Crisis Event: Gray Dawn Read online

  All the time she’d spent eating MREs and avoiding human contact and waiting—at first for order to be restored or an evacuation to be mounted, and finally, for everyone dangerous to die off—hadn’t prepared her for what she was going to find on the road.

  She moved to a back corner of the cold case and collapsed to the floor, which was still sticky from long ago spills that had never been cleaned.

  She didn’t even bother trying to control herself when she pulled out the Rice Krispie treat she’d started nibbling on earlier. Instead she gobbled it down and curled up into a ball on the floor, ignoring the storm in her guts and hoping like hell she was safe.

  Chapter 5

  A gunshot woke her up. Or at least she thought it was a gunshot. She was in that exhaustion-induced state that leaves you wondering whether you’re awake or asleep or dreaming you’re awake while wishing you were asleep.

  She reached into her pack and pulled out her pistol, then scrambled to the front of the cold case.

  It was still dark outside for the most part, though when she looked down at where the 7-Eleven’s front doors were, she could detect just a hint of whitening in the sky beyond them. Still, the angle was all wrong for looking out and actually seeing anything. All she could really see were flickering streaks of lightning in the distance, and the usual wall of gray fluff.

  She looked at her watch. It was just past 7AM.

  “Jesus,” she said, and knocked one of the drink racks out of the way.

  She was in no mood to stay in the cold case again today, so she was neither careful nor considerate about kicking the wire and plastic shelves out to clear a path. After emerging into the store, she hurried to the front window and looked out.

  Fifty yards away, right out in the parking lot in front of the dust-coated pair of arches that had once been a McDonald’s, two men stood ten feet apart—one of them pointing a gun, the other with his hands in the air. Behind them, six or so blocks away, the building that had been set on fire by lightning was still smoldering, its windows blown out, its sides covered in soot.

  Sadie had slept through the entire fire, and was lucky it hadn’t jumped to the buildings around it and torched the entire city. Even now the smoldering building was on the verge of collapse—an event that would surely spread the carnage.

  But it looked to her like she’d been saved by rain—if you could call big heavy black drops of sludge falling from the sky rain.

  Whatever you called it, she saw signs that the sludge had fallen recently, depositing fresh streaks of gray mud to the ground that would soon dry out and leave more dust behind.

  The two men were ignoring the smoldering building. The man with the gun stood listening as the man with his hands up—shorter and with long hair—shouted.

  Sadie couldn’t hear what he was shouting, but for some reason she couldn’t fathom, it seemed imperative that she should. So without thinking about it she ran for the back door of the 7-Eleven, pulled the dead bolt back, and shoved the door open.

  She wasn’t reckless. She didn’t run directly into the middle of the confrontation. Instead she bent low and ran to the big dust-covered dumpster at the edge of the parking lot. From there she darted over to where an old dusty Ford truck was parked.

  When lightning struck on the other side of the river, Sadie crawled out to the street where the lines of abandoned cars stretching out in both directions gave her visual cover. Soon the rumble of thunder boomed across the city, covering the sound she made as she crawled among the cars, toward the McDonald’s.

  She crawled through the sludgy mud, advancing blindly, pausing to listen to the man trying to shout over the thunder, then advancing again.

  When she reached a dust-coated fire truck twenty yards from the two men, she crawled beneath it, pushing the dry dust beneath the truck’s body in front of her, slowly building small dam of dirt to obscure her presence beneath the long vehicle.

  The Tall Man had lowered his gun and the guy on the ground was talking.

  “Just like Chernobyl,” he yelled. “But worse. A hundred times worse. That’s why we’ve got to do this. We have no choice! Don’t you see? We’re all in this together! We’re still Americans! We’ve got to try to save America!”

  The Tall Man responded.

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “All you fuckers are wrong. Get on your knees.”

  On the verge of crying, it seemed, the shorter man with the long hair followed the order.

  “Please,” the long haired man said as one knee and then the other kicked up little plumes of gray dust. “I’ve got a kid! I don’t want to die!”

