Stryker: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (15 page)

She thought it over
and glanced down. Her hand was dwarfed in his. She wasn’t sure how she felt; he
was, at once, both a terrifying and comforting man who obviously cared deeply
for those around him, but had an aura of danger to him that was disquieting.
Finally she said, “We’ve only known each other for a few days, and I would say
I am curious.”

“I am, too. But
that doesn’t mean anything except we’re curious. I don’t sleep with every woman
I find interesting and I’m sure you’re the same way. So let’s just be honest
about this. We live in a very small world now. Secrets in a small group breed
distrust and that always ends poorly. And the others are going to notice sooner
or later, anyway.”

“Grandpa already
noticed it.”

“Did he bring it
up?”

“In the jeep on the
way to San Antonio.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised.
Not much gets by him.” Erin thought about it as they both watched Haley’s
silhouette disappear in the distance. “She’s going to get to California before
we finish this conversation,” Stryker said. Erin barked a laugh and then
chuckled.

“You’re not attracted
to Elle?” she asked.

“Of course I am.
I’m not a corpse.”

“But, you’re not
curious about her?”

“Well, I’m not sure
I can cover all the reasons before your sister hits LA, so the short version is
she doesn’t have
chispa
. It’s a Spanish word for ‘spark,’ but it means a
lot more than that. It describes a person who is smart and quick-witted. A
person who lives life fully. You can be the most gorgeous person in the world,
but without the spark, you’re just not as interesting.”

“So, you’re saying
I’m sparky?” She laughed again. “That’s gotta be the weirdest compliment I ever
had.” They both fell silent again. When Stryker saw Haley running toward them,
he spoke.

“The spark is why
you are what you are. Don’t denigrate it. It’s important. I like the fact you
hold up your end of whatever burden we face. I even like the fact you came back
and got into the fight when we asked you not to. It turned out to be the right
thing to do, and neither your grandpa or I made the right decision when we
asked you to leave. You did make the right decision when you could have just
stayed safe. You’re obviously a brave person. I would value your friendship.”

She stared down at
their hands, thought for a second, and said. “You have it.”

“Thank you,” he
replied and got up. “Let’s make her work for the finish line.” They both rose
to follow Haley but she ran up to them and jogged in place for a few seconds as
she spoke.

“I’m going to go
out another mile and come back.”

“Okay,” Erin
replied. Haley turned and began running and Stryker sat back down. “I don’t
want her to get too far away from us. Let’s wait here.”

“You’re probably
right.” She sat next to him and they both watched Haley disappear and fell into
a comfortable silence. Erin turned their conversation over in her mind, then
said, “So, you speak Spanish?”

“I grew up working
with migrant ranch hands who spoke almost no English. You won’t find too many
Texans that own farms or ranches that don’t speak it.” He thought for a moment,
then added, “I also had a Hispanic girlfriend in high school.”

“Was it serious?”

“It was at the
time. But I joined the Marines and she went off to Dartmouth on a scholarship.
She was the smartest kid in our class. Anyway, she taught me a bit, too.
Sometimes we went on ‘Spanish only’ dates.”

“So you just went
separate ways?”

“We didn’t plan it
that way. When you’re that age, you really don’t think realistically about
consequences. Putting two eighteen-year-old kids on opposite ends of the
country doing completely different things usually has a negative outcome. But
if you’re too young to understand that, you do it without thinking.”

“Well, I guess so.
That is sort of what happened to me when I joined the fight with Brody. I
didn’t think about the consequences. I killed a man. I’m not sorry I did it,
but I had no idea how badly I would feel afterwards.”

“That’s one way to
look at it,” he acknowledged. “Another way is to think of the outcome as the
girl having a chance to live a decent life. If you’ve never survived combat,
you have no way of knowing how that’s going to feel. I spend every day, all
day, thinking about the choices I make and the probable outcomes of those
choices. Your grandpa is the same way. When you spend years thinking about
every step you take and every corner you look around, you get that way or you
get sent home in a body bag.”

“I guess we all
need to get more like that. I don’t think there are going to be a lot of ‘do
overs’ in our futures.”

“Probably not.”

“So is that why you
told me that you’re curious about me?”

“Yes. We’re all
going to have to be honest and mature about how we treat one another or things
will get very, very difficult for everyone.”

