Nuclear Survival: Western Strength (Book 2): Shelter In Place Page 3

  Lainey’s hand flew out and she braced herself as the van bounced to a stop. “Whose car is that? A neighbor?”

  Keith spoke through clenched teeth. “Not even close.”

  Chapter Four

  KEITH

  Keith’s Apartment Garage

  Los Angeles, CA

  Tuesday, 4:30 p.m. PST

  Of all the people. Keith drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Daphne was the last person he expected to see when he pulled into his apartment complex. Maybe old Mrs. Patterson from downstairs with her five cats despite the building’s max limit of two, or the couple with the newborn who always struggled with their car seat. But the woman who’d broken up with him the day everything went to hell? Not a chance.

  He eased the van into the first open space and turned it off. If Daphne had been there ever since she closed the UCLA library, then he probably had no food left to share. And she wouldn’t take kindly to a pair of strange men and another ex-girlfriend. He let out a frustrated sigh and pushed open the driver’s door.

  She should have known from one look at the place that Keith wasn’t coming back. He’d packed everything useful he could carry and left the dregs. Why did she stay?

  Bear clambered forward, climbing over the console to jump down at his feet. He spun in a circle, tail thumping against the side of the van. Keith smiled through his irritation. “It’s good to be home, isn’t it buddy?” He scratched Bear behind the ear as the dog yipped in agreement. “Let’s go break the news, huh?”

  Daphne never cared for Bear or any of Keith’s friends. He imagined the look on her face when he opened the door and invited three other people into his studio apartment: pouting lips, slanted brows, cheeks warming with anger.

  The place barely fit two adults and a dog. Five would be a challenge.

  He motioned toward the stairwell and Lainey, Owen, and Jerry followed. Bear led the way, straining against the leash. Telling everyone about Daphne would be the sensible thing to do, but how? Hey guys, my ex-girlfriend is up there and she’s going to be a total you-know-what. He could hear Jerry’s response now. “Another ex?”

  Keith clenched his jaw and said nothing.

  As they reached the third floor and Keith’s hall, Bear slowed. Keith collided with the dog, tripping over his backside as the animal stuck his nose up in the air. His lips inflated and deflated against his jaw as he sniffed and sniffed. “What is it, boy? Smell something?”

  Keith tugged on the leash. Bear leaned back, haunches engaged.

  “Is something the matter?” Lainey cocked her head.

  “I don’t know.” Keith took another step down the hall. “Come on, buddy. I’ve still got some treats and food inside. I know you’re hungry.”

  A low growl rumbled up from Bear’s chest. What the— Bear never growled at the air.

  “Something’s got him spooked.” Jerry eased a few steps down the hall, scoping it out. “But I don’t see anything.”

  “There must be a smell we can’t make out. Probably a burned dinner or a runaway cat.” Keith pulled harder. “Bear, come.”

  The dog took a halting step forward.

  “Bear, come!” Keith tried again.

  Bear’s lips twitched and he growled louder.

  “He’s never like this.” Lainey wrapped her arms around her middle. “Maybe we should leave.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Owen pushed his glasses up his nose. “We’re not going to walk down a hallway because a dog growled?”

  “You don’t know Bear.”

  “He’s a dog. Keith’s right. It’s got be a rogue smell. Maybe a neighbor forgot to take out the trash and it’s stinking up the place.”

  Lainey shook her head. “Bear wouldn’t growl unless he thought we were in danger.”

  Keith eased into a crouch beside his dog. Any other time, he would agree with Lainey. But they were inside an apartment building hallway. All the doors appeared closed and the place seemed secure. It didn’t track. He looked into his dog’s eyes. “What is it, buddy? What’s got you so spooked?”

  Bear lowered into a down position, snout pointed down the hall. His thighs quivered.

  “Whatever it is, he’s not moving. How about we split up?” Owen offered. “Two of us stay here, two of us check it out?”

  “I can stay with Bear.” Lainey lowered herself to Keith’s level. “He trusts me.”

