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we
gassed up, got back onto 192, and reached Cocoa around suppertime. Then, for
the next half-hour, I searched for a place to rest for the night.
    The same eerie stillness I’d seen everywhere else had engulfed the town. The
palm trees and palmettos, oblivious to human suffering, surrendered to the cool
ocean breeze. The few people on the sidewalks stood completely still or lay dead
on the pavement or on park benches. Others sat on front porches, staring straight
ahead. It was difficult to tell who was still alive and who was dead. Deserted
stores lined the streets, their darkened windows reflecting the emptiness within.
Traffic lights blinked sporadically. Neon signs flickered, darkened then flickered
again. Vehicles sat in the middle of the street, their drivers slouched behind the
wheel. A stray cat rubbed its nose against a shoe of one of the corpses on the
sidewalk.
    sidewalk.
Eleven, and a deserted strip mall, an RV park sat silently in a grove of pines. A
small stucco building marked OFFICE awaited us at the far end, next to a smaller
building marked BATHROOMS. An ice chest and cold-drink machine shared a
concrete slab off to the side.
    Half the spaces were taken, but the RVs appeared dark and empty. No candles
or kerosene lamps lit up any of the windows. I heard no moaning of generators
interrupting the silence. Total darkness had swallowed up the office as well.
Creepy.
    I peered at the bushes, half-expecting some undead creature from an old
zombie flick to crawl out and stumble our way.
“Where we gonna park?” Reed’s voice snapped me out of my delusion.
“I thought I’d ease on over to the empty space near that single-wide in front
of the bushes.”
“Someone’s in there.”
I stiffened. “You sure?”
The black windows revealed nothing.
“We’re being watched.”
“Could be someone just being cautious.”
“My friend doesn’t think so.”
“What makes him so suspicious?”
“He spotted a rifle—and a handgun.”
Rifle. Handgun . Two words I didn’t want to hear just then. I didn’t want to
spend the night waiting for someone to rob us at gunpoint, and I certainly didn’t
want to shoot it out with a paranoid nutcase. Even if I won the battle, he might hit
the van and disable it. Then I’d have to waste precious time searching for another
ride.
I backed out, turned around, and hurried down the street.
We heard no gunshots.
I drove another two miles until we reached an attractive residential area of
large brick homes. Halfway down the block, I stopped in front of an old two-story
house sitting proudly behind trimmed bushes and palmettos. A long gravel drive
ran up to the two-car garage in the back yard.
An elderly man sat in a rocker on the front porch, his bald head slumped
forward. He wasn’t rocking and didn’t move at all.
I pulled in and coaxed the van down the driveway, stopping about five feet
from the garage doors. “This place is as good as any. We can leave the van right
here.”
“I don’t think the old man will mind,” Reed said.
“He’s probably been dead a while.”
“If anyone’s still moving around inside, they would’ve already brought him
back in.”
“Poor guy. He probably just fell asleep then died.”
“Not a bad way to go.”
When I was in the military, I’d seen people die in many ghastly ways. Reed
was right—falling asleep was the most peaceful way to go. Even so, as I flicked
off the ignition, a heavy tug of guilt pulled at my heart. We were going into this
man’s house to use his facilities while he sat out here, dead.
“I feel badly about this,” I said.
“We need a place to spend the night.”
“I know.”
“He won’t mind.”
“Won’t you feel guilty?”
“I’ll get over it.”
Reed had a point. I fully realized I should get over it as well, but my soft side
had stepped in again.
“I keep thinking someone’ll come along, pile them all in an ambulance, and
haul them away to a mass grave.”
“There’s no one to drive the