The Last City Read online

“You seen many of these on the road from Seattle?” Roy said.

  “Infected?” Hughes said, surprised by the question.

  “Stragglers, I mean,” Roy said.

  “Not part of a herd or a horde,” Hughes said.

  “Exactly,” Roy said. “Most folks who get bit turn quick, but there’s a delayed response in some people.”

  Hughes shook his head. “He wasn’t necessarily bit.” The poor bastard could just as easily have been infected by a contaminated water supply, just like what had happened in Wyoming.

  Roy squinted. “Not bit? Makes no sense. How would you know that, anyway? You strip him down naked and check him for bites while I wasn’t looking?”

  “There are other—” Hughes said, then stopped himself. He had no idea what on earth to make of these people except that he wanted to get far away from them. His danger signals were pinging. Roy and Lucas weren’t behaving correctly at all under the circumstances. They were far too trusting of strangers. Then again, nobody had threatened or menaced anybody. And Hughes had to admit that running into two people willing to talk, for whatever reason, was a relief. Hughes needed information about the road ahead, information that Roy and Lucas would have if they’d really driven to Iowa from South Carolina.

  “Why don’t we get out of the road here?” Hughes said. “Maybe sit in that diner. We’ll tell you what we know if you tell us what you know.”

  Hughes glanced at his friends to gauge their reaction. Parker shrugged and nodded. Annie was still in the truck and looked like she didn’t want to get out. Kyle looked straight at Roy while Roy glanced at the diner.

  “A fine idea,” Roy said. “We’ll have coffee.”

  “They’re out of coffee,” Parker said. “Probably been out for months.”

  “We have coffee,” Roy said.

  They relocated to the Duck Pond Café. Rather than crowding six people around a four-top, they spread themselves out across two tables, with Roy and Lucas at one and everyone else at the other. Hughes leaned his pump-action Persuader against a chair at a table behind him, a polite distance from himself yet even farther away from Lucas and Roy.

  Parker and Kyle placed their own weapons—the crowbar and the blood-spattered hammer—onto the table. Hughes knew that each of them had handguns in their coat pockets. Roy and Lucas most likely did too.

  “I’ll run to the RV and grab that coffee,” Lucas said. “But first I wanted to say that we’re really glad to meet you folks.” He looked at Annie when he said it, then headed outside.

  Hughes sat with a clear view out the front of the diner and watched Lucas disappear inside the RV. For all Hughes knew, there was somebody else in there that he hadn’t seen yet. And if Lucas emerged from it with anything but coffee, Hughes would know.

  He squinted at Roy.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Roy said and smiled.

  “Just wondering what you guys are doing out here,” Hughes said.

  Annie rubbed the back of her neck.

  “Same thing y’all are, I assume,” Roy said. “Out surviving.”

  “You seem surprisingly at ease,” Hughes said, “considering you don’t know us from Adam and Eve and we just splattered one of those things before you showed up.”

  “Just a straggler,” Roy said and shrugged. “We run into them sometimes. Assume you have too. If there was a horde nearby, we’d know it by now, way that thing hollered before y’all thwacked it.”

  “Probably,” Parker said. “But what about other people?”

  Roy scratched his cheek. “What about other people?”

  “You don’t know us,” Hughes said.

  “Lucas and I been running into all kinds of folks between here and South Carolina,” Roy said.

  Annie sat up straight. “You’re from South Carolina?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Roy said.

  Hughes saw Lucas climb out of the RV with a zipped-up backpack in his hands. He walked toward the diner as cool as a freshly picked apple in October. Hughes kept his eye on him.

  “I’m from South Carolina,” Annie said.

  Roy beamed. “Whereabouts?”

  “Georgetown, originally,” Annie said, “though I think of Charleston more as home now.”

  “Charleston is a lovely city,” Roy said. “Greenville is my stomping grounds. Lucas is from up in Charlotte. North Carolina.”

  “Heard of it,” Hughes said. “Never been there.”

  Hughes did not want to stay and shoot the shit with Lucas and Roy any longer than he had to. He just wanted to know about the roads. He resisted the urge to drum his fingers and folded his hands on the tabletop instead.

