The Hunted (14 page)

By the time the blazing hot sun was directly overhead, they were a good distance outside the city limits. The freeway lost a lane on either side and there were fewer cars to check and the towns they passed were smaller and more spread out but they were just as devastated by the earthquakes and fires. Shy wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his wrist and studied their surroundings. He was aware of even the slightest sound in the distance.

They had been taking turns ducking their heads into each car they passed, but so far none had both keys and gas. Eventually Shy told Carmen: “Let's face it, we're hoofing it all the way to Arizona.”

She looked annoyed but didn't say anything.

He wondered if now was a good time to talk about back home. The longer he waited, the harder it would be to explain why he hadn't told her right away. He cleared his throat. But when he opened his mouth, he couldn't find the words. So he looked ahead again and continued walking in silence.

The farther east they got, the more spread-out things became. A strip mall on the right side of the freeway here, a Cineplex there. Big signs promised fast-food joints and coffee shops and hotel chains, but nearly every place they passed was caved in and abandoned. They didn't stop anywhere to investigate. Instead they ate on the move—granola bars and crackers—and took baby sips of bottled water. Shy stared at the road in front of them, trying to swallow his emotions like Shoeshine, but his mind kept circling back to everything he'd lost.

They'd been walking for hours when a helicopter appeared like a tiny dot in the sky.

“Whoa,” Shoeshine said, putting a hand up for them to stop.

“What is it?” Carmen asked.

Shy pointed to the sky, watching Shoeshine scan the freeway around them.

“There,” the man said, motioning them toward a wrecked white Suburban about twenty yards away.

Shy looked up again as the four of them hurried toward the Suburban. The helicopter was heading directly toward them. Shy held his breath and climbed underneath the car with the others to hide.

They waited in silence for several minutes, listening to the sound of the chopper grow louder and louder, until it was directly overhead, stirring up everything on the road. Shy's heart climbed into his throat, and he looked at Carmen and Marcus.

But then the chopper seemed to continue on its way.

Shy craned his neck so he could watch it move west along the 10 Freeway and then veer north, toward a small town they'd passed earlier. The chopper dipped closer to the ground and just hovered in place for a while. Suddenly the side door slid open and a man wearing a Red Cross jacket appeared with a large wooden crate, which he began lowering by rope.

Shy let out his breath, relieved.

Carmen started to climb out from underneath the Suburban, but Shoeshine stopped her. “Just hang tight for now.”

There was a bit of a commotion underneath the helicopter as the man in the Red Cross jacket let the crate fall to the earth, then reeled up the rope. He tied it to another crate and began lowering that one, too.

“It's just a food drop,” Carmen said to Shoeshine. “Not everyone's out to get us like you think.”

Shoeshine nodded, pulling the duffel closer to his chest.

After dropping the second crate, the helicopter continued farther west. When Carmen made a move to slide out from underneath the Suburban, it wasn't Shoeshine who stopped her this time. It was Shy. The helicopter was clearly making relief drops. But Shy figured it was still best to wait until it was completely out of sight.

As soon as the sky grew dark, they began looking for a safe place to spend the night. Without the sun the desert air was chilly, and they had to break out their jackets. Shoeshine led them to a deep, tree-covered gutter on the opposite side of the freeway, and Shy climbed down into the dry gut of the thing with the others and ate another granola bar and sipped his water. From a sitting position, the gutter walls reached just over their heads. Between the walls and the scrawny trees overhead, it seemed unlikely that anyone would spot them in the dark.

“Best get your rest now,” Shoeshine said. “We need to be back on the road again by daybreak.” Shy watched the man take his journal out of the duffel bag and unlock it with the key around his neck.

“What we
need
to do is find a damn car that runs,” Carmen said. “My feet are killing me.”

“ 'Cause you're the only one, right?” Marcus said.

“I was saying it about
all
of us, asshole.” Carmen shook her head and looked to Shy. “This
vato
talks too much.”

Marcus waved her off.

Shy watched Carmen crumple up her wrapper and slip it inside the front pocket of her backpack. He had decided that tonight he'd tell her everything he knew about back home. He'd take her down the way a bit, where she could react to the news in private. And he'd hug her. Or listen if she wanted to talk. Whatever she needed. But he had to get the bad news over with. Tonight.

Carmen took one last sip of water and screwed the cap back on and glanced at Shy. “Wake me up when we're there, Sancho.”

“Wait,” Shy said, sitting up straight. “You're going to sleep?”

“Humans tend to do that shit at night,” she answered.

“And since you all are Mexicans,” Marcus butted in, “you're used to sleeping in gutters, right? Didn't your forefathers have to do that shit when they snuck into this country?” He put a fist to his mouth, grinning.

“Yo, Carm,” Shy said, “you hear something? Sounds like Marcus's voice, but I can't see his black ass in all this dark.”

