Tourists of the Apocalypse (26 page)

“Fitz suggested that she and I pretend to be a couple,” I toss out, having waited for the right time to bring this up. “With her on my arm Lance might stop watching me.”

“Interesting,” she mutters, putting a finger on her lips. “How convincing would her act have to be?”

“Good question. Now that you bring it up, how convincing will you have to be with Lance?” I press her, already aware she will be warming his bed.

“Ouch,” she pouts, putting her good arm around me and squeezing. “I’ll tell Fitz to keep her knees together and whatever else needs to happen for it to look believable, I am okay with.”

“I’m not interested in Jessabelle,” I whisper, kissing her on the top of her head. “But I’d rather stay out here if the alternative is losing you to Lance.”

“You couldn’t lose me if you tried,” she whispers.

“We’ll see about that.”

A sad look crosses onto her face and she pulls me down by the shoulder and kisses me. For that moment it’s like this disaster movie we are stuck in isn’t happening, but it the kiss ends too soon. She turns me by the elbow to face the car and points. Sitting on the Mustangs trunk with her legs on either side of the gas tank opening is Fitz. Dickey is pouring from a gas can, but his eyes are not on the filler hole, rather somewhere north of the trunk and south of her waist. He slips and pours some gas on the quarter panel. Izzy rolls her eyes and starts dragging me to the car.

“I might have to explain what keeping your knees together means,” she giggles. “Your pretend girlfriend is slipping into post-apocalyptic whore mode.

I chuckle, thinking at the very least, she’s a survivor. If trauma nurse doesn’t buy her any traction she seems content to wrangle Dickey as a back-up plan.
And I doubt he will mind in the least.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch…

The Mustang whips us down the street ending in an e-brake induced skid that lands us in front of my old house. Izzy growls at Dickey, clutching her arm, but he’s like a race car driver who just won the Indy 500. He climbs out and seeing my mother on the porch, bows from the waist. Hugs and back slaps are exchanged, but within minutes, Izzy pulls away and starts toward her place. By the time I realize this, Lance has his arm around her and is leading her inside. His posture scares me as it’s rigid and mechanical.
Does he already know?
I start to follow, but Fitz grabs me by the arm, pulling me back.

“Why don’t you introduce me to your mother,” she whispers through clenched teeth. When I resist, she digs her fingernails into my forearm drawing blood.

“Stop it,” I object, pushing her away.

“Man up lover boy,” she seethes into my ear, dragging me back to my house. “You want the girl, then you’re going to have to wait this one out.”

“I’ve reconsidered. I’m going to walk across the street and kill him now.”

“Not the plan we agreed on,” she argues, pushing me up the steps to my house. “You need to start acting as if you like me,” she demands, following me into the front room.

I frown and point through a window to Lance’s house across the street, then exhale hard in frustration. I know what’s going on over there and I can’t possibly pretend otherwise. Fitz can clearly see this in my expression.

“Listen up,” she orders. “Get a shower and meet me down stairs in thirty minutes.”

“Why?”

“Field trip,” she grunts, poking her index finger in my chest. “I have to separate the children who won’t play nice together.”

…

Since Dickey mostly lives at the Hive, they hand him a package and send him off soon after we arrive. Fitz drags me out of the house kicking and screaming. As she arrived without luggage she is wearing a knee length summer dress donated by my mother and brown leather sandals. Other than the purple bruises that dot her legs, she looks pretty. I ride in the backseat comforted by a cold beer while she flirts with the driver, who she refers to as Batman. It’s a two-hour drive, even at the death defying speeds Dickey drives. All of sudden he slows, turning a hard right off the divided highway.

It’s not an exit, but rather more of a gravel road recently constructed by pushing mounds of dirt up to the expressway. We park in a wide spot past the tree line. The huge jeep I saw parked in Dickey’s driveway a year before is the only vehicle parked here. He explains that the Jeep is necessary for the remainder of the trip. It’s a bumpy ride in the back hanging onto the thick roll bar overhead. Fitz sits up front, wearing sunglasses loaned to her by Batman, a hand between her knees as her dress blows about. We travel a half hour over open terrain with no sign of a road, but tire tracks galore. Eventually we roll up on a gravel road and stop.

