Nano Z (14 page)

The back of the armored van was dark. There were narrow slits in the side that let in some sunlight, but not much. They were just big enough to stick the barrel of a gun through.

Air conditioning wasn’t a priority for whoever built the armored van. Its four passengers in the back were hot. The slits on the side let in some wind but didn’t make the enclosed space very comfortable.

Amber was huddled close to Mack. He stared at the man and young woman who accompanied them. His intention wasn’t to make them nervous or intimidate them. That was what happened though.

The man, nervous, offered his outstretched hand for Mack to shake. “Spencer Wright,” said the man with a polite smile.

Don’t be a dick.
“Mack, and this is Amber.” He shook Spencer’s clammy hand.

Spencer smiled at Amber. “Is she your daughter?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“She’s lovely.” Spencer turned towards the young college aged woman next to him. “This is Janae. She doesn’t talk much.”

Mack nodded at Janae. True to what Spencer said, she didn’t say anything.

“Where are you guys coming from?” asked Spencer as he adjusted his miraculously still intact glasses.

“Dallas.”

“Dallas? No shit? I’m from Wilmington, North Carolina. And Janae… I haven’t the faintest idea where she’s from. She was in here before I ran into these Galatea guys.”

“Where were you heading?” asked Mack. He wasn’t actually interested. But he had no idea how far they were from Las Vegas. And he needed something to pass the time in the uncomfortable armored van.

“West I guess. The east coast was a mess. I had to get out of there. Originally we were just going to head to the Midwest. When we got there, we found it was just as overrun. So we just kept going.”

We? He was traveling with someone else?
“You keep saying we. I thought you met Janae in this truck?”

“I was traveling with my family.” Spencer stopped looking at Mack but instead stared through him. “None of them made it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” There wasn’t a lot of emotion or sincerity in Mack’s voice. That wasn’t because he was cold or uncaring. It was because the carnage he witnessed since the outbreak took away any surprise when hearing something so tragic. He was numb.

“Don’t be. They went quiet, quick and painless.”

Wait. What? No one goes quick and quiet in this world. Did this guy off his family? Okay Spencer, I do not trust you.

“How about you guys? Where were you heading?” asked Spencer.

Mack didn’t want to answer, but what was he going to do. He was stuck in the back of the van with Spencer, the potential family killer. There was no telling how long the ride was. And he really didn’t want to have to fight a man in a space so confined he couldn’t even stand.

“We were going west too. I figured we could reach the coast and maybe find a boat or ship or something.”

Janae started laughing. At first it was quiet, like a giggle. Then she broke into a full on chest hurting laughter. Between Mack, Amber and Spencer, the last was the most surprised.

“What’s so funny?” asked Mack.

Janae didn’t answer, she just kept laughing. Once she couldn’t physically laugh anymore without choking on her own amusement, she spoke. “There ain’t no getting on a boat and getting out of the country, you fucking idiots.”

“Why not?” Mack stayed calm.

“They won’t let you leave,” answered Janae as she wiped the tears from her eyes and caught her breath.

Shit. We’re stuck in here with two crazy people. Maybe we should get the hell out. Do those doors open from the inside?

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“There are ships out in the ocean. Whenever someone tried to take a boat they sink it. So people tried to fly out. They got shot down. You get what I’m saying? There’s no way out. We’re stuck.”

Spencer was confused. “Ships? What kind of ships? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I don’t know, battleships I guess.”

Mack was not convinced. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would American ships shoot down civilian planes and sink boats?”

“Who said they were American?” Janae posed a valid question.

“What else would they be?” Amber finally spoke up and joined the conversation.

“Chinese, Japanese, Russian and even Australian,” answered Janae.

“How do you know that?”

“We saw the flags. My friend’s building had a rooftop that was high enough to see the ocean. So we got a couple pairs of binoculars and watched people try to leave and get lit up. It’s messed up, I know. But what else were we going to do. There was no TV, no internet. We had to do something to get our minds off the mess that the city had become.

“When we were up there, we got a good look at the ships in the distance that were sinking everything. They had flags. We saw Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Australian flags. So we assumed that those were the countries they were from,” explained Janae.

“Why would they…?” Amber began to ask.

“Quarantine,” answered Mack. “They’re quarantining us.”
That must mean the rest of the world isn’t infected. If we can somehow find a way around the ships, we can get away from all of this. Janae, I could kiss you right now. You’ve unwittingly delivered hope.

Mack, Amber, Spencer and Janae engaged in small talk until the armored van they were in reached the Las Vegas city outskirts. The first screeches they heard shut them up. Being near meat puppets brought nothing but tension, fear and anxiety. None of which were conducive to conversation.

The armored van didn’t provide a smooth ride. It’s thick, strong tires rolled over the many bodies that covered the Las Vegas streets. Even through the screeches and sounds of meat puppets banging on the sides of the vehicle, Mack heard the sickening crunch as their transport crushed the bodies of all they drove over.

“Hold on. There’s a lot of them up ahead. We’re gonna have to go through them,” said the calm voiced Galatea SWAT guy after sliding open the small rectangular door that separated the cabin from the back of the van.

As soon as the small sliding door closed again, the van felt like it was being tossed in a clothes drier. The noises were nightmarish. If sounded as if they were completely surrounded and being engulfed by meat puppets. But they didn’t stop. That was a good sign.

This is bad. What the hell are these guys doing? Where are the taking us? Are we going to die in the back of this van? I can’t take it anymore. I have to take a look.

Mack looked through the slit in the side of the armored van behind him. All he could see were bodies coming at the vehicle. There were thousands of them. If anything went wrong and the van stopped moving, it was clear that they were completely screwed.

