Part 29 (2/2)
”Maybe you'd better back up and explain what's going on.”
”How about some hot tea?” suggested Lauren. ”And we can leave you guys to catch up?”
”That'd be great.”
Susie nodded and picked up Ellarose from the bed.
While the girls took the kids and left to get some tea and breakfast, I started explaining to Chuck how neighborhood watches were evolving on the meshnet, the emergency service tools, and how we were keeping a record of everything that happened out there on centralized laptops like Vince's.
”So you managed to go and get more of that food?”
Food was a topic never far from anyone's mind.
With the emergency centers quarantined, the trickle of new food had come to a halt. We'd even emptied all the ketchup and mustard bottles scrounged from the apartments, all of which had been opened and plundered for whatever we could find.
Hunger had a way of focusing the mind on every crumb of sustenance, and you couldn't help going and looking to see if something had been overlooked, or some corner forgotten.
”We have about three days of food left at starvation rations,” I explained. We'd become experts at rationing out calories. ”I went out at night, with darkness for safety, using the night-vision goggles and augmented-reality gla.s.ses to get around.”
”You did what? I leave you guys alone for a few days-”
I smiled. ”And something else.”
”Eggs and bacon?”
I shook my head, still smiling. ”I wish.”
”So?”
”The kid figured a way to get your truck down.”
”Time to get out of here, huh?”
I nodded.
”So what's the idea?”
I started to explain Vince's plan, but before I could finish there was a loud commotion in the main hallway.
”Mike! Chuck!” yelled Vince.
Getting up, I opened the bedroom door, and Vince's head appeared again through the main doorway.
”They're all dead.”
”Who's dead?” I asked, horrified, imagining a flash cholera outbreak that had wiped out everyone in quarantine. ”The first floor?”
Vince's head sagged.
”The second floor. I just went to check on them, and they're all dead.” He stared at me. ”They had a kerosene heater, cranked all the way up with all the windows shut.”
I'd been down and visited them just the day before, and they'd been heating their place with an electric generator outside their window, just like us.
”Where'd they get the kerosene heater?”
”I don't know, but we have a bigger problem.”
A bigger problem than nine dead people?
The look in Vince's eyes made my stomach knot painfully.
”Paul's on the move.”
Day 18 January 9.
”THEY'RE COMING.”
My stomach growled.
In a crazy part of my mind I hoped they were bringing food.
If we have to fight, at least there should be a food prize at the end of it. A random, illogical thought-like realizing you could s.h.i.+ft the wheel and slam into oncoming traffic when you were driving. I usually had no idea why thoughts like this came to mind. They just did.
This time I knew why.
It was crowding out the thought that I was being hunted, that my family was being hunted.
Hunger crept into every thought. I was steadily eating less and less, making a show to Lauren of pretending to eat, but stas.h.i.+ng away my crumbs and bits and pieces.
When Luke and I would play in the hallway, I'd produce my hidden treats for him to squeals of excitement. Anything was worth seeing a smile on his little face.
”Are you paying attention?” asked Chuck. ”It looks like there are six of them.”
I nodded, watching a collection of dots begin to move across Vince's laptop screen, and then popped a gla.s.s bead from a decorative bowl on the kitchen counter into my mouth and began sucking on it.
A cold wind blew in from the open window in Chuck's bedroom.
The girls and children had already gone out through there onto the neighboring rooftop, and Vince was just helping Irena and Aleksandr out. From there we could go down the back fire escape and reenter our building at a lower level through exterior doors we'd left ajar.
We were going to trap Paul and his gang. The hunters were becoming the hunted.
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