Eschaton (The Scott Pfeiffer Story Book 1)

by Shane Woods

  I pull up her number and press the little green call icon. It rings, rings some more, and goes to voicemail. Ok, we'll try this again. Once more I dial, and finally hear her voice on the other end.

  “Hi, sorry, the neighbor was at the door. Where are you?”

  “Almost home, had to make a piss stop, maybe thirty minutes? Which neighbor? It's five A.M!”

  “Henry. Look, you need to get here. Something big is happening, we keep hearing gunshots.”

  “Yeah I seen some shit online about riots? Some idiots think-”

  The phone starts beeping. I pull it away, and in the dimly lit screen I can see it says '218 Home Dispatch'. What the Hell? They never call. Never. Pretty sure it's against policy. Back to the wife for a moment.

  “Hey, I'm going to be home as soon as I can. Hang tight, lock the doors. Dispatch is calling through. Gotta go. Love you.”

  “Love you too. Be careful.”

  Pulling the phone away, I switch to the other line.

  “Heyyy Scott, it's John from dispatch.”

  “John? What are you doing on nights?”

  “Julie was sick, got that cold that’s been going around and I had to cover, but listen,” John's usually cheerful voice turned very somber, “I'm not sure where you're at, but the highways are becoming totally impassible. Like, they saying it's not moving for the foreseeable future.”

  “Of course,” I replied, sighing heavily, “I'm twenty-five fuckin miles from you and the highways are garbage. Any suggestions to get around it?”

  “Nah man,” John replied, “Nothing we got permits to take the double trailers down, ya know.”

  “Suggestions?” trying not to show my frustration, it's not his fault after all.

  “I mean, you can park wherever you can and take it easy. We could pull a load rescue and get you back when it clears, or you can sit in it until it clears and safe-haven it to the terminal, I'm sure it will run you out of hours.”

  “Yeah, the FMCSA and their desk jockey rule making. I think I-”

  And a beep. Pulling the phone away I notice it's not lighting up any more. Dead. Of course.

  Allow me to interject, the people who make these phones are assholes. More computing power in one text than we could even dream of fifty years ago, you can use it for absolutely every aspect of your daily life, and they can't put a battery in the stupid thing that lasts for more than a few hours of use. Hundreds of dollars for a portable computer you can fit into your pocket, and it's useless in no time if it's not tethered to a wall or a vehicle. Thanks, guys.

  Well, I might as well take it as far as I can, nap through the traffic jam, and take it the rest of the way if and when the road frees up.

  I grab a cigar, cut the end off, and light it. Starting the truck and releasing the brakes, I put it in gear and begin making my way back out onto the highway. Merging into my lane, I get up to speed and crack open my last diet soda.

  Not ten minutes later, I crest a hill and am met with a veritable sea of tail lights. Well shit. Here we are. A good fifteen miles left, and, according to the guy that tells me where to go, it's like this the whole way, and then some. I immediately grab my log book and begin notating the time and place of the traffic jam. If I'm sitting here forever, then I'm getting paid for every minute of it. Beginning my transfer from mileage pay to hourly rate...now.

  So, I pull my brake knobs out. First trailer brakes, then tractor brakes. The brake chambers behind every set of wheels on the rig bellowing out their air in their individual exhalations. As I start to push my seat back and put my feet up on the dash, ready to take the long wait in comfort, I notice a boy of about 8 years of age smiling and waving like a lunatic from the back seat of a car. Why do they do that? The parents piss and moan about semis and make jokes about truckers, all the while the kids love us. They can be seen plastered to their windows in every state of the nation, smiling, waving, and doing the arm pump to get you to blast a shot of air from your horn. I don't get it. As a driver myself, I'll be the first to admit that a good chunk of us are pricks, and not really somebody you want your kid spending time with. Hey, kid, wanna hear about the time I tazed a lot lizard that was on my truck, leaning in my window? You could smell the menthol and poor life choices frying!