  Lucas came back inside.

  “Annie here is from Charleston,” Roy said.

  “That so?” Lucas said and smiled. He set the backpack down on an empty neutral table.

  Hughes stared at the backpack. “Thought you went to get coffee.”

  “In the backpack,” Lucas said. “First, though, let’s get a photo.”

  “A photo?” Parker said.

  Annie’s mouth opened slightly, and she flashed Hughes a look that said, Get me out of here.

  Lucas pulled a smartphone with a cracked screen out of his pocket.

  “You taking pictures with that?” Kyle said.

  “Have been all along,” Lucas said.

  “What for?” Parker said in a raised voice.

  Lucas shrugged. “Passes the time, I guess.”

  “How are you charging it?” Kyle said.

  “Solar,” Lucas said. “We got panels on the RV.”

  Kyle had some kind of a portable solar phone charger somewhere for his own gadgets, but Hughes hadn’t noticed him using it lately.

  “Why do you want a picture?” Annie said.

  “Ma’am,” Roy said. “We don’t meet nice folks like yourself more than once in a while, and when we do, Lucas likes to memorialize the occasion with a nice photograph.”

  Hughes groaned to himself. Annie curled her lip. Parker looked at the ceiling.

  Lucas tapped his phone’s screen a couple of times and stood near and over Annie. She huffed and turned partly away from him.

  “Come on, darlin’,” Lucas said and held up his phone with the screen facing him, apparently in selfie mode. “Indulge me here for a minute.”

  Kyle indulged Lucas by looking at the phone, but no one else did.

  Lucas tapped the screen, and the device made an electronic snicking sound. The picture must have been terrible.

  “Alright now, sit down, Lucas,” Roy said.

  Lucas nodded and unzipped his backpack. He pulled out what looked like cans of beer. Hughes noticed some other things inside too. A hunting knife in its sheaf, loose boxes of ammunition, and a black leather pouch with the word “Southord” stamped on it in gold. Hughes knew exactly what that was, and he didn’t like it.

  “Thought you said you had coffee,” Parker said.

  “This is coffee,” Lucas said and gently shook what still looked to Hughes like a beer can.

  “Cold brew,” Roy said as Lucas passed the cans around.

  “What’s up with the lockpicks?” Hughes said. He’d seen the exact same Southord set once or twice.

  Lucas froze for just the briefest of moments. “To open doors with,” he then said and shrugged. “What else would they be for?”

  “Mmm,” Hughes said. Lucas didn’t need a set of lockpicks to open doors. Not anymore. Crowbars and axes worked faster. Hughes wouldn’t bother picking up a lockpick set if somebody threw it at him. Lucas had it from the time before, when witnesses frowned on breaking down doors with crowbars and axes and were inclined to call the police.

  Parker handed Hughes a coffee can that looked like a beer can.

  Hughes scrutinized it. The label read Stumptown Cold Brew with the word Nitro across the top of it, whatever that was supposed to mean.

  “This stuff is from Portland,” Kyle said. “Where on earth did you get it?”

  “Grocery store
in Atlanta,” Roy said.

  Hughes held his breath. Parker wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Annie exchanged startled glances with Kyle.

  Nobody moved. Nobody said anything. Hughes could have heard an ant nibbling on a sugar crumb.

  “I say something?” Roy said.

  Annie gulped. “When were you in Atlanta?”

  “Two weeks ago,” Roy said.

  Hughes glanced at Annie. She was looking right at him and leaning forward slightly, propped up on her forearms, with her eyes open more than usual, as if she were imploring him not to say a damn word. But Hughes couldn’t say nothing.

  “How is Atlanta, anyway?” he said, as casually and disinterested as he could manage.

  “You haven’t heard?” Lucas said.

  “Heard what?” Hughes said.

  Roy and Lucas looked at each other.

  “They don’t know,” Lucas to Roy.

  “You—” Roy said, then stopped himself, as if he wasn’t sure what to say next. “You’re coming from Seattle. Right?”

  “Right,” Hughes said.

