by Chris Pike
“What do we do now?” Lexi asked.
“We go home,” Joe said. He cleared his throat and paused, allowing himself time to recover.
“How?”
“We found a 1925 Model T Ford behind those curtains.” Joe pointed to the area. “It’ll be a tight squeeze to get all of us in the cab, but it’s better than walking.”
“What about Hannah?” Kinsey asked.
“We’ll wait till she passes then give her a proper burial. I’m not leaving her here to rot and be eaten by rats. Is everyone on board?”
The group exchanged worried glances.
“Joe, I know you’d like to give her a proper burial,” Lexi said gently, “but if you were mortally wounded and close to death, would you want us to wait and put our lives in danger? Digging a grave is hard work, and we’re all exhausted. We don’t have the proper tools. The best thing we can do is to follow Hannah’s wishes.”
“You’re right.” Joe admitted. “There’s something I’d like to do for her, and it’ll only take a minute. When she finally passes, I’d like her to be comfortable instead of dying on a hard floor.” Joe nodded in the direction of the windows. “We can use those heavy curtains. Ethan, I’ll need your help.”
“I can help too,” Tyler added.
“Ethan and I can manage. It would be better for you to start the car.”
“I’ll do it,” Tyler said.
Ethan helped Joe with the massive two-layer curtain hanging on the wall, covering the entrance to the room housing the Model T. They removed one layer, resulting in an easy to manage piece of waterproof material. The rest of the group – Lexi, Kinsey, and Becca – folded the curtain lengthwise so Hannah could have a soft place to lay during her last hours. Using their hands and forearms, the men picked up Hannah like a forklift would pick up a heavy load. They transferred her as carefully as possible onto the padded curtain. Joe placed the remaining piece of curtain over her to keep her warm.
Hannah never flinched or gave any indication she was aware of anything.
The melancholy group stood back. No one spoke.
“This seems too weird,” Kinsey said. “I guess nurses do this all the time in hospitals when someone is close to death.”
“Believe me,” Joe said, “this is hard for me too. Witnessing the death of someone you know is hard, and I’ve seen my fair share of it.”
“I feel like I should do something else.” Kinsey probed Joe’s eyes for an answer.
“I understand.” Joe placed his hand on Kinsey’s shoulder. “The best thing you can do to honor Hannah is to live your life. I’m sure she would have wanted you to live the best life you could.”
“I’ll try.” Kinsey paused. “What was her last name?”
“Hammer. One of the first things she said to me was to not make fun of her name. She’d had enough of jokes about it.”
“I’ll remember her forever,” Kinsey said. “She deserves to be remembered.”
~ ~ ~
Tyler examined the Model T according to the YouTube video. To check the fuel level, he lifted up the front seat, unscrewed the cap to the tank, and used a yard stick to determine how much fuel was left. The tank held about ten gallons of gasoline, and according to the yard stick, the tank had five gallons left in it. The 20-horsepower engine got about twenty miles per gallon, so at half a tank full, they’d get about 100 miles off the five gallons. A quick calculation determined it was plenty to drive past Katy for about 10 miles, then back to their house.
Next, he examined the tires. Modern tire pressures ranged around 25-30 psi. The skinny Model T tire’s correct pressure was around 55 psi. The tire pressure gauge indicated the tires were good to go. He hadn’t expected anything else considering this was a show car. Regardless, it paid to be careful.
Also on the agenda was to determine if the car had oil. Much more difficult than using a dip stick on modern cars, Tyler lowered himself to the floor and inched under the car. Behind the fly wheel housing, he found the compartment holding the oil. He opened it and fortunately several drops of oil dripped out. Good. That meant there was plenty of oil.
Finding the fuel switch, he switched it to the on position.
The controls were much different than in modern cars. The three pedals on the floor had individual uses. The one on the left was the clutch, the middle pedal was used for reverse, and the right pedal was used as the brake. The hand brake lever, located closer to the seat, needed to be in the neutral position to start the car.
