Hell's Fortress (23 page)

“Stay back.” Eliza turned to the others, who were still checking out the rest of the open warehouse. “Nobody touch those water jugs. These people died of cholera.”

“This way,” Steve said. “It’s through the building and out back.”

They continued deeper into the warehouse and then out the other side. The lot and the cluster of buildings beyond were deserted and almost empty of the evidence of battle seen elsewhere in the city: spent casings, bullet-pocked walls, dead bodies, burned-out cars, and wrecked equipment. There was plenty of evidence that refugees had gone through, however, in the form of pried-open doors, cut chain link, and discarded packaging. At last Steve stopped them in front of another bay door, this one open already. A semi parked in front, its tires gone, the hood open, and the engine gutted for parts or motor oil.

“This is the building,” he said.

They lifted themselves into the warehouse. The room was a vast space scattered with equipment and debris: empty metal shelves, stacks of shrink-wrapped air-conditioning units everywhere, and abandoned forklifts. Hundreds of pallets packed the gloomy back half of the open room, as if the wheels of commerce had continued turning long after the crisis presented itself. Only there had been nowhere left to ship this stuff and so it had ended up here.

Eliza looked around with growing dismay, thinking the armored car had been stolen, but when she turned, Fayer and Steve were swapping high fives.

“What are we waiting for?” Steve said. “There’s food in there and I’m starved.”

The agents made their way to the back of the room while the others shared bewildered looks. They attacked the largest stack of pallets. After a few minutes, they exposed a slender passageway that led between pallet towers, deeper into the heap of obsolete equipment. And there, crouching in the dark, sat the armored car. It looked like a giant safe on wheels crossed with one of Leonardo da Vinci’s fantasy drawings: iron plates welded around the exterior, with gun slots bristling along the sides. Strange bumps covered the sides like metal blisters or the scale armor of a lumbering dinosaur.

Steve grinned. “Methuselah’s tank. And it’s untouched.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Later, sitting in relative safety within the armored car, their stomachs blessedly full of dried venison and powdered milk, talking by the light of an LED lamp from among the bountiful supplies prepared by their unfortunate benefactor, Grover voiced what surely they’d all been thinking.

“We could hide in here. If your friend—what’s his name?”

“Chambers,” Steve said.

“Right, if Agent Chambers shows up, we’ll let him in too. But if not, we can restack the pallets and wait for the battle to end.”

“And how long would that take?” Eliza said.

“There’s food and water enough for weeks if we’re careful,” Grover said.

“The battle is months old already. That might not be long enough.”

“They can’t keep fighting forever,” he protested. “You saw them. They’re starving. And what about guns? Ammo?”

“Keep it down,” Miriam said. “We’re right here.”

Indeed, they were practically sitting on each other’s laps. So many crates of ammo and guns, canisters of fuel, boxes of dried food, and jugs of water stuffed the interior that they couldn’t move without bumping into each other.

“Weapons aren’t the issue,” Steve said. “The world is awash in the stuff. Food is another matter, but we have no way of knowing if they’re getting resupplied or not.”

Eliza was relieved to see him acting more like his old self. Calm, steady. Confident. The food and water had done him good.

“Grover, we can’t wait it out,” she said. “There are people in Blister Creek who need us.”

“They’re safe where they are,” Grover said. “And they’d want
us
to be safe too, even if it takes us all summer to get home.”

“You don’t know they’re safe. And you don’t know how easy it will be to return. Where will the battle lines be in three weeks? Southern Utah, maybe.”

“Besides,” Steve said. “This warehouse isn’t secure. And I’m not talking about hiding the truck. There are bombs, fire. Even crazy army units with atomic artillery shells. What if one side or the other starts in on that? It will turn the city into a radioactive slag heap, with us inside.”

As if to punctuate his words, the building rumbled with the force of a distant explosion.

“I feel safer here,” Grover persisted.

Miriam passed out handguns and spare magazines. “You can stay behind if you want. The rest of us are going home to Zion, with or without you.”

“What about Chambers?” Fayer asked.

“What about him?” Miriam said. “He disappeared. For all we know, he’s dead. We can’t stick around waiting to see if he shows.”

“No,” Steve said. He sounded reluctant. “We can’t.”

“We’re stuck here until nightfall,” Eliza said. “If he doesn’t find us by then, we’ll make a run for it.”

“I don’t want to go,” Grover persisted. “What if we don’t make it?”

“We’ll make it,” Steve said.

Grover looked down with his brow furrowed.

Steve, Fayer, and Miriam grabbed flashlights and went out to clear a path through the pallets for the armored car. Eliza stayed behind to treat Grover’s arm. The poker chip shrapnel had left a bloody circle on his left bicep, more painful-looking than dangerous, but Eliza didn’t want to chance infection. She wiped it with an iodine-dipped cotton ball, then bandaged his arm.