  “This is as far east as you’ve been?” Roy said.

  “This is as far east as we’ve been,” Hughes said.

  “Alright,” Roy said and cracked open a can. “Y’all better sit back and get comfortable.”

  3

  Annie did not like these people. Didn’t like them at all. They were strangers, and that by itself made them dangerous, but that was the least of it. For all she knew, she was the first living and breathing noninfected woman Lucas and Roy had seen in months.

  They wanted to fuck her. It didn’t take an expert in human psychology to figure that out. Which was no doubt why they took her picture. So they could take turns whacking off to it. And they were trying to determine which of her friends she belonged to. Perhaps she belonged to all three of them. Maybe they were willing to share. And if not, they could take steps.

  Annie had been careful around men her whole life. A small percentage were always dangerous, which made all men she didn’t know at least potentially dangerous. That was during the best of times. These were the worst of times, and the worst of times brought out the worst in people, men and women alike, including herself.

  She hadn’t hooked up with anyone since the world ended. Parker and Hughes weren’t her type. Kyle seemed at first like her type, but his immature and vindictive feud with Parker on the San Juan Islands put her off. None of them had ever threatened her. She trusted them completely.

  Roy and especially Lucas, however, screamed rapist after taking that photo.

  “Let me ask you folks something,” Roy said. “What are you doing out here, exactly? Where you fixing to get to?” His pronunciation of “get” sounded liked git.

  Hughes was not going to tell Lucas and Roy about Annie. Wouldn’t be as dangerous as telling the mayor of Lander, Wyoming, about Annie. Lucas and Roy weren’t going to tie her up and keep her for themselves—not for the antibodies in her blood, anyway. There just wasn’t any point telling Lucas and Roy about Annie, and Hughes didn’t want anyone to know where they were going. He didn’t want anyone following them. He needed information, though, and he’d need to give if he was going to get.

  “The West Coast,” Hughes said, “is a disaster.”

  “Everywhere’s gone to hell in a handbasket, my friends,” Roy said.

  “We were hoping the East Coast is in better shape,” Hughes said.

  “Well, it is,” Roy said. “Parts of it, anyway, for the time being.”

  “Which parts?” Kyle said.

  “Washington, DC, for starters,” Roy said.

  Hughes felt a flush of adrenaline in his chest, face, and hands.

  “Least, that’s what we heard,” Roy said. “All kinds of bunkers and shit around Washington. Army bases, too, down in Virginia are still up and running. Atlanta—”

  “Best place in the country,” Lucas said, “is San Juan. If you consider that part of the country.”

  “Puerto Rico?” Parker said. Hughes both chafed at and appreciated Parker’s diversion from what Roy was about to say about Atlanta. He wanted to hear it, but he didn’t want Roy to know he wanted to hear it.

  Lucas nodded. “It’s an island,” he said, referring to Puerto Rico. “Supposedly still intact.”

  Kyle sat forward in his chair, listening intently.

  “Lots of places in the Caribbean are still intact,” Lucas said.

  “All kinds of people heading from here to there on boats,” Roy said. “Like a reverse migration. Americans are beating feet to Cuba and Haiti now instead of the other way around. But mostly Puerto Rico, since it’s American.”

  “So how come you guys aren’t going there?” Hughes said.

  “No point,” Roy said.

  “No point in what?” Hughes said. “You just said Puerto Rico is intact.”

  “How long you think that’s going to last?” Roy said.

  “Could last indefinitely,” Hughes said.

  “It won’t,” Roy said.

  “Why not?” Hughes said.

  “Because the universe is committing suicide,” Roy said.

  The universe is committing suicide. Lucas and Roy were certifiable. Hughes was tempted to warn them to stay off the tap water unless they boiled it first, walk out of the diner with the others in tow, climb back into the Suburban, and figure out the way forward on their own without any directions or even advice. They could head north into the unknown from Riverton, then pick a road at random and head east again. They’d figure it out and get to Atlanta eventually. Probably. Roy and Lucas had done it. They’d picked up cold cans of coffee in an Atlanta grocery store two weeks ago.

