The Gates of Byzantium

CHAPTER 20


JOSH




PROS AND CONS: What were they?

Pros: He was with Gaby. Not just with Gaby, he was lying on his bedroll with Gaby in his arms.

Cons: None.

Conclusion: Gaby was sleeping in his arms.

Small rays of sunlight penetrated the semitrailer through one of the breathing holes a few inches to his left, where the floor met the side wall. There was just enough light for Josh to see Will moving around. Lara was still asleep, and Will moved around her. He slipped on his assault vest and began filling up the pouches, then wrapped his gun belt around his waist and holstered his Glock.

“Lara said you and Danny were Army Rangers,” Josh said.

“That’s right.”

“You guys were in Afghanistan.”

“We were.”

“What’s the difference between this war zone and that one?”

Will smiled, as if he found the question amusing, and Josh once again felt like a kid asking his dad questions that, to his old man, were obvious.

“There’s a lot more of them here,” Will said. “Other than that? Not a whole lot. It’s still hard to tell friend from foe when the sun is up, and the roads are still deceptively dangerous.”

“I would have never made it through boot camp. Much less Ranger training.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“You think?”

“You never know what you’re capable of until you don’t have a choice. Everyone thinks they have a certain limit, a threshold, things they are able and willing to do in order to survive. That only lasts until they’re actually confronted with it. When there’s no turning back, when there’s just one path and one path only, you’d be surprised how hard you can fight. Take you for instance.”

“Me?”

“I’m guessing you weren’t a two-sports athlete in school.”

Josh grinned. “Lucky guess.”

“But look at you now. You’re alive. With a pretty blonde sleeping in your arms. Where do you think all those two-sport jocks in your school are right now?”

“Running around outside at night in their birthday suits would be my guess.”

“But not you. Did you think you would survive the end of the world?”

“Not in a million years.”

“And yet you did. Eight months later, and you’re still going strong. That whole thing in Folger’s semitrailer was impressive. You came up with that.”

“It was survival instinct,” Josh said, feeling a bit embarrassed by the praise. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Exactly. You were confronted with a situation that would have resulted in something unacceptable. Maybe they would have killed you, maybe not, but they would have definitely done something to Gaby. Faced with that, you fought and you survived.”

“I didn’t even know it was going to work.”

“Like I said, you never know what you’re fully capable of until you have no choice.”

“Thanks,” he said, feeling himself swelling with pride.

“It wasn’t a compliment,” Will grinned at him. “It was an assessment. Don’t doubt yourself. You’re capable of more than you think you are. You already proved that when you survived, while the vast majority of the world didn’t. They failed—but you didn’t. That girl is depending on you. Don’t let her down.”

“I won’t,” Josh said, and he realized he meant it. Every word of it.

Will glanced down at his watch. “Sunup is in five minutes. I have a mission for you, if you’re up to it.”

“I am,” he said quickly.

“We’re going to be moving out as soon as we can, but it’s going to take about an hour to fill up the gas tanks and get everything moved back to the trucks and cargo trailer. Take Gaby and see what else is out there, including on the other side of the freeway.”

“Just recon?”

Will smiled. “Yeah, just recon. Don’t go inside. Make a mental list of places we can hit for supplies if we have the time, then come back here. Understand?”

“Gotcha.”

“Do not go inside, Josh.”

“Don’t go inside,” Josh repeated.

*

GABY WAS ALL for doing a little reconnaissance. She had usually stayed behind whenever Josh and Matt went out for supplies when it had been just the three of them, but he could tell by the way she quickly answered that she had been waiting for this moment. He was glad because it meant spending more time alone with her.

Josh was anxious to get out there again, but it wasn’t until he started walking through the plaza’s big lot that it occurred to him this was his first supply run without Matt. It felt strange to be walking outside with Gaby, but she looked to be in good spirits. He figured it was because she was free of the claustrophobic constraints of the semitrailer.

For the third time in as many minutes, Josh touched his Glock to make sure it was in his hip holster. The Glock was still loaded with silver bullets, and he had a second magazine loaded with regular ammo in a pouch. Gaby was also wearing a gun belt, but she didn’t look like she was used to it yet.

“What are we looking for?” Gaby asked, when they reached the Exxon gas station.

“Anything we can use.”

