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BOZEMAN, MONTANA:
On the drive back to the college, Alex notices more cars abandoned along the highway, and a man, woman, and two children walking along the road a short distance ahead. The man sets his suitcase down and holds his thumb out for a ride, and Alex slows as he approaches. He notices the children are mere toddlers, perhaps three and four years old, and the woman is carrying a heavy tote bag. It’s still a good fifteen miles to town, and he feels sympathy for them. He pulls alongside and unlocks the passenger doors.
The man smiles, opens the door, and leans down. “I sure appreciate this, Mr. We’ve been walking for miles, and the kids are pooped.”
“I can give you a ride as far as the college. It’s on the outskirts of town.”
“That would be great. It sure beats walking.”
The woman opens the rear door and helps the children in, while the man sits up front with Alex. When everyone is inside, Alex continues down the highway.
The man extends his hand out to Alex. “My name is Joe Dempsey, and that’s my wife, Carol. The kids are Jessie and Marie.”
Alex accepts the hand. “Alex Cave.”
There are a few moments of silence before Dempsey speaks. “Things sure are a mess, aren’t they? Can’t get any gas, can’t hardly get any food, and if you can find it, whoever’s selling it wants a fortune.”
“Where are you from?” Alex asks.
“Yakima, Washington. Things got nasty, so we headed east. I’m an investment broker. I should say, I used to be an investment broker. There’s nothing to invest in anymore.”
“Did you have any trouble getting gas along the way?”
“Yeah, since we left. We couldn’t find any stations open, but we came across a man selling gas out of the back of his pickup. What a rip-off, though. He had it in five-gallon cans and wanted fifty dollars per can. It about wiped me out to fill up the tank. But what can you do? I don’t know what was mixed in with the gas, but my car didn’t run worth a damn on it. It finally just quit about ten miles back.”
Alex sees a car coming in the opposite direction, weaving back and forth across the centerline. As it gets closer, it appears no one is driving. He also notices the car looks familiar. It’s an older model Cadillac, the same blue color as the one Marcia drives.
The Cadillac is going very slow and continues weaving across the centerline. When it’s within one-hundred-feet, Alex can make out the license plate number. “Damn! That car belongs to a friend of mine.”
The Cadillac drifts farther into his lane as it approaches, and Alex has to pull onto the shoulder and slam on the brakes to keep from being hit. He watches it drive past and notices the small head, barely even with the steering wheel. “It’s some kid driving that car. How the hell?” He abruptly stops when he feels something small and cold against the back of his head. He starts to turn around to see what it is.
“Don’t move a muscle!” The woman snarls in his ear.
Alex can’t believe this is happening. “What the hell’s going on?”
Dempsey leans forward. “Just give me your wallet and step out of the car.”
“Look, you don’t have to do this. I’ll take you into town, and I promise I won’t say anything to the police.”
Dempsey chuckles. “Haven’t you heard, Mr.? The police don’t have any gas for their cars, either.” Dempsey becomes serious again. “Just do what I say, damn it, or I’ll have Carol blow your damn head off!”
“All right, just take it easy.” He shoves the shift lever into park and reaches into his back pocket for his wallet.
“I’ve got a family to take care of, Mr. You’ve got to understand that.”
Alex brings his wallet out, opens it, and takes out two hundred dollars.
“Just set it on the seat,” Dempsey tells him.
Alex does as asked. “You can keep the money and I’ll drive you into town.”
“Set your phone on the seat and get out!”
Alex does as instructed, slips from under the wheel, and stands beside the door. Dempsey slides across the seat while Carol keeps the gun aimed out the window. Dempsey slams the door shut, shifts, and stomps on the accelerator. A cloud of dust envelops him as Alex watches his Blazer’s tires spin in the dirt before grabbing the asphalt and heading down the road.
He sighs, thinking perhaps this is only the beginning, and will definitely get worse before it gets better. He walks along the highway. The world has gone mad. Normally good-hearted people turning into savages, doing whatever it takes to survive.
An hour later, Alex approaches the college campus, hears several gunshots, and sees people running across the lawns. He quickens his pace until he reaches the nearly deserted parking lot. He dives for the ground as someone rises above the hood of a car and points a pistol in his direction. A bullet ricochets off the asphalt just past his head at the same instant he hears the explosion from the pistol. He scrambles to his feet as he looks around for some kind of cover.
He makes a dash for a black Camaro, twenty-feet away. Another bullet chips the asphalt, and he dives into the broken glass on the ground beside the car. Small pricks of pain erupt in his palms and one knee, but he ignores them as he rolls onto his feet and squats beside the rear tire. “Shit!”
Several moments pass without another shot fired, but he can hear people screaming in agony, and other voices shouting orders. He hears windows being shattered, and two more gunshots from far away.
Alex slowly gets up until he can see over the trunk of the Camaro. The back window lay in shattered pieces across the trunk and he looks through the missing windows. People are running down the street, and two boys and two girls climb into a brown Volkswagen van. A moment later, he hears the sputter of the engine, and watches the van race out of the parking lot.
