State of Rebellion (Collapse Series) (15 page)

Chris is in the front passenger seat. I’m sitting behind him, Angela on my left. The small, thick windows of the Humvee shed bright daylight into the backseat. The top gunner in the turret of the vehicle is alert, watching the sides of the streets for ambushes. Right now we’re weaving our way through the streets of Fresno, passing old shopping malls and ghettos. Shaw Avenue. Willow. Ashlan. Besides the gangs, the city is virtually deserted. There’s hardly any food or fresh water here, so why would people stay?

“Where do you think everybody went?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” Angela says.

“I mean in the cities. Like Fresno.” I jerk my thumb at the window. “There were a
lot
of people who lived here. Where did they go? Did they all run to the countryside and the
mountains to try to find food after the grocery stores got raided?”

“A lot of them died in the attacks,” Angela replies, her expression veiled. “Omega killed so many. Those that survived ran to the country, and even more of them died there.” She sighs heavily. “But most of them are under Omega’s control, imprisoned. The cities that are still populated have been taken over. It’s a police state nightmare.”

“Apparently Fresno isn’t too much of an Omega hotspot,” I comment.

“They cared enough about Fresno to wipe out half the population and destroy the city,” Angela replies. “They didn’t count on resistance. We gave them that. We’ll give them
more
.”

Right. Which is why we’re leaving. Possibly going to our deaths. I stare out the
window, watching the scenery roll slowly past. Chris has remained silent for the duration of the journey so far, listening to the radio traffic as scouts and units report back and forth. I’m guessing he’s thinking about everything that’s coming our way.

So am I.

So is everybody.

I lean my head against the seat and squeeze my eyes shut. A sick feeling pools in the pit of my stomach. Anxiety? No doubt. Confusion. Yes, that too. I’ve told Chris I love him a couple of times now and he’s never returned the words. Why? It shouldn’t bother me that he remains silent. Should it?

You’re an idiot
, my conscious snaps.
Of course he loves you. He wouldn’t have stuck with you this long if he didn’t. Chris just doesn’t know
how to
say
how he feels. Be patient with him. Actions speak louder than words anyway, right?

Yeah, yeah. Right. I know.

It doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it makes me feel like a naïve schoolgirl, blurting my feelings out to him while he’s remained tight and constrained this whole time. Well,
somewhat
tight. I guess the kissing and hugging and comforting words should be a sign that he cares about me.

Quit being naïve,
I think.
You’re twenty years old, not fifteen. Chris loves you. You know that. He’ll say it when he’s ready to say it. Just let it go.

I open my eyes.

“Okay, then,” I say.

Angela gives me a weird look.

“Sorry,” I shrug.

Nothing like an internal pep talk to perk up the morning.

As the first hour drags by, I find the original nervous edge I’ve been carrying all morning beginning to wear off. It turns into mere impatience and boredom. It takes hours longer than it should to get where we need to be because we can’t take a direct route on the interstate. As far as we know, Omega has been using the old highways to move their convoys throughout the state when they can, so we want to avoid them.

Several hours later, we roll into Bakersfield.

An eerie sense of “I’ve been here before” hits me. Because yeah. I’ve
been
here before. And the last time I came through was a year ago with Chris. We were on foot, the city had been turned
into a concentration and death camp, and we only escaped with our lives because an old man named Walter Lewis showed us a secret passage out of the city.

We drive through the remote areas, avoiding the freeways. Unlike the last time I was here, Omega is absent. Buildings are burned, blasted, destroyed, vacant. Intel has reported that the POW camp that was here last year is gone. We take a turn on a big boulevard behind a rest stop by the freeway. The remains of barbed wire and metal fencing is scattered around an abandoned parking lot. The burnt carcasses of trucks and trailers sit on the asphalt.

Was this the death camp we saw?

I don’t know. It looks so different. What happened to it?

“Militia,” Chris says simply. He doesn’t even have to look at me to know what I’m thinking. “Militia did this. Somebody like us.”

I wonder what happened to Walter Lewis. I’d like to find his apartment building and see if he’s still alive. But I’m not in charge, and we have no time for that. We’re on a schedule.