The lever on the right side of the steering wheel where the blinker is located in modern cars, was for the two forward gears.
The key was located on the dashboard.
To start the engine, Tyler needed to prime it. He recalled the YouTube video instructing the driver to use his right hand to turn the crank three times. Not a full rotation, rather about three fourths of the way, return it to the original position, then repeat. This action allowed fuel to flow to the engine.
He looped back to the driver’s side and turned the key to battery, then returned to the front of the car. Leaning over, he steadied himself by placing his right hand on a wheel fender then using his left hand, not right because if the engine backfired, a broken right hand could possibly result, he turned the crank once and the engine roared to life.
By the time Tyler had started the car, the group had joined him.
“I’d need a PhD to start it,” Kinsey said.
“It’s not hard. Dad always said it’s kinda like engineering. Once you learn the basic principles, everything else is a piece of cake.”
“Right. I guess it’s why I’m so smart in engineering,” Kinsey quipped sarcastically.
Tyler slid into the driver’s seat. “I’ll teach you someday.”
“You’re driving?” Kinsey was incredulous.
“Yeah. Got a problem?”
“I guess not.”
“I’ll give driving lessons to anyone who wants one. I’ll warn you it’s not as easy as putting your foot on the brake and pushing the start button. A lot of steps are required to get one of these babies going and to drive it. If you don’t crank it right, you can break your wrist.”
“You drive,” Becca said. “We trust you.”
Once everyone had taken a seat in the Model T, including Oscar who was sitting on Ethan’s lap, Tyler worked the various levers in the car, eased up on the brake, turned the steering wheel, and puttered at the lowest possible speed towards the exit.
“Joe, will you open the door to the street?” Tyler asked.
“Of course,” Joe replied. “Be right back.”
Joe unlocked the garage type door and manually lifted it into place along the ceiling. The metal rollers creaked and grinded against the tracks, sounding like it would collapse at any moment. When the back of the Model T cleared the building, Joe let the door slam back to the ground.
“Damn, that was loud,” Joe said. He squeezed into the backseat, taking his place next to Lexi. Once Joe was situated, Oscar moved to sit next to Joe. “Let’s get outta here before someone sees us.” Joe tapped Tyler on the shoulder to prod him to pick up the pace. “Unless this baby can go fast, we’re a sitting duck.”
Tyler drove the route Joe suggested was best, choosing the back streets through neighborhoods until he reached the exit to the massive 610 Loop.
“Stay on the service road until we reach Westpark Drive. Take a left there, then go straight. It’ll take us directly to the Westpark Tollway. It’s a straight shot out of the city and into the burbs.”
The group puttered along the service road, passing a large home improvement store and other businesses. The group briefly discussed if anything of use could be left in the home improvement store, considering it appeared to be looted. The consensus was to keep going. The car bounced over a hump in the road where a railroad track had been removed to make way for bigger streets. Tyler turned left and proceeded under the 610 Loop underpass where the dank area was notorious for a dumping ground, illegal activ
ities, and a camp for homeless. Sunlight was blocked off, and the banal chitchat of the group ceased.
“Go faster,” Joe said.
“It won’t go any faster. This is as fast as the car goes.”
“Do better,” Joe said.
“I’m telling you,” Tyler said gruffly. “Forty miles per hour is the top speed.”
“I don’t like this place. I’ve got a bad feeling.”
Oscar had travelled in vehicles many times. Cars, trucks, vans, but this one? It was different. It smelled odd, like a hundred shoes with a hundred different stories had climbed in and out of the car. It was old. Regardless of the car’s history, Oscar let his eyes roam over their surroundings. It smelled of a once bustling city, with the hum of cars, and the energy of life. Oscar smelled life was still here. Just different. He lifted his snout towards the air rushing in. An odor, so vague, so faint, just a whisper on the wind, that he had difficulty recognizing its meaning. It was similar to what he had come in contact with before and his mind filed through a million odors filed in the recesses of his brain. It was an odor of hopelessness, of hunger, of danger.