“Puh, puh, put these on,” Dickey insists, reaching in the glove box and pulling out what reminds me of blue rubber
Fit Bits
. “I’d suggest you leave them on permanently.”

I start to protest, but see that Fitz slip hers on her arm obediently then wrap her arms over her knees wearing a sultry smile. I wonder if she is going to help me keep Lance off my back or cut me lose for Dickey.
Can I actually trust her?

“What’s it for?” I complain, putting it on and holding up my arm.

“Tuh, tuh, Tab,” Dickey explains, driving the Jeep down the one lane road and up a steep rise. “It keeps you from getting killed.”

As we come over the rise, a huge compound can be seen in the distance, but we don’t move towards it. We pull over on the crest and Dickey shuts off the Jeep, hopping out. He helps Fitz down as if she were a princess, which is laughable; then walks us a few feet away.

“Thuh, thuh, this is the only way in,” he begins. And anyone not part of our group can’t pass this point.”

I scan the area and see nothing. It’s wide open. No one may want to come this way, but I see nothing to stop an intruder. I raise my hand as if it’s the third grade. Seeing this Dickey nods.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Ruh, ruh, right, you’ll see,” he stutters, pulling a phone out of his pocket, although it’s more like a walkie-talkie.

It beeps and then a voice drifts over it.

“Are you here yet? Cain is waiting on those chips.”

“Yuh, yuh, yeah, right. I got them, but turn on grid one for a minute.”

“This isn’t show and tell. That system isn’t live yet,” the scratchy voice echoes.

“Aye, aye, I, know, but just power it up for a second.”

“Why?”

“Bruh, bruh, brought those magazines you were asking about,” he whispers quietly into the device. There is no reply and he turns to us with a hand to the side of his mouth and whispers. “Gah, gah, gay porn.”

Fitz has to cover her mouth with a hand to stifle the laughter. I have to admit the situation is fairly humorous.

“Who’s with you?” the voice demands.

“Nuh, nuh, no one, just crank up the front grid.”

“And you’ll bring me the stuff?”

“Yuh, yuh, yeah,” Dickey stammers, making an okay sign with one hand. “Let’s see Goliath.”

“Fine,” the voice answers. “You got five minutes.”

Replacing the phone in his pocket, he strides to the edge of the rise, but waves us back a few steps. Fitz stops like a dog on a chain and waits with baited breath for her master to speak. I poke her in the ribs and make a kissy face but she responds by kicking me in the shin. I preferred life on the run compared to whatever this is. My thoughts are interrupted by the ground shaking.

“Ruh, ruh, right. Currently there isn’t much of a threat to the Hive, but this will change. All around the country groups are forming up and gathering resources. Eventually word will get out that we have electricity, food, water, you name it. Luh, luh, last week a group of wanderers tried to take down one of our trucks on the open highway. At some point, this castle will be stormed.”

“You sound like Lance—,” I remark, but am interrupted by a vibration emanating from the ground under my feet.

To his right, the sand heaves up and two doors fling open sending a shower of fine dust to either side. We step back, but he waves for us to relax. A tube of some kind rises out of the doors reaching a height of six feet or more. There is a hydraulic hum, then the sound of tiny motors whirring. As I stare, it comes to me what this is.

“Mini-gun,” I blurt out looking at a giant sized gun like the one Dickey has on the roof of his Mustang.

“Buh, buh, bingo. It’s five feet long with twelve barrels, auto fire and sonar tracking. She’s wicked dangerous.”

The barrels are pointed skyward, but it’s articulated like a child’s telescope. It turns in the middle bringing the business end level. On the back are braided metal wire harnesses. A ribbon of long thin ammunition feeds out of the hole in the ground and into one side. Smack dab on the top is a dark sphere with a red light turning around its center like an eyeball. The business end points to the right, and then the left, motor noises mixed with hydraulic lifters seeming loud in the wide open landscape.

“Oh, oh, okay,” Dickey barks. “Now stay where you are and watch this.”

Grinning, he walks out in front of the gun which is pointed away from the compound. The eye tracks him, and then the barrels on the gun begin to spin. The Gatling gun end whirrs loudly, the sound of scraping metal like nails on a blackboard. As Dickey walks back and forth it follows him. He pulls out his phone and clicks the button.

“Guh, guh, go live on number one will ya?”

“Stop playing around,” the voice echoes.

