Colony East by Scott Cramer

leaving the house, Jordan stood behind Mandy as she removed the trashcans blocking her motorcycle. Life surely was strange. Forty-eight hours earlier, Mandy had left him to die at the side of the road. Now they were a team of sorts.
    He drank from the kiddie pool, then belched, tasting crickets, before helping Mandy push the motorcycle to the street.
    His legs cramped up quickly, and his lungs burned from the exertion of pushing something so heavy. He shook his head in silent embarrassment, hoping Mandy didn't notice how weak he was. Still, he felt stronger than he had in weeks.
    The kids walking down Pearl Street kept their distance. He wondered if the knife on Mandy’s belt had anything to do with that.
    “We need gas,” Mandy said, speaking her first words since they’d left the house.
    She could keep her mouth shut for the rest of the day for all he cared. He needed a ride to Charlestown and the pills, not a friend.
    She produced a rubber tube and a fold-up knife from her pocket. She locked the blade in place, then, searching for a tank that held gasoline, worked her way up the line of cars parked on the street. She used the jackknife to pop open a locked lid. She unscrewed the cap and put her nose close to the opening. After striking out on the first six cars, she seemed pleased with the sniff test on a blue SUV. She wheeled the motorcycle next to it, fed one end of the tube into the gas tank of the car, gave a quick hard suck on the other end of the tube, and then inserted that end into the motorcycle tank.
    Siphoning the gas seemed to take forever, and Jordan grew impatient. If they started out soon and he caught a few lucky breaks, they could all be heading to the island before dark. From the position of the sun, he guessed it was close to noon, but by the look of the gray clouds bunched up on the horizon, it might rain later on. Rain was not a huge problem. They’d be wet, cold, and miserable, but they’d survive. The biggest problem was nightfall. He needed light to rig a boat.
    Mandy mounted the motorcycle, put on her helmet, and kick-started the engine. Jordan climbed on back and pointed which way to go. She shifted gears, and they were off.
    He directed her through Medford Square and then toward the highway. She stayed on the streets unless a section of road became too crowded with kids, and then she didn’t think twice about riding on sidewalks and lawns. Reluctantly, he had to admire her driving skills.
    The four-lane highway, Route 93, was mostly free of survivors but clogged with abandoned vehicles. Mandy had no problem navigating around them with her motorcycle.
    They took the Charlestown exit off the highway, leaning into the corner as they followed the off-ramp. Soon the Bunker Hill Monument came into view.
    “Go to that thing,” he shouted, pointing to the stone spire.
    Rising from the city’s highest point, the monument, which resembled a miniature Washington Monument, honored a Revolutionary War battle. Jordan couldn't remember which one, but the yacht club was a straight shot from the monument, on the other side of the hill.
    At the top of the hill, he had a bird’s-eye view of the airport two miles away. Wisps of black smoke rose from craters and from the terminals. A gruesome assortment of charred plane parts spread across the tarmac.
    Jordan drew in a sharp breath at the scope of devastation. Until now, he had held out hope that the scientists might send more jets with pills. That hope went up in smoke as he witnessed the destruction. With all that debris, there was no way a jet could land on the runways.
    When they had seen enough, Mandy coasted down the long, steep hill and took a left at the bottom. The entrance to the yacht club driveway was on the right side of the street, two blocks up. She turned in. Halfway down the driveway, Jordan spotted the first sign of trouble. There was no yacht club.
    They rolled to a stop in the parking lot. The club had obviously burned long ago. One wall