by William Oday
“Did you get any sleep?”
“Some.”
Cade split up the leftovers and slid a plate and a fork across the island counter. “Eat. No sense letting it go bad.”
Hudson picked at it while Cade wolfed his down.
He got the Rand McNally atlas from his bag and flipped to the section for California.
“What are you doing?”
Cade didn’t look up. “Figuring out how to get to Las Vegas.”
“Las Vegas? You live there?”
“No, Durango, Colorado is home but my daughter is in Las Vegas for the weekend.”
“On her own?”
“She’s eighteen and with a friend. Believe me, I wasn’t happy about it.”
Especially now. If he’d stood his ground, she wouldn’t be there now. It would’ve been all too easy to let that chew him up so he forced it out of his mind. The important thing was to get to her as soon as possible. A vehicle would’ve been ideal but the working ones were going to be in short supply.
And they were also going to attract a lot of unwanted attention. And that meant trouble.
The obvious alternative was walking, but that would take forever. Too long. He’d noticed a couple of nice looking road bikes in the bedroom next to the bathroom. He needed one of them. Just had to figure out a good way to ask first.
He used the miles scale at the bottom of the map to measure out the distance to Las Vegas following major interstates. Through Fresno and Bakersfield and then looping east to Vegas. Roughly six hundred miles. On a bike, he could maybe do fifty miles a day. So that was twelve days.
Anything could happen in twelve days. It was far too long.
And that was if everything went smoothly, which it wouldn’t. Major highways were going to be dangerous places to be pretty soon. That was because they were obvious routes for people to take. And so anyone that wanted to prey on others would be drawn to them like lions prowling a watering hole.
For the same reason, any government response would also focus on interstates in order to control the flow of refugees.
Cade wanted to stick to smaller roads whenever possible and definitely avoid cities. The good news was that the map showed all kinds of smaller roads that could be used to circle around major population centers. He’d eventually have to cut through Death Valley National Park, which wasn’t reassuring. Then again, it was all desert down there.
He wished it wouldn’t take so long. That he could snap his fingers and be there. But wishing without doing never changed anything.
Cade finished the spaghetti and got ready to go while Hudson returned to his room. The shotgun went into his bag because any law enforcement they came across weren’t going to react well to having it slung over his shoulder. He tucked the Glock into his waistband and smoothed his shirt over it.
He walked back to Hudson’s room to ask about the bike and to say goodbye. “Hey Hudson, I noticed those two bikes in your spare room. I was wondering…” He got to the doorway and did a double take. “What are you doing?”
“Packing.”
“Why?”
“I want to go with you.”
“What?”
The kid was nice and Cade definitely felt for him after losing his fiancé. But him tagging along? Not a good idea.
Hudson folded an orange velvet sport coat into a carry-on bag. “With Amelia gone, there’s nothing here for me now. And if it’s as bad as you say, I should leave too.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”
“You’re going to Durango, right?”
“Yeah, after I find my daughter in Vegas.”
“I grew up in Albuquerque. My family is there. That’s not far from Durango.”
Cade shook his head. “I wish the best for you, I do. It’s just—”
“You want one of my bikes, don’t you?”
Cade’s jaw dropped. Was he being black-mailed by this uppity punk?
“Take me with you or no bike.” He closed the carry-on bag and zipped it shut.
Cade bit down to keep from cursing. He could just take the damn bike. Beat the kid up if he tried to stop him. That didn’t sit right with him though. He was prepared to do whatever it took to get back to his family, but he didn’t have a heart of stone.
So that left taking him along, for now.
“Okay. Give me a bike and I’ll make sure we both get out of the city.”
“All the way to Durango is the deal.”
“Nope. No deal.” He turned, ready to walk away, or at least bluff that he would.
“Fine! Out of SF and Oakland and then we’ll part ways.” He held out a hand and Cade shook it. “Ready when you are.”
Cade glanced at the carry-on bag and rolled his eyes. “No, you’re not.”
29
They rode down the street with backpacks and bags hanging off the sides of both bikes. It had been an exercise in frustration, but Cade had finally succeeded in getting the kid packed. Hudson wasn’t happy about relinquishing his bike to Cade, but his smaller frame made more sense for Amelia’s bike.
They pulled to a stop in front of the corner mart at the end of the block. Shattered glass covered the sidewalk in front. The interior was a blackened husk. Dark smoke seeped out the missing front windows and swirled away on the breeze.
Hudson leaned his bike against a car and approached the store with a bouquet of purple and white irises in hand. He’d brought them from home and insisted they stop on the way out. He knelt and gently placed them on the sidewalk. He stood and whispered something.
Cade scanned up and down the street, anxious to get moving but knowing the kid needed to say goodbye.
Hudson returned to his bike with tears in his eyes and they pedaled away.
Cade followed him through the city streets as the kid knew the way to get on the Bay Bridge. As they rode, he shifted through the gears and tested the brakes to get a feel for how the bike handled. He didn’t know much about road bikes, but this was obviously a nice one. Carbon fiber frame and thin racing tires. Couldn’t have weighed more than fifteen pounds on its own.
