by Newman, AJ
“Oh, shit.”
Samantha learned a few more curse words before they got back on the road.
The glass had covered the inside of the truck. Jon swept it out with a rag the best he could and then laid a couple of towels down on Bo’s seat just in case he’d missed a few shards. Then he cleared all the jagged shards from the window. He knew he had to figure out how to fix the window or trade trucks. He looked at the mountain of gear and food and knew he would patch it somehow or the other.
Bo had returned shortly after he left and appeared to forgive Jon’s transgressions. Several dog biscuits and a can of expensive dog food later, Bo was fetching a tennis ball like nothing had happened. Jon told Bo to get in the truck, and they drove into Las Vegas. Jon needed to find a Home Depot or Lowes to obtain a piece of clear plastic to make a window. He saw a large mall, and as he expected, there was a Walmart on one end and a Lowes on the other. Jon drove up to the front door and said, “Bo, please guard our truck.”
It was already getting slightly warm, so he left the truck running with the air conditioner blasting out frigid air. Jon was surprised there were only a few cars in the parking lot, and all of the glass on the front of the store was intact. This disease caused people to lose their appetite, they hadn’t gone all crazy and looted grocery stores and hardware stores. Then Jon caught himself and thought, Pharmacies are a different matter. People lived long enough to go loot pharmacies.
Jon pondered his current situation while pushing a cart through the store. This wasn’t like a nuclear war, EMP blast, or grid down situation. Cars ran, phones turned on, and there weren’t any riots except around medical facilities and pharmacies. Food was to be found in every store, restaurant, and distribution center. Fresh meat and seafood were all spoiled, but cows roamed all over the place. The rivers and streams would overflow with fish since the commercial fishermen were all dead or dying. It really wasn’t a bad apocalypse, except for the bloody bodies everywhere and the rats, flies, and vultures.
He turned down an aisle, saw the four-by four-foot sheets of Lexan, and placed two of them on the cart. Then he headed to the power tool section to see if any of the tools still had a charge.
A smile came across his face. “Hot damn, it’s my lucky day. They had a tool demonstration event. Look at the drills, saws, and circular saws.”
He tried tool after tool, and none worked. “Crap, nothing works. The batteries are dead. Holy crap! I’m talking to myself.”
Jon held a dead reciprocating saw and smiled. “I need one with a cord. The damned truck has a 110 outlet.”
He took one of each type of power tool with cords and headed back to the front of the store. He came to a quick stop when he saw the battery section. He found a couple of boxes and filled them with batteries, flashlights, and a couple of weather alert radios. Before he made it another ten feet, he saw the duct tape display and grabbed ten rolls of the shiny gray tape.
“It’s an apocalypse. Don’t go home without duct tape. Or maybe I should say duck tape,” he laughed and sang to himself as he left the store.
He was happy he figured out how to solve the broken window problem. Jon took a big piece of cardboard from the store and cut on it until he had the right size to fit the window. The tailgate made an excellent work platform. He laid the cardboard template on the Lexan and ran a marking pen around the outline before starting to cut. The saw made easy work out of the plastic, and Jon held it up against the door. It wasn’t perfect, but it covered the hole, and the duct tape held it securely onto the door.
Jon stood back and marveled at his accomplishment. “My truck now has character. And, I’m still talking to myself. Well, crap. I’ll stop when someone more interesting shows up to talk with me.”
Jon looked around the parking lot for threats, and a big smile came over his face. The sign read, ‘This way to the Las Vegas Strip.’ The sign had all the names of the best casinos in town. Jon had never been to a big casino. He’d been to the ones in Biloxi and Pensacola a couple of times, but never one of this caliber. He ushered Bo into the truck and drove straight to the Grand Flamingo Casino and Hotel. He stopped and marveled at the magnificent structures dedicated to stripping all a guy’s money from him while making him feel like a king. Jon saw a horde of rats feeding on a couple of rotting bodies in the parking lot. He was thrust back into the real world. He scanned the parking lot and other buildings for any sign of other people. His heart sank, and he knew he was the only man left alive in the city. The wind shifted, and the stench of the rotting bodies assaulted his senses. A swarm of flies buzzed around him as he scurried in the front door.
