Tales of the Derry Plague | Book 1 | LAST

by Anselmo, Ray

  … whew. After half a minute of sputtering, it started up and ran like pure beauty itself. Good, she hadn’t destroyed it. She did make a note on some scrap paper to check the oil and whatnot when she came back, if she came back. If she didn’t it would have to do its own oil change, but she wouldn’t be worrying about it – she’d most likely be dead out in the boondocks with bullet holes in inconvenient places or her skull bashed in.

  With that cheery thought, she went home to begin her day somewhat less frantically than she just had. She checked the gazebo, but the cats had apparently left for a new home in the previous week – the last cans of food she’d put out for them Monday were dry and untouched. She hoped they were safe wherever they’d gone.

  After dressing, breakfast, journaling, and siphoning enough to fill both her vehicles and every available container, she went to the Dog House early. Leaving the windows open had certainly helped, though there were few pieces of furniture there that didn’t need a good bonfire by now. She filled up the food and water pans, swept up various scatterings and refuses, and petted the German shepherd, who somewhere along the way had decided she was his bestest friend and deserving of tail wags. The pack would be set for a week, anyway.

  Back home, she re-bagged and labeled all her newly dried gourds, took them to the root cellar, then secured the cellar door and the front door as best she could. Returning to the Hyundai, she went around to the rest of the town and did the same with each front door. Her last stop was SBN&N, where she gathered all the food she’d need for the trip that wasn’t sitting at home. She locked the sliding front doors, then for the first time since her last work day before getting sick – sixty-eight days ago – she pulled down the metal shutter over the doors and locked it too.

  She stood there for a moment, reflecting on things. Sixty-eight days since she’d gone back to the Matchicks’ after a dull Sunday evening shift at SBN&N, with no reason to think anything would be different in the coming days. Sixty-seven since she woke up sick. Sixty since she found the first dead body, in a Volvo that hadn’t moved since, hadn’t even had the gas drained out. Fifty-six since the mass cremation. Fifty-three since the power went out. Forty-eight since she made her first journal entry, and read LaSheba’s last.

  Six days since she’d seen the sign beckoning her to Santa Cruz, of all places. Two since she resolved to go, fear or no fear.

  She’d done a lot with the last sixty days – sixty-one, counting today. She’d stored away over a year’s worth of food and a couple barrels worth of gasoline. She’d watched lots of animals in peace and challenged a few in anger and fright. She’d learned how to fire a gun and practiced until she could both hit a target and not fall down. She’d explored a post-apocalyptic wasteland, albeit a very green and pleasant one. She’d successfully avoided going out of her mind, despite her mind’s propensity toward that. She’d survived. Most of all, she’d survived.

  Tomorrow, she would take the biggest risk of all. She’d leave the county – and her comfort zone – and head south to see if there was anyone where the sign said there was. She hadn’t seen a living breathing person in all that time, and had no clue what the person or people she’d meet would be like if she found anyone. Would she find welcoming arms, or rifles pointed at her? Smiles or sneers? Friendly helpers, or murderers and rapists? A town or a trap?

  Who knew? But she’d find out, even if it cost her everything, because not finding out might cost her her sanity. And she’d rather die with her sanity than live without it.

  Time to start packing. She wanted to hit the road as early in the morning as she could manage.

  She moved the siphoning kit from the Accent into the bed of the Ram, knowing she’d need the bigger vehicle to clear any blocked intersections. She drove to the beach parking lot, filled the tank until it would hold no more, then lifted three jerricans into the bed and bungee-corded them and the kit in place. Back home, she packed her rolling suitcase with four days’ worth of clothes, plus a warm jacket, extra underwear and a package of Tampax – her period should be coming soon and she didn’t want to be caught without. She set the suitcase by the front door.

  She broke out the big cloth shopping bags and began to fill one after another with three meals’ worth of food – she’d just be able to grab one in the morning and work through it. A gallon of water plus two extra bottles. Dried meats and cheeses. Dried fruits and vegetables. Dried potatoes. Some canned stuff. Toast. She couldn’t count on being able to build a fire – everything had to be ready-to-eat. She added a bottle of soda to each – call it dessert, not to mention extra hydration. Once she had seven bags done, she set them with the suitcase.

  One last bag, into which she put her pill bottles, a box of .45 ammo for the Colt, soap, deodorant, two towels, a hairbrush, spoons, a can opener, the flashlight, the journal, and the map of Marin County. A quick search found a state map and another one of Santa Cruz County, both of which went into the bag too. She put it with the others, added the Mizuno to the pile, then stood back and looked it over.

  It didn’t seem like that much for a seven-day trip – she’d half-decided that if she couldn’t find anyone in seven days, she’d cut bait and come home. But she wasn’t living large, just bringing what she thought she might need. As long as she didn’t try to extend it too far and didn’t get ambushed and robbed, she would be fine.