So why did an expensive bike like this have such a ridiculously uncomfortable miniature seat?
The towel he’d duct-taped around it was a little awkward, but he preferred that to chapped buttcheeks.
The city streets were mostly empty. Of people, anyway. Cars were another matter. They were everywhere. Packed together in long lines that rose and fell over the hills. Dark columns of thick smoke rose in the distance.
They glided through an intersection, staying close to the curb where the path was less obstructed.
Hudson suddenly swerved up onto the sidewalk and Cade saw why.
A homeless man was sprawled out off the curb, half in the street. He might’ve been sleeping were it not for the caked blood surrounding his head.
Disasters hit the most vulnerable first. For people that were already hanging on by a thread, it didn’t take much to finish the job.
Hudson zipped through some trashcans and then jumped the curb back onto the street.
Cade had to pedal hard to keep up. They rode through a labyrinth of streets and made a hard left turn onto the exit ramp of the bridge. The Bay Bridge stretched seven miles from San Francisco to Oakland. The westbound lanes were stacked on top of the eastbound ones for half of that length.
So, they were technically riding the wrong way against traffic, but it didn’t matter and Cade preferred the open air to the enclosed lanes below.
The space between cars opened up as they made it onto the main span of the bridge itself. Despite snarls of wrecked vehicles here and there, there was usually enough space for them to get by without slowing down much.
The deep green expanse of the bay opened on both sides. The briny scent of the ocean filled his lungs. Cool morning air chilled the sweat beading on his forehead.
They rode by hundreds of abandoned cars and quite a few with people still in them. Some sleeping, some staring as they sped by.
Yerba Buena Island drew nearer. It was a small island that connected the two halves of the bridge. Hudson had mentioned that it had a Coast Guard station, radio towers and some other buildings.
Hudson’s pace slowed so Cade pulled up alongside to see what was up.
A little ways down, a guy was standing in front of a motor coach, waving his arms and yelling to them.
“What do we do?” Hudson asked.
“Let me handle it,” Cade said as he took the lead, eyes scanning for danger. He slowed to a stop fifty feet away and sat up, one hand on the bike and one on his thigh, fingers under the shirt flap and inches away from the Glock.
“Hey!” the guy yelled again as he waved. “Thank God you’re finally here!” A rainbow-colored Hawaiian shirt pulled tight over an impressive beer belly. Board shorts and brown flip-flops completed the look. One hand held a glass with a purple umbrella sticking out the top.
He wasn’t trouble.
He was clueless.
Cade walked his bike forward, his right hand free in case he turned out to be wrong.
“Hey there!” Mr. Hawaii said with an over-the-top warmth that suggested he was tipsy.
“Hi,” Cade said.
“You guys with Triple A?”
Cade stood there not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He shook his head. “No, sorry. I’m afraid not.”
“We’re on bikes. Do we look like Triple A?” Hudson added, unhelpfully.
Mr. Hawaii looked them over. “Well, I figured you had battery jumpers and stuff in those bags.”
Cade didn’t like where that was going. “Nope, nothing like that, sorry.”
“Well, do you know when help is coming?”
“Can’t help you there either.”
Mr. Hawaii frowned, like it was somehow all their fault. “How am I supposed to get my family out of here with a dead battery and the road like this?”
The conversation was going nowhere and this idiot was rubbing Cade the wrong way. But he had a family and he was worried about them. Being an idiot didn’t mean he was a bad person. “Listen, you should get your family off the bridge. Take what you can carry and get to a safe place. I don’t think any of these vehicles are leaving anytime soon.”
He hooked a thumb up at the shiny blue motor coach. “You want me to leave Margaritaville behind?”
Cade noticed the side of the bus. An airbrushed scene of a beach and palm trees and a crystal blue ocean. Margaritaville in red cursive letters above that. He didn’t want Mr. Hawaii to do anything. He was just offering advice, for whatever it was worth.
“That baby is my retirement. Besides, we have everything we need in there.”
“Glad to hear it,” Cade said as he steered the bike to the side. “We have to get going.”
“Want a margarita for the road?”
Cade swung a leg over his seat. “No. Thanks though. Good luck to you.” He pushed off and pedaled away with Hudson following behind. Unfortunately, Mr. Hawaii and his family were likely going to be among those that didn’t survive.
They continued on to Yerba Buena Island and Cade saw something he didn’t like. The road disappeared into a tunnel carved through the island. It was fairly short. Enough light made it through from the other side that it didn’t go pitch black.
But that didn’t mean it was safe.
He slowed to a stop and saw a trail off the side of the road that appeared to go over a hill to the other side.
“Why are we stopping?” Hudson asked.
“I don’t want to go through the tunnel. It’s a perfect spot for an ambush.”
Hudson made a face like he was crazy.
Maybe he was being paranoid. Then again, maybe he wasn’t. And if they went in there and it turned out he wasn’t, it would be too late for a do over.
He pointed at the trail. “We’ll take that over.”
