Saturn County

Three | The Crew

June 1st

"mustang kids are out, rolling over hills and the roundabouts"

Tyler Taney wished he could retell exactly how the crew had come about, but after the months the days all blurred together. Benji King always made sense—they were friends their whole lives, even if they didn't go to the same high school. They played basketball on the same park district team and soccer in the same club. But other than Benji, he'd forgotten how the others arrived.

Carmen Fernandez was in his math class his senior year even though she was a grade behind him. He was smart for his grade too, she was just special. They never talked besides the two times they were paired up to draw some homework problem on the board and Carmen wrote it all without input and rolled her eyes while he talked to Chris Dannis. He wasn't sure what happened to Chris Dannis when the plague hit. He assumed he was sent home from college like the rest of them—his family had money; they probably moved. With Carmen came her girlfriend Danna Swinger. When they'd first met her hair was a vivid blue-green color but her dark roots had grown out since.

And then there was Marko Yang, and this was where Tyler's memory got fuzzy. They'd gone to the same school but Marko was two years younger. He thought he knew Carmen and Danna, he thought they'd appeared altogether. There was a lot of transfer those first few months. Some nights spent with Lucas and Clara Green, some with Benji's old teammates—a while with them, now that he thought of it—and some with strangers they met at gas stations before gangs had declared them as their own. He wasn't sure where Carmen and Marko fell in, maybe it was the old Shell Station—his circle was pretty large at that point, he would have hardly noticed if two more fell in.

All he knew for sure was it was an odd set that ended up at the Grove Shopping Mall. A smart place to land, probably. It was too large for one gang to control, and even if there was one, they were a diverse enough group that someone would probably have some contact. None of them knew the same people.

"It'll be like getting into a frat party," Benji had remarked, "Do you know a brother? Name three brothers or get off the lawn." Benji had joined a frat his first semester; he'd had to holler those lines at strangers so many times. It all seemed futile now, stupid, a whole lifetime long ago.

"We'd never get into a frat with this ratio," Tyler laughed. Sometimes he tried not to think about the past, but it was the little moments that would creep back into his psyche. Standing outside Sigma Chi in the snow his first week of college. He could picture that more clearly than the last time he left his house.

The door outside what used to be a Macy's was locked, but the glass doors had been shattered enough that a lock no longer served a purpose. The big red letters had long since been removed from the brick wall outside, but in the light of the setting sun the sign's imprint was fully visible.

"This is a bad idea," said Carmen. "We don't know who's in there."

"Doubt anyone is dumb enough to set up a permanent camp next to some broken doors," said Marko.

"That only proves my point."

Tyler only shook his head: Carmen was right, of course. They could be entering into any sort of warzone or resting completely vulnerable. But then again, everyone always said the mall hadn't yet been claimed, not like the gas station on Condor Street. "It's just one night," he said. "It's already almost dark. The mall is big and supposedly up for grabs, odds are we'll be fine." The gang up on Condor Street had been agitated and Tyler couldn't rid himself of a vague suspicion that they might be being followed. Staying exposed at night would be suicidal—it was always safer in the daylight.