“I’m sorry,” Grover said.

“For what?”

“I wish I weren’t such a coward. My brothers aren’t like this. What’s wrong with me?”

“Let me tell you a secret. Everyone is a coward inside. The trick is to keep your mouth shut and stop giving voice to your fears. Act brave and you become brave.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re the prophet’s sister.”

The back door of the armored car opened and Steve appeared, his mouth drawn into a line. “You’d better have a look at this.”

Eliza found Fayer sitting outside the wall of pallets, knees drawn to her chest. Her breath came in shallow gasps. Miriam stood a few feet away, staring grimly.

“I’m sorry,” Fayer said. “I tried to get farther away, it was just so sudden.”

Eliza had no idea what they were talking about. Miriam pointed with her flashlight.

There, on the ground, was the result of Fayer’s meal, come out in a stream of diarrhea. Mixed among it were lumps of what looked like brownish hot cereal.

Fayer groaned. “It’s that water from the tunnel. I shouldn’t have. I knew it.”

“You were thirsty,” Eliza said. “If I’d been more alert, I would have stopped you.”

Fayer staggered to her feet. “Don’t look at me!”

She was already dropping her pants as she staggered away. The others turned and went back into the armored car.

Grover held up a lantern as they came in. “What is it?”

“Agent Fayer has cholera,” Eliza said.

“What are her chances?” Steve asked.

“And is she contagious?” Miriam added.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand it. All I know is the signs, how to recognize it. I’m not a doctor.”

“You’re the closest thing we’ve got,” Miriam said. “What did Jacob tell you?”

“Cholera is water-borne. Fayer is right—she got it from drinking that puddle. Beyond that, I doubt she could pass it easily. But we absolutely can’t let her come into contact with our water supplies.”

Steve scratched his scalp. “We should use sterilizing tablets just in case. Once we get rolling, she’ll have to go to the bathroom in here. You’re sure it’s cholera? Does it come on that fast?”

Eliza tried to remember what Jacob had taught her. There was so much reading, so many things to learn—there was a reason that medical school took so long, after all. And on top of studying medical stuff, she’d been training with firearms, helping to police the town, plus keeping up with her duties on the farm and ranch. Every day after Steve vanished had been sunup to sundown.

“It does seem fast,” she admitted. “I would have guessed a couple of days. It might depend on how much bacteria she ingested.”

“So faster would mean a higher dose from the contaminated water?” Steve asked.

“That sounds right.”

“Is she doomed?” Miriam asked.

“It doesn’t look good. She’s starved and dehydrated already. She needs an IV and antibiotics. Maybe if we can get her to Blister Creek.”

Grover was going through the first aid kits. “Here are some anti-diarrhea tablets.”

He’d found a single box of eight tablets, and the packaging looked ancient. The tablets were a brand Eliza had never heard of. And no doubt meant for a garden-variety stomachache, not a scourge that had killed millions of people throughout history. As a matter of fact, cholera was probably killing millions of people at that exact moment.

The ground shuddered, reminding them of their even more pressing worries. Eliza found a water bottle, scratched it with a knife to mark it as Fayer’s, then went out to give the woman the tablets and a drink.

Fayer lay on the ground beyond the barrier of pallets, weeping tearlessly. She had soiled herself, and resisted Eliza’s efforts to get her into a sitting position. “I couldn’t help it. It came so fast.”

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is. All this is my own damn fault.”

“Take two of these. They might help.”

“No, just let me be. Go on without me. It’s too late—I’m going to die like those refugees.”

“You’re not going to die. We’ll get you to Blister Creek and my brother will help you.”

“Like he helped that guy’s mother?”

“Did Miriam tell you about that? I wish she hadn’t. Never mind—that was different. You’re one of us now. Come on, open your mouth. Good, now drink this and swallow.”

When the pills were down, Eliza brought Fayer within the wall of pallets. She laid the woman down beneath the back bumper of the armored car for privacy, then helped her out of her soiled clothing. She took off Fayer’s shirt and laid it across her lap to cover her. Eliza rose.

“I’m scared, please don’t leave me.”

“I’m going to find you clean clothes.”

“I’ll just make a mess of them.”

“In that case, there’s a towel inside. Wrap it around your waist and you’ll be able to get it off more quickly next time you have to go.”

Fayer groaned and clenched her belly. She crawled away from the bumper on her hands and knees. Her sphincter gave loose, splattering out the water given to her only moments earlier.

Eliza helped her get cleaned up a second time, then brought her a towel plus a bedroll to put under her head. When she’d finished, she went to help Steve and Miriam, working to clear a path through the pallets for the armored car.

After a few more minutes, Steve suggested they stop. “Any more and you’ll be able to spot it from the outside. We can finish it up tonight before we head out.”