  All this going through my head, and I still smiled and waved. Whatever. It's probably the kids and not the parents because the kids don't know the ways of the world yet. I'll let him keep the magic today. The boy beamed. He glowed with a smile full of chocolate bar and childlike innocence.

  Pushing my seat back further I disappeared into the confines and privacy of my steel cave. I dug through my cloth insulated lunch bag and produced a container of pretzels and hummus. Yeah, I know. Big tough trucker drinking diet Pepsi and eating pretzels and hummus. What, does he drink fruit smoothies, too? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Because I'm not trying to turn into a heart attack at forty. And besides, this stuff? With the little bits of roasted red pepper mixed in? It's pretty damned tasty. I don't even know what a chickpea is, but I love them like this.

  The sea of bright red brake lights began to dim as people accepted their fate and placed their vehicles in park. The usual highway crowd is gathered here. The long thin legs of a woman in a Lexus SUV can be seen from my high vantage point. An all-American pickup truck ahead of me, plastered with 'III%-er', 'Come and Take it', and other various bumper stickers. A pale blue Prius with an equal amount of stickers, all opposite to the pickup's, 'Eat Green' and 'Coexist'. A heavy man in a safety yellow vest and a ball cap proclaiming 'Dave's Hat' getting out of a beat-up Toyota Camry to see how long the traffic jam is.

  Then, over the crest of the hill ahead, a figure barely shown in the now early dawn light, running. Running very awkwardly, his arms flailing almost uselessly at his sides, head back towards the sky, but running nonetheless. Then the shadows of more people. Three, then five, then a dozen, all coming over the hill. Some trying to get into the vehicles, but a few seemed to zero in on the first of several people who had left their cars to stretch or inspect traffic. They hit the first guy hard. I mean real hard. Watch any footage of the Cleveland Browns playing in the last thirty years. See the quarterback? See him get nailed, again? That hard. The guy's head must have hit the ground before the rest of him even knew it was falling.

  At this point, everybody started running. Not just our new friends, but their new friends as well. I couldn't see what happened to the first guy, but it seemed to have a pretty negative effect on those that did. Within moments, however, both of them were up and running like nothing ever happened. Running together. Joining the growing throng of sprinters. A few passed my position, but before I could even follow them in my mirrors, my attention was drawn to a pair attacking a silver car about fifty yards ahead of me. One, and then the other, arched their heads back and erupted all over the side and front of the vehicle with a viscous dark crimson vomit.

  What the hell is going on here???

  I watched, awestruck, leaning forward over my steering wheel as the people running away fell to more tackles, obscured by the other vehicles trapped on the highway. Another duo lunged for the pickup truck with all the stickers. The one nearest the driver’s door expels his own blast of the oily vomit as he slams his fists against the window. True to his nature, Mr. Gun Sticker opens fire. A half dozen shots, muffled by my own vehicle, paired with the outwardly exploding glass from his window. The man attacking the truck took every round center mass, slumped against the Prius next to them, and then...What? How the fuck? He got back up. The fucking guy got back up!!! Who does that? Before I could shuffle any more of my uncomprehending thoughts, the guy, who should by all accounts have just died, lunged through the now missing window. The remaining shards of glass tinkling to the ground in an oil slicked crystalline waterfall. More shots rang out, blasting through the man’s missing window, the roof of his truck, and were cut short as the inside of the truck splattered with the bright crimson of arterial spray.

  The woman in the Prius flun
g open her door, screaming, and took off at full speed. She didn't even reach the car behind her when she too was tackled to the ground. The woman that nailed her brought her face down in an arc and sunk her teeth deeply into her chest. She brought her head back to the brightening sky, swallowing a ragged chunk of flesh and torn clothing. The woman in the Lexus took her turn to run, and the... cannibal?...on top of the first woman pursued.

