The Gates_The Arrival Read online

  “Miss…I need you to roll down your window.”

  She didn’t know what to do. “Tara…?”

  “Miss, if you don’t obey I’m going to have to use force…”

  Force…Harper blinked and took a good hard look at the intruder. A cop? They had cops out here?

  She leaned past Tara to hit the button to roll down the window. “I’m so sorry officer, but my friend here—”

  For the second time that day, Harper found herself looking down the barrel of a gun. Very carefully she eased Tara away from her, leaning her back against the seat. She’d fallen asleep, she’d been so exhausted from her crying. She’d actually fallen asleep.

  “I’m sorry, Officer, she just got so tired…we’re not doing anything wrong…we just needed to rest…”

  “Miss, I’m going to need you to leave. The Goldberg city limits are closed to out of towners, so unless you can prove residency, you’re going to have to leave.”

  “She’s sleeping…can’t we just…”

  “Ma’am, I would suggest that perhaps your friend would do better to continue her nap while you remove this vehicle from the premises.”

  “Premises? We’re parked next to a cornfield—”

  “Ma’am, are you willing to comply with the aforementioned conditions or will you require me to use force.”

  The policeman was just a kid, she realized. Couldn’t have been more than twenty, if that. The hands holding the gun shook. Any second and that boy was going to wind up shooting somebody.

  “Okay, then you’re going to have to let me move her to the other seat…Tara, you need to wake up. Tara!” Harper’s entire body trembled as she shook her friend’s shoulder. “Tara, pull yourself together, we need to get out of here.”

  Tara moved her head and moaned. She was groggy, disoriented. In desperation Harper pulled off Tara’s seatbelt and hauled her bodily to her own seat. Tara came awake enough to help then curled up around Tara’s rucksack, snoring softly.

  Harper slipped out of the SUV, hands up, and walked very slowly and carefully around to the driver’s side so that she might get in. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” she murmured as he motioned for her to open the door. “We haven’t done anything…”

  “Nothing personal, ma’am. We have no room for refugees in Goldberg. If you take that road back there to the right and then make another right a mile out or so, you’ll go around the city. But I’m warning you, you try to circle around we’ve got officers at every road in.”

  Refugees? When had they become refugees?

  “We’re just trying to get to Carlisle…”

  “You’re about twenty miles out, just stay on this road. You can’t miss it. Though I’m warning you, most of the towns out here are shutting doors to strangers.”

  “My…my brother is there.”

  “I wish you the best, ma’am.”

  “I’d believe that a whole lot more if you didn’t have a gun pointed at my face.”

  The cop lowered the weapon only marginally. “Just doing my job, ma’am.”

  Harper darted a glance over to Tara who seemed to be snoring into the rucksack. Muttering a few choice words under her breath she set the SUV into gear and followed the police officer’s instructions to go back to the next road and turn right.

  Why the hell would I want to go to their stupid town anyway…

  But that was twice today she’d been surprised by someone at the window. Twice she’d been caught without any way to protect herself.

  So now what? Tara’s asleep and you don’t even know where you’re going once you get to Carlisle. Tara wrote down the instructions, didn’t she? Would that even be on her phone? And what if they don’t let us in either?

  Upset and angry, Harper drove with excessive care around the city, making sure that she’d put it a good many miles behind her before pulling over again. This time when she stopped, she did so next to an open field. She’d only seen a half dozen cars in the last hour. No one was out here. Which also meant no one could sneak up on her.

  Tara’s phone lay in the center console. And of course required her finger print to open.

  “It’s a good thing you sleep like the dead,” Harper muttered to herself as she stole her best friend’s thumb so that she could open to the home screen. Thankfully Tara was just as organized here as anywhere else. The notepad icon was easy to find.