Oscar growled low in his throat.
Joe’s sixth sense or what some would experience as the hairs standing up on the back of their neck, had saved Joe’s hide more than once. He had to think about what he was doing. He didn’t go looking for trouble, yet trouble found him, like filling in for a fellow colleague who should have been working Super Bowl. The guy’s wife had gone into labor early, and since the new dad wanted to be present for the birth, Joe had to be the stand-up guy, cancel his fishing trip, and do his buddy a solid. And what did he achieve by his altruistic offer? A ticket to nowhere.
On the flip side, he preferred to be stuck on land instead of in the Gulf of Mexico where he would have been when the EMP struck. He shuddered at the thought of being caught in the Gulf Stream, a swift current originating in the Gulf of Mexico, hugging Gulf Coast states, then northward along the eastern coast of the United States, and Newfoundland, stretching across the Atlantic Ocean, until reaching its destination of Iceland, south of England, or into oblivion in the Arctic Sea.
So, it could have been much worse.
Always a silver lining, Joe mused.
They needed to make forty plus miles to the safety of home, where they could eat a warm meal, even if it was heated by a Coleman lantern or cooked on a fire. And bathing in cold water would be considered a luxury after what the group had gone through.
Joe admonished himself for fantasizing for a few seconds. He needed to focus on the situation at hand. “Something’s not right here,” he said. “Turn around and—”
A group of haggard men with unkempt beards and dressed in clothes stained with dirt and sweat rushed the puttering Model T. The majority brandished baseball bats with nails sticking out; others had large knives nearly the length of a machetes raised over their heads. The Model T offered scant protection.
A distressed man rushed the slow-moving antique, his hollow eyes wild and filled with desperation. His clothes hung on his skeletal shoulders, his faced marked with the sores of a meth addict.
Lexi wrapped her hand around Oscar’s collar and struggled to hold him back. The dog barked loud and his jaws snapped shut with the force of a lethal bite. “No!” Lexi yelled.
The man rushing the car held a machete high over his head, ready to strike at Tyler and the other passengers.
In a matter of a second, Joe recognized the threat, and like he had been trained to do, he raised the rifle he’d confiscated from the zoo, aimed it at the man, and blasted a hole in the middle of his chest, blowing it wide open. A rifle meant to take down big game nearly cut the man in half.
The other machete and bat wielding men in the crowd stopped in their tracks. One glance at the dead man with a gaping hole in his chest was enough to convince them to back off. As quickly as they had emerged from the shadows, they disappeared, ghost-like, camouflaging themselves among the debris and discarded wood they called home under the overpass where days before, the hum of a million cars filled the air.
Tyler pressed the gas pedal to the floor, his white knuckles gripping the steering wheel. “Come on, come on,” he urged through clenched teeth. The car’s tires spun, kicking up dust and loose gravel on the road. The engine groaned and pistons pumped to the maximum.
No one could call the Model T a race car, yet the passengers held onto the seats for dear life and anything else that they could.
The entrance ramp to the elevated tollway was less than half a mile away. Tyler zigzagged around the modern cars reduced to stalled, useless heaps of modern engineering metal. To think one of the first combustible engines saved their lives was indeed a miracle.
“That was close.” Joe glanced over his shoulder, making sure they weren’t being chased.
“I thought Oscar was going to jump out and attack those men,” Lexi said. “Fortunately, I had a good grip on him.”
“Thank you for keeping him back,” Joe said.
Lexi nodded.
When they were on the elevated part of the tollway, a collective sigh of relief could be heard.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Joe cautioned. “In ten minutes we’ll be traveling through an area notorious for gang activity. If we’re approached, looked at, or even yelled at, I’ll shoot a warning shot. After that, it’s game on. Everybody in agreement?”
“I sure am,” Tyler said.
“Me too,” Ethan added. “I’m pretty sure I can speak for Becca and Kinsey.”