Alex remains behind the Camaro as he studies the rest of the parking lot. What few cars remain have shattered windows and flat tires, and he sees three people lying on the ground. After several minutes when nothing moves, he slowly straightens up for a better view. Five more people lie on the grass near the administration building and sees red stains on the light-colored shirts of two of them.
He slowly steps around the Camaro and approaches the closest person. The body lies in a crimson pool, and the dull eyes stare up at nothing. He moves from body to body, occasionally kneeling to feel for a pulse.
Alex suddenly thinks of David and jumps up, running the rest of the way to the science building. He enters the hallway and sees the door to the laboratory hanging crooked. “David!”
With a deep sense of foreboding, he runs down the hall and grabs the doorframe to stop as he enters the laboratory. He looks around, and it appears a tornado hit the room. Test tubes, flasks, and decanters lay in smashed pieces on the counters and floors. Almost all of the portable test equipment is missing, and what hasn’t been stolen is severely damaged.
He sees a tennis shoe protruding past the edge of the counter and runs inside, sliding on fragments of glass. He finds David sprawled on the floor, kneels beside him, and frantically searches for a pulse. A deep sense of relief washes over him when it’s strong and steady. He carefully runs his hands over David’s legs and arms, searching for any other injuries, but finds none. He gently turns David’s head and sees the bruise near the right eye, and the swollen knot on the side of his head.
David suddenly moans, and Alex gently shakes his shoulder. “Can you hear me, David? It’s Alex.” The young man’s eyes slowly open and squint up at him. “That’s it, pal. You’re going to be okay.” He watches David’s eyes suddenly open wide with fear and dart back and forth around the room as he tries to sit up. “Easy now. It’s all right. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
David focuses on Alex’s face and slowly relaxes. “Damn, my head hurts,” he moans and lies down.
“You’ve got a nasty bump on the head. Just stay there for a moment. Can you tell me what happened?”
David has a hard time concentrating. “I’m not exactly sure. I heard a lot of people yelling and a couple of gunshots. I went to the door and saw people running down the hall. I don’t know why they were running like that. Everyone seemed to be crazy, pushing and shoving each other. Some of them were carrying typewriters, computers, and other stuff. I remember someone shoved me back into the room, then it seemed like a hundred people were coming through the door. They started grabbing things, and I wanted to stop them, but that’s all I can remember.”
“All right. Just lay here and take it easy.”
“No. I’m all right. Just help me stand up.”
Alex grabs David’s hand and hauls him onto his feet. He explains what he saw on the news, and what Martin told him. “I’m just glad our women got out of here safely. I need to find a phone.”
David steps out into the hallway with Alex. “What happened to your cellphone?”
“I was car-jacked on the way here.”
Alex stops at the administrator’s office door and can see him lying in a pool of blood on the floor inside. “You might want to stay out here. Homely’s been shot.”
When Alex opens the door and steps inside, David can’t resist the urge to look. He isn’t sure why, but the sight doesn’t seem to bother him, so he follows Alex into the room.
Alex turns when he hears footsteps behind him and is surprised to see David looking around the room. The kid’s tougher than I realized.
Alex picks up the phone, hears a dial tone, and enters the number for retrieving voice messages from his cellphone service. The first one is from the FAA, and his heart rate increases as he hits play.
“This is Bob Fisher, from the Federal Aviation Administration office at the airport. Your phone number was on the flight plan for a Cessna, number Sierra November Alpha 3492. I, ah, I wanted to inform you the flight had some mechanical problem and was going to return to the airport. That was about two hours ago, and we haven’t heard from them since. Please give me a call at this number.”
“Damn!” Alex presses the clear button and dials the number.
David hears him and sees the troubled expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not positive yet. Hold on a minute,” he says as Fisher comes on the line. “This is Alex Cave. Have you heard anything from the Cessna?”
Fisher can hear the anxiety in Alex’s voice. “No, I’m sorry, Mr. Cave. The last word I received was they were somewhere over Idaho. Are you related to the pilot?”
“No. She’s just a good friend. I met you at the airport when she filled the flight plan. Do you know if they crashed, or made an emergency landing somewhere else?”
“No, we don’t have any idea what happened. Listen, Mr. Cave. I need to get in touch with the pilot’s next of kin.”
“You must have been tracking them on radar, damn it! Where the hell are they?” Alex hears a heavy sigh through the phone.
“Look, Mr. Cave. All we know is they were about eighty miles over the Idaho border when they dropped off the radar screen. Now, if you’d give me the number.”
“Have you sent out a search team yet?”
“Damn it, Mr. Cave! There isn’t anything we can do right now. Haven’t you heard there’s a national crisis going on?”
“I know, but this is very important!”
“They all are. Now if you’d just give me . . .”
“No, you don’t understand, damn it! That plane is carrying important information, critical to the situation going on right now!”
“Thanks for the help!”
Alex hears a click on the other end and slams the phone down. “Damn!” He looks up at David, who is staring back with a worried look. “They went down about eighty miles over the border. See if you can find a map.”
