. Alex’s dad had taught him to ride, barreling through the corn fields, racing against each other. Those machines had been light, almost like toys. The dealership monsters were heavier, utilitarian, built for purpose. Still, Alex thought, you never forget how to ride a bike. Even then, he felt butterflies fidget in his stomach.

  But they weren’t ready. Timmy was performing the checks. There was no fuel inside. The keys were missing. The tires could do with some extra air. Even the racks–ready and waiting on the walls–needed to be fitted.

  Getting the bikes down from the pedestal was hard. They were lighter than Alex had expected but difficult to maneuver. Between them, the men lowered the bikes on the floor and began to prepare them for travel.

  The dealership had a fuel tank out back. Of all the various accessories scattered around the room, the spare fuel cans seemed to be one of the most useful. Filling first the cans, using this fuel to fill the bikes, and then topping off the spare containers, the process was easy.

  Alex left his friend to handle the tools. Timmy was working hard. A wrench in one hand, screwdriver nearby, he was plucking racks and items from all around the store and bringing them back to the bikes. Tweaking seat heights and testing brakes. With barely contained glee, he began fitting it all to the Triumph motorcycles.

  The bikes were beastly, even Alex could see that. There was an air of quality about them, a sense that they’d be able to tackle anything. For a moment, he considered knocking one of the panels with a screwdriver, just to see what would happen. But, anticipating a poor reaction from his friend, he refrained. Instead, he held the torch above and made sure that the light was ready and available.

  It didn’t take long. Once the racks and bars and everything else was fitted, it was time to fix the bags in place. Bringing them in from beside the fence, Alex dumped them next to the bikes. With bungee cords and straps, they fixed each one in place. Everything seemed to fit together well. Alex was impressed.

  “I feel like you’ve done this before.”

  “Man, you ever sit around bored in work? The amount of times I’ve just been putting together bits and pieces of bikes in my mind. I’ve had these babies planned out for years.”

  Timmy tightened the final strap, locking it shut.

  “Besides, man, we still got the best bit to come.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Follow me.”

  They left the bikes behind. Ignitions primed, bags locked up in place, fuel in the tank: they were ready to roll. But Timmy led them deeper into the dealership. Through the showroom, past the offices, and into the furthest, darkest corner. With the flashlights busy finding the way across the floor, Alex had no idea where they were headed.

  Timmy laid a hand across his friend’s chest, bringing him to a halt.

  “This is it, man. The big decision. You got to get this right, otherwise everything else is screwed.”

  There was no way of knowing what he was talking about. Alex frantically went over the entire plan in his head, trying to find holes and gaps and points where a single wrong decision could throw their lives in jeopardy. Sickness. Government patrols. There was a lot that could go wrong. The entire country was collapsing. Timmy turned the flashlight upwards.

  “Pick your poison, my friend.”

  There were helmets, hundreds of them. From the floor to the ceiling, across two walls, the corner was filled with nothing but motorcycle helmets. All designs and patterns. Timmy was flicking his light across the inventory, practically salivating.

  “You got to have the right helmet, man. Makes the whole thing worthwhile.”

  “You’re enjoying this far too much. It’s the end of the world, remember.”

  Timmy chose to ignore his friend. “Here, take a look at this one.”

  It was an American flag, a vinyl wrap around a kind of half-helmet. It covered the crown of the head, came down behind the ears. But it left the face free and exposed. The red, white, and blue were vivid, even in the dark. Alex placed it back on the rack and began to look at more conventional options.

  There were too many choices. Safety wasn’t really a concern. If the country was being taken over by an airborne virus and martial law was declared, then a pull-down visor might not make too much difference in the grand scheme of things.

  So the half-helmet idea seemed to offer the best option. Clearly, price was not a concern, but Alex was worried about the full facial covering. It felt restrictive. He liked the idea of the less intrusive options. Really, it was a case of picking a design, pattern, or color. In the moment, he was leaning toward a simple black option.

  But Timmy was in hog heaven. Timekeeping had fallen by the wayside as he stood transfixed in front of the display.

  “Hurry up, Timmy,” Alex hissed.

 

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