The End Came With a Kiss (17 page)

I pull up into a sitting position, gasping for air. James is stooped over, catching a breath of his own. The beautiful dead continue to run at full speed, but they are no match for the engine in the armored truck.

How strange that a sea of perfect faces could be so utterly terrifying. I can’t stop shaking. I feel it in my chest and legs, but I fight it. I don’t want the others to see me shivering with fear.

I spin around and climb to my feet just as Ashlyn lets the blanket drop. Her form-fitting black motor pants are on, and she is pulling a clean t-shirt down over her head. She is faced away so all I can see is her back. It is pale and spotless, like the rest of her. I turn away to give her privacy.

James is unable to manage the same level of self-control. I slap him on the arm. "Come on. Hold my belt as I reach out and pull this door closed."

His eyes snap to me. "Yeah. Right. Sure."

I get my footing and stretch around to grab the handle. James tucks his finger in and squeezes my belt. It takes a couple tries but finally I manage to claw the handle and pull the door around. It swings in, clicking shut. James and I share a look of relief.

I shout to Harry. "How does the road in front of us look?"

"So far so good," he hollers back.

It is now that I notice the little girl is not in the back with us. I slip past Ashlyn, who is zipping her tight leather coat up to her sternum, and climb over Katherine into the front cab.

The little girl is sitting quietly on the crate, the picture and her stuffed bear held tightly in her arms.

"How are you holding up, Harry? You still good to drive?" I say, gripping his broad shoulder, but only briefly so he can't feel the tremors still wiggling out through my hands.

"Aw yeah. I'm good," he says, lifting a smile toward me.

"Good. Let's take this road up to Route 10 and cross over to 107. We can take that back to the city and avoid the loopers."

"Hopefully they'll keep running all the way to the coast." He laughs.

I am grateful for Harry's easy disposition. It lightens the otherwise dark interior of the truck. The little somber girl with her dead stare, Ashlyn with her furrowed brow and slightly pouty lips, and James sitting next to her on the other fold out chair, looking like a kid waiting to talk to the principal. Worst of all there is my sweet Katherine, laying bound at my feet, a million miles away, with no way yet to get home.

I grip Harry’s shoulder again and muster as much strength as I can to keep my voice from cracking. "Thanks, Harry."

He looks up halfway, nods his head loosely and looks back at the road stretching out in front of us. "We're gonna be all right," he says, lifting his chin. "This ain't nothin' but a thang."
 

18

The way back to the city is uneventful. I sit on the floor with Katherine's head in my lap.

After a fairly long silence, James begins to talk. "What did you do before all this, Ash? Were you in college?"

"No. I was helping on my daddy's ranch," she says, not looking at him.

"Doing what?"

"Everything," she says, still looking at the floor. "He wanted me to know it all because he said you can’t lead people if you don't know how to do what they're doing better than they’re doing it. Plus my mom's been away for a long time and, when she's gone, daddy goes into work mode full time." After a silence she says, "what about you? What was it like before all this?"

"Yeah," I say, "and how did your dad make it through?"

"Why? Cause I'm ugly?" Harry says with a chuckle. The statement is actually ironic, because he is far from ugly. It’s just that his extra weight would be a target for the infected. I don't bother to respond to his question because I know he is being facetious.

"Dad escaped the apocalypse because he's a conspiracy theorist."

"And who's laughing now?" says Harry over his shoulder.

"He and his chat room buddies saw this coming before mom started acting weird, so he hid in his workshop through the first stage of the plague, which drove mom crazy."

"I told that woman this wasn't some new evolutionary thing, like the so called experts were saying on TV. I begged her to be careful, but she wouldn't listen. That woman can be stubborn."

"Anyway. When people started dying, mom changed her tune. But it was too late."

"I'm sorry, James. That must have been hard."

"Yeah. It was really hard."

"So what's your story? How did you escape the kiss?"

"I was a model," he says, with slight distaste. "A friend of mine got me into it as a part time thing while I was finishing my chemistry degree. He said it was easy money, and all I had to do was let them dress me up in weird clothes. And they were weird."

Ashlyn continues to stare at the floor, preoccupied with her own thoughts—or perhaps a headache. She keeps rubbing her forehead with her fingertips.

"It was good money, but I hated the whole scene. Drugs were everywhere. I was continually being hit up to try something. Cocaine, oxys, opioids, meth. Not to mention the variety of uppers and downers. And there was an unspoken law that everyone was expected to sleep with each other. I was a big hit at first but, when they sensed I wasn't a team player, they started growing cold toward me. I was cool with it though. I wasn't into their plastic society with its fake foibles. I wanted to do something that mattered. I wanted to do things no one’s ever done before. You know, make a discovery or something. So when that kissing fad came around things got even more weird. You shoulda seen the way they'd react when I'd refuse to give a kiss. You'd think they was holding out their hand, and I was like 'naw I'm good'. Cause to them, it was like they were giving me charity. I didn't know it at first. I just figured they were getting tired of their new play thing, but when supermodels started hitting up on the Janitor I was like, '
Something
ain't right about that'."

"Whoa," says Harry, interrupting. "That’s something you don’t see every day."

"What?"

"There's a group ripping apart a gas station. But we're okay. They're not paying any attention to us."

Even though we’re not in danger, it gets quiet in the truck, and stays that way until we get to the city.

"How are we going to get the supplies up to your floor?" asks James, running his eyes across the mass of food and supplies we’ve packed into the truck.

"There’s a freight elevator in the loading docks. I’ll have Lau divert power to it and we’ll go up in that."

"Is the loading dock safe?"