“Soon as you locate that nappy-headed fool,” she said, “slap him for me. I'm too tired to get up.”

The three of them cracked up a little.

After everything they'd been through, it felt good to cap on each other the way they used to back on the ship.

Shy watched Carmen position her backpack directly behind her, lay her head on it and gaze up at the sky. It was only a couple minutes before her eyelids slid down her eyes and her breaths grew long and heavy.

So much for breaking the bad news tonight.

Marcus turned on his radio, and he and Shy listened to the DJ talk about the latest death toll estimates. According to a government leak, the disease was now believed to be responsible for more than twice as many deaths as the earthquakes and fires combined.

“Yo, Shy,” Marcus said after they'd been listening for a while. “Could I talk to you a minute?”

“Yeah, what's up?”

Marcus glanced at Carmen, then Shoeshine, who was busy writing. “I mean in private.”

Shy got up and followed Marcus down the gutter, stepping over the occasional empty beer can or fast-food wrapper, until they were twenty or so yards away. They sat across from each other, against the angled gutter walls, but Marcus didn't talk right away, he just looked up at the night. There were tons of stars out and a half-moon that hung so low and heavy in the sky, Shy felt like he could almost reach out and grab it. Just enough light came off the moon for him to see Marcus.

“What's up?” Shy asked again.

Marcus shrugged and looked down at his hands. “I just been thinking about shit, I guess.”

A long silence followed.

Shy knew from their time together on the sailboat, it always took Marcus a while to say what was on his mind. At least when it was something serious. Shy would have to bring up whatever he'd been thinking about first, to get the guy talking. But everything on his mind tonight was stuff he could only share with Carmen.

So he just sat there.

And waited.

Eventually Marcus turned to small talk. He told Shy for the hundredth time he should go for Carmen—even if she
did
have an attitude. When Shy brought up Carmen's fiancé, Marcus waved him off and said after everything Shy and Carmen had been through together, there was no way she'd be able to go back to her old life. “Nothing bonds two people more than going through hardships together. Trust me. I even got a soft spot for that crazy old bastard over there.” He motioned down the gutter, toward Shoeshine.

Shy knew there was some truth to that. At this point, he probably felt closer to Carmen, Marcus and Shoeshine than any of his boys back home. But he doubted it was strong enough to make someone ditch the person they planned to marry.

“Seriously, though,” Shy said, eager to change the subject, “what'd you drag me over here to talk about? I know it wasn't to lecture my ass on
relationships.”

Marcus sat there, shaking his head for a while. But then a surprising thing happened: he started opening up.

He told Shy how everyone at his college and on the cruise ship thought of him as this tough, gangster type because he was from Compton. And because of how he dressed. “That shit cracks me up sometimes,” he said. “ 'Cause if you actually talk to the brothers I grew up with…they'd laugh in your face. Back home folks see me as a straight-up nerd, man.”

“Serious?” Shy knew Marcus was good at school, but he couldn't see him as a nerd.

“Swear to God.” Marcus chuckled a little. “I mean, I had the grades, right? But it's more than just that. I always had my face buried in a book. Especially comics. And I barely ever went to parties. Fools used to call me ‘the Milk Drinker' when I did. I'd walk in the door and some girl would shout that shit out. ‘Hey, everyone! The Milk Drinker's here!' ”

“No way,” Shy said. “I saw you drink on the ship.”

“I'm talking about back in high school, though.” Marcus shook his head. “Anyways, I'm not trying to tell my life story or anything. But it does sort of fit with what I wanted to tell you.”

Shy watched Marcus rub his eyes, like he was suddenly exhausted.

“I got some bad news, I guess.” Marcus turned to face Shy. “I'm going home, man. First thing tomorrow morning.”

“Home?” Shy repeated. This caught him totally off guard. “Wait, why'd you come all this way, then?”

“Like I said, I been thinking about shit.” Marcus shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and leaned back against the gutter wall. “I ain't no hero, bro.”

“What, you think
I
am?”

“I saw the look on your face in the hospital, Shy. When you said you were going to Arizona. You
meant
that shit. I went along with it 'cause…I don't know. I guess I thought I was supposed to.” Marcus pulled his hands out of his pockets and rubbed his eyes again. “And that's not a good enough reason to do something, I decided.”

Shy searched his head for something deep he could tell Marcus, something that would make the guy see their Arizona trip in a totally different way. None of them were heroes. It was like Shoeshine said, they'd just found themselves on this journey. And they had to complete it. Or maybe Shy could bring up what his dad had told him back at the Sony lots. That his mom was gone. His sister and nephew. Maybe the only reason he was going to Arizona was because he had nowhere else to go.

But it didn't seem right for Shy to use his family that way, as a tactic to try and change someone's mind. So he just sat there, shaking his head and fingering the diamond ring in his pocket.

