State of Emergency

Chris flashes a smug grin.

“Thankfully, I’m in great shape, so if you collapse with exhaustion, I’ll be more than happy to carry you all the way there.”

I whack him on the arm.

“Sure you will,” I mumble. “And then what are you going to do? Bug out with your little brother and leave me in the middle of the wilderness?”

He raises his eyebrows.

“What happens, happens,” he says.

I open my mouth to say something sarcastic and brilliant before I close it again. I don’t have to reply. It’s not worth it.

“Ease up, kid,” he advises, pulling his tee-shirt off. “We got a long way to go and you’re going to want to stick with me.”

I press my back against the trunk and stare, his muscular upper body taking center stage in my brain for a moment.

“What?” I say, absent.

“Forget it,” Chris replies.

I notice a tattoo of a vicious cobra around his left bicep. He’s also wearing a gold chain around his neck. “See something of interest?” he asks, the corners of his lips curving upward.

I clear my throat.

“No. Put a shirt on, will you? It’s not polite,” I say, popping the trunk open. The cold air does a lot to cool the rush of blood to my cheeks. Apparently being trapped within three feet of a hot, shirtless guy does things to my blood pressure.

Go figure.

“How’s your arm doing?” I ask, hoping he doesn’t notice my now-rosy cheeks.

“Fine. Healing up.”

Chris hops out of the car, wearing a tight black tee. He pulls his hair back and throws his backpack over his shoulder, looking ready to punch somebody out. Or maybe that’s his happy face. I don’t know.

“You got any breakfast in that magic pack of yours?” he asks, nodding to my backpack.

“A little.” I unzip the top, pulling out a high-nutrient protein bar. We split it just as the rain subsides enough to allow walking in it. “Tastes kind of like paper.”

I chew it slowly, contemplating how disgusting it tastes in comparison to scrambled eggs and bacon. Chris is thinking the same thing because he says, “That’s probably the crappiest thing I’ve ever tasted. Then again, I’ve eaten bugs before so maybe not.”

I pretend to gag.

“You’ve eaten bugs?”

He nods.

“Intentionally?” I ask.

“For training.”

I shake my head.

“You really are insane.” I spread my hands apart. “Well, fearless leader, shall we begin our long march towards destiny?”

Chris looks a little a

“Yeah. Let’s do that, kid.”

And so we begin a boring, flat, wet, cold, miserable and bleak walk across an abandoned interstate. It bothers me that with all of the cars everywhere, there aren’t any people. It makes me wonder if there are more dead bodies hidden around someplace.

“Chris?” I ask. “Do you think we’re being invaded?”

To my surprise, he doesn’t make a smart remark or laugh. Instead he thinks it over before answering, “It’s possible. But how could an army invade so quickly, kill a bunch of people, and then disappear? Where are their vehicles? Why aren’t we seeing them out in the open?” He stops and sighs, frustrated. “This whole damn thing doesn’t make any sense.”

I agree. An EMP, a bunch of dead bodies at the rest stop…maybe that’s why all the people who mobbed us in the Mustang were so freaked out. Maybe they’d seen something. Something bad. Something that had to do with the body bags at the bottom of the mountain.

“I don’t know what to think,” I complain. “My dad always believed that a natural disaster or something was what we were supposed to be prepared for. But this is not what I had in mind.”

“It took everyone by surprise,” Chris replies.

The rain starts to fall harder, making my crappy day even crappier. The only thing I have going for me is my waterproof jacket, but I’m still cold enough to freeze upright.

 “I’m going to need more water,” I say. “I’m getting dehydrated.”

“Open your mouth,” he advises. “It is raining, you know.”

I wrinkle my nose.

“Yeah, I noticed that.” I stick my tongue out, catching a few raindrops. “Hey, we should try the radio again. Maybe we’ll get a signal down here.”

Chris shrugs.

“Go ahead.”

 I stop and pull the radio out of my backpack. It’s waterproof, so the rain won’t ruin it. After a few minutes of cranking — and wondering why Chris doesn’t offer to do it since he has muscles the size of tree trunks — I flip the radio on.

The first three stations are dead — not even static. The fourth one has a flickering voice we can’t make out. The fifth one is a recitation of the same audio loop I heard up at the gas station in Santa Clarita.  Emergency camps in Elk Grove, Bakersfield, San Jose, Fresno, etc.

I turn it off.

“Great. All the radio stations are down,” I say.

“They’re just looping the same audio,” Chris muses. “Which means there’s nobody there anymore. As soon as they lose power wherever the emergency broadcast center is, it’ll go out, too.”

I sigh.

“That’s cheery news.”

I shove the radio back into my pack, disappointed. I’d hoped to hear a radio a

Fat chance.

We keep walking. I follow behind Chris with my mouth hanging open half the time, trying to get some of the rain on my tongue. I probably look like a lunatic, but I’m thirsty so I don’t really care.

“We’re going to run out of food and water before we reach Squaw Valley,” I say at last, having avoided the subject for about twenty-four hours. “You know that, right?”

“I know.”

“Then we need to stop at one of those emergency camps,” I reply. “There’s one in Bakersfield. That’s only about forty miles from here.”

Chris shakes his head.

“No,” he says, his voice firm. “Going into a camp like that is not a good idea. Besides, there are more than enough grocery stores and restaurants to raid at this point.”

“But why not try the camps? They’ll have supplies. Clean clothes. Real food.” I shiver. “And probably space heaters.”

“Bad idea,” he insists. “The less people know about who we are where we’re going, the better.”

“But they can help us!”

“No, Cassidy. It’s not safe.”

I kick a piece of trash across the freeway, finding it very difficult not to jump on Chris and literally knock some sense into his head. What does he have against getting a little help? Is this just a guy thing?

“Who put you in charge?” I demand. “Last I checked, I’m the one who gave you a ride in my Mustang.”

“Last I checked, I know more about surviving in war zones than you do,” he replies, nonchalant. “Which is pretty much where we find ourselves, little girl.”

Little girl? Oh, no he didn’t!

“You do not tell me what to do,” I say, angry. “I don’t care how many years you were a Navy Seal. I want to go to the Emergency Camp, and I’m going. You want to bypass it? Fine. I’ll go by myself.”

He stops, pushing stray hairs out of his face.

“Have it your way,” he answers, prowling ahead. “I don’t give a damn.”

I glare at him, my mind made up.

If he doesn’t want to cooperate, he doesn’t have to.

I’ll just be an army of one.

Chapter Seven

Long story short, it takes us about two and a half days to get to Bakersfield. By the time I drag my sorry butt to the other side of the city limit line, I’m willing to take anything — even a skateboard — over my aching feet. I’m soaked to the bone, freezing, starving, half mad with dehydration, and the headache I had in the Grapevine is back in full force, slamming against my skull like a sledgehammer.

As for Chris, he and I went for about twenty-four hours without speaking.

Well, I guess I went without speaking while he carried one-way conversations. Anyway, by this point we are both so hungry and cold that Chris has agreed to scope out the Emergency Camp — but only on the condition that we don’t show ourselves unless we’re positive that it’s safe.