“Supplies?”

“More like medicine, weapons, and silver.”

“I can’t believe we survived this long without knowing about silver.”

“Better lucky than good, I guess.”

They peered into the Exxon. It was a combo gas station and Taco Bell. He smelled rotting meat from inside, and immediately shut off his smelling faculties when he got the first whiff. Gaby made a face and they quickly jogged across the street to another strip mall, this one full of electronic stores, a GameStop, a Payless shoe store, and a Verizon outlet.


“You need a new phone?” Josh asked.

“God, I used to text so much. I miss texting. Don’t you?”

“Not really. I miss the Internet.”

She smirked. “You miss Internet porn, you mean.”

“Wait, there are other things on the Internet besides porn?”

“I miss shopping,” Gaby said wistfully.

It was amazing the things they used to do before the end of the world. Getting a car, finding a girlfriend, worrying about exams late into the night. All of those things had seemed so important, once upon a time. Now they were like bad jokes that weren’t quite as funny as he had once thought. He wondered if this was what it was like to grow up.

What was that saying his mom liked to use on him whenever he acted like a brat? “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Something like that.

They walked past a Radio Shack and looked in through the smashed windows at thick dark patches in the back.

“I miss Matt,” Gaby said quietly.

“Me too,” Josh said.

They walked silently for a while, weaving their way through the parking lot. Josh peered in at parked cars, hoping to spot something valuable. They found a lot of old, dried blood on car seats, doors, windows, and floors. Empty cans of sofa. Water bottles. A Chrysler yielded an iPod that wouldn’t light up when he tried to turn it on.

After a while, Josh stopped, and Gaby stopped with him.

“What is it?” she asked.

Josh looked around them. “Will said not to wander off too far.”

“But we haven’t found anything yet. I don’t want to go back empty-handed.”

Josh considered their options. If they kept going straight, it would just take them farther away from the others. So what else was there? He glanced over at the street to their left, and the elevated highway behind that.

“We can try the other side of the highway,” he said.

“Race ya!” she shouted and dashed off.

Josh ran after her, but she was much faster, even with the gun on her hip. Gaby had always been a natural athlete, and she had bounded across the parking lot before he had even managed the halfway point. Soon she was on the feeder road and running up the sloping side of the highway. By the time he reached the feeder road, she was already hurdling the guardrail and was waiting for him on the other side.

“Come on, slowpoke!” she shouted down.

Josh grunted. He might have been a survivor while everyone bit the dust, but that hadn’t improved his athletic ability. He chugged his way up the hill, which was a lot harder than it looked, until he finally reached Gaby. She laughed and pulled him over the railing. He slumped down on the other side, next to a big red Ford truck with gaudy stripes along the sides.

“God, you’re out of shape,” Gaby said.

“Hard to believe, but this is the best shape I’ve ever been in,” he said between gasps.

“That is hard to believe.”

“Oh, that hurts,” he said, and slowly pushed himself back up to his feet. Then he grinned at her, shouted, “First person across wins!” and raced off across the highway lanes.

He heard Gaby laughing as she raced after him, shouting, “Cheater!”

He laughed and reached the other side of the highway first, sliding to a stop in front of the railing just as she caught up to him. He doubled over and gasped for breath again as she put her hands on her waist and gave him a disapproving look. She was breathing hard, but it was nothing compared to what he was going through at the moment.

She’s right. I am out of shape. Jesus H. Christ.

“You cheated,” she said.

“You cheated in the parking lot.”

“Okay, fair enough.”

Then she grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him toward her and kissed him hard on the mouth. Josh was still gasping for breath when she did it, and he ended up breathing a big lungful of air down her throat. He recovered quickly enough to kiss her back, but he knew he was clumsy and out of practice—which was funny, because he had never had any practice to begin with.

Gaby finally pulled away and smiled at him. “Wow. Did you just blow a big gust of air down my throat?”

He laughed, doing his best to hide his embarrassment. “You sort of caught me unprepared. Sorry about that.”

“I didn’t say it was bad. It was just…new. Have you ever kissed anyone before?”

“Does my mom count?”

“You kissed your mom on the mouth? Gross!”

He grinned. “Don’t you?”

She rolled her eyes. “There’s no shame in admitting you’ve never kissed a girl before. Lots of guys have never kissed a girl.”