In one of his hands, Mack felt his hunting rifle. He considered using it. That urge didn’t last long. Soon the sounds of machine gun fire surrounded the van. Bullets ricocheted off the thick steel exterior of the armored vehicle. Some of the projectiles hit the road near it. By the noise, it was clear that there were several machine guns being used. What Mack couldn’t figure out was where the gunfire was coming from.

Through the thin barrier between the men driving the armored van and the passengers in the back, Mack heard someone shouting for a gate to be opened. Then he heard what sounded like the perimeter gates of a prison opening up as the vehicle slowed down.

“We stopped? Why’d we stop?” Immediately after Amber finished asking her question, the armored van started moving again. The ride was much smoother and slower. Then it stopped again.

Everyone in the back was ready to defend themselves. Mack and Amber sat with their respective weapons pointed towards the back doors. Janae acquired a machete in her journeys and Spencer had a crowbar. They waited for the worst.

The doors opened up to the sight of steel wire. Three reinforced chain link fences with thousands of meat puppets banging on the outside layer were just feet away. Men dressed in the same SWAT gear as the guys who picked the group up were shooting any creatures who tried to follow the vehicle in. A familiar face came into view. It was the calm voiced Galatea SWAT guy.

“C’mon, we’re here.” The SWAT guy ushered them out of the armored van. None of them were prepared for what they saw upon getting out.

Four plus miles of South Las Vegas Boulevard, known as “The Strip” was made into an enclosed settlement. The three layers of chain link fence cut off the roads. Out of sight, and inside the casinos, were more barriers designed to keep out the hordes of meat puppets who desperately wanted to get in.

Towers were built out of metal scaffolding. On top of them were men clad in the familiar SWAT gear. With assault and high powered sniper rifles they stood guard, shooting any puppets who attempted to breach the outside fences.

More impressive than the security of The Strip was the fact that it was lit up. If you didn’t see or hear the meat puppets surrounding the area, you’d think nothing was wrong. All the glitz and glamour of Vegas shone bright. Even the grandiose fountains were still working.

How’s this possible? There’s no way this is all running on generators.
Mack was stunned. What he expected to find at the settlement were some hastily built walls and gas lamps. What he found was a little slice of the world he thought was lost.

“Welcome to The Strip!” A middle aged woman walked over to a stunned Mack, Amber, Janae and Spencer. She was dressed in a tight dress that went down to just above her knees. On her face were very expensive looking glasses. The woman didn’t look like a survivor, she looked like she was at work in some office somewhere.

“This is Kerry. She’ll show you around and get you set up in a room,” informed the Galatea SWAT member who brought the group to The Strip. After making the introduction, he got back in the armored van and joined a convoy that was leaving.

Kerry held out her hand for Mack to shake. He did. It was soft. “And you are?” she asked with a smile.

“I’m Mack, this is Amber, Janae and Spencer,” answered Mack, pointing to each member of the group as he said their names.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all. If you would please follow me, I’ll give you the tour.” Kerry started to walk towards the nearby casino named the “Golden Pony”.  The group followed.

The Golden Pony was one of the biggest casinos on the strip. Before the outbreak it was a very popular destination. It was home to three theaters, four floors of slots, machines and card games, numerous restaurants, shops and even two nightclubs. Massive doesn’t begin to describe the size of the building. There were stadiums that weren’t as big.

Outside the entrance to the Golden Pony was a light show. Yellow, gold, red and orange lights flickered on and off in such a fashion that they spelled out words and formed pictures. There was a video sign still playing advertisements for a magician who died months earlier. Through the thick glass front doors, they could see people inside walking around.

“This is the lobby and our last line of defense if the creatures get past the fences,” explained Kerry.

The lobby of the Golden Pony was huge. Mack looked up only to see that the decorated roof was over twenty stories above his head. From the ground level he could see a slice of every floor.

In the middle of the cavernous lobby was a golden statue of a horse. Around the statue were piles of sandbags. Behind them sat men, women and children. Anyone old enough to hold a gun. And they had plenty of guns.

“Once you’ve been trained you’ll spend a couple watches here in the lobby,” said Kerry as she turned her head around to talk to the group while still walking.

This place…it’s amazing.

Kerry led the group out of the lobby and into a large area that looked like it was converted into a huge dining room. Mack looked down at the carpet below his feet. It was crimson with gold ponies as far as he could see. At any other time he’d find things like that tacky. But after spending so much time out in the hell of the outside world, everything in the Golden Pony was beautiful to him.

“This is the public dining area. We moved out the slot machines that were here before so we could have a communal area for us to eat. It gives the residents here somewhere to socialize and bond. I’d love to tell you that we have a diverse menu, but we mostly eat canned and prepackaged goods. But you have to take what you can get, right?”

Next they passed through some game rooms. People were playing, but only with chips with no money behind them. Money was useless there. Kerry told them to pay attention to where they were going because it was hard for people to find their way around in the first few weeks. That was due to the fact that it was once a casino. All casinos were labyrinths so gamblers couldn’t find their way out.

“We kept the games around. It helps with morale. We set the machines to free play and volunteers act as dealers.”

Kerry led the group to an elevator. Like everything else in the Golden Pony, the elevator was big. They had no problem fitting in it. There was an annoying little tune playing on the PA system in the lift.

“Now when we reach the residential floors you’ll need to turn over your weapons. They aren’t allowed on those floors. As soon as we get off there’ll be an armory station. This is not optional. You will not be allowed on the residential floors if you are armed. Break this rule and you will be kicked out of The Strip.”