  Keith thought it over. He couldn’t send Owen and Jerry to his apartment. Daphne would never let them in. But Owen had a point; they couldn’t leave and they couldn’t stand in the hall cajoling a golden retriever forever. He stood with a nod. “I’ll go.”

  “So will I. The sooner I can power up my tablet, the sooner we can figure out what the heck is going on.” Owen flashed an irritated smile. The guy had even less patience than Bear when he wanted breakfast.

  Keith turned to Jerry. “You comfortable hanging back?”

  The older man’s shoulders heaved. “Don’t see why not.”

  “All right. Let’s do this.” Keith gave Lainey an encouraging nod and turned toward the hall. After five steps, Bear barked. Keith ignored it. Another few feet and the dog barked again, higher pitched and almost frantic. Keith kept walking. As he neared his apartment door, Lainey cried out.

  Bear rushed down the hall in a blur of flying fur and snarling teeth. He slammed into Keith, all paws and mass. Keith stumbled back, arms raised in self-defense. He shouted at the animal, “Bear, down!” The dog landed hard on the floor and shook his head before spinning around and facing Keith’s apartment door. He snarled and bared his teeth.

  “What the—”

  Lainey closed the distance between them, out of breath and shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hold him.” She held up her hands. Red welts tracked across her palms. “Leash burn.”

  Keith didn’t know what to do. Bear stood between him and the door to his apartment, growling and grimacing like a predator waited on the other side of the solid core. A shiver crossed through Keith and he reached for the gun tucked into his waistband. Bear wouldn’t react like this to Daphne.

  Someone else had to be inside. Someone the dog thought of as a threat. He fished his keys out of his pocket and handed them to Lainey. “You open the door.” He bent down and grabbed the leash, wrapping it around his left hand. “Bear and I will check it out.”

  Lainey did as instructed, fingers shaking as she inserted the keys into the lock. She stood to the side, stretching out so only her hands were in view once the door opened. Bear snarled, head bowed and body tense. Keith brought the gun up into a firing position as Lainey turned the handle on the door.

  The door swung and Keith choked on the smell.

  “Oh my—” Owen staggered back, mouth agape and eyes wide.

  Lainey covered her nose and mouth with her arm.

  Whatever was inside the apartment wasn’t a threat. Not anymore. Only one thing smelled that noxious and repulsive: death. Keith eased into the apartment, Bear tight against him, still vibrating with energy and instinct. Evidence of Daphne was everywhere. Her purse on the kitchen counter. Shoes kicked off on the floor beside the couch. Rumpled bed she never made when she slept over.

  But the apartment was empty. Where was she?

  Bear growled again and Keith turned. The bathroom. He tightened his grip on Bear’s leash as he came back to the entrance and the single bathroom tucked into the hall just past the front door. The dog snapped and snarled and shook his head like he’d been infected with rabies and all he could do was attack. Keith held him back and reached for the door handle.

  “Are you sure—”

  Keith didn’t wait for Lainey to finish. He had to know. As the door eased open, Bear lost his mind, barking and lunging and straining against his collar. Daphne was still there. At least what was left of her.

  Gasps and shocked murmurs rose up behind him. Someone rushed past him. Retching noises came from the kitchen.

  Keith blinked again and again, unable to proce
ss the scene before him. Daphne’s crumpled body lay on the floor of the bathroom. A congealed puddle of blood, urine, and God knew what else hugged her fetal form. Massive sores spread across her scalp where huge chunks of hair used to be.

  She’d died a horrible, agonizing death in his apartment. Waiting for him to come home.

  He stumbled into the main living area, dragging Bear with him. The dog protested, barking and snapping as Keith pulled him back. “Open the door to the balcony. I’ve got to get him outside.”

  Lainey rushed over to the door and yanked it open. Keith dragged the dog out onto the concrete. As soon as the outside air filled his lungs, Bear stopped growling. Foamy spit coated his jowls and his sides heaved from exhaustion. The smell of such a horrible death had triggered his base animal instincts, all adrenaline and fear.