“Fair enough. But
to be clear, I have no idea what’s going to happen to us, or how we’re going to
live. I don’t even know what tomorrow is going to be like. I need some time to
adjust to this new world.”

“Nobody is holding
a stopwatch.” They fell silent again.

“So, what’s your
story?” Stryker asked.

“Well, aside from
spending the last two years locked up in a dorm and in a cage, I guess things
were pretty normal. I did well in school, went to college to become a nurse and
planned to go to medical school; everything was going according to plan. I had
boyfriends along the way, a few of them serious, but I always knew I was going
into medicine and thought I would start a practice or join a group, marry
another doctor, and have kids. Nothing really bad ever happened to me. My
family was great. I never really saw evil in people until Brody came along. I
don’t think I will every really trust anyone again.” She thought for a moment
and added, “except for Grandpa and Haley.” She paused again. “You know he’s
sick?”

“Yes.”

“You worried about
him?”

“Of course. But
what can we do about it? All I can say is he told me he went through the chemo
and who knows, maybe he’ll be fine. He’s as tough as they come.”

“That’s what he
said about you.”

“We’re both right,”
Stryker replied, his face splitting into a lopsided grin.

“What about you?
Can I trust you?”

“You’re the only
person who can decide that, Erin.”

“That’s not a very
reassuring answer.”

“The truth seldom
is reassuring.”

“God. Would you
please stop with this relentless optimism?” she said sarcastically.

“You’re right,” he
deadpanned. “Life’s a bitch, and then you die.”

She just rolled her
eyes and looked away.

DIE OFF PLUS SIX MONTHS

Stryker stood over
the grave of his wife and child. He was about to depart and make a new start at
what had been his grandfather’s ranch. He had loaded weapons, civilian
clothing, food, and water into his Jeep for the trip and came back to say
goodbye. He touched the crude crosses, sighed, and made his way back to his
vehicle.

He had thought for
months that it was time to leave. But, the notion of not being able to see
their graves deterred him from making the move to go. A week earlier, the power
and water grew intermittent, and then ceased to function. Stryker decided,
after days of spending evenings reading by flashlight, that it truly was time
to leave.

After following
Highway 78 and service streets until he was out of town, he headed south and
finally turned onto the entrance ramp of Interstate 8, accelerating to cruising
speed. The lush landscape around him changed to the dingy, washed-out look of
the desert. It was a cloudless, sunny day and the air was much drier than in
the city. He ascended a series of hills speckled with cedar and pine trees,
then passed through Alpine, California.

The town hugged the
south side of the freeway and he passed empty gas stations and fast food joints
before again entering the countryside. He crested the last hill and began
descending to the desert floor. The miles rolled past, with the vast dreary
desert landscape whizzing by him.

He drove through El
Centro with the windows rolled up and the air-conditioning on to deaden the
smell of rotting flesh and decaying garbage. When he was on the east side of
town, he spotted a rest stop and examined it carefully. A black Honda sedan was
parked by a picnic table, and smoke rose from a portable weber grill on the
table. As he was passing the rest stop, two men emerged from a restroom and
gaped when they spotted the car. He hit the brakes and barely managed to
navigate the exit without hitting the ditch. As he rolled to a stop about fifty
meters from where the men stood, he noted both carried holstered pistols on
their right hips. He got out of the Jeep with his carbine held loosely in his
right hand.

“You guys want to
talk?” Stryker yelled.

The two men looked
at each other, one shrugged, and the man on the left said, “Sure, just keep
your weapon pointed toward the ground.”

“Okay. You guys
keep your hands away from the holsters.” The man nodded. As Stryker approached them,
he saw they were identical twins, both with sandy hair and brown eyes. They
were slender but not thin, and considerably shorter than Stryker. Both men
looked fit and healthy.

“I guess it’s okay
if we forego the handshakes,” the man on the left said.

“Works for me. You
want to sit and chat for a bit?”

“Sure,” the man
replied, moving toward the picnic table. His twin followed and they both
glanced nervously over their shoulders until they were seated facing him.
Stryker sat down and they examined each other for a minute. Stryker noted they
were both impeccably dressed in chinos with tucked-in, collared shirts, their
hands were almost dainty, and their nails were clean and recently manicured.
Every hair was in place; their smiles revealed perfect sets of teeth. They
looked as though they were heading to some art opening or opera rather than
traveling across the country through a post-apocalyptic world.

