John heard the PA system outside the fence announcing something he couldn’t quite make out from inside the truck. Warning the crowd away from the gates probably. He pulled the tow truck up through the quarantine crowd, gently knocking over a DO NOT CROSS BY ORDER OF REPER—HIGHLY INFECTIOUS—TRESSPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT sign. Beyond it were the four-foot-high concrete barricades. Beyond them was an unmanned jeep with a mounted gun that John assumed would shoot anyone who touched the fence. Beyond it, the fence itself. For all he knew, Dave could be no more than fifty feet away, on the other side of that chain link. A cheap pair of bolt cutters would get through it in two minutes. But it might as well be the center of the Earth. He needed a drink. They had a little over two hours until either the army incinerated this place, or the entire town went apeshit on it. Two-plus hours in which to accomplish… what?
The crowd was actually moving back, to his surprise, and then it dawned on him that the military was trying to get the rubberneckers out of the blast radius of whatever they were going to drop on this place. He wondered if he was close enough to be engulfed by whatever came streaking down from the sky. He threw the truck into park.
The PA system repeated its message. John lit one of his last two cigarettes. He twiddled with the levers on the console. He heard a humming from behind him and a shadow inched across the cab. Oh, hey, he’d figured out how to work the stupid ramp mechanism. It’d have been nice to have done that before he was forced to steal some guy’s tow truck, but that was how every single possible thing had gone so far in this situation. Just a little bit behind the curve, a little slow to figure out the right thing. Story of his fucking life.
John realized at the very least he needed to get this poor bastard’s tow truck out of the blast zone, and that leaving it here would be a major dick move considering he no longer needed it. John got out and climbed up onto the tilted truck bed, released the cable that secured the Caddie and got behind the wheel. He twisted the ignition and woke up the bear under the hood. He reversed off the truck bed, flattening out on the street below. Creedence loudly assured him that a bad moon was rising.
2 Hours, 15 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
Marconi was trying to voice another objection, but Owen wasn’t listening—his eyes never left mine. He cut off Marconi in midsentence and said, “All these people in here. All those greens. And look, you got exactly
2 Hours, 14 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
John backed up in the Caddie, and kept backing up. Farther and farther down the street, the tow truck and its tilted bed shrinking in his windshield. He stopped. He thought.
He flicked his cigarette out of the window.
He buckled his seat belt.
2 Hours, 10 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
Owen said, “Dude, this is going to be lost on you. But I need to say it. Because we are going to die, Wong. Don’t think I don’t understand that. I know the feds aren’t gonna let us outta this place. So let me say my bit. I have kept the order in this quarantine since the day the feds pussied out of here. All in all, I’d say it’s the best thing I ever done in my life. Maybe the only positive thing I’ve ever done. And that’s all right. Whether it’s bombs in here, or bein’ torn apart by the mob out there, I will stand before the good Lord and say that I held things together as long as I could. And my final act is to declare you guilty, for the deaths of thirty men and women, and the probable deaths of two hundred and seventy more. I find you guilty of committing the only real sin Jesus ever asked us not to commit: the sin of not giving a shit about anyone but yourself. Doc, step aside.”
From behind Owen, somebody said, “They’re having a block party out there. Listen.”
“What?”
“They’re playin’ music. Creedence.”
They were turning up the volume, too. “Bad Moon Rising” swelled in the distance, getting louder and louder. And under it was another sound, a terrible noise like a mechanical Chewbacca that fell into a rock-crushing machine.
At that moment, John’s Cadillac came soaring through the air.
It cleared the first fence and
Everyone scattered. The grille of the Caddie plunged right into the middle of the bonfire, scattering smoke and flames and bones to the wind. The Cadillac finally bounced and jolted to a stop among a rain of burning human skulls.
The voice of John Fogerty garbled and died. The driver’s door opened and John flung himself out, clutching a sawed-off shotgun. He screamed, “DID SOMEBODY ORDER SOME FUCKING PRISON BREAK WITH A SIDE OF SHOTGUN?”
Guardian: Be advised, a vehicle has breached the quarantine fence along the western side. I repeat, a vehicle, appears to be a civilian passenger car, has breached the fence.
Yankee Seven-Nine: Guardian, are you we looking at containment failure here?
Guardian: Negative, uh, Yankee, the fence appears to be intact.
Yankee Seven-Nine: Okay I need clarification, Guardian, I thought you said it had been breached by a vehicle—
Guardian: Affirmative, there is a vehicle inside the fence, the driver has exited.
Yankee Seven-Nine: Then how is the fence still intact, Guardian?
Guardian: It, uh, appears he went over.
Yankee Seven-Nine: He what?
Guardian: Yankee, I think he ramped it. There’s a… some kind of truck with a platform on the back and I think he used it as a ramp.
Yankee Seven-Nine: All right, did you say you had a clear shot at the driver?
2 Hours, 5 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
John grabbed my shoulders and screamed into my face. “DAVE! ARE YOU IN THERE? IT’S ME. JOHN. I AM YOUR FRIEND. CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
“Why are you talking like that?”
I looked inside the Caddie. John had come alone.
“Where’s Amy?”