  Keith knelt in front of his dog and smoothed the fur over his head. “It’s okay, buddy. We aren’t going to get sick. I promise we can’t catch what she had.” The words meant nothing to Bear, but Keith’s tone calmed him and after a few minutes of rubbing his head and sides, the dog calmed. Keith stood. Bear clambered up with him.

  “I’m sorry, but you have to stay out here.” Keith held out a hand like a stop sign. “I’ll clean up and then you can come back in, okay?”

  “I’ll stay with him.” Lainey stood on the other side of Bear, holding onto the balcony railing.

  Owen crowded in next to her, trying to escape the horror of what lay inside. His skin looked almost greenish in the outside light. “If I stay out here, I can use my solar charger and start working on everyone’s batteries.” He glanced back inside. “I don’t know if I can handle that.”

  Keith nodded. Daphne wasn’t their problem. She was his. He handed Bear’s leash over to Lainey. “Yell if he’s causing a problem. It’s… going to take a while.”

  “Is that—” She didn’t finish the question.

  He nodded. “She must have been close to the blast and came here after…” Why he would never know. Keith pinched the back of his neck, hard. Processing what happened was impossible right now. Not with Daphne’s body putrefying in a sea of bodily fluid in his bathroom.

  Lainey reached out and squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.” Keith turned back toward the apartment’s interior and eased the door to the balcony shut behind him.

  Jerry stood in the kitchen with an assortment of cleaning products and trash bags lined up on the counter. “You’re going to need some help.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to. The sooner we take care of it, the sooner we can regroup and plan what to do next.”

  Keith ran a hand down his face. Even after seeing the bright light of the bomb and racing to hide in the courthouse, it didn’t seem real. When they emerged from the safety of the sealed-up building, he could almost pretend nothing was wrong. Maybe a power outage or a minor earthquake. Not a nuclear bomb. Not the end of the modern world.

  But Daphne…

  He dropped his hand. Daphne made it all too real. He pointed toward the bed. “We can use the comforter to wrap her up. The dumpster is out back.”

  Chapter Five

  LAINEY

  Keith’s Apartment

  Los Angeles, CA

  Tuesday, 5:30 p.m. PST

  Lainey ran her hand through Bear’s fur for the hundredth time. The dog didn’t like being separated from Keith, but Lainey managed to keep him calm. She’d been in Keith’s life when he was small, and although he’d always been Keith’s dog, she loved Bear and always would.

  She twisted around and held her hand up to her face to block the sun, but it was no use. Glare reflected off the door and obscured the apartment interior. Not that it mattered. She would never forget the sight of Daphne’s body.

  Based on the speed of her demise, the woman must have been outside near the blast when the worst of the fallout descended back to earth. Why? It didn’t make any sense.

  Lainey thought back to their encounter in the UCLA library. Daphne hadn’t believed them at first and had blown Keith off as a jilted lover who wanted her back. But by the end…She accepted the truth, didn’t she?

  The stench wafted through the crack in the door and Lainey’s lips pulled into a frown. Based on the library book Daphne helped her find, only extreme levels of radiation exposure caused death in a handful of days. Nausea came on within hours, followed by vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite, and dizziness. Daphne would have been disoriented, unable to keep down any fluids, and feverish.

  Judging by the degradation of her skin, she’d also suffered ulcers and open wounds, hair loss, and extreme fatigue. Lainey closed her eyes. What a painful and gruesome end. She scrunched further down in the patio chair and rested her hand on Bear’s back. He lay beside her, soaking up the afternoon sun.

  Was it even safe to be inside? Keith and Jerry were knee-deep in bodily fluids, cleaning up Daphne’s remains. Did she carry any bits of radiation with her? Were microscopic particles of fallout all over the apartment? It didn’t take much to make a person sick. Before they settled down inside, every surface would need to be wiped down, cleaned, and all the bedding thrown away. She hoped Keith still had a cordless vacuum.

  It was disgusting, her ability to focus on the practical details at the expense of her feelings. But wasn’t that what reporters did? A journalist’s personal feelings weren’t supposed to matter. She was supposed to be an impartial conduit, just a means of fact delivery from the source to the people. It didn’t make her feel any better. Daphne was still dead and Lainey still worried about herself.