  But the Tall Man ignored him. Without hesitation he snapped his pistol up and fired.

  The bullet hit the kneeling man in the chest. The force knocked him onto his back

  “Ahhhhh!” he yelled, and arched his back.

  The tall man kicked the dying man in the ribs then, and continued kicking him, his combat boots driving into his chest and shoulders and arms and back and face. He kicked and kicked, each blow driving the dying man a little closer to the end.

  Finally, when the man on the ground stopped moving, the Tall Man stopped kicking. His chest heaved up and down. He’d given himself a good workout, Sadie thought, and felt anger explode in her chest.

  She wanted to open up on the tall man right then and there, spraying him with bullets until her clip was empty. She’d already cocked the pistol when her grandfather’s voice echoed in her head.

  “Best to go slow, Sadie,” he said, and the image of Obi Wan Kenobi popped into her mind as her grandfather continued to talk. “Stay out of others peoples’ business whenever you can.”

  “Ridiculous,” she whispered. “That guy needs to die.”

  As if to confirm her claim, the Tall Man gave the corpse one more kick to the ribs before he bent down and began searching the man’s pockets.

  One after another, the Tall Man turned out each pants pocket, looking up and checking his surroundings after each pocket. Then he moved on to the jacket. Sadie was amazed the guy looked right past the little leather knife holster on his hip.

  After checking the rest of the pockets and finding nothing, the Tall Man walked over to where the long haired man had dropped his backpack next to the street curb. He unzipped the main compartment and began searching it, pulling out various items and dropping them immediately.

  “Shit!” the Tall Man said after a few minutes of searching. Then he straightened up and turned and walked toward the downtown buildings. He was heading right for the still burning building, heedless that the whole thing could topple and crush him if he was in its vicinity when it collapsed.

  As he walked, the Tall Man ejected the magazine from the bottom of his pistol, tucked the frame into his pants, and began reloading the clip.

  Sadie felt a physical weight drop through her chest as her rage exploded. She shoved forward through the dam of dust she’d built and emerged covered in the gray gritty mud. As soon as she was up on her feet she ran straight for the man, her feet sinking softly into the sound-muffling mud.

  The Tall Man never heard her. Not until she was almost on top of him. Then he spun around, pulling his gun out of waistband and fumbling to get the magazine shoved back in.

  Too late.

  “Hold it!” she shrieked, her pistol out at arm’s length, aimed at his face.

  The Tall Man froze.

  “Drop it,” she said, and his pistol and magazine fell and landed softly in the dust. “On your knees.”

  The Tall Man’s face registered shock and fear and guilt, all at the same time. His chin dropped, his eyes falling to the street.

  “Now!” Sadie shouted.

  As the Tall Man’s knees bent and he dropped to the ground just like the man he’d killed, Sadie lowered the gun to point at his chest.

  “An eye for an eye, huh?” the Tall Man said with a resigned smile. His hands began to creep down toward the pistol but stopped when Sadie narrowed her eyes at him.


  “Goddamn right!” Sadie said, stoking the rage up in order to counter the doubt she suddenly felt.

  In spite of the chaos and violence of the last nine months, she’d never killed a human being. She wasn’t sure if a summary execution was how she wanted to become a killer.

  But then she remembered the way the dead man had begged, and the way the Tall Man had ignored his begging as he kicked him to death.

  She squinted her eyes.

  The Tall Man saw her eyes go hard and knew she’d made up her mind.

  “Please,” he said. “My kids. Don’t leave them here to starve.”

  Sadie had just registered the man’s request when she heard someone yell “Daddy!”

  A young girl in a blinding pink ski jacket and a boy in a green camouflaged hunting jacket came running out of the looted McDonald’s. The girl had long, dirty blonde hair and the boy had hair shaved down close to his head, much like the man he’d called “Daddy.”