“Aw, aw, aw come on,” Dicky whines. “Can a guy get a little live fire on one?”

The gun suddenly turns sharply in his direction. The barrel’s spin as clicking noises ring out. As he walks the clicks continue. The clicking is the gun firing
.
It’s shooting at him, but no rounds are coming out.
The Goliath tracks him for ten yards then he opens up the phone again.

“We, we, we’re good.”

The barrels stop spinning abruptly. It tilts up and then drops back in the hole, the doors shutting slowly on long gas powered shocks. Dickey wanders back to us grinning.

“Why didn’t it fire?” I ask.

Thuh, thuh, this,” he announces, pointing at the odd looking
Fit Bit
. The system won’t go live on anyone or anything wearing a Tab.”

“And if you’re not wearing one?” Fitz asks timidly.

“Thuh, thuh, then you’re dog food.”

“How many,” she ponders aloud, pointing her finger down the way from us.

“Thuh, thuh, thirty this size,” he reveals. “An, an, another dozen smaller ones like I have on my car. Once activated, nothing that moves can get past this line. Totally cool, huh?”

“It’s charming,” I sigh. “Where did they get all this stuff?”

“Suh, suh, some of it they make,” he explains, pointing at the compound. “These babies came on a truck from somewhere else.”

“And the bullet proof wrap?”

“Cray, cray, crazy future stuff huh?” he blurts out excitedly. “They make it all up there. They got some wild tech.”

“Crazy future stuff,” Fitz mutters confused.

“She doesn’t know,” I divulge to Dickey. “How long have you known?”

“Luh, luh, let’s see,” he stutters, tapping his forehead with a fist. “Two years probably. The stuff I seen they had to tell me something.”

“Tell you what?” Fitz shrugs, in my opinion, pretending to look helpless.

“He can explain it,” I mutter pointing at Dickey. “Is there a bathroom up there?”

Fitz sticks out her tongue when she climbs in the Jeep. Up at the Hive we get a dorm room down the hall from a common room. Fitz intertwines her fingers in mine and pretends to be embarrassed when requesting a single room for us.
She’s playing her part for now at least.
A dozen people come and go, including Jerry who seems happy working here. Dickey spends the rest of the night explaining things to Fitz. I listen, but my thoughts drift to Izzy.
How long will Fitz try and keep me out here?

….

Two days pass like a prison term, then we ride the Dickey express back to Oakmont Street. A black helicopter sits in the center of the cul-de-sac when we arrive. I hadn’t noticed before, but a red circle with yellow inner rings is painted there. The blades aren’t turning, but Lance is talking to T-Buck and Blister in front of their garage. The Mustang pulls into Dickeys driveway and our trio walks down from there. We don’t get more than a few yards, before Izzy comes out of Lances place sprinting right for us. I start to run, but Fitz snags my arm.

“Not so fast loverboy,” she whispers. “Whenever you talk to her make sure I am standing next to you.”

“That sounds cozy,” I grumble, taking her by the hand and walking slowly. “What’s Batman gonna think?”

“He knows the deal. He likes you and doesn’t want to see you hurt. Give him some credit instead of a bunch of whining.”

I have to agree with her. I am whining and most of these people are trying to help me. Facts are I have no self-control around Izzy.
Would it be love if I did?
We converge with the sitting chopper between, our threesome and Lance, although he peeks around the tail several times.

“How’s the wrist,” Fitz asks, her arm around my waist.

“Been icing it to get the swelling down,” she reports, narrowed eyes scanning between Fitz and me. “The doctor thinks it’s just a crack. They told me to give it four weeks and they will re-check it.”

“You look good,” I offer, noticing her dark tee shirt and khaki pants.
She’s dressed like all the rest of them again.

“Thanks, what did you think of the Hive?”

“Amazing,” Fitz blurts out, nuzzling her lips in my neck then whispering, “Sargent Slaughter at four o’clock.”

Behind me Lance wanders up holding a clipboard. I get a simple nod, but he stops to turn Izzy away from me to whisper. After a moment he slaps her on the ass as if she was a preschooler and sends her inside.

“So, how are you guys doing? Don’t think we’ve been properly introduced?”

“Fitz,” she offers, putting out her hand. “You must be Lance?”

“My reputation precedes me it seems,” he fains shyness, shaking her hand.