“Anyways, I wanted to tell you first.” Marcus kicked Shy's foot to make sure he was paying attention. “I know I give you a hard time and shit, but, for real…you been a good friend to me, Shy.”

“Same with you,” Shy said. He had a strange feeling in his stomach. This might be the last one-on-one conversation he and Marcus ever had. They'd already lost so many people from their group on the cruise ship. But this was different.

“Anyways,” Marcus said.

Shy wanted to say something else, just to keep them talking a little longer, but everything that came into his head seemed sentimental. Marcus would probably laugh at him. So he just sat there instead, staring at the dirty gutter floor.

“I feel like a punk, you know? I'm not gonna lie.” Marcus shook his head. “But at the same time, I don't even care.”

“You're not a punk,” Shy told him.

Marcus coughed into his fist and peered down the gutter at Shoeshine and Carmen. “Anyways, next time I see you, kid, I expect you and Carm to be all arm in arm and shit.” He turned back to Shy. “That girl's annoying as hell sometimes, but, hey…at least things would never get boring, right?”

They both smiled.

Secretly, though, Shy was trying to picture the rest of the trip without Marcus. For some reason he couldn't really do it. They'd been through so much together.

When Shy awoke the next morning he was surprised to find himself alone. He rubbed his eyes with balled fists and looked up and down the gutter, but there was nobody. Their stuff was gone, too. He hooked his arms into his backpack straps and climbed to his feet, and that's when he saw it.

In the middle of the eastbound lanes, maybe twenty yards from where he stood, a large circle of motionless bodies surrounded a commercial van. “What the hell?” Shy mumbled.

He climbed out of the gutter and started toward the freeway, his heart already pounding. The sun was just coming up over the far-off hills to the east, spilling light over the strange scene. Shy focused on the bodies again, all of them on their backs, arms by their sides. There were at least two dozen. Perfectly arranged. The van between them was facing the shoulder.

Shy was relieved to see that Marcus hadn't left yet. He was wedged between the van and an overturned Volvo, peering into the van's cracked windshield. Carmen and Shoeshine stood on the outside of the circle of bodies, staring at a small box.

“What happened?” Shy called out, as he crossed over the freeway median to join them.

Carmen was first to look up. “They did it to themselves. Can you believe that shit?”

There were boxes scattered all around the bodies. Shy reached down and picked one up.

“It's rat poison,” Carmen told him.

“Rat poison?” Shy scanned the label, spotting the skull and crossbones in the upper right-hand corner. He turned back to the van just as Marcus slid open the side door and stuck his head inside. The big logo on the side was for a pest control company. The group must have raided the thing.

But why?

And how come the bodies were so neatly arranged?

Shy looked around the freeway again. There was a large, orange-painted storage facility beyond the shoulder. Past that, a strip mall. And one of those big McDonald's that has an outside play area for kids.

“Couldn't have happened more than a few days ago,” Shoeshine said.

Shy watched the man kneel over one of the bodies. A middle-aged woman in a gray tracksuit.

Carmen nudged the body closest to her with the toe of her shoe. “How could you even
do
that to yourself?”

“Were they sick?” Shy asked.

Shoeshine peeled open the woman's eyelids with his fingers. “Doesn't look like it.” He used his stick to help himself stand.

“Yo, check this out!” Marcus shouted from the driver's seat of the van. He was holding a set of keys out the rolled-down window.

“Shut up!” Carmen shouted, tossing aside the box she'd been holding.

“There's even a little gas.” Marcus hopped out of the van and bounded toward them. He stopped just inside the circle of bodies and tossed Carmen the keys. “Hang on to these while I check the back.”

Carmen turned to Shy and Shoeshine. “Let's drag some of these bodies out of the way so we can take the van.”

Shoeshine cupped a hand to his ear and aimed it at the sky. He had an odd expression on his face.

“Yo, you're seeing this, right, bro?” Marcus was pointing at Shy. “One last contribution. Don't say I never did nothing for you all.” Just as he started back toward the van, a loud blast echoed in the distance.

Marcus stumbled, grabbing the lower right side of his back. He turned toward Shy, his eyes impossibly wide, and crumpled to the ground.

Carmen screamed.

Shy held his breath and crouched instinctively, looking all around.

Two armed men in gas masks had appeared in front of the McDonald's. They were advancing toward the freeway. Two more shots were fired, the bullets ricocheting off the concrete near Marcus. The men ducked behind a trash bin.

Shoeshine dove on top of Marcus. “Get in the van!” he shouted over his shoulder.

Shy grabbed Carmen and pulled her past the bodies, toward the pest vehicle. Three more shots rang out, sparking the concrete near their feet. Then Shy heard another familiar sound.

He looked back, saw a government helicopter lifting into the sky from behind the storage facility.