Entering the lobby, he was shocked to see the emergency lighting was still on. He wondered how the batteries had lasted this long. He walked toward the big casino sign hung above the extravagant entrance. Gazing left and right, he only saw a couple of bodies, and they appeared to be vagrants that took advantage of the chaos to upgrade their digs. He walked into the casino, and the utter silence struck him. His ears actually began softly ringing, and he could hear his heartbeat. The room was twice as large as a football field and full of slot machines, crap tables, card tables, and roulette wheels. Money was scattered on the floor along with the casino chips. Bo followed him for a while but then climbed into a comfortable chair and watched.
Jon saw thousands of twenty-dollar bills and hundreds of hundred dollar bills scattered on the tables and floors. He laughed when he noticed shoes, eyeglasses, and purses mixed in with the money. These people ran for their lives when the news about the plague spread through the building. Then he saw something that caught his interest. There was a giant goldfish bowl full of gold coins on top of a stand. A banner hung above it that read, ‘Millionaire Slots.’ The fine print below the sign had the rules and how to win the coins. Jon read it and thought, ‘You can win this gold when pigs fly out of your butt.’
An idea popped into Jon’s head, and he walked around the perimeter of the room until he found a janitor’s closet. He found an adjoining room with tools. He took a hammer and headed straight to the closest cash out cage. He saw several of the motorized carts to move money and turned the power switch to on. The cart was dead. The second took off at a good pace. He guided it to the goldfish bowl and parked it below the coins. He covered his face with his free hand and swung the hammer into the bowl. It shattered, spilling coins in all directions.
“Damn, that made a fricking mess,” he exclaimed aloud before walking back to the janitor's room to fetch a broom and dustpan. The broom didn’t move the coins on the carpet very well, so he went back to the closet and got a shovel. He soon had the coins scooped up and in the well on top of the cart. Jon took the cart to the lobby and stacked the coins on the floor in stacks of twenty. The coins weighed one ounce each, and each one was worth $2,500. Jon only counted nine-hundred-seventy-six coins, which he figured to weigh about one hundred and twenty pounds. Dollar signs danced in his head as he thought about taking gold, silver, and jewels from all of the casinos and pawnshops.
John saw the shops on either side of the lobby and headed to the first jewelry store. The store wasn’t a high-end shop, so he only took a small bag full of necklaces and diamond rings. He left and saw a travel shop where there were suitcases, bags, and various types of luggage. He borrowed several sports bags and moved toward a large shop with a well-known name. He was rich! The display cases had jewelry worth five thousand to one hundred thousand dollars. He filled the bags so full, he had to drag them one at a time to where he’d piled the gold coins.
His fingers ran through the jewelry like a pirate lusting after his booty when Bo trotted up to the piles of gold and lifted his hind leg.
“Bo, don’t piss …”
It was too late. Bo watered down the stacks of gold coins, yawned, and jumped up on the nearest couch. Jon was mad as hell but then began laughing uncontrollably. “Bo, you don’t get it. We’re wealthy. We can trade these for food, shelter, and …”
It finally dawned on him
; there wasn’t anyone to share his wealth with or to buy gifts for his girlfriend. Jon chose the most expensive necklace and placed it around Bo’s neck. “There, Bo, you now have a fifty-thousand-dollar dog collar.”
He hooked an expensive necklace around his neck and put a Rolex on each wrist. He saw his fingers weren’t adorned with his new wealth, so he added two large men’s diamond rings. He stood in front of a mirror and thought he looked like a pimp.
The roulette wheel was the only gaming device that cooperated with him and actually worked. He bet thousands on every turn of the wheel and lost it all to the house. Gambling by himself became boring quickly, and he led Bo up the stairs to the top of the ten-story building. He was in good shape, but the ten flights of stairs kicked his ass. He left the stairwell to be greeted by a long hallway of open doors. He peeped into several rooms until he found the nicest room. It really wasn’t a room but more like a one-story three-bedroom home without a garage. The room was spotless and smelled like a mixture of lavender and roses. There was a wall-sized TV in the living room and a round bed in the master bedroom. There were mirrors all over the walls and ceiling. Jon wondered who the hell would put mirrors on the ceiling.