“My name is
Stryker.”

“I’m Grady and this
is Matt.” The men all nodded.

“Where are you two
headed?”

“We’re on our way
to Temecula. Our family’s from there and we decided to see if anyone is alive.
Our father had a vineyard there and we were raised just outside of town. We
were getting pretty bored sitting around doing nothing, so decided to go check
things out.”

“You guys have any
idea what happened? Where the plague came from or what actually happened?”

“I was an emergency
room physician at the Tucson Medical Center. Grady was a biology professor at
the University of Arizona,” Matt explained. “We don’t know exactly what
happened. But we’re pretty sure the virus was a strain of Ebola that was
weaponized because it was spread by airborne transmission. Normal Ebola spreads
by human fluid exchanges. The only thing we can conclude is that the virus was
man made.”

“Who would do such
a thing?”

“Only a madman,”
Matt replied wearily. “Or someone who had no idea how deadly this disease would
become. It was still mutating when we gave up trying to find a vaccine for it.”

“Does anyone know
who did it?

“Not that we know
of.”

“So, nobody managed
to find a cure or vaccine?”

“Not that we know
of,” Grady repeated.

“Have you seen any
other survivors?” Stryker asked.

“We passed a car
just outside Phoenix. There were two people in it and it was heading east. But we
didn’t stop. We also saw a survivor in Tucson about three months ago.”

“I was in Camp
Pendleton when it started,” Stryker recounted. “A lot of people left the base
during the first two days. But by the time it was over, I was the only one
left.”

“Where are you
headed?” Grady asked.

“My grandfather’s
ranch in Texas, I guess.” He paused, then asked, “do you have any idea how many
might have survived?”

“There’s no way to
know,” Matt replied. “But we have talked about finding a radio station and
transmitting messages asking anyone who is listening to assemble somewhere so
we can try to rebuild whatever remains. If we could do that, we might find
people who could get the water and electricity going again and have a shot at
regaining some of what we had.”

“I’m not sure that
would work very well. I stopped trying to listen to the radio months ago. It’s
just dead air.” He paused, then added, “Have you tried calling people on your
cell phone? You know, old friends?”

“We did. But the
network went down so we gave up on that. And we had no way to charge them once
the power went out.”

“I went to a
sporting goods store and got a solar charger. If you kept your phones, you
could do the same. I was still getting reception when I left Pendleton, but I
suppose that will fail eventually, too.”

“We didn’t keep
ours,” Grady said.

“I guess it’s kinda
silly to keep mine. But I just can’t bring myself to ditch it. My photos are on
it and I have a bunch of messages from my wife and old friends I listen to
every so often.” He looked up and saw them both gazing at him with odd
expressions. “I know,” he sighed. “You two are the first people I’ve spoken to
since this mess began. Maybe I got a little weird there.”

“So you lost your
wife?” Grady asked.

“And my daughter.”

“We both lost our
wives. No kids, though. That was going to be next year. We wanted our kids to
be the same age so they could grow up together,” Grady said. The men sat in
silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts.

“Do you want to
come with us?” Matt asked. “I’m not sure you would fit in our car, but we could
take yours.”

“No thanks,”
Stryker answered after giving it a brief thought. “I appreciate the offer, but
I really want to get to the ranch. I should have power and water there, and it
feels like home to me.” Stryker paused for a moment, then asked, “I’m guessing
we all survived because we’re immune?”

“That’s what we
think. There is no way to prove it as we can’t test for it anymore; but there’s
no other answer we can think of. Both of us actually worked on the virus. If
anybody should be dead, it would be us. We think the immune share some
hereditary traits and that family members who share a parent that was immune
inherited the gene and became immune. That’s the only explanation we can come
up with. Believe me, we looked under every rock.”

“So there’s a
chance your parents are still alive? That’s good news,” Stryker said.

“We’re hoping,”
Matt replied.

“Is the plague gone
now?”

“Yes. It burned
itself out after there were no more hosts to infect. We tested samples from
several corpses around two months ago and there was no sign of the pathogen,”
Matt replied.

“So even if you’re
not immune, you still couldn’t catch it?”

