I fold my hands together and close my eyes.

Let us survive this, I pray. Please.

That’s all I want. That’s all any of us want.

Survival.

Chapter Eleven

The entire National Guard force is rolling out of Sector 20. Aside from personnel that have been left behind to guard the base, there are a little over one thousand soldiers with us. Our convoy is massive, made up of military and civilian vehicles. SUVs, motorcycles, cars, pickups, armored vehicles. I am riding in a Humvee with Chris and Angela. Max, Derek, Alexander, Vera and Sophia are assigned to other vehicles in the group. If something happens to the officers in one vehicle, you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. Colonel Rivera is somewhere near the front of the convoy.

Chris is in the front passenger seat. I’m sitting behind him, Angela on my left. The small, thick windows of the Humvee shed bright daylight into the backseat. The top gunner in the turret of the vehicle is alert, watching the sides of the streets for ambushes. Right now we’re weaving our way through the streets of Fresno, passing old shopping malls and ghettos. Shaw Avenue. Willow. Ashlan. Besides the gangs, the city is virtually deserted. There’s hardly any food or fresh water here, so why would people stay?

“Where do you think everybody went?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” Angela says.

“I mean in the cities. Like Fresno.” I jerk my thumb at the window. “There were a lot of people who lived here. Where did they go? Did they all run to the countryside and the mountains to try to find food after the grocery stores got raided?”

“A lot of them died in the attacks,” Angela replies, her expression veiled. “Omega killed so many. Those that survived ran to the country, and even more of them died there.” She sighs heavily. “But most of them are under Omega’s control, imprisoned. The cities that are still populated have been taken over. It’s a police state nightmare.”

“Apparently Fresno isn’t too much of an Omega hotspot,” I comment.

“They cared enough about Fresno to wipe out half the population and destroy the city,” Angela replies. “They didn’t count on resistance. We gave them that. We’ll give them more.”

Right. Which is why we’re leaving. Possibly going to our deaths. I stare out the window, watching the scenery roll slowly past. Chris has remained silent for the duration of the journey so far, listening to the radio traffic as scouts and units report back and forth. I’m guessing he’s thinking about everything that’s coming our way.

So am I.

So is everybody.

I lean my head against the seat and squeeze my eyes shut. A sick feeling pools in the pit of my stomach. Anxiety? No doubt. Confusion. Yes, that too. I’ve told Chris I love him a couple of times now and he’s never returned the words. Why? It shouldn’t bother me that he remains silent. Should it?

You’re an idiot, my conscious snaps. Of course he loves you. He wouldn’t have stuck with you this long if he didn’t. Chris just doesn’t know how to say how he feels. Be patient with him. Actions speak louder than words anyway, right?

Yeah, yeah. Right. I know.

It doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it makes me feel like a naïve schoolgirl, blurting my feelings out to him while he’s remained tight and constrained this whole time. Well, somewhat tight. I guess the kissing and hugging and comforting words should be a sign that he cares about me.

Quit being naïve, I think. You’re twenty years old, not fifteen. Chris loves you. You know that. He’ll say it when he’s ready to say it. Just let it go.

I open my eyes.

“Okay, then,” I say.

Angela gives me a weird look.

“Sorry,” I shrug.

Nothing like an internal pep talk to perk up the morning.

As the first hour drags by, I find the original nervous edge I’ve been carrying all morning beginning to wear off. It turns into mere impatience and boredom. It takes hours longer than it should to get where we need to be because we can’t take a direct route on the interstate. As far as we know, Omega has been using the old highways to move their convoys throughout the state when they can, so we want to avoid them.

Several hours later, we roll into Bakersfield.

An eerie sense of “I’ve been here before” hits me. Because yeah. I’ve been here before. And the last time I came through was a year ago with Chris. We were on foot, the city had been turned into a concentration and death camp, and we only escaped with our lives because an old man named Walter Lewis showed us a secret passage out of the city.

We drive through the remote areas, avoiding the freeways. Unlike the last time I was here, Omega is absent. Buildings are burned, blasted, destroyed, vacant. Intel has reported that the POW camp that was here last year is gone. We take a turn on a big boulevard behind a rest stop by the freeway. The remains of barbed wire and metal fencing is scattered around an abandoned parking lot. The burnt carcasses of trucks and trailers sit on the asphalt.

Was this the death camp we saw?

I don’t know. It looks so different. What happened to it?

“Militia,” Chris says simply. He doesn’t even have to look at me to know what I’m thinking. “Militia did this. Somebody like us.”

I wonder what happened to Walter Lewis. I’d like to find his apartment building and see if he’s still alive. But I’m not in charge, and we have no time for that. We’re on a schedule.

We’re trying to save what’s left of the world here.

Sorry, Walter. Next time. I promise.

“Bakersfield isn’t far from the Chokepoint,” I say.

The Chokepoint is what we’ve been calling our destination.

Chris nods. He’s been staying in communication with the other Humvees via encrypted radio, big black boxes that look like cell phones from the nineties. But hey. It’s better than the alternative. We could be using smoke signals or two tin cans and a string. Because honestly, that’s where we were without radios.

After a bit more time elapses, I see it. Without urban pollution, the Tehachapi Mountains are tall and clear against the afternoon sky. I stifle a shudder, thinking of the fear and confusion I felt when Chris and I were fleeing Los Angeles through those hills.

“We’re here,” I breathe.

Nobody replies. Nobody needs to.

This is where we make our last stand.

Laval Road. I remember this place. A huge rest stop on the side of the interstate, surrounded by fast food restaurants and gas stations. I stopped here with my father on our way to and from our cabin in the mountains. Summer vacations.

Last time I was here, there were a lot of dead bodies. Blood on the road. Omega had rolled in and executed innocent people. At the time, Chris and I didn’t know who Omega was, or that they were even here. We just knew something was wrong.

Now we know what.

And Laval Road isn’t looking so bad today. No dead bodies. No blood. Everything is abandoned, but hey. It makes for a good rest stop for the convoy. We need to refuel. What better place to do it than here?

Our convoy rolls to a halt in front of an empty restaurant. The Iron Skillet, the sign says. The windows aren’t broken, miraculously. The front door is cracked, halfway open. Our driver kills the engine and Angela, Chris and myself exit the vehicle. I stretch my stiff legs. The air is heavy and hot. Not even the slightest hint of a breeze.

“This is just creepy,” I mutter.

Chris shrugs off his jacket and throws it in the front seat of the Humvee.

“Looks different than the last time we came through, doesn’t it?” he asks.

“Where did all the dead bodies go, I wonder?” I say.

“Either they rotted into oblivion or somebody cleaned them up and buried them. Or burned them.” Vera stands at the rear of our vehicle, arms crossed. “Ever smelled burning flesh, Hart? The scent is sickly sweet.”