  So was the note from her brother. Apparently he’d also emailed the instructions and she’d kept a copy here. With a slightly guilty glance at Tara who probably wouldn’t like this invasion of privacy too much were she actually awake, she read through the instructions, learning that the place they were looking for was to the west and north a little of the city, out by the state forest. She memorized the directions and set the car in gear, feeling the tension knot in her belly tighter and tighter with each passing mile.

  Tara slept on. Maybe that was for the best.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Erik

  It was the sun that woke him, that and the strangeness of the sounds that filtered through the window. The sounds were…different. It wasn’t silence, far from it, but along with traffic and the buzz of the city, there should be an almost subliminal sound, something that wasn’t there.

  He pulled himself out of bed trying to figure out what it was he wasn’t hearing and it all came flooding back. The late night with the senators, the way he was asked to leave, the traffic, the lights out, all of it. He’d almost left the city without coming home. He’d changed his mind after getting stuck in traffic for an hour that had transported him all of one mile from his office. At that rate he could walk there quicker.

  In the end, he’d come back to his apartment to grab a few things before fleeing into the hills, but the traffic had taken a toll on him. It had taken so long to get just a few blocks he’d decided he was too tired to continue. He’d meant to take a nap to recover and spent the entire night stretched out on the bed. It was the brightness of the light streaming in through the window that woke him and returned him to the nightmare that was his life now.

  Carlisle. His brain echoed the name. Carlisle. The promised land, land of milk and honey, Eden, Paradise, El Dorado, Carlisle. Somehow it didn’t seem to fit in the list, but it was there, somewhere. In the cold light of day, it was time to go.

  He finished pushing a few items into a bag. Toiletries mostly, clothing, a few small items that meant something special to him. It wasn’t much, but he’d not had time to get the supplies he’d insisted his sister get before she left.

  He looked at his phone: No signal. At least he’d contacted Harper and sent her off to safety. He hoped. She’d at least taken him seriously at the end. She was with Tara. She’d be okay. He spared a moment to feel grateful for her. He could only hope to meet them both at the compound in Carlisle now. Same with Finn. Despite the man being able to send out a warning to them all – at some personal risk or so Finn had mentioned – Erik hadn’t heard from him since. He said he would meet everyone there. He’d damn well better. These are his friends and without him there to vouch for the rest of us, we might not be exactly welcomed.

  But Erik wasn’t going to be welcomed if he didn’t get going. He finished packing and opened the door to the fridge. The little bit of half and half for coffee and drinks weren’t going to last any longer. He dumped it down the sink. He ran through the items in there and gathered the perishable things in a bag and then cleaned out the freezer. Anything that wouldn’t make it without electricity or a freak snowstorm in August, he tossed into the bag.

  He thought that maybe, just maybe, when this was all over and the world had righted itself again, he’d come back, move in and laugh over cocktails with some friends about the chaos of those days and how silly everyone was being. He clung to that vision like a promise. It kept him from screaming. But if was coming back here, having rotting meats and bad dairy products smelling up the place wouldn’t do. He went through the small kitchen, looking for anythi
ng not canned or dry. Those he put in a bag to take with, the rest went into the trash.

  He looked at the can and realized that it would still rot and fester while he was gone, it just would do so in the middle of the kitchen, not the edges. He unplugged the fridge and propped the door open and took the bag of warming food to the dumpster downstairs.

  The elevator was non-functional, that was no surprise. Three flights of stairs to the main floor and back up for his bag seemed daunting, but the garbage and his baggage were too bulky to try and gather in one load, especially when trying to climb down three flights of stairs. Better just to make the extra run.

  He threw the garbage bag over his shoulder like a Santa Claus of rubbish and walked down the steps. As he went past the second floor landing, he heard noise below him, muffled talking, some louder than others, but none of the voices clear enough to understand.

  He opened the door to the lobby and there stood most of the people in the building. Most he only knew from sight, a familiar face as they crossed coming and going. A few, those from his floor, he knew fairly well.

  “Erik!” one of his neighbors called. “Tell us what’s going on here!”