We’re trying to save what’s left of the world here.

Sorry, Walter. Next time. I promise.

“Bakersfield isn’t far from the Chokepoint,” I say.

The Chokepoint is what we’ve been calling our destination.

Chris nods. He’s been staying in communication with the other Humvees via encrypted radio, big black boxes that look like cell phones from the nineties. But hey. It’s better
than the alternative. We
could
be using smoke signals or two tin cans and a string. Because honestly, that’s where we were without radios.

After a bit more time elapses, I see it. Without urban pollution, the Tehachapi Mountains are tall and clear against the afternoon sky. I stifle a shudder, thinking of the fear and confusion I felt when Chris and I were fleeing Los Angeles through those hills.

“We’re here,” I breathe.

Nobody replies. Nobody needs to.

This is where we make our last stand.

Laval Road. I remember this place. A huge rest stop on the side of the interstate, surrounded by fast food restaurants and gas stations. I stopped here with my father on our
way to and from our cabin in the mountains. Summer vacations.

Last time I was here, there were a
lot
of dead bodies. Blood on the road. Omega had rolled in and executed innocent people. At the time, Chris and I didn’t know who Omega was, or that they were even here. We just knew something was
wrong
.

Now we know
what.

And Laval Road isn’t looking so bad today. No dead bodies. No blood. Everything is abandoned, but hey. It makes for a good rest stop for the convoy. We need to refuel. What better place to do it than here?

Our convoy rolls to a halt in front of an empty restaurant.
The Iron Skillet
, the sign says. The windows aren’t broken, miraculously. The front door is cracked, halfway open. Our driver
kills the engine and Angela, Chris and myself exit the vehicle. I stretch my stiff legs. The air is heavy and hot. Not even the slightest hint of a breeze.

“This is just creepy,” I mutter.

Chris shrugs off his jacket and throws it in the front seat of the Humvee.

“Looks different than the last time we came through, doesn’t it?” he asks.

“Where did all the dead bodies go, I wonder?” I say.

“Either they rotted into oblivion or somebody cleaned them up and buried them. Or burned them.” Vera stands at the rear of our vehicle, arms crossed. “Ever smelled burning flesh, Hart? The scent is sickly sweet.”

I level my gaze.

“
You’re
sick, Vera,” I state. “Keep it to yourself.”

And my temper is in full force today.

She squares her jaw, knowing better than to push me right now. In front of everybody. Especially in front of Chris, who is just out of earshot at the front door of the restaurant. I join him, searching the convoys for familiar faces. All of our heavy artillery is in tow – you can’t rush the heavy stuff. And according to Colonel Rivera, we should have air support out here by tonight.
That
should be awesome. Helicopters, jets – courtesy of the air force.

The militia begins exiting their vehicles, the transports dumping our troops onto the asphalt. Procedural searches of the area begin. Vera finds her mother and the two converse for a moment. It strikes me then how odd it is that
Angela seems like such a levelheaded, decent human being while her daughter is a complete idiot.

Just an observation.

Inside, the restaurant is covered in a fine layer of ashes. The booths and tables and chairs are ghostly white with a grayish tint. It smells like something died in here, too. I wrinkle my nose.

“Can we
please
wait inside a different building?” I say. “This is dirty.”

“No. This restaurant’s got a good view of the rest of the area,” Chris replies, offering a crooked grin. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to the smell.”

“Joy.”

He pats my shoulder and continues through the building. I follow him into the
kitchen. It’s empty. Lonely. Forgotten. Never to be used again.

It makes you wonder what happened to the employees and owners when the EMP went down. When Omega rolled in and started their systemic executions. We may never know, because all of the witnesses are dead.

“Puts a chill in the bones, doesn’t it?”

Colonel Rivera marches through the kitchen door, his eternally present cigar wedged between his teeth. He kicks the door on a fridge open. A heinous smell wafts out of it. I barely manage to avoid gagging all over the Colonel’s boots.

“You were here just a couple of days after the EMP hit, weren’t you?” he asks, looking at me. “At least, I know Young was.”