  Kelly wasn’t entirely confident she was ready, but she knew she was as ready as she would ever get. There was no point in putting it off – either there were people down in Santa Cruz or there weren’t. She had no internet she could check, no way she could call, no radio or TV stations she could tune in, no equipment she could use to bounce a signal off a satellite. She had her own eyes and ears, and the only way to use them was to go there.

  She took the dishes down to the sea, washed them, washed herself, washed her clothes, tossed on her pajamas and brought them all back up again. She had nothing more to do except take her lithium and go to bed, so that’s what she did. But sleep took a long time to come, and was not undisturbed.

  22

  TRAVEL

  Kelly got a surprise when she went outside to load up the truck – it had rained during the night. Not a lot, just enough to dampen the pavement and bring a little green back to the browning lawns, but it was the first rain of the coming winter. And the bed of the truck had water in it, which was darned inconvenient, as she’d been planning to put most of the food bags in the bed. Well, good thing she had the Mega Cab. They’d fit in the cab extension with her suitcase. The Mizuno and the bag with the ammo went in front where they’d be in easy reach.

  “Well,” she said as she looked at the puddles in the back, “most of it will drain off as I go over hills.” And there were a lot of hills between her and her destination.

  After loading everything up, she pulled out the state map and refolded it to show her route. Or rather, her several potential routes. For starters, she’d be taking the Shoreline across Marin to Tam Valley Junction, where it merged with 101. Go south on 101, the same route she’d used to get to Sausalito, but keep going through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Presidio in San Francisco.

  From there, the options branched out. In the City, as natives called S.F., 101 slithered through the Presidio, became Lombard Street (not the one twisty block – that was farther east), cut right and became Van Ness, then rose up on its hind legs, became a real highway again and raced south to clash with US-280 near Bernal Heights. She could follow the 101 signs or take side streets – so long as she reached that interchange.

  And then … well, she could continue on 101 to 85 South to 17 South, or 101 to the Lawrence Expressway to 9 to 17, or 101 to 880 to 17, or 280 to 85 (or the Lawrence Expressway, or the San Tomas Expressway) to 17, or 280 directly to 17, or 82 to most of those same connections, or a half-dozen other way through the spider web of highways, freeways and other ways in the South Bay. The Santa Clara Valley didn’t have mountains li
ke Marin and San Mateo did – you could build roads anywhere, and they had.

  But if you wanted to get to Santa Cruz, there was one direct route from there: State Highway 17 south, twenty-some miles through the coastal mountains to the north side of Monterey Bay. So from San Francisco to Los Gatos, choices on choices on choices, which she might need if any of the choices were blocked and there was nowhere or no way for her to shove the blocks aside. But at the beginning and end there was one way and one way only – and if she hit a block she couldn’t shift …

  … well, she hoped the truck had the off-roading ability it looked like it had. Because if the path couldn’t be taken, she’d have to make one. She laughed at the thought as she loaded up her luggage.

  She thought about it further as she drove, and decided she had prepared herself physically and mentally as well as she could. If everything worked out as she hoped it would, she might be in Santa Cruz by early afternoon. From Sayler Beach it was about ninety miles – a two-hour drive under ideal circumstances. Before the world ended, it would’ve been three due to traffic. She was taking it slow – these days you didn’t know what was around the next bend, and definitely didn’t want to hit it at high speed – and allotting two days. She’d sleep in the truck if she had to.

  It was only when she merged onto 101, twenty minutes after leaving home, that it occurred to her she might never get back again. She might die on this journey into the unknown. She might be abducted and kept in Santa Cruz or taken elsewhere. Perhaps she’d never again raid the root cellar or return to the store or watch DVDs at the farm or feed the doggos or …

  “Gah, Kel, do you have to spoil things?” she growled at herself. “You will get home. You will find what you find, and if there’s nothing to find, you’ll go back, and if what you find is unsafe, you’ll run away, and if you find good people, you can tell them all about it, but you will come back unless you have good reasons not to, so stop being so negative or God help me, I’ll hug you and give you a lamotrigine to cheer you up, is that clear?!” The she laughed. She could get mad at herself, but what would honestly be the benefit in staying mad at herself?

  Rolling down 101 at a careful twenty-five miles an hour, she passed Sausalito on her left and entered the National Rec Area. The advantage of taking a major highway like this was that she didn’t have to sweat all the tight turns like she did on the state roads. It wasn’t quite straight as a string, but it was close. It was wide enough to get around the accidents, and at her current speed she had plenty of time to react. It was easy, relaxing and, surrounded by trees and quiet, peaceful.

  As she passed the Golden Gate Bridge View Vista Point, she slowed down even more – was that what she thought it was? She pulled over as she reached it and, sure enough, another sign, the same size as the other, the same colors, with the same message – COME TO SANTA CRUZ. The only difference was that at the bottom, instead of Sept 24, it said Sept 22. Still recent – or recent enough that it was well after the plague swept through. If the date meant what she thought it meant, it was posted by survivors like her.

  Or she hoped they were like her. If they were like fascists or cultists or cannibals, she was heading straight for doom. “Sometimes you just have to hope for the best,” she told herself as she got back in, turned the key in the ignition and resumed her journey.

