The Junkie Quatrain (2 page)

Nothing. Just the wet sounds of hunger.

The alley came out into a small parking lot surrounded by chain link fences. There was another avenue between the buildings on the far side of the lot. She moved out into the next street.

* * *

She walked for another hour. A pair of sleeping junkies beneath the 10 freeway caused a detour. A handful of half-eaten bodies spread across the road caused another. Death was commonplace, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

The sun was high in the sky when she heard the gasp.

Holly had stopped to tighten one of her boot laces when there was a sharp intake of air off to her side. The road was narrower here, more so because of the cars parked on either side. There was a mini-van with an open side door. She’d ignored it because junkies couldn’t stand confined spaces. Stupid mistake.

She threw herself to the ground, away from the mini-van, and reached for the holster. There was no time for the bat. There might not even be time to draw.

The other woman saw the holster and threw her hands in the air. ‘Don’t shoot,’ she yelled. ‘I’m not one of them.’ The Victoria’s Secret catalog would’ve called her full-figured. Her clothes were clean and her dirty-blond hair was cut just above her shoulders.

Holly had already rolled back to her feet. She slapped her hand over the woman’s mouth and pushed her against the side of the van. Holly’s neighbors in San Diego had the same car in silver. They used to, anyway.

The woman struggled for a moment until Holly held up the bat. ‘Not a sound.’ It wasn’t even a whisper. Only the slightest breath carried the words. ‘Noise like that will bring every junkie for two blocks running.’

The woman gave a nod. She looked close to crying. Holly kept her palm over the woman’s mouth.

She counted to twenty in her head. No other sound. No hungry howls or trample of eager feet. No...

Snuffling echoed across the street, and then a grumble. A junkie climbed through the broken showcase window of a furniture store two doors down and across the street. A young man with dark skin. Maybe Latino or an Arab. He was barefoot, and his feet were covered with scabbed blood. They shifted left and right.

Beneath her palm, Holly felt the other woman scream.

The junkie’s eyes were dilated all the way open, black pits in his face. He tilted his head at the two women. He was small. And they outnumbered him. Fight or flight?

She took a gamble. Holly let go of the other woman’s mouth and turned to face the junkie. She raised the baseball bat in both hands, bared her teeth, and stomped her foot. His eyebrows went up at the noise. For a moment she thought she’d spooked him.

Then he charged.

The junkie threw himself across the street at them, gibbering madly. The woman screamed. Holly pulled the bat back, ready to swing.

A whipcrack echoed between the buildings and the junkie spun like he’d been punched. He dropped to the ground. Most of his head was gone above his jaw.

She pushed the woman back against the van. The other woman tried to push back and failed. ‘What’s going on?’

Holly looked her in the eyes. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Angie. Angie Smi—’

‘Angie, you need to stop talking so loud and you really need to not scream again. Got it?’

‘I just want to—’

She slapped her hand over Angie’s mouth. ‘Not so loud. The first rule of fight club is no loud noise. If you have to talk, whisper. Got it?’

Angie nodded.

Holly took her hand away.

The other woman looked out at the headless junkie. When she spoke her voice was little more than a breath. ‘How’d you do that? I didn’t even see you draw your gun.’

‘Somebody else shot him.’ Holly pointed at the puddle of blood and gore just left of the junkie’s body. ‘I’d say someone pretty high up with a rifle.’

Angie looked at the body. ‘But they killed the junkie. They’re on our side, right?’

‘Maybe,’ said Holly. ‘Maybe it’s just some outsider who got bored and decided to shoot anything that moves.’

Angie’s eyes went wide. ‘You think they might shoot us?’

Holly shrugged. ‘Head that way. Keep quiet. Stick close to the wall. Make sense?’

Angie nodded again.

‘Do you have any gear or supplies?’

‘No, nothing.’

Holly sighed. ‘Okay, then. Let’s go.’

They moved around the van and down the sidewalk. Holly let Angie go in front of her. The woman was too loud and too fast. If she was going to attract attention, Holly wanted her in front. Plus it was dangerous to let a stranger get behind you. There were too many crazy people wandering around.

Angie kept glancing back. Holly directed her with a nod or a quick gesture with the bat. They went ten blocks until she signaled they should stop.

‘Which way are we going?’ asked Angie.

‘We?’ Holly shook her head. ‘I’m headed north. I don’t know where you’re going.’

‘Can’t I come with you?’

Holly closed her eyes and shook her head again. Her fingers squeezed the bat’s handle. ‘Things ended messy with the last person I traveled with. And the person before that.’

‘I’ll be better.’ She put on a smile that wasn’t sure if it was ingratiating or sexy. ‘Two girls out conquering the world.’

‘We’ll see.’ Holly shrugged the backpack strap higher onto her shoulder. ‘How do I know you’re not just some outsider trying to grab my stuff?’

Angie laughed out loud, but slapped her hands over her mouth. ‘You think I’m an outsider?’

‘Not a very good one, but maybe. Why else would you be out?’

Her half-and-half smile faded. ‘I got thrown out of my sanctuary.’

‘Why?’

Angie gave a lopsided shrug, dipping her head toward one shoulder. ‘I like sex,’ she said.

Holly said nothing, but tightened her grip on the bat a little.

‘Not like that,’ said Angie. ‘I just like it. I have since high school. I’m not first-stage crazy or anything.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘If it’s the virus, I caught it twelve years ago in the back of Joey Frost’s pickup.’ She smiled. ‘That’s supposed to be a joke.’

‘Doesn’t sound like it ended up being that funny.’

‘Not really, no. Yesterday I said I was hungry too many times and that was that.’