Bo jumped on the couch while Jon raided the full size refrigerator. He poured a bottle of water in a bowl for Bo and sipped on a Coke. He was sitting in high cotton. The contents of the refrigerator and pantry were a bit disappointing, but Jon guessed wealthy people ate out or had room service. Only peons cooked their own meals. There were plenty of snacks, sodas, beer, wine, and whiskey, but nothing to prepare a good meal. Jon fed Bo some cheese and crackers and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for himself. He took the sandwich and a case of Diet Coke to the living room and stared out the window to the city below.
Jon began down a dark hole, thinking about how life had pissed on him at every turn. He thought, Damn, the plane crash and my friends' deaths were enough. Why do I have to go through a freaking apocalypse?
Jon stood in front of the window, gazing out into the city when he saw the whiskey bottle and picked it up. He pulled the cork from it and started to take a drink. “Oh, hell, no! I want to live.”
Jon angrily threw the bottle. It struck the huge window, which shattered and disappeared into a million pieces. The glass shards blew back on Jon, causing him to stumble forward. He almost recovered when a gust of wind almost knocked him down. He staggered and fell, but before he tumbled to his death, he felt a tug on his belt from behind. He also felt pain in his back. He stumbled backward until he fell on the couch. Bo licked his face and lay on the floor below him. Bo’s teeth had scraped his back when Bo bit on the belt to save his life. Jon knew his new best friend had saved his butt again.
Chapter 9
Las Vegas, Nevada – July 2038
Jon awoke at sunrise the next day. The glow of the sun rising was more than his pupils could stand while he staggered to the bathroom. He stopped in mid-step when the wind blew the curtains and he saw the glass shards and broken glass on the floor. He turned to Bo and said, “I felt sorry for myself and lost my temper last night. I hope I didn’t act like a dingleberry and show my ass.”
Bo barked at Jon, yawned, and licked his paws. He’d only suffered a few cuts from the glass on the floor and was lucky no splinters of glass remained in his paws. He watched Jon disappear into the bathroom and went back to sleep.
Jon turned and walked to the window for one last look at the skyline. The city was beautiful at night with all its lights, but in the daytime, it was just another city. The real beauty was the desert with the sun barely above the horizon. He was amazed at how quiet the city and desert was until he heard a faint noise from the east. Then he saw it. There was a vehicle moving away from the town at a fast pace with clouds of dust and sand billowing behind it. A few seconds later, he heard gunshots in the distance, and a second vehicle fell in behind the first, throwing a fog of dust into the air. He was not alone. These people had to be well enough to drive a car and chase each other.
Jon hadn’t felt much of anything since the bloody man fell off the cliff above him. Now he was afraid of the illness and other humans. He thought, Why in the world with everyone dying around us would someone want to kill other people?
Jon continued to gaze out the window and turned his attention to the ground below the building. Rats were everywhere. He saw clumps of rats covering what he thought were dead people. Rats, vultures, and a few dogs were feeding on the dead. He knew this meant whatever the illness was; it would be spread further by the vermin. If there were any survivors, who had avoided the germs, these animals, and flies would eventually spread it to them. It still hadn’t dawned on Jon to ask why he hadn’t died. He’d been sick but pulled through.
Jon noticed Bo limped a bit on the way down the steps and stopped to check his paws. He found a few small cuts and cursed himself for being such an idiot. He stopped and took his first aid kit from his backpack and treated Bo’s paws. The dog flinched a bit when Jon cleaned the wounds with the alcohol pads but otherwise allowed Jon to bandage both front paws. Bo licked Jon’s face when he finished as if to say he forgave Jon. Jon patted Bo on the head and rubbed his ears.
They were soon in the lobby, and Jon fetched one of the utility carts to carry his newfound wealth to the truck. He placed Bo on top of the bags and pushed the cart out to the front of the casino. The truck was still there and hadn’t been bothered.