“We don’t think
so.” They fell silent again.

“Did you guys ever
think this could ever come to pass? That we could ever sink this low?” Stryker
asked.

“Well, no. This was
the unthinkable. Nobody ever imagined this could happen,” Matt replied. “We all
knew biological weapons existed, but nobody ever foresaw one that had the
capacity to wipe the human race off the earth. That was just too far a stretch
for the average person, or even people like me, to visualize.”

“So, I guess we are
all reduced to cockroaches. All we do is try to stay alive and live to survive
one more day,” Stryker said. “Speaking of which, you two might want to actually
load rounds in your pistol magazines.”

The men looked at
each other and back to Stryker. “How did you know?” Matt asked.

“That model Beretta
weighs 2.55 pounds when fully loaded with the standard clip. That usually pulls
the holster slightly away from the pants or mounting point, unless you’re
wearing a very tight belt, and you guys aren’t. You don’t have enough sag in
your pants for those to be loaded. I’m guessing you have the magazines
inserted, but without ammo in the mags.”

“We just took them
from a gun store in Tucson and didn’t know what kind of ammunition we needed,
so we took the holsters and wore them. We know nothing about firearms, but
thought it would be a good idea to have a deterrent in case we ran into trouble,”
Matt said. They
both looked away, chagrined.

“Well, I might have
just killed you if you tried to use an unloaded weapon as a threat; so that’s
probably not a good plan. I don’t have any 9mm ammo, but I passed a gun shop
about three miles back, and I’m guessing you’d find it there. You guys can
figure out how to load the magazines, right?”

“I guess so,” Grady
replied. “How do we know what bullets to take?”

“Read the label on
the box. Somewhere it’ll say 9mm,” Stryker replied. “Also, load at least a
spare magazine each and carry it with you. I don’t know what kinds of threats
exist in this new world, but my experience tells me they’re never far away.”

“Thanks,” Matt
said.

“No problem. Fellow
journeyers should help each other, and I hope you guys make your trip safely.
If your parents are still alive, give them a hello from me and maybe we’ll see
each other again.”

“Doubtful,” Grady
said. “But, if you ever get to Temecula, look us up.”

“Will do.” Stryker
got up, picked up his carbine, and walked back to the Jeep. As he pulled away,
he waved in a backhanded gesture and got on the freeway.

He entered Arizona
after passing through an area covered with sand that resembled the landscape he
associated with Saudi Arabia. He passed though Yuma, Arizona, and entered an
area that once was agricultural land. The long-barren fields stretched off in
every direction, and the occasional tuft of some stubborn plant that refused to
die dotted the empty fields. Irrigation sprayers sat on flat tires in fields,
and the land appeared to be the consistency of set concrete, baked by the sun
into a solid mass.

After a while he
came into an area covered with ocotillo plants and wondered why they suddenly
appeared. They disappeared almost as quickly and he passed through an area covered
with date trees that sat in long, straight rows that ran perpendicular to the
freeway. It was obviously a plantation. The trees were covered in drooping
fronds and badly in need of trimming.

He was going to pass
through Gila Bend and stop to eat farther down the road, but stopped in front
of a hotel. “What the hell?” he exclaimed. The hotel sign said “Space-Age
Lodge,” and sat on a steel pole that looked like the first stage of a rocket. A
futuristic bubble dome that imitated a space colony topped the stark, white
lobby. A small aluminum replica of a rocket sat at the side of the entrance,
fins down.

Stryker pulled into
the lot and got out with his M-4 dangling from his hand. He entered the lobby
and noted the interior was drab, with drooping couches and a plain front desk
that was covered with dust. The paint matched the exterior color, but was faded
and peeling in places. The floor was painted concrete and the slab was cracked
in several places. Pictures and paintings of astronauts, Apollo rockets, and
planets covered the walls.

He walked through
the lobby and into a small lounge that still had liquor bottles neatly lining
the shelves behind the bar. An exterior door led to an algae-filled green pool.
The hotel rooms tapered off in a distance, with the larger units closer to the
pool area. Undoubtedly, those were where families with children stayed. On a
whim, he opened the door to the first room and looked in. It was tired-looking
with furniture that should have been replaced years ago. The carpet was stained
in places, and the curtains were threadbare and faded. The walls were painted a
faded yellow color.