“I’m eighteen, Gaby, of course there’s shame in that.”

She laughed. “You’re probably right. What else haven’t you done yet?”

“If I’ve never kissed a girl, what else do you think I haven’t done yet?”

She pretended to think about it. “Let me see…”

He grabbed her and pulled her to him. He kissed her hard and deep, putting everything he had into it. It was a sloppy and wet kiss, and amateur hour for sure, but she didn’t seem to mind. She leaned into the kiss, and Josh lost count of how long they stood there at the side of the highway just kissing under the scathingly hot morning sun.

After what seemed like the best eternity of his life, he finally had to let her go so they could both catch their breath.

She took a step back and smiled at him. “Not bad. I’m going to put this up on my blog so all my readers will know about it.”

He blushed a bit and decided to power through it with a big, awkward grin. “Make sure you disguise my name. I don’t want girls knocking down my door demanding free samples.”

“I’ll call you Bosh. How about that?”

“Eh, it’s better than Dosh.”

They exchanged another smile, and Josh thought he saw her cheeks redden just a little bit.

Whoa. I think just made Gaby, the hottest girl in school, blush.

Suck on that, mofos!

*

HE SAW IT initially from the elevated vantage point of the highway while he was waiting for Gaby to catch up. It was a small plaza with two buildings in it, and the sign read: “Medical Budget Care.” Josh took that to mean it was some kind of clinic, or maybe a business that catered to clinics. Which meant medical supplies, either way.

He led Gaby down the highway and toward the plaza, holding her hand the entire time. He felt giddy, like a kid on the first day of school.

“Is this a good idea?” Gaby asked when they crossed the feeder road and reached the concrete parking lot, stepping around decorative shrubbery.

“We’ll take a quick look. If there’s nothing, we head back.”

“Let’s just hurry.”

He let go of her hand as they approached the buildings. The first and closest structure only had one floor, with “Beaumont Health Resources” written in big, blocky white letters on its side. The red brick building next door had two floors, but he couldn’t spot any signs.

“I don’t think we have time to search both buildings,” Josh said. “So we’ll have to choose. The big red building or this one?”

“Why me?”

“You’re prettier.”

“Can’t argue with that.” She seemed to think about it. “Okay, this one looks promising,” she said, indicating the building in front of them.

“Are you just saying that because it’s the closer of the two buildings?”


“That’s entirely possible,” she smiled.

“Good enough for me.”

They approached the front entrance—two glass doors under an arching black plastic canopy. They passed two silver four-door sedans, almost identical, except they were slightly different models. Josh glanced briefly into the closest car and saw blood on the seats and what looked like an old cup of Starbucks on the driver’s side floor.

He turned his attention back to the building. It had two big windows on opposite sides of the door, one with closed blinds, the other unblocked, and Josh saw an empty reception area on the other side. It looked exactly like the veterinary clinic that he, Danny, and Will had gone into back in Lancing.

And there was a nice surprise in that place, too.

Josh drew his Glock and took hold of the glass door. When he tried pulling it, the door opened without resistance.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Gaby asked behind him. “I know we don’t want to go back empty-handed, but this seems like an awfully bad idea, Josh.”

“It’ll be okay,” Josh said, trying to convince himself, too. “We have the right ammo this time.”

This is so stupid. Stop right now and go back.

“But just to be safe,” he said, “stay behind me, okay?”

“My hero.”

Maybe she’s right. Maybe we should turn back now.

God, this is so stupid.

But he had come this far, and he hated to turn back now. Will was right about one thing—no one would have put money on him surviving the end of the world. He had proved them all wrong. Even Matt, who was bigger and taller and stronger, eventually went, too. And yet, here he stood, persevering, with Gaby next to him. Who would have seen any of this coming?

Josh pulled the door open to reveal the lobby. It was just as empty as it had looked through the window, with enough natural light to illuminate every corner and nook. The lack of dark shadows made him feel better, and Josh relaxed a bit and stepped inside.

“Stay here,” he said, and hurried over to the window with the closed blinds. He grabbed the long stick dangling from the top of the window and twirled it and the blinds opened up, throwing more sunlight into the room.