  The two kids raced toward the Tall Man, both of them wearing white paper dust masks over their faces. Both kids sprinted through the gritty mud and threw their arms around their father’s neck and shoved their masked faces into his chest. The Tall Man wrapped his arms around his kids, and looked up.

  “If you’re gonna do me,” he said, “do us all.”

  “Who are you” she asked, but the man didn’t reply. “Where’d you come from.”

  The man remained silent, clutching his children, who, Sadie noticed, looked like they’d been eating well.

  “Why’d you kill him?” she asked, and jutted her chin out toward the dead man.

  “Does it matter?” the Tall Man answered.

  The little boy looked up at Sadie. Sadie looked back at him, studying his eyes. He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten, the girl more than eleven.

  Suddenly she felt stupid.

  Childish.

  She’d let herself get angry over the death of some guy she didn’t even know. A guy who for all she knew might have been a stone cold killer, or rapist, or psychopathic torturer of children.

  The dead guy might have raped and killed Sadie if he’d had the chance.

  Her moral outrage had put her into a dangerous situation now. She had to get away from these three and keep moving west—but she wasn’t sure how to do that without putting herself in more danger. Sure she could kill the Tall Man, but then she’d be killing the kids by proxy. Then again, if she let him go he could track her down and kill her when she wasn’t ready for him.

  “Stay out of other peoples’ business,” her grandfather’s voice echoed. “Whenever you can.”

  “Idiot,” she said, and lowered her gun, the decision made.

  She was just about to tell the man and his kids to get lost when she saw the dog—a skinny Doberman mix—come loping down the street toward them, completely unmindful of the smoldering building he was running past.

  Then another dog appeared behind him, ten feet off his heels and coming hard.

  Before she could react, another pair—a border collie and a Rottweiler mix—came slinking out from behind the gray-crusted McDonald’s. They advanced out to the sidewalk, slowly edging forward, their teeth bared.

  Sadie looked at the Tall Man.

  “Run,” she said.

  The Tall Man didn’t hesitate. In one quick motion he grabbed up his kids and sprinted away from the two snarling dogs on the sidewalk.

  Sadie turned and fired two shots, hoping the dog the Rottweiler mix was the alpha dog.

  Only one shot hit the Rotty mix, but it was enough to knock him down. The noise startled the other dogs, but they quickly recovered, and seeing their chance to advance upward in the pack, went after the Rotty mix,

  Sadie didn’t wait around to see the outcome. She turned and ran straight for the 7-11. She’d covered half the distance when another pair of dogs came running in at her from her right.

  Without hesitation she leapt up onto the hood of one of the cars beneath the gas pump canopy, stepped up onto the car roof, then hopped up onto the top of a gas pump. As the dogs changed direction and came around the back of the car she leaped over to the car parked beside the pump on the other side. Then she ran down the hood, leaped forward to the asphalt and sprinted for the corner of the building.

  As she turned the corner, slapping a hand against the dusty bricks to steady herself, she spun herself backward and aimed, backpedalling along the side of the building, waiting for the first dog to come around.

  She didn’t have to wait long.

  A growling German Shepherd came hurtling around the corner at full speed, its toenails scrabbling and scratching, trying to dig its claws into the asphalt beneath the dust to keep its balance. It failed, yelping as his feet went out from under him and he rolled over. In less than a second was back up and charging at her.

  Sadie fired off another pair of bullets.

  This time both bullets hit the target, a pair of power punches to his chest that put him down on the dusty asphalt.

  The dog whimpered and blood flowed heavily from the wounds and dribbled out onto the dust.

  Sadie didn’t wait for more dogs to arrive. She turned and sprinted for the back door, hoping none of the pack had circled around her. Seconds later she was inside the store, spinning fast to slam the door closed with both hands.

  Almost instantly a dog hit the metal, growling and snapping and scratching at the door like it was going to dig its way through.

