Apocalypse Burning (33 page)

She was silent for a moment, and she looked sad. “Do you trust me?”

Goose had to think about. A lot of things were at stake, and secrets seemed to be tumbling out of the woodwork.

“If you don’t trust me,” Danielle warned, “if I unload what I know and you try to hold back on me when you know I’ve put my neck on the chopping block to come this far, I’m gone. I swear to God on that, Goose.” Unshed tears glimmered in her eyes and her voice grew hoarse. “Lizuca lost her life because of me and because of these people. What I have to tell you is big. If we don’t handle this carefully, we could both end up dead. The people we’re after don’t hesitate to kill. And they’ve got too much at stake to just go away quietly.”

“I trust you,” Goose said, knowing he was going to step across the line in one fell swoop. “But there’s something you should know. About your boss.”

“I already know,” Danielle said, letting out a tense breath. “CIA Section Chief Alexander Cody works for Nicolae Carpathia. And it was probably Carpathia who ordered Lizuca’s death.”

Goose looked at her for a moment, then nodded. Maybe she hadn’t put everything together, but she’d put together enough. And she’d put together the fact that CIA Section Chief Alexander Cody worked for Nicolae Carpathia, who was quite possibly the Antichrist warned of in the book of Revelation.

Standing there in front of Danielle, Goose felt the eyes of the CIA agents who were keeping him under surveillance, and he had to wonder if they were peering through sniper scopes.

11

Crossroads Shopping Center
Columbus, Georgia
Local Time 2213 Hours

Joey Holder sat in the back of the six-year-old Cadillac Zero had hotwired and stolen from the house where they had spent last night. The Cadillac belonged to the doctor who owned the house in one of the more affluent gated communities on Columbus’s north side. Normally the security would have kept thieves—and them, Joey admitted; he couldn’t quite cross the line and think of himself as a thief—out of the area.

But many of the power outages remained in effect throughout the city’s suburban areas. Several of the houses around the doctor’s home had been lighted by generators. Knowing that the “borrowed” home they’d spent the night in had so many neighbors had worried Joey. He knew that if he hadn’t been drunk when they got there just before dawn and too tired to go any farther, he might even have argued with Zero about staying.

Well, maybe not argued,
Joey admitted to himself as he stared at the darkened strip mall in the shadowed parking area that Zero steered the big car through.
But I would have pointed out that we could have gotten caught.

They hadn’t gotten caught, though. This morning they had stuffed themselves with food, played pool, and looted the house. The cream and gold Cadillac was only the iceberg tip of the things they had taken.

Stolen,
Joey reminded himself. The others continued to refer to the thefts as borrowing, but he couldn’t do that anymore. During the last couple days, the guys had gone completely out of control. Zero had led the way.

Joey hadn’t taken anything except the food and drink he’d needed to survive.
And the liquor and beer,
he thought, belching and still tasting the latter. He’d played pool in the game room and looked through the assortment of video games in the home-entertainment center, but without power, the game systems remained inert. He couldn’t help noticing that several of the games were ones Chris and he had seen advertised on television but had never been able to afford.

Zero had slept most of the afternoon and early evening. But as soon as full dark came, he’d roused and grown irritable, wanting to go out. RayRay and Bones had griped, already half wasted because they’d gotten up before Zero, and said that they should stay in, pointing out that they had plenty of food.

Reports were starting to hit the radio news about people who were getting busted by police and the Georgia National Guard for squatting in houses where the owners had either vanished or were away. Twice, homeowners had returned to find their homes invaded by vagrants and squatters and had shot them dead. One of the squatters had been a thirteen-year-old boy. It wasn’t just the thieves getting whacked, though. Seven homeowners had been killed so far, and dozens of others had been injured.

After listening to the others in the group, Zero had pointed out that everything they’d said was true. Then he’d added that if they only had a generator to power the stove, microwave, water heater, and hot tub, they could probably stay for days. So he’d hotwired the Caddie and they’d come to town looking for a generator.

Joey had felt certain the generator thing was just an excuse. The longer they’d gone without finding the aliens Zero said took all the people, the more Zero had gotten upset.

Zero pulled the Caddie through the parking lot in front the darkened strip mall he’d selected as their target. That was what he’d called it, Joey remembered. Their
target.
Like he was some kind of general in one of the video games they’d played at the arcade center.

The strip mall had only a couple dozen shops. This part of Columbus had fallen on hard times. The little center’s clientele had been lured away by newer and larger malls, and the businesses here lingered rather than thrived.

Across the street, the blue-and-purple neon glare of a strip club flared against the night. The sign announcing the Peeping Tom Club showed flashing neon outlines of a naked woman dancing. The banner that read LIVE! NUDE GIRLS! ran along the bottom.

The basso throb of the multiple generators that kept the power surging through the club filled the night and laid down a heavy bass line for the screaming heavy metal rock music that ripped over the neighborhood. Cars, pickup trucks, and motorcycles filled the gravel parking lot to overflowing.

“Hey, man,” RayRay said, his eyes gleaming and filled with the reflected neon lights. “We get done here, maybe we can go check out the action over there.”

Joey wasn’t interested in that at all. During the past few days, he’d been thinking of Jenny and had—unbelievably—started getting homesick. He wanted to see Jenny. Even more, he wanted to see his mom. He knew she had to be worried. Columbus was slowly being restored to law and order. Joey knew the excesses of his little gang soon had to come to a stop or they’d be locked up, but there was still a lot of craziness out there.

“Kind of amazing,” Derrick said. “I mean with the way those people will make sure a place like that stays open and even go there when so much of the city is still a wreck.”