“If we’re going to be driving all night,” Miriam said, “we should take shifts getting some rest now.”

“Good idea,” he said. “Why don’t you take first shift. Tell Grover and Fayer to get some rest too. I’ll take Eliza up to the warehouse roof, see if we can figure out what’s going on out there.”

Eliza and Steve grabbed binoculars from the armored car, then set out across the warehouse floor for a metal staircase that led up to a catwalk encircling the room.

“I thought we’d never be alone,” Steve said as they clanged up the stairs. “Of course I look and smell god-awful.”

Eliza felt suddenly shy. It seemed like a lifetime since they’d lain on that cold bed in the Bryce Canyon lodge, making out like two horny teenagers.

“You look okay to me.”

He turned with a raised eyebrow. “You’re a bad liar, Christianson.”

“Okay,
Krantz,
I’ll shoot straight. You look like walking death. How about that?”

He grinned. “Better.”

Steve was steadier on his feet than when she’d found him in the hotel conference room. He was going to be okay.

They made their way around the catwalk, then threw open the metal doors and stepped onto the roof. Feeling exposed, they crouched in the shadow of an evaporative cooler and looked across the factory buildings to the city beyond.

The fires had spread on the west side of the city, sending fresh columns of smoke into the atmosphere. Gunfire crackled in the distance, joined by the steady thump of mortar rounds and artillery. Light flashed to the south, followed by a concussive boom.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Steve said.

“Not even in Afghanistan?”

He shook his head. “When they write the history of the twenty-first century, Afghanistan and Iraq won’t even make a footnote. Assuming anyone is left to write it down. Might be oral history, the way we’re going.”

“Or polygamist monks copying manuscripts.”

“Polygamist monks,” he said. “Wonder how that would work. Is this really the end of everything?”

“I hope not.”

“Me too. What does Jacob think? Does he still believe we’ll pull it together?”

“He’s losing hope. A few weeks ago, he made some comparison
to the fall of Rome, then said you’d have to throw in World War III and the Black Death too.”

“He’s not far off. A billion dead and counting. That’s what they’re saying.”

“That’s what they were saying in February,” Eliza corrected. “Better double that figure.” She thought about the nuclear war on the subcontinent. “Maybe triple.”

“It’s enough to turn a skeptic into a fundy. So if Jacob admits that it’s falling apart, is he still denying he’s a prophet?”

“He’s trying to, yes.”

“And Fernie? How is she?”

“Still paralyzed, but standing tall in her faith. I wouldn’t say she and Jacob have been fighting, but it’s a stressful time.”

Another flash, followed by an ear-splitting boom. The warehouse shook. That one was close.

“Stressful?” Steve said when the building stopped shaking. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

“How do we get out of here?” Eliza asked.

“Come on, let’s take a look.”

They crawled between giant grated fans, meant to circulate long-extinct air-conditioning systems below. An array of solar collectors gleamed on one side—that would be extremely valuable for Blister Creek, if there had been a way of getting them home.

On the edge of the building, Steve lifted the binoculars he’d been carrying. He scanned across the city, then handed them to Eliza and pointed out various pockets of firing.

“We need to get north,” he said. “See that road to the west of the burning office tower? What do you think about that?”

“There are soldiers behind those Jersey barriers. They’re shooting at someone across the street.”

He took the binoculars. “You’re right. Okay, so we bypass that
street. The big one running parallel to it is Palms Boulevard. That looks clear. We’ll head up a few blocks, then go around.”

They stared in that direction in silence for several seconds. Of course it went without saying that the battle lines this afternoon might very well shift by nightfall.

The sun burned orange as it crept toward the western horizon. Sunset was still several hours distant. She didn’t want to wait—she wanted to get Fayer to Jacob’s clinic before it was too late—but leaving in daylight was suicide and they both knew it.

Steve crawled back to the fans and stopped in front of an enclosed metal water tank that Eliza hadn’t noticed before. There was a faucet for draining the tank, and he strained to turn it. In the past, he could have snapped the thing off with his powerful hands, but now he had to crank hard to get it open. A rusty sludge of water came out, then ran clear.

“It’s not potable,” she warned. “Look, it funnels into the tank from that rainwater catchment system. It was probably used to cool equipment.”

“It’s got to be cleaner than that slop Fayer drank in the tunnels.” He splashed it on his face, but didn’t drink.

“Filled with volcanic ash, bomb blast residue, and any other crap coming out of the sky.”

“Got any more cheery thoughts?”

The pulverized remains of human beings.

She didn’t say this part aloud. But she couldn’t help remembering how they’d all drank from the cistern water discovered in the abandoned subdivision.

He turned the tap to a trickle, stripped off his shirt, then splashed more water on his chest and shoulders. He was so thin.