  Sadie shot the bolt into the door frame and bent over to gasp for breath. She wouldn’t have much time before the dogs found out all that was keeping them out was a piece of cardboard, so she went to the cold case and grabbed her pack and rifle. She was just stepping through a glass door when she heard the scratching at the cardboard.

  “Crap,” she said, and raced for the back of the store. She dropped her pack and rifle and scampered up the roof access ladder she’d seen earlier, just as the unmistakable sound of ripping cardboard and growling dogs came to her from behind the cash register.

  “Fool,” she said, remembering how she’d intended to put the cash register against the cardboard but had gotten distracted by the scurrying rats.

  At the top of the ladder, Sadie put her shoulder against the roof access panel and shoved hard. It didn’t move, so she stepped down one rung and looked up at the panel, trying to find the latch holding it in place.

  She didn’t see it at first, but then she felt along the edges of the panel until she found the raised metal hook and the bracket holding it in place. After sliding the hook free she stepped up and shoved the panel as hard as she could. It popped up and off the square metal frame and a shaft of light reached down into the storage room.

  Sadie heard barking.

  The scramble of feet on the tiles at the front of the store.

  She reversed down the ladder until she was low enough to reach down and grab her pack by one shoulder strap. She jerked up on it and shoved her arm through, shrugging hard to get it up onto her shoulder. She switched hands on the ladder rung then, and snatched up her rifle.

  Then she was climbing, racing upward away from the barking dogs that shot through the door and leapt for her feet.

  Sadie pushed her rifle up through the hole at the top of the ladder, then slithered through after it, folding forward over the metal lip of the access hole and collapsing onto the thin layer of gravel atop the roof.

  Her heart raced.

  She gasped for breath.

  The gray sky seemed to be turning darker and her vision narrowed, but then she caught her breath and the darkness at the edges of her sight disappeared.

  Downstairs the dogs yelped and barked at each other and scratched at the floor and wall next to the ladder. When Sadie looked down through the hole they growled and barked louder and leapt up at her.

  There were five dogs in all, two mongrels, a black lab, a pit bull mix, and a boxer.

  “Now what?” she asked herself. She couldn’t spend all day up on the roof. If s
omeone in one of the nearby buildings had a rifle and the inclination, they could kill her—and they wouldn’t have a hard time doing it.

  She pushed herself up to her feet and noticed the mop next to her. Why was it up here on the roof instead of down below with the yellow mop bucket? It was a mystery that would likely never be solved—probably because it wasn’t worth solving.

  Sadie turned and surveyed the roof. It was covered in garbage. Hundreds of empty beer bottles, soft drink cans, candy wrappers, and potato chip bags were scattered around, half-buried in gray dust.

  Toward the front of the store sat a two empty Igloo coolers partially filled with dust. A faded red backpack leaned against a cooler, and next to it a plastic lawn chair had flipped over backwards. A human body and the clothes it had once worn lay sprawled out, partially on top of the chair. It was coated with a thick layer of gray dust.

  The body wasn’t much more than a skeleton at this point—bones and a little soft tissue holding them together. Its arms, sheathed in a faded flannel shirt, stretched away from its ribs like the arms of a swimmer floating in a pool. Its legs were inside a pair of faded blue Levi’s. The skull was angled back so that its empty eye sockets were staring right at Sadie. Partially buried in the gray dust, a sawed-off, double-barreled, .12 gauge shotgun lay between the chair and the coolers.

  When she walked over to get a closer look, Sadie saw the back of the skull was blown out. A few thick locks of black hair lay partially submerged in dust.

  “Had to be a guy,” she said. “With a shirt that ugly.”

  Having seen hundreds of dead bodies in the past year, Sadie wasn’t surprised by this one like she’d been surprised by the kid in the car. She’d seen the remains of murder victims and accident victims and people who’d elected to die rather than face the horrible future.

  She gave a half-hearted shrug and picked up the shotgun. Its side-by-side barrels were rusty and corroded, but she didn’t think the weather had ruined them. She ran her palm along the barrels and stock, knocking the crusted dust off, then broke it open.