  “Why him?” someone asked, a man Erik saw jogging fairly often spoke up. Fred something, “What’s so special about him that he should know what the rest of us already haven’t heard?”

  A man in pajamas and bathrobe pushed to the front of the crowd. Erik didn’t know his name, and darted a glance at his neighbor for help.

  Gerard Bordeaux shook his head at him, leaning against the wall wearing jeans and a t-shirt that read, ‘Karma is a bitch.’ They’d talked a few times in the elevator, exchanging pleasantries. Gerard was an older man, pushing retirement, who spoke with the accent of one who knew English as their second language.

  Oddly enough Fred was in a suit and looked like he was off to the office as usual. It seemed a strange way to greet the end of the world.

  “This is Erik Gentry!” Gerard said, stepping forward. “He works for Senator Hays. Tell them, Erik. You work for Senator Hays, n'est-ce pas?”

  Erik suddenly knew what it was to be cornered. He didn’t want to answer - didn’t want to have to tell anyone what had been going on. He tried to think, needing to stall while every eye in the lobby was glued to him. Every man and woman there were looking for the same thing – Savior or Scapegoat. At this point they’d take either and rejoice equally over it. “Yeah…Yes, I work for Senator Hays. In fact, I was in a meeting with him last night and several other…”

  “Never mind,” the man in the pajamas interrupted. An older woman, presumably his wife was similarly dressed and had on the largest fuzzy slippers Erik had ever seen. She tried to capture her husband’s arm to calm him down. “Just tell us what’s going on! We’re hearing everything from alien invasion to Hitler’s ghost! The only thing we’re not hearing is from someone that knows what’s happening!”

  “Well, the fact is,” Erik said, setting the bag down carefully at his feet, “that right now it looks like there is something in the grid that looks like—”

  “What does that mean?” A very anxious woman in pale grey slacks and a white shirt demanded.

  “Yeah, in English!” someone called from behind him.

  Erik held up his hands for quiet. I really can’t say too much, it’s supposed to be classified. Still, it’s not like the news doesn’t already have most of this info, I can give them that much. Without power, they probably haven’t been able to get even that much. There’s no TV. No internet.

  “It appears that someone was able to hack into the power grid computers,” he said finally, trying to quell the stirrings of the crowd. One woman he didn’t know, wearing jeans and boots and a t-shirt was watching him intently, if silently. “All we know right now is that they slipped a virus in the system and now we have to go clean it out. It’s just going to take a little time while we track this virus and get everything back to normal.”

  “But it will come back?” the anxious woman cried.

  “Of course!” Erik called back, trying to be reassuring. “Honestly, the best thing you can do is find the old battery powered radio you thought you’d never need again and listen for updates. Go home, go back to your apartments and read a book, listen to the radio for updates.”

  “That’s it?” the pajama man demanded. “You’re going to send us back to our rooms like naughty children?”

  “What do you want to do?” Erik shot back. “You want to go cause a riot in slippers and a bathrobe? You want to generate power on your own? What else are you going to do? Really?” He crossed his arms.

  You can run away and go to a stronghold in Pennsylvania. That’s what I’m planning on.

  “He’s right,” Gerard said, reaching to clasp the man’s shoulder. The woman with the fuzzy slippers finally was able to capture her husband’s arm and hold it, patting his hand. “I know you probably don’t like to sit inactive, neither do I,” Gerard continued, “but really, what else is there to do? Get yourself and everyone worked up and then what?”

  “Remember your blood pressure, Sol,” his wife reminded him.

  Sol was not to be pacified, however. “Really? Is that so?” he pointed to the bag at Erik’s feet. “Where are you going with all that stuff if there’s nowhere to go, huh?”