Jon wheeled the cart up to the truck when he heard Samantha’s voice. “Welcome back, stranger, and his ball-licking mutt. I have several items to discuss with you concerning alerts.”
“Fill me in when we get on the road unless there is an immediate danger.”
“There isn’t an emergency.”
He carried Bo to the front passenger seat and gave him a dog biscuit to chew on while he loaded his booty. Bo eagerly ate the treat while Jon placed the jewelry in the back floorboard, but had to rinse the gold coins with a bottle of his drinking water due to the urine smell, thanks to Bo. He placed the gold coins into several small bags and tucked them away into several locations around the vehicle. This made him feel safe that no one would find all of his gold if he were robbed. Then it dawned on him again, anyone could walk into a casino, bank, or pawnshop and take all the gold, silver, and jewelry they wanted.
Thinking about the pawnshop reminded him of that famous Las Vegas pawnshop. He started to try to find it but gave up after several trips around the city in the manual mode. His ego wouldn’t let him ask Samantha to find it. He wanted to get some of those Super Bowl and World Series rings he’d seen on TV so many times, but gave up and drove out of town. He liked Las Vegas but saw too many rats dining on dead humans to suit him. He’d also noticed he’d begun to see more cats and dogs on the streets. He wondered how many would die because their owners hadn’t left a door open before they’d succumbed to the disease. He looked over at Bo and shuddered at the thought of poor defenseless animals starving or dying from thirst. The world wasn’t fair.
Samantha gave him a rundown of how many small to large objects had passed the truck in his absence. There were thousands of small objects, but only five large ones. She drove southeast out of the city on Highway 93 but, after a short while, turned off the highway and took Highway 172 to the Hoover Dam. He laughed and said, “Bo, do you want to see the Hoover Dam? I doubt if we’ll ever be this way again.”
As usual, Bo yawned and pawed at the window. Jon lowered Bo’s window, and Bo poked his head out into the breeze. His ears flapped like a bird’s wings, and his jowls waved in the wind, slinging slobber everywhere. Jon snickered. “Old boy, normally your spit on the side of my new truck would piss me off, but I guess we can always get a new truck. Enjoy the breeze.”
Samantha spoke, “Jon, this truck is perfectly adequate for hauling you, Bo, and your possessions.”
Jon ignored her. The novelty of a truck talking to him had worn thin. He longed for a woman he could hold and touch.
The road curved like a pie
ce of spaghetti, and Jon had to concentrate on the road ahead. He dodged several cars and rat-infested bodies before he saw the café on the left and the start of the dam. Jon slowed and looked to the lake or high side of the dam. He was alarmed at first because the water level was much higher than he remembered. The water was above the high watermark. The four structures that he thought were where the water flowed through to the other side of the dam were almost underwater. Jon stopped the truck and wondered what happened to the dam workers who controlled the flow and kept the water from going over the top. Could the dam break with all of that water pushing against it? He quickly decided he didn’t want to be around to find the answer.
Then he caught something out of the corner of his eye. It appeared to be a blob of boats in the middle of the lake. He opened the console and took his binoculars. He zoomed in on the blob, and as he thought, it was several large pontoon boats and other small craft tied together. He saw several people on the largest boat and smoke coming from one of the others. He shuddered when he saw a woman looking back at him with a large telescope like the ones used to gaze at stars. He saw a flash and then a loud bang behind him. A split second later, he was showered with small chunks of concrete, and there was a loud crack of a rifle from the direction of the lake. He dropped to the ground and pulled Bo close to him.
Nothing happened for a few minutes, so he low-crawled to the truck, opened the door, and Bo and he got in the truck. He told Samantha to go as fast as possible away from the ambush. Usually, there was a parade of cars going slow to get a good view, but today the road only had a few cars until he rounded the bend. There in front of him were two cars parked nose to nose with several people standing in front of them. Before he could react, he saw a car behind him turn sideways to block his retreat. The men had guns pointed at him and waved their free hands in the air. Samantha slowed and approached carefully until the truck was about a hundred feet away, and then Jon took over in the manual mode and floored the gas pedal. The truck spun the rear tires as it accelerated toward the men and vehicles.