  There was nothing to be gained, though, from walking out of the diner if these two were willing to talk, and they hadn’t yet said a word about Atlanta except that they’d been there.

  “You ever hear of Julian Huxley?” Roy said.

  Hughes shook his head.

  “Interesting guy,” Roy said. “Brother was Aldous Huxley. You know, Brave New World.”

  “I read it in college,” Kyle said.

  “Okay,” Roy said. “So you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Not a clue,” Kyle said, sounding a little exasperated.

  “After a million years of evolution,” Roy said, “the universe has become conscious of itself. Huxley was the one who first said that. And he ought to know. He was an evolutionary biologist.”

  “Roy—” Hughes said.

  “Hear me out,” Roy said. “You want to know what’s what, I’m telling you.”

  Hughes spread his arms wide with his palms up, as if to say, knock yourself out.

  “The universe,” Roy said, “is full of all kinds of dead stuff like ice planets, asteroid belts, black holes, you name it. But parts of the universe are conscious. We are. You and me. Annie and everyone else. And we’re aware of the ice planets, asteroid belts, and the black holes. We’re like the universe’s eyeballs and brains, taking in everything else the way a baby looks at and ponders its hands.”

  “Roy—” Hughes said.

  “Now, hang on,” Roy said.

  Hughes had no interest in Roy’s pop philosophy. He just wanted to know what to expect on the road to Atlanta and in Atlanta once they got there.

  “You don’t know Julian Huxley, but I assume you know Carl Jung,” Roy said.

  “Heard of him,” Hughes said and sighed.

  “Then you know about the collective unconscious,” Roy said.

  Lucas nodded as Roy talked. He’d heard this before.

  “Sure,” Hughes said.

  “We’re all linked together,” Roy said, “in a kind of hive mind.”

  Hughes noticed Parker staring at the ceiling again. Annie looked like she would rather be just about anywhere else.

  “So, you put Huxley and Jung together and boom,” Roy said.

  “Boom, what?” Hughes said.

  “Think about it,” Roy said. “The univer
se doesn’t die when we die. It goes on.”

  “Sounds like you two have had a little too much time to think about this stuff lately,” Parker said.

  “Oh,” Roy said. “I haven’t just been thinking about this stuff lately. I’ve understood all this for a long, long time.”

  Annie gave Hughes another one of her looks. Get me the fuck out of here and away from these people. He nodded at her, but he needed a couple more minutes.

  “What does this have to do with why you and Lucas aren’t in the Caribbean?” Parker said.

  “Let me ask y’all something,” Roy said. “You want to live forever?”

  “I suppose not,” Hughes said and sighed again.

  “And why not?” Roy said.

  “I don’t know, man,” Hughes said. “I never really thought about it that much. Just always assumed I’d die like everyone else and was fine with it.”

  “You never really thought about it,” Roy said. “Yet you know that living forever isn’t something you’d want.”

  Roy seemed to Hughes like a wannabe cult leader. Maybe that’s what he was doing. Prowling around the apocalyptic countryside looking for converts and followers. Maybe that’s who and what Lucas was. The surviving pockets of humans were filled with bandits, warlords, strongmen, and militias, so it stood to reason that there’d be some apocalyptic cults here and there. Perhaps this was how they got started.

  “Imagine being alive for a hundred thousand years,” Roy said. “Eighty years is a long time, right? Doesn’t seem like it sometimes, but it is. You grow up, go to school, work for four or five decades, then retire for a couple more if you’re lucky. What would you do if you had to work for a hundred thousand years? You’d be bored out of your mind after a hundred, and then what?”

  “What’s your point, Roy?” Hughes said.

  “Listen,” Lucas said. “This is where it gets interesting.”

  This time, Hughes couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes.

  “You’d go crazy with a hundred-thousand-year life span,” Roy said. “What if you didn’t even have a life span? What if you were going to go on forever? You’d be here after the climate changes five or six times. After forests turn into deserts and deserts are covered in jungle. You’d be here after the moon drifts so far away you’d need binoculars to see it and after Antarctica is back on the equator.”