“They don’t care,” Joey said. He knew that because part of him still wished he didn’t care. Not caring—if a person could do it—seemed the best way to go right now. But he was having more and more trouble doing that. He went to sleep at night thinking about his mom and Chris and Goose, and they were always the first things on his mind when he woke in the morning. The alcohol he was drinking no longer blocked those thoughts.

He’d even started praying for them, though not for himself, because he didn’t think he deserved it after everything he had done. He prayed for his family because he had messed up things so badly even before he hadn’t gotten back to the post in time to get Chris. Or been there, like he should have, when his mom had gotten called in to work.

Prayer had been a habit when he’d been a little kid. His mom had taught him. Then, when Chris had started doing his prayers, he’d insisted that Joey do them with him. It was surprising how easy it had been to kneel down beside the bed with Chris and pray.

“Now I lay me down to sleep… .”

The words rolled through Joey’s mind as Zero parked the Cadillac in the alley at one end of the strip mall. His throat tightened. His prayers, he was sure, were a wasted effort. He felt certain that God wouldn’t listen to him.

“Hey, man,” Zero said in his deep voice.

Joey suddenly grew aware that Zero was peering back at him over the front seat.

“Something wrong with you?” Zero asked. “You look like you’re crying.”

“Allergies,” Joey mumbled. He brushed at his eyes and felt his fingers come away wet.

Bones, seated in the front passenger seat with RayRay sandwiched between, snorted and said, “More like he’s suffering a hangover.” He looked at Joey. “I told you, man, if you want to shake a hangover quick, you gotta drink a little again when you first get up. Just enough to put a buzz back in your brain.”

“Can’t,” Joey said. “Makes me sick.” That was no lie. He’d tried, and it had.

“Whatever,” Zero said. “Keep up or get left behind if we have to move fast.” He popped the door release and pushed himself out. None of the car’s interior lights flared to life because he’d removed them all.

Dropper was seated next to one of the rear doors. When he got out, Joey followed.

Standing outside in the cool night air, Joey felt a little better. It helped to be up and moving. He didn’t have time to dwell on things that way.

Zero opened the Caddie’s trunk and took out all the crowbars and screwdrivers they’d been collecting to make their scavenging easier. He passed the tools out, handing Joey a pry bar. Then he took out the gleaming .357 Magnum he’d found a few days ago. Joey hadn’t known what kind of gun it was. But Zero identified it and occasionally talked about the kind of damage it could do.

They’d taken other weapons since that night. Everyone carried a handgun. Even Joey carried a 9mm that Zero had insisted he keep with him while they were on “missions” to hook up with the alien invaders Zero was certain were out there. Joey never took the weapon off of safety, and had returned it to Zero at the end of every mission.

“Okay,” Zero said as they walked to the mall’s receiving door behind the building, “we got two dozen shops in here. All small places. I checked the phone book.” He grinned. “Works just like a catalogue because it lists all the places inside. They even got the answering service working now, but the power’s not back on in this grid. Which is why the strip club with the generators is the only place open.”

Joey fell in behind the other boys. He felt ill at ease. His stomach rolled and he kept hearing Chris’ singsong voice inside his head:
“I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

“Phone book doesn’t come with a map, though.” Zero shoved the end of his crowbar into the jamb between the receiving door and frame. “So we go in, split up, and cover each other’s backs.” He pushed, and the sound of screeching metal filled the dark alleyway for a split second. Then it was over and the door hung open crookedly.

Joey watched both ends of the alley. No police cars or National Guard jeeps suddenly swooped into view. He relaxed, but only a little. They were still on someone else’s premises and in the wrong.

“Somewhere inside this mall is a sporting goods shop,” Zero said. “The place is called In The Wild. The ad I saw for it said they have generators. We want as many as we can fit into the back of the Caddie.” He banged the crowbar against the receiving door. “With this door still being locked, I’ve got hopes nobody has ripped this place off yet.”

“Until tonight.” Bones grinned and pushed his glasses back up.

“Let’s go shopping,” Zero said.

Joey let the others go first, noticing that Derrick hung back with him. Then he went through the door.

Down the long hallway that ran through the heart of the mall, Zero and the others flicked on their flashlights and played them over the shops. The beams shone at the tops of the shops, picking up the names.

“You know,” Derrick said as he turned his own flashlight on, “Zero is really starting to creep me out.”

“I know,” Joey said. He started forward, walking through the mall. Ahead of them, Zero and the others cut left, following the bend in the hallway, and were instantly out of sight. The pool of light they dragged around after them took a little longer to disappear.

“Do you have any idea what he’s going to do when he finally realizes there are no aliens waiting out there to make him an ambassador or a prince?”

“Yeah,” Joey said. And the thought filled him with dread.

“I’m telling you, man, he’s going to totally freak.” Derrick shone his flashlight from side to side.

“I know,” Joey said.

“He could end up hurting himself,” Derrick said. “He could end up hurting
us.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about that. He may act tough, but I don’t think Zero’s dealing with the disappearances too good.”

“I don’t think he lost anybody.” Derrick snickered nervously. “Everybody Zero knows is too mean to have disappeared.”

The way Chris did.
The painful thought ripped through Joey’s heart.

“Now I lay me down to sleep… . Say it, Joey. You’re ‘posed to say it with me.”

“Okay, little guy. Now I lay me down to sleep… .”

“We could go back to the post,” Joey said.

Derrick turned his flashlight on him.

Joey raised his hand to block the bright beam. “Hey.”

“Sorry,” Derrick apologized. “Is that what you’ve been thinking of the last couple of days?”

Joey shrugged. “Maybe.”

Derrick shook his head. “Not me.”