  “The Dumpster. The way my fridge keeps going out there wasn’t a thing left in there safe to eat. I suggest you clean out your own refrigerators too, before you all give yourselves a bad case of food poisoning.” Erik said as flatly as he could. “Really, Sol, this place we live in,” Erik waved to incorporate the building, “this is a nice place, not a flea bag hotel for derelicts. I work for a US Senator. Do you really think I would pack up my belongings in a Hefty bag?” Erik put as much derision in that question as he could manage. It appeared to work, there were a few chuckles from the back and even Sol looked embarrassed.

  Erik held up the bag, pulling the top tight so the outline of his garbage could be clearly seen. “I’m just taking out the trash, Sol. Like any other day.” He turned and addressed the rest of the people gathered around. “Please. The best thing anyone can do is the hardest thing anyone can do. Just wait. Go home, go back to your places and wait for word. That’s really all there is. Please.”

  Some people were already climbing the steps, Sol was being led away by his wife and complaining about a second story walk-up with his condition, and why couldn’t they have a little power for the elevator, and who would have power if they needed to jump start his heart after a climb like that?

  Erik breathed a sigh of relief and took the bag out the door and circled around to the Dumpster. Standing in front of the trash was the woman in jeans and boots.

  “Mr. Gentry is it?” she asked, blocking the Dumpster. Erik nodded.

  She reached behind her and flipped up the back of her shirt. Her hand came back around filled with a large, heavy-caliber pistol.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Erik

  She held the gun pointing down, away from him or her, toward the building. Everything he’d ever read or seen in a movie flashed through Erik’s mind as he watched the gun and lost sight of the girl holding it. Her fingers were splayed out, the gun was mainly held by pressure between her thumb and the palm of her hand.

  For a moment, Erik thought he would never make it to Carlisle, never see Harper again. It would have the same result if he’d been killed on the road, but it was just damn embarrassing to be killed outside one’s own apartment building just because you overslept.

  “I don’t know if you remember me,” she said, “my name is Abby, Abby Myers. In addition to living here, we also go to the same gym.”

  Erik stood at the entrance to the little fenced off area that held the apartment tower’s trash bin and tried not to think about doing something incredibly embarrassing. Like wetting himself. The gun was big, not just a little deadly thing, a big deadly thing. Erik wasn’t familiar with weaponry, but this thing looked like it could put a
hole in a tank.

  “This is a .357 Magnum,” Abby said and flipped the gun around so she was holding the barrel. “The safety is on and it’s not loaded. Here.” She handed it to him butt first. He looked at the proffered gun for a long moment, trying to figure out what her game was.

  “Why?” he asked finally, without accepting the piece.

  “I have another. I have…a few others. I have been trained to shoot, I have had combat training. Please, just hold it moment.”

  Erik contemplated the weapon, thinking about his fingerprints on a strange gun. On the other hand, the world was about to break down anyway and any shooting that might have been a direct consequence of that gun was going to be less and less important as the world unraveled. He took it. He relied on having an air tight alibi for most of the night. Besides, what harm could there be in just holding it? He could always wipe off his prints later. It was the policeman that finally convinced him though. The officer he’d seen last night, the one directing traffic. The man had resigned himself and maybe his family to not leaving, to not saving himself. He was a cop and his duty was there, protecting who he could. Erik’s duty had ended; at least temporarily, Senator Hays had sent him home. But, like the cop last night, Erik had a duty to protect himself and Harper if he could reunite with his sister. To do that, he needed to be armed. It was time to get over being squeamish. The world was changing. It was time he changed with it.

  He gave Abby a long, assessing look. He wondered if he was a good boy, would she give him a bullet?

  She reached into a back pocket. Even holding a pistol and a bag of trash at the end of the world, Erik found himself admiring the curve of her hip as she reached into the back pocket of her pants. She fit the jeans rather well. She pulled out a small wallet and flipped it open.

  “US Marshal’s office?”

  “Internal Affairs.” Abby said, closing the wallet and returning it to her back pocket. “I’m not a Marshal, I just work in the bureau.”