Chapter Four
THIS AREA UNDER QUARANTINE – Trespassers will be subject to detainment and decontamination [Signage posted in Brentwood, CA, 3/30/05]
In the irrigated fields outside of Lost Hills they saw people moving sluggishly through the crops. Never more than one or two at a time, all of them headed toward town.
Shar stirred restlessly in Nilla’s arms. The sight of the undead girl being beaten to death had really shaken her. “They’re going to come for me next,” she had kept sobbing, though Charles and Nilla had both pointed out there was no reason to think such a thing. Nilla had a very good reason to think it would be otherwise but she kept it to herself.
After a few minutes of sheer hysteria and Charles constantly telling her to shut up Shar had demanded that he stop the car right in the middle of the road. There was no traffic. She had come around to the back of the car and crawled in with Nilla, who could hardly refuse to put her arms around the frightened girl.
“I need to call my mom,” she said from time to time. Sitting up in the seat she stared out the window at a man wearing nothing but a baggy t-shirt. He was wandering through a stand of avocado trees, the branches smacking him in the face but he paid no attention. “Do you think—is he one of them?” Shar asked.
“Holmes is just loaded, Shar,” Charles chortled over the back seat. “He’s all crunked up, you know what I’m saying?”
“I need to go home now, Charles,” Shar said so quietly he couldn’t have heard her. The windows of the little Toyota rattled whenever he took the car over forty miles per hour and he refused to turn down the radio so any conversation between the three of them had to be shouted. Nilla opened her mouth but Shar shook her head in negation. “No. No, I’m just practicing. I could make him take me home if I really wanted. Charles wanted to go to Hollywood, but I talked him out of it,” Shar said, looking up into Nilla’s face.
The girl was scared shitless and a little traumatized. Nilla wondered how she would react if she ever saw one of the dead face to face. “Yeah?” Nilla asked, her voice a soft purr. Maybe she had been a nurturing person in her life or maybe it was just natural instinct but she knew what it took to comfort the girl. She brushed Shar’s hair away from her forehead. Hunger stabbed her in the stomach and told her it was time to eat but she sucked in her belly and refused to entertain the notion. “Why did he want to do that?”
“He thought we could find some movie star, or maybe a singer, and save them from the sick people and then they would be so grateful they would let us stay with them and we wouldn’t have to worry about money.”
Nilla nodded as if this made perfect sense. “But then you heard on the radio that you should stay away from Los Angeles.”
Shar nodded and rubbed anxiously at her nose. “I think maybe I should sit up now. Up front, I mean.” She stared deep into Nilla’s eyes and shot her a microsecond smile. “Thanks,” she said. “I got so scared.”
“It happens.” Charles pulled over on the side of the road so Shar could get back in the passenger’s seat. As she was climbing out of the car the girl brought her face close to Nilla’s ear. Nilla closed her eyes to better hear what Shar might say.
“Don’t hate me, okay? But you really need some deodorant.”
They didn’t stop for Bakersfield, though Shar and Charles argued about whether they should until long after they’d passed through the sprawling downtown. Charles got them onto Route 58 after only a few tries and before they knew it they were in the middle of farmland again. Relief overcame Nilla and she shuddered. She really didn’t want to stop anywhere populated again but even so Bakersfield looked untouched by the dead. Maybe it was just a local phenomenon. Maybe if she got far enough east she would be safe. Was that what her mysterious benefactor on the hill was trying to tell her?
About ten miles past the last houses of the city they started seeing cars coming from the other direction, headed west. A station wagon flashed its lights as it sped by them and Charles looked pensive. “Yeah, fuck you too, grandma,” he said, and chewed on the hair of his lower lip. When they started to see exit signs of Tehachapi it happened again, this time with a Mazda Miata. A third car honked its horn at them repeatedly.
Nilla stared through the windshield and saw the driver emphatically shaking her head and waving a hand to tell them to stop. “Charles, maybe we should slow down,” Nilla suggested.
“Yeah, and maybe you should just sit there and not talk to me right now,” he said, turning in his seat, the seat belt tugging at the skin of his neck. She had a momentary pang of desire—she really wanted to put her teeth in that throat of his—but she fought it down. “I’m kind of busy, and you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry, okay, ho?”
Nilla crossed her arms and looked away.
They started to see more traffic heading east and Charles had to slow down anyway to match the prevailing speed. The lanes heading west grew packed and drew to a standstill. Charles switched off the radio and squinted at the road. He didn’t like what was going on but he’d already told Nilla to shut up and he didn’t want to show any signs of weakness.
Many of the cars they passed honked their horns now and occasionally someone would lean out their window to shout at them. Nilla couldn’t understand them—they were moving too fast. She found a map in the pocket of the seat in front of her and pulled it out. Just east of Tehachapi… there. Brown blotches surrounded the road on either side. She studied the tiny print.
Edwards Air Force Base. China Lake Naval Weapons Center. Fort Irwin Military Reserve. Twenty-nine Palms Marine Corps Base. It looked like the Armed Forces owned all the land between them and Nevada. She remembered the man in the Army uniform, the one who had almost presided over her execution.
“Charles, listen to me—we have to get off this road!” she shouted. The boy sneered and showed her one fist. He didn't want to hear her but she was far more worried about falling afoul of the Army. “Charles! There’s a roadblock, that’s what’s happening. Do you really want the Marines to ask you why you’re running away from home?” It was a bluff—she still didn’t understand what had made him flee his hometown—but it had to be at least partially right.
He started to grumble again but Shar sat up straight in her seat and looked right at him. It kept him from growling, anyway. The girl put a hand on his arm and stroked it gently. “They’ll split us up. They’ll find out I’m underage.”
He lowered his head and refused to look away from the road. Nilla didn’t have time to argue anymore. “There’s a road—route 14. We can turn off at a town called Mojave.” It wasn’t a great solution—it would take them along the edge of China Lake—but it would get them out of immediate danger.
Charles still refused to respond and she had to content herself with staring at the back of his head and imagining what would happen if the Army found her. They wouldn’t fall for her trick again, would they? Even if they did there was no way Charles and Shar would let her stay in their car once they knew her secret.
Come on, Charles, she thought. Come on.
The big green signs for the exits at Mojave came up on the side of the road and Nilla had never wanted anything so much in her life. At least as far as she could remember.