  Which was a nice sentiment for about a minute. That was how long it took her to drive onto the Golden Gate Bridge itself – and get stuck in place by a pileup. She shook her head. This was the one place on the entire route where going off-road to get around an accident wasn’t an option, since the only thing off the road was clear air and a long drop into the water. She had to get past this, not around it. And the only way past was through, possibly demolition derby style.

  She tried a subtle approach first. The obstruction consisted of about twenty vehicles, including a couple panel trucks and a moving van, spread out over the six lanes. In theory, she’d only have to move a few of them, make a hole big enough for the Dodge to get through, and she’d be on her way. In practice, they were tangled and interlocked like one of those weird wooden puzzles her Grandmother Sweeney would give her for Christmas when she was in middle school. She could always solve them, given a few weeks to putter at it. She didn’t have weeks here.

  She got out and walked up to the accident. Let’s see … if she pushed the Ford Five Hundred it would be stopped by the Transit. Shove the Jetta forward and it hits the Mercedes; shove the Mercedes and you push it into the Grand Cherokee. Lean on the Gremlin and it probably folds up like an accordion against the Penske truck, and there’s no way to get to the Penske directly. The Corolla …

  She spent quite a while looking it all over, but no easy solution presented itself. The only way she could think to push past was to go to one side and try to cram everything from there toward the middle. Unless she was coming at things from the wrong direction again.

  Kelly gave that some thought. She was having trouble pushing – but if she pulled! Could she carve a path through that way? It would take time, but not as much time as standing there, trying to pursue a remedy that wouldn’t work. Did she still have the rope in the bed?

  She did, and she turned the Ram around, tied one end of the rope to its trailer hitch and the other to the bumper of the Jetta. She didn’t need to put the Volkswagen into neutral – it was just a matter of dragging it about a hundred feet, untying it, then using the Ram’s grille guard to manhandle it to the side of the road. Then she did the same with the Mercedes, then the Jeep, then the Cadillac that was on the other side of the Jeep.

  Beyond that was a Neon which was sitting sideways, making it hard to pull. But beyond it was empty space, so she didn’t have to. She drove slowly into the gap she’d just made, put the grille guard into the left back tire of the fellow Dodge, and it slid right out of the way. Easy as pie. On she went.

  Until the next accident – two tractor-trailers, one in front of the other. Well, one way or another she was getting past this. It was just a matter of how. She went to the back end of the near trailer and began to apply brute force with the grille guard. The trailers’ tires began to skid along the roadway, opening up space.

  She heard a creak and didn’t catch the significance until it got louder. Alarmed, she looked closer … threw the Ram into reverse and floored it. Just for a second, enough to flee clear of the toppling trailer. Her applied force had caused the rear axle to break, allowing the floor of the trailer to crumple, which threw off its center of balance and came perilously close to bringing it right down on her. As it was, it brought it down on the road.

  She sighed as she looked at the mess. “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another,” she said, shaking her head. But she didn’t have any better ideas – pulling wouldn’t work, since she probably didn’t have the torque to move the cab end and if she tried to pull the trailer end it would drag it into the suspension cables. She’d just have to push more … very carefully.

  But having fallen, the trailer couldn’t fall twice, so there was that. She pushed, it scraped, and the one behind it bumped along. Soon he had a space past them, one Ram and about an extra foot wide, and she took it. It felt good to be making up ground again, but she was careful to take it easy. No faster than twenty-five. Past the stalled vehicles. By a one-car accident, no problem. Working her way south across the entrance to the bay, nice and steady. Around the tipped oil tanker …

  Once again, she found herself glad she wasn’t going very fast, or the slide would’ve been far worse. She recalled her high school driver training, steered into the skid, gently pumped the brake to ease herself to a stop –

  If only the tow truck she ran into had taken the same class, or barring that, had better padding. The saving grace was that since she was spinning, she banged into it sideways rather than head-on. She still stopped abruptly, jarring her to the right, then whiplashing her to the left and directly into the deploying airbag. Dang, was the thing filled with gravel? For a balloon, it was not
soft at all!

  She rested there for a couple minutes, having a well-earned cry, before bothering to check the damage. Her face was kind of red, which you’d expect from just having been slapped with a heavy-metal purse. She pushed the airbag down, looked around and didn’t see any interior damage save for one food bag in the back having fallen over. She flexed her arms, shoulders, knees and ankles, rocked her hips a little – she was a bit achy, also understandable, but otherwise felt physically fine, just frustrated by it all.

  She got out, opened the door to the extended cab and refilled that one bag before walking around the front. The Ram had bounced slightly off the tow truck so she could see a little, but didn’t spot a lot of damage – a dent in the passenger-side door, some chipped paint. She got back into the cab, restarted the vehicle and pulled away to an empty spot in the road for a more detailed inspection. Nah, just superficial damage – no windows broken or cracked, the tailgate opened and closed perfectly well, no tires deflating, the passenger door …

  … handle broke right off in her hand.