30
They hoisted the bikes on their shoulders and climbed over the guardrails into a dense thicket of trees. Branches caught on the wheels and handlebars as they picked their way through. The dirt trail led up to a service road that appeared to skirt around the side so they took it.
As they rounded the curve, voices carried on the wind. A lot of voices, but where they were coming from wasn’t obvious.
Cade leapt off and carried his bike into the trees that lined the road. He crept deeper into the shadows, senses taut and tuned for potential threats.
Through a thick canopy of green, they saw the source of the noise at the bottom of the hill. A complex of buildings was situated on the waterfront. A U shape of plain, two-story structures next to a compact assortment of other buildings. A large green lawn enclosed in the U. A parking lot wrapped around it all. A half-dozen ships were anchored at an attached dock. A longer dock extended out into the water with a white Coast Guard cutter anchored at the end.
“I think that’s the Coast Guard station,” Hudson whispered.
“Yeah,” Cade replied. That was obvious. What wasn’t obvious was what was happening on the lawn. Cade dug into his bag and fished out a pair of binoculars.
The zoomed view brought it into focus.
A hundred or more soldiers wearing green camo fatigues and carrying M4 rifles. They were hurrying this way and that as platoon leaders barked commands. Out of the chaos, ordered ranks formed up until the last soldier jumped into line.
A door opened in an adjacent building and their commander marched out. He stopped at the front of the formation and began relaying some instructions.
A deep thumping grew louder and Cade spotted a Blackhawk helicopter racing toward the station. It steered to a hover above the empty basketball court and slowly set down. As soon as the skids touched down, the door slid open and two men emerged. One turned to yell back into the chopper. Yellow block letters were printed on the back of his dark navy jacket.
FEMA
The commander met them at the side of the makeshift landing pad and the three got into an animated conversation. The guy in the FEMA jacket pointed up at the bridge and then off toward each end. Apparently, the commander wasn’t getting the message because the FEMA official screamed in his face, over and above what was needed to be heard. He snatched a briefcase from the guy that had arrived with him. He pulled out a paper and waved it in front of the commander’s face.
The commander calmly took the paper and read through it.
The FEMA official went off again, jabbing his finger at the bridge.
Finally, the commander nodded and the three hurried over to the assembled troops. The commander relayed something and the ranks broke apart. A line of soldiers ran through an archway and started climbing into the back of a transport truck.
“We have to go. Now!” Cade grabbed his bike and headed back toward the road. Branches snapped as he bulled his way through. He jumped onto the seat and took off.
Hudson wasn’t far behind and soon caught up. “What’s wrong?”
“They’re going to shut down the bridge! We have to get through before that happens!” He hammered the pedals around the curve and steered up the on ramp. They merged into the main lanes and picked up speed.
Cade had a death grip on the handlebars while his legs pumped the pedals around and around. The bridge ended a couple of miles away. Visions of military trucks blocking the lanes and cutting them off from escape drove him.
Was it possible that he could fail so soon?
He never expected it to be easy, but this would be a crushing blow.
His thighs burned and his legs ballooned with blood. He blinked through the sweat streaming into his eyes.
It was the longest two miles of his life and yet it was over in minutes.
The end of the bridge came into view.
Along with a convoy of drab green military vehicles. Not from the Coast Guard station, but obviously part of a coordinated action.
Cade pedaled harder, faster.
Stationary cars blurred by.
One pothole or piece of debris would turn him and t
he bike into a mangled mess.
The bridge ramped down and the city of Oakland sprawled out before them.
The convoy was headed toward them in the opposite lanes. A Humvee peeled off and jumped over the median to intercept them.
Cade’s heart dropped. And then he spotted a bike path running alongside the road. He steered over and plunged down a gravel embankment. The bike skidded over and he nearly wiped out. He bounced onto the bike path and the tires chirped as they gained traction and straightened out.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Hudson made it too. They sped downhill, leaving the Bay Bridge and the impending blockade behind.
They raced through an industrial area populated with nondescript warehouses and permanently parked delivery trucks.
Cade took a few random turns in case they were being pursued and slowly the scenery changed. Big box retail stores lined the street on both sides. A Target, Home Depot, Michaels, Panera Bread. A number of hotels.
A few blocks down, a couple of people ran across the street carrying something.
Cade slowed their pace to see what was happening and also because his lungs were about to burst.
They continued on and a figure sprinted across the intersection ahead. This one carrying something too.
They slowed to a stop a little ways off and saw what was happening.
It was a mob scene.
31
A crowd was gathered in front of a Best Buy store. The glass doors had been knocked out and people were shoving their way inside. Just as many people were shoving their way outside, arms filled with stolen goods.
“I didn’t know Best Buy still existed,” Hudson said.
“That’s the first thing that popped into your head?”
“I mean, I thought they went bankrupt years ago. Who goes to a store to buy anything these days?”
“I don’t think they’re buying.”
Two big guys broke out of the perimeter of the mass carrying an enormous flat-screen TV. They both had Forty-niners jerseys on.