Becca nodded her approval. Kinsey was too shaken up to answer.
“Joe, I’m with you,” Lexi said. She patted his knee, a simple gesture requiring little effort, yet one which had a profound meaning.
“Good,” Joe replied. “I’m glad to hear it.” He placed his hand on hers, letting her know he understood what she was conveying. Lexi had his back, and he had hers. During all the destruction surrounding them, this was the moment they connected. Two people formerly on a different life trajectory, yet their lives now crossing and intertwining, bringing them together on a shared and unknown path as they navigated the new challenges facing them.
Joe rested the rifle across his lap, taking a breather from the adrenaline-rushing run-in with the armed drug addicts. While he’d rather think about Lexi and what she meant to him, he stayed focused, his mind alert to their surroundings, buildings, large trees, semi-trucks, and anything that could be used for sniping, or places in the road suitable for roadblocks.
It had been several years since Joe’s honorable discharge from the military, and while he was constricted by rules of engagement during combat, the current situation didn’t adhere to those rules. This was every man and woman for themselves, shoot now ask questions later type of situation.
Only three days into the catastrophe and no government help was anywhere to be seen. FEMA? A joke. Red Cross? Non-existent. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina where the residents of New Orleans endured unimaginable conditions at the Super Dome, it took the government days to rescue people.
Pure determination propelled those people to live, the same quality Joe and the others would need to survive the upcoming hardships. From experience, he understood the people least expected to demonstrate bravery and compassion and sacrifice, revealed to show their true selves during the direst of circumstances. Hannah was one of those people. God rest her soul. Joe silently said a prayer for Hannah, thanking her for her sacrifice when she took a bullet for Kinsey. Years from now when all this was a memory, a footnote in the annals of dusty history books, and when Kinsey had grandchildren, he hoped Kinsey would remember Hannah.
What a name. Hannah Hammer.
Joe would always remember her.
The drive away from the city and into the suburbs droned on. The bumpy ride, the cold wind, the gray skies, offset by the warmth of human connection, lulled the senses into reverie of a distant world, of a past world, of conveniences taken for granted. Of loved ones sitting arou
nd a dinner table at Thanksgiving with a sportscaster broadcasting a football game in the background, spilled gravy on the tablecloth, of bickering siblings, of pumpkin pies, cornbread stuffing, and turkey with all its trimmings.
Of birthday parties, and pink plastic flamingos on grassy yards spelled out in ‘Happy Birthday.’ Of Christmas joy and sparkling lights, of children ripping presents open, families sharing memories, the aroma of pies baking, of eating on fine china.
Of trips to see the grandparents and friends, of busy airports with harried passengers, of summer vacations, little league, school plays.
Of life.
Joe glanced at Lexi. Her gaze was planted off in the distance, over the horizon of a city once thriving with the busy hum of humanity. Though she had to be in pain because of the extracted tooth, she never complained. During the defining moment, he made a vow he would stay by her side to the end.
Oscar was laying between Joe and Lexi. The big dog sensed the group calming, and when they did, Oscar settled in and lowered his head to his paws. He closed his eyes, his body rocking with the steady rhythm of the car.
Ethan had Becca and her two children, Tyler and Kinsey. Though young and full of youthful inexperience, bravado, and teenage angst, those two kids had what it took to thrive. Through diversity, they had come together as a team, brother and sister to rally around their mother. Tyler, strong with the body of a grown man, yet not old enough to have a driver’s license, had stepped up to the plate. Without his knowledge of vintage cars, their situation would have been much worse. Even deadly.
Kinsey demonstrated grit when she searched for someone to help her injured mom by navigating a minefield of the horror of mangled bodies and smoking debris from the wrecked stadium. She overcame confusion and self-doubt to break through the crowd seeking guidance from the downed pilot, leading her to the man who pushed aside his needs to help a complete stranger.
Ethan had appeared as a guardian angel to Becca’s family, and they would rely on him during the coming days and months.