Omega Days (Volume 1) - By John L. Campbell Page 0,62

record moguls in LA, and all that his wealth and influence might have provided – airborne evacuation, a team of mercenaries with armored vehicles to drive him out of the city – was out of reach. There was only Aggie.

“Are you sure she’s gone?” his ex said. There was no trace of sarcasm or smugness, no reproach.

“Yes. I saw her fall past the window.”

Another pause. “I’m sorry.”

Lou believed her. Even after all the anger and scandal, and despite the fact that Samantha had been the reason for their divorce after twenty years of marriage, Aggie was capable of compassion. She had always been a good woman. Far better than he deserved.

“She said she couldn’t do it anymore. The waiting, knowing how it would end. I don’t blame her.” When things began falling apart, Lou arranged for a helicopter to meet them on the roof and carry them to Santa Monica. From there a chartered sea plane would pick them up and take them to a little island he owned in the South Pacific, where they would wait out the crisis in comfort and safety. The helicopter never showed. By the time they decided it never would, LA was too dangerous to risk going out on foot.

“You loved her,” Aggie said. “It’s hard, I know.”

Lou didn’t agree or disagree. For the last two years he had been questioning if he really did love Samantha, or if it had been something else. A change? Excitement? Passion? Sam had been all those things. But love? He looked down on streets packed with abandoned cars and an overrun military convoy, as well as tens of thousands of walking corpses. The black and white of an LAPD squad car could still be seen in an intersection, the dead flowing around it like a stone in a stream. Its rooftop lights had flashed for a full day before the battery died.

“I was thinking about Ireland,” he said. “Remember that trip?”

“Of course.” He could hear the smile in her voice.

They had been newly married, and one of the groups he had signed had gone platinum, his first success of that magnitude. Flush with cash, they took a spontaneous trip to Ireland as a celebration. It rained every day, but they went out in it anyway, holding hands and laughing like fools, sitting on stone walls and making out in the downpour like teenagers as the locals drove by, frowning in disapproval.

“That was a good trip.” Lou drank his Grey Goose.

“It was.” A long silence. “We were different then.”

“Tell me again that you’re safe.”

She hesitated, and that told him all he needed to know. Aggie was alone in the big house on Cape Cod, where a wall of glass overlooked the dark Atlantic. Lots of glass. She said there was food in the house and fuel in the generator. “I see people on the beach. Well, not people, but none of them have come up here.”

Lou looked at the carpet. August on the Cape? It would be packed with summer tourists, which meant it was now packed with the dead. “Stay away from the windows,” he said. There was no reply, and another long silence.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I think the building is on fire. I’ve been smelling smoke for over an hour.”

“Can you get out?”

He looked at the half empty tumbler. “I wouldn’t last five minutes down there.”

They said nothing for a long time, and Lou began to wonder if he had lost the connection. He stared out the window at the mobs in the street, at the fires sending up a charcoal blanket to cover an already hazy city.

“Do you want me to go?” Aggie said at last.

He bit his lip and his chest hitched. “No. Please stay on with me…as long as you can.”

“I’ll stay on.”

Lou finished his drink. If he had any balls he would go up to the roof and follow Samantha out over the edge. He knew he wouldn’t, though. Too much of a coward, and no one knew that better than the woman at the other end of his phone.

“I love you, Aggie.”

He heard the smile again, three thousand miles away. “I love you too.”

EIGHTEEN

Napa Valley

Evan spent five days leaving the Napa Valley, partly because he was being especially cautious, avoiding the dead whenever possible and taking his time scavenging. His real reason was the desire to put off getting close to heavily populated areas for as long as possible.

He traveled by day, spending half his nights in businesses or stores,