  As I watched, the woman who was just bitten twitched, one final arcing rainbow of blood leaving her gaping chest wound, she twitched again, and let out a shriek so ear splitting I could almost feel it reverberating within the confines of my truck. She then took on a wholly unnatural posture, laying on the ground, wrists down, palms up, fingers bent and twisted into claws. She shrieked again as her back arched, shoulder blades now firmly to the pavement, and her head began shaking side to side in a manner so quick that her facial features nearly blurred. Within a second, rivulets of blood began to flow like thick tears from her eyes, and she was up. Angling to her feet, her head rose, and she locked eyes with me.

  In an instant, the entire realization that this is not just another day, and I should do something washed over me like an ocean of ice water. Or maybe that was the cold sweat I'd become drenched in while watching this horrific scene unfold. Either way, my trance of disbelief broke, and I was in motion. No, not superhero motion. Not Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1985 motion, not even good old Arnold today, aging and weak but still badass. But, more like exactly what I was. A terrified man, who may or may not have let a small trickle of urine go. I'm not telling, and you weren't there, so it's my secret.

  I locked the doors. I locked the doors and slid off of my seat and into the cavity where a passenger seat would normally go. The entire tractor rocked as something, or someone, hit my driver’s door full bore. Then again.

  Listening to the impacts on my truck, still drenched in icy sweat, I fumbled with the zipper of my travel suitcase. Flipping the top and scattering my two days’ worth of clothes on the floor of the truck, my fingers found the Velcro strip that concealed my secret. I reached into the recess and withdrew my Smith and Wesson 6906. A handy, easy to conceal little 9mm handgun. Company policy says no, but, by permit, I was legal to carry in all of the states East of the big river that I traveled to. Except New York. Shush. We all do things we aren't supposed to from time to time. Checking the magazine, and withdrawing the two spare mags, and box of fifty rounds, I withdrew from the task at hand enough to take notice of the distinct lack of impacts on my truck. Did she leave? Die? Or did she decide to take heed of her bumper sticker and start coexisting?

  I'm not looking. No way. Not sticking my head back up and becoming a target again. Looking up at my driver’s window, I remember the mirror switch. Reaching out and fumbling with the controls, I could see much of the same thing as before. People running. People falling. People biting and killing, and others rising and joining the fray. I suddenly wished I could be anywhere but here. Lord, take me away. Or at least make this into one big bad hallucination, maybe an extreme acid flashback from years past. Anything.

  Another impact, seeming to come from further forward of my truck brought me back to reality, and I looked up to the side mirror to see one of the runners stumble into view, go down to a knee, then take off in pursuit of someone. Ok, so it's still real.

  “Oh God,” I moan, “shit shit shit shit.”

  I did the only thing I could. I curled up, low to the floor of my truck, gripping my gun, and tried my best not to be noticed.

  At some point, among the shrieks, screams, occasional shots, and thuds against the truck, I fell asleep. Maybe. Maybe I fell asleep, passed out, went into shock, another state of consciousness, or even left to another plane of existence. I don't know. I do know that by the time I was plummeted back into the midst of this hellish nightmare, the sun had surpassed its noon-time apex, and moved well into afternoon.

  I grab up my phone and try turning it on to call the wife again. I have enough battery again to make a few mildly informational blurts, and that is it.

  “Take girls, hide, grab guns, coming home soon as I can. Love you.”

  And before she gets a chance to get one word in, the phone goes dead again.

  Well, wonderful. Here I am. No phone, stuck on a highway surrounded by something I don’t understand. I slumped back against the back of the cab interior. For the first time in my life, I’d give anything for a sleeper cab with a bunk to rest in, and the usual supply of food and drinks that a long-haul guy would have. Hell, some of them even have refrigerators and generators. I’d have beer in mine. Man, a beer would be good right now.

  I look up to my mirrors again. Bodies lay in the highway, slow roasting in the strengthening Springtime sun. Some have these…these things…crouched over them, gorging themselves on their flesh.

  I can see some people in their cars still. Not quite sure if they are dead or alive, either way, they remain quite still. Some cars are crumpled up into each other, obvious attempts to escape the horrors that have been witnessed on this typically fast-flowing three lane stretch of asphalt. Blood drips down the sides of some of them, others with interiors sprayed like a living Jackson Pollock work done in viscera and blood.

