Of course she wouldn’t do that. What was he thinking? And if this really was a way in, wasn’t it a good thing it looked completely untouched?
“Right,” he said, then added, “I’m sorry.”
He turned the Accord onto the path.
Chloe guided him through a slalom course of trees, taking them deeper and deeper into the woods. Keeping their speed to a crawl, Ash still managed to scrape the sides a few times.
After they’d been going like that for about fifteen minutes, Chloe said, “You should turn the car around here. I’ll get out and guide you. Then we’ll walk the rest of the way.”
It took a little effort, but with Chloe’s help, Ash was able to get the sedan pointed back in the direction they’d come.
Once out of the car, he went around to the trunk and opened the weapons case Pax had given him. He grabbed one of the guns, then spent a few minutes filling its mag and the three spares. When he was done with that, he almost shut the case. Instead, he reached in and grabbed the box of little bangs before closing it up.
Chloe had been standing nearby the whole time, watching him. He wasn’t sure if she’d been expecting him to give her a gun, but she didn’t ask and he didn’t offer.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They hiked for a quarter of an hour, then as they approached a ridge, Chloe motioned for him to get down on his hands and knees. When they reached the top, they dropped to their stomachs and looked down into the tree-filled valley.
At first, Ash thought it was as empty as the forest they’d just come through, but then Chloe pointed down and to the right. About a half-mile away he saw part of a roof jutting out from the side of the hill, like the structure was built right into the earth. If there was anything else around, he couldn’t see it through the trees.
She then pointed at one of the evergreens about ten yards ahead of them, then at another about the same distance to the left, then at another and another.
“Twenty feet up,” she said.
It took him a couple seconds to see what she was talking about. Attached to each tree at the height she’d indicated were some sort of electronic devices that had been colored to blend in. If Chloe hadn’t pointed them out, he would have never noticed them.
“What are they?” he asked.
“Motion sensors. They circle the complex. You can’t see it, but another fifty feet beyond that point is a fence.”
Ash studied the area for a moment. “I take it there’s a way through there.”
Chloe shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
“But Matt told me you could get me in.”
“That’s true.”
He stared at her for a moment. “You want to stop being so cryptic?”
Several seconds passed, then she said, “This used to be an old mental hospital. It was closed sometime in the nineties and the land was turned over to the government, but don’t expect to find it in any of their records. The…others took it over and fixed it up for their own needs. It’s not one of their main facilities so they don’t always use it. But according to Matt, this is where your kids were taken.”
“You still haven’t told me how I get in.”
“There used to be a separate building where the mental hospital kept…problem patients. The building’s gone, but the foundation is still there.” She looked at Ash. “It’s outside the motion detection zone.”
“How does that help us?” Ash asked, still not following.
“They might have torn down the building, but they didn’t remove the tunnel that connected it to the main hospital.”
31
The throbbing in Paul’s knee had become so constant he almost didn’t notice it any more. He wished the same could be said for his growing thirst. His dry mouth and chapped lips were constantly nagging at him.
He’d reached the summit of the hill that marked the boundary of the quarantine zone thirty minutes earlier, but any elation he might have felt had been tempered by the miles of open desert that still stretched before him.
He coughed a couple times, then glanced down at his gas gauge. The needle was hovering just above E. He’d be walking soon, and in his condition, he wouldn’t be walking far. If only he could find a road, hopefully someone would drive by and see him. Or perhaps it was his lot to die out here like his brother and his girlfriend. The only difference being that his fate would be delivered by the elements, not a slug of lead.
The ground was rising again in front of him like a gentle swell in the middle of a dirt ocean. As he did every time he neared a crest, he prayed that he’d finally see a road on the other side, anything that would give him a chance.
“This time,” he began repeating. “This time. This time. This time.”
Just before he actually reached the top, he steeled himself and prepared to see nothing. He was so sure that was exactly what would happen, that even as he stared at the distant highway, it took a moment before he realized what it was.
He stopped the bike, his good foot planting on the ground. Was the highway real? Maybe the pain and the dust and the lack of water were making him see things. He wanted to believe, but…could he?
His eyes followed the road, then his breath caught in his throat.
Not five miles away, he saw a handful of buildings grouped together. Parked around them appeared to be several cars and a couple of buses. He blinked. The buildings were still there. The cars and the buses were still there.
Finally allowing himself a smile, he started down the hill. He was tempted to open the bike up all the way, but he knew even five miles might be too far for the fumes left in his gas tank. So he eased all the way back on the accelerator and let the bike roll free down the hill.
He was laughing as he neared the bottom, his hand poised to feed the rest of the gas into the engine as soon as his speed started to slow. That’s when he heard it. The thumping.
He didn’t need to look back to know what was there, but he did anyway.
Two helicopters, like black blots against the western afternoon sky.
There was no doubt in his mind that these were the same two that had come to the canyon that morning, that had brought the men who had killed two of the people he loved most. And though he was out of the quarantine zone, he knew they were here to kill him, too.
He jammed on the gas and shot toward the buildings, already knowing they were too far away and that the helicopters would reach him first.
If only he hadn’t stopped at the top of the ridge. If only he hadn’t fallen off the bike and hurt his knee. If only he hadn’t delayed himself a half dozen other times. But he couldn’t change any of that now.
The only thing he could do was ride.
Martina Gable and the rest of the Burroughs High School softball team were doing what they’d been doing for the last day and a half. Nothing.
They’d been heading home in a school bus from a tournament in Reno, Nevada, when the quarantine had been imposed over much of the Mojave Desert, including their hometown of Ridgecrest. Unfortunately, one of the girls was pumping a steady mix of pop from her iPod through the bus’s sound system, so no one had been listening to the radio at the time. But why would they have done that? They’d come in second in the tournament, much better than they’d hoped, so they had reason to enjoy themselves on the way home.
Ten miles past Cryer’s Corner, they reached the roadblock and learned for the first time what was going on. Initially, there’d been panic and fear, of course. But when they went back to Cryer’s Corner-not much more than a wide spot in the road with a cafe, a gas station, and a small convenience store-they were able to use the land