"I don’t know. I haven’t been down there since all this began." I lean out and talk to Harry around the divider. "Do you know where the entrance to the loading docks is?"

"Where the trucks go in? Yeah. I know where that is."

It is quiet inside and outside the truck all the way into the loading yard. We drew most of the loopers in this area out into the suburbs, so the loopers are thin at the moment.

Harry stops the truck and climbs out. Soon he is at the back, opening the doors.

"Wow," he says. "It’s dead out here. I don’t see another un-living soul."

James gives him a sour face, but there is a hint of humor in it. He seems to tolerate his father’s joking nature. I rather enjoy it. Humor has been in short supply for far too long.

James climbs over and jumps out. As he does the light from the door flashes across Ashyln’s face, and I see now what she has been hiding. On her nose and cheeks, where freckles should be, it is perfectly pale, with a hint of Irish red.

Her eyes flick back at me, and I look down at Katherine’s head in my lap. I don’t think she saw me notice. But what does it mean? Did she get infected by that looper? No, it doesn’t happen that fast, and there was no bite. Did the looper’s blood do something to her? I want to ask if she has the taste in her mouth—the sweet taste that the infected get almost immediately. But what if it’s more? What if she’s been hiding her infection from us this whole time? No. That’s not it either. She would have been all over Lau and Harry, not doting over James.

"You all right?" she asks.

I look at her only briefly, then continue to gaze down at my wife. "It’s just hard to leave her again," I say, trying to sound introspective.

"You want me to stay with her? To watch her?" She asks.

"Would you?" I say, rubbing my fingers through her hair. "Just until we make sure the loading docks are clear."

"Sure."

I slide from under Katherine’s head and pull myself up. I don’t want to look at Ashlyn, and yet I can’t just walk by her and not look. She’ll know something is up.

I step over my wife and into the cab, using the little girl as an excuse to avoid Ashyln. "Hi, honey. How are you holding up?" There is no response, as expected. "We have to go for just a couple of minutes. You go ahead and protect Ashyln for us, okay?" My attempt at a joke sounds fake in my own ears, but I hope it is convincing enough.

I sit in the driver’s seat, check to see that the keys are not in the ignition, swing my legs around and exit out the door. Whatever is going on with Ashyln, I’m guessing she’s aware of it, but I don’t think she would hurt the little girl. In fact, I think she will take this opportunity to fix her appearance and add the freckles back to her complexion. If she does, I’ll know for sure she is hiding something.

I pull the dart gun from the waist of my pants as I head to the rear of the truck, quickly ejecting the dart from the chamber and shoving the gun back in my belt and under my shirt.

As I come around, I see that Harry has my duffel bag in one hand and Ashlyn’s in the other. Good. She won’t have access to her shotgun.

I unzip my bag, pull out the broken dart gun, and slide the dart into its chamber.

"What about my gun?" says Ashlyn, behind me.

"I’m going to have Harry use it," I say, spinning around and slapping the dart gun down just inside the doors. "Here. Use this if she wakes, and use the horn if you see anything dangerous. You’ll be safe in here. We won’t be long." With that, I close both of the doors, sealing her inside.

This might be the wrong decision. I am currently holding all the cards, and leaving her with Katherine and the little girl, instead of confronting her, could be a mistake. But I have to know if she is hiding this from me. Besides, she can’t go anywhere. Harry has the keys.

I push off of the doors. "You two all set?"

"Ready as we’ll ever be," says James, pulling his pistol from his belt.

I take Ashlyn’s shotgun out and hand it to Harry, and take mine from my pack and strap my ammo belt around my waist. With the duffel bags discarded, we head up the cement stairs to the metal loading dock door. The docks are sealed. This is the only other way in.

I pull my keys from my pocket and try several before I find the one that works. It has been years since I’ve come in this way. I’m surprised I still have the key at all.

The inside hall is empty, so we make our way in slowly, turning on our headlamps before the door seals shut behind us. When the hall splits, we go left toward the open bays. At the end I place my ear against the door. There is no sound coming from the other side, so I creep the door open and sweep the room. All three cavernous bays appear empty. I guess the worker bees in the bowels of the company weren’t as committed to their career path. We work our way through to the freight elevator in the back.

"It looks like it’s in working condition," says Harry, shining his light into it. "No sign of damage."

I pull my radio from my ammo pack and switch it on. "Lau?" I say, squeezing the talk button. "You up there?"

A vacuum of silence fills the room as I wait for a response. When none comes, I make another attempt.

"Lau. Are you there?"

"Ben!" Tshhhhhhhhh. "You made it back."

I press my button. "Yeah. Listen."

"Did you find your wife?"

"Yeah. She’s here with us, and she’s safe."

"Why are you calling me on the radio?" Tsshhhhhhhhh

"I need you to divert power to the loading dock freight elevator. We’re going to bring supplies up."

"Sure. It will take about fifteen minutes to get the computer online and figure out which service to enable." Shhhhh.

A clanging noise causes us to spin around. I wiggle my head to move the light back and forth, but I can’t see where the noise came from.

"Ben?"

I snap the radio up to my lips. "Yeah."

"Is that okay?"

"Is what okay?"

"It will take fifteen minutes. You just went dead. I didn’t know if it was okay." Tsshhhhhhhh.

"Yes, Lau. It’s okay. We have a situation down here. We’ll call you back." I tuck the radio in my shirt pocket.

"A situation? What kind of situation? Is it loopers?"

Seriously? Does he have no clue at all?
I bring my shotgun up and inch toward the sounds.

The unwanted sound of the radio screams out again. Shhhhh. "Is it loopers, Ben?"