  She opened her eyes to find Owen hovering over an unfolded set of panels, squinting up at the afternoon sun. She wasn’t sure what to make of the guy. Over the past three days, everyone had opened up, sharing stories about their childhoods and current jobs, their hopes and dreams and what they wanted to do now that everything had gone down the tubes.

  Of the four of the them, Owen had the most technical skills. He worked in the production room of the network, ensuring the broadcasts went out live and without interruption or too much delay. But he couldn’t have weighed more than Lainey herself and never seemed to take the initiative when their safety might be in question.

  Lainey shook off the spiraling negativity. She couldn’t fault a guy who probably still fit inside a high school locker for not taking a stand. Computer skills were still useful in this new world. She eased forward in her seat. “What is that?”

  Owen kept his eyes trained on the sun. “A solar charger. I need to position it to absorb maximum light. It’s tricky this time of day.”

  The solar panels were hooked up to a rectangular block of metal. “Is that a battery?”

  He nodded. “Once it’s fully charged, I can charge my tablet and phone. Yours too. We can get online and see what it’s like out there.”

  Lainey perked up. “Do you think the cell network will work?” She peered over the railing to stare out at a tiny fraction of Los Angeles. “There’s no power on this block.”

  “It might. If not, I can use the satellite on the KSBF van. Should be able to recalibrate it and piggyback off the signal.”

  “You can do that?” Lainey only knew the basics about the way in which the network broadcast. It never occurred to her the van could be useful after the bombs detonated for more than a vehicle.

  “It’s possible, at least.” Owen plugged his tablet into the battery, tapping his finger against the frame until the screen powered on. After a few minutes of typing and waiting and staring at the screen, he slumped back in his chair. “The cell network’s down.”

  Lainey exhaled in disappointment. She’d expected as much, but the truth still stung. “That leaves the van?”

  “I won’t be able to do it alone. After we get the van in position, someone will need to move the satellite dish while I work on reconfiguring the settings.”

  “I can help.”

  “What about him?” Owen pointed at Bear, now loungin
g in relative calm at Lainey’s feet.

  She hesitated. The dog wouldn’t like going back inside, but she couldn’t leave him on a balcony three stories up, either. “He can come with us and keep watch while we’re working.”

  “Can you even get him through the apartment?”

  “We’ll have to risk it.” Lainey rubbed Bear’s back and cooed at him. “You’ll be a good boy, right?”

  His tail thumped against the balcony concrete. Lainey hated to put him through any more trauma. The dog had practically lost it over the smell of a decaying corpse. What would he do on the second pass?

  Owen gathered his gear. Lainey kept a hand on Bear, soothing his nerves as she thought over a means to exit the apartment. Keith’s place was shaped like a rectangular lollipop: open living area with a hallway and a bathroom leading to the front door. It wouldn’t be easy to avoid the smell, but they could leave the balcony door open and hug the far wall.

  “Ready?”

  Lainey stood up. “It’s worth a shot.” She wrapped her hand around Bear’s leash like Keith had done outside the apartment door and sucked in a lungful of air. “You go first, I’ll follow. We need to run. It’ll distract Bear from the smell.”

  Owen slipped his messenger bag over his head and gripped it to his chest. “I’ll go as fast as I can and meet you at the door to the stairwell.” He squared his shoulders and tugged the door open.

  Bear scrambled up, instantly on alert. Lainey didn’t give him time to freak out. She yanked on the leash, pulling him after Owen. The dog hesitated at first, a rumble beginning once again in his chest, but Lainey talked to him, cooing and reassuring him with her voice as she half-walked and half-ran toward the far door.

  The bathroom door was shut and the apartment sat empty. Keith and Jerry must have been taking a load to the trash. Lainey wanted to leave a note, some means of explaining why they left, but she couldn’t stop. Bear shook by her side, head swiveling as she rushed to the door. It stood open and Lainey darted through it, hauling Bear behind her.