Holly nodded. She’d met people tossed outside for dumber reasons over the past few weeks. ‘You have any sort of plan?’

Angie pointed north. ‘There’s another sanctuary up in Los Feliz. Some big old condo or apartment building or something, just off Hillhurst. Another one up by Runyon Canyon. I was going to try to get into one of them.’

‘How far is that?’

The blonde woman shrugged. ‘Maybe seven or eight miles. I’m not sure. Never walked it before.’

Holly looked at the sky. ‘Call it eight. We might make that by dark, if we’re lucky.’ She took a few steps up the road. ‘Lead the way.’

* * *

They marched through Hollywood, past the tall walls of film studios decorated with gigantic posters of movies and television shows. Angie talked quietly but constantly, pointing out minor landmarks or mentioning some event from her life. She was thrilled when they saw a plastic tricycle abandoned on a street corner.

‘
I worked at a Toys R Us out in the valley,’ she explained. ‘Took the train out there every day. I put bikes together.’

Holly tried to act interested. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Bikes, Big Wheels, all those wagons and little cars. Supposedly I was one of the only women in California in that position.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Well, I don’t know. The district manager was trying to get in my pants, so he mighta just been saying that.’

Holly smirked. ‘I thought you liked sex.’

‘I do,’ said Angie. ‘Doesn’t mean I’m giving it away. What about you?’

‘I used to work for Hewlett Packard down in San Diego. I sold printers.’

‘Like, computer printers?’

‘Yeah. I did all the really big accounts. Big companies. Governments. They flew me all over the place.’

‘Wow,’ said the blonde woman. ‘You ever been to England?’

‘A dozen times, easy.’

‘What about Paris?’

‘Yep.’

‘What’s the last place you got to go before...’ She gestured around them.

Holly took in a deep breath. ‘China.’

Angie whoofed out some air. ‘No way. When?’

‘I was on one of the last planes out.’

‘Wow.’

‘The sad thing is, it was probably the best trip of my life. I got a free upgrade to first class. I had a four hour layover in Hawaii and a really good-looking guy flirted with me in the bar for half of it. I closed a major deal.’ She shrugged. ‘I heard about the first few cases while I was there. It wasn’t until the day I left that I heard how bad it was getting. I got on my plane and they pretty much slammed the door behind me. I think the quarantine was declared seven or eight hours after I touched down in San Diego.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Yeah. I was lucky. I knew a couple people who weren’t. People in the China office who got trapped there.’

They walked in silence after that. The road was getting steeper as they climbed up toward the Hollywood Hills. They both saw the handmade signs at the same time.

The good Sanctuaries all looked pretty much the same. They had sheets of plywood over all the lower windows, often slipped beneath the iron bars that already protected them. One main door, usually made of expanded steel, with a big open space cleared out in front of it. Three or four sentries on duty at all times.

It was the bad ones you had to look out for. There were ones that counted on security glass or jury-rigged barriers to keep out the junkies. Word was already spreading about some that were decidedly—sometimes aggressively— racist or homophobic or orthodox for one religion or another. There were even whispered stories of gang-rape and Satanist and even cannibal Sanctuaries, but from what Holly had seen in her six weeks of traveling, they were just stories.

Of course, California was a pretty progressive state. Even when the edges had crumbled off civilization. It was probably worse in a lot of other places.

The Runyon Canyon sanctuary looked to be one of the better ones. Angie walked toward the gate and Holly grabbed her arm. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I was going to knock.’

Holly glared at her. ‘You want to get shot?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You never walk up to a sanctuary, especially if it’s got signs out. Walking up means you can’t read the instructions or you can’t wait. Which means you’re one of them. So just stand still and wait.’

They waited. Angie shoved her hands in her back pockets. Holly watched the shadows creep across the pavement. She leaned the baseball bat against her thigh and crossed her arms.

There were four guards on duty. They made a point of ignoring the women for a bit longer, then one of them stepped closer to the gate. ‘Can we help you?’ He had a ring of hair around a pale, polished scalp.
Classic chrome dome
, flitted through Holly’s mind.

‘Hi,’ said Holly. Her stage whisper carried across the street. ‘We were hoping to spend the night inside.’

‘We don’t have much room,’ he said. ‘And no food.’

‘Not looking for food,’ she said. ‘Just a place to sleep. Even outside’s fine.’ She gave a nod at the walls of the building. ‘As long as it’s an outside that’s inside.’

A couple of the guards chuckled.

‘Okay, ladies,’ said the chrome dome man. ‘Strip. Everything off.’

Holly’s knuckles whitened on the bat. One of the guards saw and raised his pistol.

‘Come on,’ said the Dome. ‘It’s not like that. You know we’ve got to check you for cuts and bites.’

Holly furrowed her brow. ‘But it’s a job with perks, right?’

He managed a tired smile. ‘Hate to let you down, but I’m happier when guys show up. Nothing personal.’

Holly set her hands on her belt and tugged at the leather end. Angie had already slid out of her jacket. She unbuttoned her blouse to reveal a low-cut bra with pink polka-dots the size of quarters. Holly sighed at the sight of it. How was the girl supposed to run in something like that?

The guard with the pistol shook it at Holly. ‘What are you waiting for? Hurry it up.’

‘What’s the rush?’ Holly took her hands off the belt. ‘You having trouble waiting? Maybe some impulse control issues?’

She heard the murmur from the gate and saw a few people shift away from the man. The Dome gave him a harsh look. ‘Hey,’ said the man. ‘It’s not like that and you know it.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ she said. ‘For all I know you got infected a week ago and you’ve been passing it to everyone in there.’

‘He hasn’t been infected,’ said the Dome, ‘but I’m wondering why you’re hesitating.’