David searches the room. He looks back and sees the muscles at the back of Alex’s jaw flexing in anger and frustration. He’s never seen Alex like this, and the cold, determined look in Alex’s eyes scares him a little. He finds a world atlas and sets it on the desk. “This might work.”
Alex looks up and sees a trace of fear in David’s eyes and relaxes a little. “It’s all so damn frustrating. We have no transportation, no food, and no weapons. How the hell are we supposed to find the women?” Alex watches David grin and wonders what’s so amusing.
David shrugs. “We do have food. I’ve been stashing supplies in two caves I found. You see, I’ve always had this idea that I should be prepared for a disaster, but I thought everyone would think I’m paranoid, so I never told anyone.”
Alex’s frown spreads into a grin. “David, my boy, you’re all right.” He opens the atlas. “Okay. Show me where these caves are.”
David points at the map. “The first one is here, about twenty miles out of town to the west. The last one is here, forty-five miles over the Idaho border.”
“Good. They’re in the direction we need to go, and the second one is in the area where the plane called in a Mayday. Are there any weapons in this first one?”
“Yes, as well as food. There are two sleeping bags, water, and lots of other things I’d need to survive.”
Alex rips the pages for Idaho and Montana out of the atlas. “Great. Let’s get going. We might be able to get to the first cave before dark.”
After leaving the college, Alex and David walk down the main street of town and the city of Bozeman seems deserted. The few people they pass stare at them suspiciously, some dashing inside buildings as they approach, and any vehicle along the streets has been stripped. The shattered windows and bullet-riddled walls of the buildings gives evidence of the mass hysteria, which seems to be spreading quickly.
Above the buildings on the horizon, uncontrolled fires cast thick black smoke high into the air. They pass a bicycle shop with a missing front window and see three bodies on the floor among the empty stands and racks. A police car crashed into a light pole, and the bloodied torso of the officer lies limply through the front window onto the hood.
Alex feels a deep sense of despair. People are living in a state of panic and fear in a society where the only rule is the law of survival.
They continue along the street, passing more shattered windows, and occasionally, a body. Six young boys step out of a tavern advertising pool tables and stand on the sidewalk. The boys act nonchalant, but Alex notices the insolent looks in their eyes. “Let’s cross the street.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know, but we don’t need any injuries right now. We have a long way to go.”
As they step off the curb, four of the youths leave the group and move on an intercept course, and Alex knows there about to have a confrontation. He stops and waits for the boys to approach, deciding to let the four of them move as far away from their friends as possible.
The boys stop a few feet away, their movements bold and assured. “We want your money, man,” the apparent leader demands.
Alex studies his opponents. None of them can be over eighteen, and the one doing the talking seems sure of himself. The others are putting on a good front, but from long experience, he senses a trace of fear in their eyes.
They seem satisfied to let the older boy do the talking, so Alex stares at him. “You have enough problems,” he says in a stern voice as he looks the brazen youth in the eyes. “You don’t want a problem with me.”
The boy hesitates. His other victims always give them what they want, but this man seems too eager to fight. “You think you can take us, man?”
Alex shifts his gaze to each of the boys, coldly looking each in the eye, reading a slight trace of trepidation as each of them looks away. A visual picture of the Russian Mafia’s men he desecrated in Holland flashes through his mind. Of course he could take them, but what would be the sense of killing these young boys? He killed the Mafia men in a fit of savage revenge, but these boys are just scared and trying to survive in a world gone mad. He focuses on the leader. “What’s your name?”
“William. Hey, man. I’ll ask the questions!”
“You’re too late. Someone already beat you to our money. If you want a fight, I’ll give you one, but I suggest you just let us go on our way.”
William isn’t used to being confronted, and this man seems sure of himself. He doesn’t want to lose face in front of his peers, but doesn’t really want to fight this man, either. “If you ain’t got any money, you can go, but you’d better not come back!” he says as ominously as he can. “This is our turf. You got that, man?”
Alex knows the dilemma William is in and decides to help him out of the situation. “Yes, I’ve got it. We’ll stay off your turf.”
William pumps out his chest, turns, and leads his friends back across the street.
Alex and David continue at a brisk pace and reach the outskirts of town without further incident. At the last telephone booth, Alex tries to call Martin but can’t get through.
They walk up the on-ramp and along a highway littered with abandoned cars, trucks, suitcases, and other personal belongings left behind by people too tired to carry more than the bare necessities. He scans the highway and doesn’t see anyone and wonders what happened to them.
David stops and points west at a mountain range across a wide green valley. “That’s where we need to go. The third peak from the right. I’ve always driven to the base of the mountains, but the road to get there is another five miles. Since we’re on foot, we can cut across right here.”
They duck through a barbed wire fence and trek across the valley until they reach the dirt road at the foot of the mountain range. “We’ll follow this road up a little farther and then cut through the trees.”
Alex and David turn around to look at the city one more time and see several large columns of thick black smoke curling into the air above Bozeman. “Damn!” says David. “It looks like the city is on fire. We’d better get going. It’s still a long way to the cave.”