As with the pet clinic, there was a reception counter directly ahead of the front doors, and cheap, flimsy-looking chairs lined the lobby walls. The counter had a sliding opaque glass door left partially open, and Josh glimpsed a messy desk with papers everywhere and a splash of brown that he took for long-ago dried blood. There was a single hallway leading into the back and doors into rooms on both sides. The sunlight didn’t reach farther than five yards into the hallway, so everything else after that was a mystery.

Josh looked back at Gaby, standing nervously at the door. “You didn’t, uh, bring a flashlight, did you?”

She shook her head. “You didn’t say anything about a flashlight.”

“Yeah, my bad.”

She smiled. “Your bad?”

He smiled back. “My bad. People still say that, right?”

“You mean the dozen or so people we’ve met since the world came to an end? Then no, I don’t think people say that anymore.”

“I—” he started to say, but he never finished because he heard it, the sound of movement, and he turned his head back toward the hallway, just as a dark shape rushed out.

Before Josh had time to fully process what he was seeing, something big and heavy and monstrous crashed into him, knocking every ounce of breath out of his lungs. Josh flew backward and fell to the floor on his back with a solid crunching sound, and the figure was already on top of him, looming large.

Stupid. You should have stayed outside. God, you’re so stupid!

The Glock was gone. It had flown out of his hand even before he hit the floor. He didn’t know where it was now. He might have heard Gaby screaming, but that could just be the ringing in his ears. That, and the immense pain from his back, where he had slammed into the hard floor, and from his chest, where the figure had smashed into him.

It wasn’t a ghoul. It was a man. And he was wearing a dark gray hazmat suit—the thin kind worn by soldiers. The man inside was much bigger than Josh, and a hell of a lot heavier, too. Josh felt as if he had been broadsided by a speeding car, not by a man whose face was blurred behind some kind of gas mask.

Josh processed the information in the three or four seconds it took the guy to scramble up and sit on Josh’s chest and punch him in the face. He hit Josh once, then again, and again. Josh knew he was bleeding before he felt the blood trickling down his face. His nose was definitely broken, and maybe one lip was cut. Or both.

He tasted blood.

Just for good measure, the guy punched him a fourth time before slowly climbing off him. From his vantage point, the guy looked like a giant, stretching, stretching, almost touching the ceiling with his height. The man reached down and started pulling out his holstered sidearm. It looked like a Glock. Josh saw dark brown eyes behind the wide gas mask lens looking down at him, and he wanted to ask the man what the hell he was doing, why he was wearing that stupid suit to begin with.

Josh couldn’t get the words out. His chest and back were racked with involuntary spasms, his face throbbed, and it felt like every bone in his body was broken. He ached all over.

He thought about looking for his gun, but he didn’t know where to start. He wasn’t sure he was even still lying on the floor looking up at some stranger in a hazmat suit about to shoot him. Maybe he was just imagining all of this. Or dreaming it. Maybe he was actually still in the semitrailer, trying not to make too much noise, or even breathe at all, so afraid the ghouls might hear him.

Maybe—

He heard a gunshot. It was booming, massive, and it added to the chaotic ringing in his ears. First there was just one gunshot, then there was a second one, and Josh thought, Well, that’s it. I’m dying now.

But he didn’t die.

He didn’t feel the new set of pains from his chest, where he expected them. The guy was aiming for his chest, so that’s where the bullets would have gone. Only there were no bullets, because the guy hadn’t fired.

Josh watched, unable to really comprehend, as the man in the hazmat suit fell to the floor next to him in a crumpled heap of dark gray, shiny fabric. There was no blood at all, though Josh did see two holes in the man’s back, spaced about two inches apart. When Josh raised his head a little bit, he saw the blood inside the man’s suit.

He looked over at Gaby standing nearby, holding her Glock in both hands. She was staring down at the dead man on the floor, before pulling her eyes away and looking at him.

He remembered Gaby from a few days ago, with the bloody key gripped between her fingers like a weapon, stabbing Betts’s neck. That Gaby had been on the verge of tears, and had shaken for hours afterward.

This Gaby, looking back at him, was strangely calm. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He managed to nod, but when he opened his mouth to answer, pain shot through him. He laid his head back down on the floor instead and stared up at the ceiling.

Idiot, you should have stayed outside.

You’re such an idiot…