“I was with him,” I nod.

“And?”

“And it was a graveyard, sir. Dead bodies everywhere.”

He rubs his chin, deep in thought about something.

“You ever wonder how they got here so fast?” he asks, shifting his gaze to Chris. “How were they mobilized and ready to kill everybody on the whole damn planet within just forty-eight hours after the EMP hit?”

“They were planted here ahead of time,” I say.

“But how?”

“They were hiding,” Vera states, crossing her arms.

“Right, right.” Colonel Rivera casts a curious glance at Chris, who’s standing near the door with a concerned expression on his face.
“But
who
was letting them hide here? Because you and I both know something this big had to go down with a whole lot of inside help.”

“What are you saying, sir?” I ask.

“I’m just stating a fact.” The front door bangs open and a group of our scouts come inside, here to report to Chris. “Somebody planted Omega troops and vehicles and weapons here
years
ago. Who was it? And how the hell did they get away with it?”

“We could debate this for hours,” Chris says, “but we can’t right
now
. We have work to do. Let’s go.”

He turns away from the Colonel, conversing with the scouts. Apparently the rest area is safe.

“It’s worth some thought,” Colonel Rivera says, studying his cigar. “That’s all I’m saying. It’s worth some
serious
thought.”

I return to the front of the restaurant and walk outside, searching for my friends. Derek is across the street at an old travel convenience shop. Max and Jeff are with him. Alexander is with Sophia at the far end of the convoy, giving orders to the newer recruits.

All of these people. All of these soldiers.

All of them ordinary folks like me.

The colonel is right. Maybe it
is
worth some serious thought about who helped Omega infiltrate the United States. Maybe there’s a deeper reason for this collapse than a straightforward invasion and electromagnetic pulse. Maybe it’s something worse.

Way worse.

But what?

“Hey.” Angela steps outside, her radio in her hand. “They found something.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It’s on the south side,” Chris states, holstering his own radio. “Come on.”

We follow him around the backside of the restaurant. Behind it is a dirt lot. There’s a fence around the square patch of land. A sheet of metal has been chained to the support beams in the fence.

The lot has been tamped down, clearly dug up not too long ago and then filled in. It’s a fairly large square of land. Tears burn the back of my eyes, sizzling like acid in my throat. The sheet of metal is streaked with black spray paint.
Letters. I can hardly read them through the tears blurring my vision.

THE FALLEN
THEY DID NOT DIE IN
VAIN

Below the words is a crude depiction of an American flag. This has
got
to be the work of a militia group. Who else would take the time to bury this many dead? And beneath the flag are four words. A promise. A threat.

WE WILL FIND YOU

Game on.

Later, we move the convoy forward. Away from the rest stop at Laval Road. To the Chokepoint itself. It is located at the foot of the
Tehachapi Mountains. The pinch in the freeway, right after the two major interstates merge to become the single Interstate 5.

Right to the side of the Chokepoint is a parking lot with another restaurant. This one is similar to the
Iron Skillet
back at Laval Road, only it was once called
Taco House
. A Mexican eatery. Dozens of piñatas hang from the ceiling here, covered in dust. Many of them riddled with holes due to termites, mice and moths. We have based our Headquarters in this building – since it is the only building in sight. Our forces are otherwise spread out. We don’t want to group everyone in a single spot. It’s too much of a temptation for the enemy.

It’s midnight when I hear it. The sound of a rumbling engine, a clear contrast against the stark silence of our encampment. Our men have
secured the area for us, and we are gearing up for what could quite possibly be our last fight. There are no exterior lights. No noises. We are as silent as the night itself, tucked into the shadows of the mountains.

And then this.

I’m sleeping in a booth inside the restaurant. Chris’s arm is around my shoulders and I’m slumped against his chest. A pile of maps are unrolled on the table in front of us. The moonlight was bright enough to read by, but we fell asleep eventually, exhausted.

Until the engine sound. It’s clear and defined. And familiar. I perk up, straining. The engine gives a slight hiccup. I sit straight up, shaking Chris’s arm. “Hey,” I say. “Wake up. Come on.”