  Gathering my nerves enough to take a quick peek out of my front window. The shoulder has a couple of cars visible, and more bodies as well, making it tough, but not totally blocked. Taking stock of what I’ve got, I have a 9mm with three twelve-round magazines, a box of fifty additional rounds, half of a flat soft drink, and a small pack of salted almonds. I’ve also got an eighty-thousand-pound tractor trailer setup. And I’m in the right lane. When your vehicle is governed to a whopping sixty-three miles per hour, the right lane is your home.

  Deciding that my only option is to bully my way down the shoulder and try to get as close to home as I can, I reach up and click the key into the ‘Start’ position. Instantly I can hear the multitude of soft clicks as all the relays begin doing their thing, and the glow plugs begin cycling.

  Sliding into the driver’s seat, I crank the key forward and hear the big diesel cough to life. Every head in sight turns my way. Frantically I push both air valves in, only to have them pop right back out. The mechanical beeping of my ‘Low Air’ indicator mocking me in its monosyllabic voice.

  “Fuck!” I shout as I smash the pedal to the floor to speed up the compressor and get my pressure up to where it should be.

  Then the shrieks begin. I look up from the gauges to see at least two dozen abominations sprinting full-bore right at me. Some weaving between the vehicles, others clambering their way over the tops. Several of them impact the front and sides of the tractor, several more slam headlong into the front half of my lead trailer.

  But several of them run straight past me. They’re heading for the semi stopped just off the back of my second trailer, his truck going through the same struggle as mine as black and grey smoke belches forth from his twin exhaust stacks, the driver in the same panicked situation as myself.

  My truck rocked as the running monsters collided with it over and over again. One managed to climb its way up the two steps leading to my seat. Hanging on the mirror with one hand, he let out an ear-piercing howl of a scream and started beating on my widow with his free hand. Then I notice the hat. It was Dave. He was still wearing Dave’s hat. Poor Dave.

  Finally, my air pressure gauge read that it was in the safe zone, and I jammed both valves into place on the dashboard. Slamming my foot down on the clutch, I rowed the truck into gear and took off at the whopping speed of molasses. It’s a semi, not a Ferrari.

  The truck began to climb in speed, and a glance in my mirror showed the one behind me doing the same thing as we both angled onto the shoulder and began our arduous journey out of Hell.

  Another bang on my window brought me back to the more pressing issue. Some of the creatures were now getting dragged under the massive vehicle, popping like balloons full of spaghetti and gristle as the tires churned them into the pav
ement. The one on my window let out another loud shriek, which was cut short halfway through and replaced with a loud, low gurgle as he let loose a black and crimson tinted torrent all over the glass. He began to shake his head, almost as if the action stunned him, and I rolled the window down a few inches to angle my firearm downward in his direction. Letting loose four shots, the small caliber still loud enough to make my ears ring at this range and close quarters, I struck him in the chest and neck with three of them. The exit wounds taking chunks of poor Dave with them, taking his balance and he dropped to the pavement, immediately recovering, stumbling, and getting taken back down as the lead edge of my second trailer clipped him on the side of his face.

  Making it to the relative safety of the shoulder and both trucks picking up speed, it became apparent how many people were still alive in their vehicles. It seemed as though every fifth car or pickup truck had some movement inside. Some with faces and mouths pleading for help, some pounding on their windows in a vain effort to get help, only to draw the attention of some straggling runners. Two people flung open the doors of a blue minivan and ran to catch the trucks, only to be brought down before making it a dozen yards, and left as dessert for the runners, dying face down screaming their pleas to the roadway.

  The Orange Turd lurched and tried to change direction as it met with the front half of a silver BMW, halfway onto the shoulder, bringing me back to the windshield for focus. I wrenched the wheel and got it straightened back around, both trailers swaying threateningly because I dared to disrupt their direction of travel so quickly.