Hearing nothing but leaves chattering from a light gust, he continued on down the narrow, wheel-rutted track.
About twenty feet from the clearing the Shelby was parked in, Riker came across a wooden sign. It was low to the ground and affixed to two four-by-four posts. The sign was so riddled with bullet holes that the only words on its face legible to Riker were, Camp, Pack, Out, and Trash. Below was a string of smaller numbers and letters that didn’t make much sense to him. Strangely, they had gone largely untouched by the gunfire directed at the sign.
Best guess was the last line was some kind of municipal code. Maybe a reminder of the penalty one could receive for camping here and not taking their trash home with them.
Fair policy.
While Riker pushed further down the track, he wondered what the penalty would be for whoever shot up the sign. Surely not stiff enough.
As the tree-lined track spilled out into what appeared to be a second unimproved parking lot, the red and yellow side reflectors on a high-riding, hunter-green SUV across the way grabbed the light and refracted it back at him.
Stopping to expand the beam, Riker heard two people talking. Leveling the beam on the full-sized SUV, he saw a fleeting movement near the right rear wheel.
He called out, “Tara,” and heard a cough. After a half-beat of silence, during which the answer he expected to hear never materialized, the coughing resumed.
To maintain any kind of advantage afforded him by approaching the scene from the blindside and with the noise to mask his footfalls, he extinguished the light and immediately set off across the lot.
Sig leading the way and every nerve ending in his body crackling with pent-up energy, Riker walked with purpose toward the foreign sounds.
Chapter 55
The coughing fit continued as Riker heel and toed it across the lot, toward the squared-off SUV. As he made it to the driver’s side rear quarter, the fit was replaced by a retching sound that went on and on and showed no sign of letting up.
All in all, when put together, Riker was coming to the conclusion he was hearing the life being choked out of someone. Or, as his imagination began to run, maybe he was listening to a zombie rending the esophagus from Tara’s dying body.
As he rounded the rear of what the prominent badging told him was a Land Rover Discovery, the choking sounds ceased and his gaze was drawn to a spill of weak light angling down and away from the rig’s rear bumper. The illuminated patch of ground was split down the middle by the shadow of a slender woman on her knees. A ball cap was perched backwards on her head and, judging by the long, slender object bridging the gap between her clasped hands and mouth, Riker feared he had just caught a woman and a very well-endowed man in a compromising position.
Riker was trying to decide how he should go about announcing his presence when a familiar masculine voice said, “Keep going,” and then at once a raspy feminine voice replied, “I’m sucking as hard as I can.”
With a familiar heady scent hitting his nose, Riker came to realize what was really going on just out of sight behind the Land Rover.
On the verge of laughing out loud, he holstered the Sig, stepped into the light spill, and cast his gaze along the length of the slab-sided vehicle.
He saw exactly what he’d expected based on the shadow and brief snippet of heated conversation.
On her knees and facing the SUV’s quarter panel was an oblivious Tara. Trapped between her teeth was a short length of garden hose whose opposite end disappeared behind the SUV’s open filler door.
Steve-O, the owner of the masculine voice, was standing a little hunched over opposite Tara and holding an iPhone. The device’s flashlight feature wasn’t great; however, it still produced a beam sufficient to cast a damn funny shadow.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, thought Riker, then the mental image he was storing for later was going to make for one hell of an Aunty Tara story to tell future nieces and nephews. Assuming she finally found the elusive one before her biological clock shut that window for good.
Pushing from his mind the crazy notion of one day becoming an uncle, Riker cleared his throat.
With nothing to compete with, the grating noise emanated from Riker’s throat much louder than he had intended. It almost sounded like a wild cat issuing a warning.
Engaged in the task of trying to liberate the Discovery of any gas left in its tank, both Tara and Steve-O started, the former spewing gasoline and a couple of curse words, the latter kicking over the three empty gas cans lined up behind him.
Like she’d just sat down on a thumbtack, Tara rocketed up from her crouch. On her face was a stunned expression. On her head was Riker’s Braves hat. Hose in hand, she said, “Good morning, asshole. Don’t ever do that again.”
Voice quavering, Steve-O said, “You scared the crap out of me, Lee Riker.”
“That makes two of us,” Tara shot. “But who’s counting?”
Riker looked around. “First off, you should have woke me up so you’d have someone to watch your backs. Secondly, it’s not morning yet. And if I wasn’t just hearing things earlier, Pretty Lady here promised—”
Finishing the thought for him, Tara said, “I promised that we would reach Amarillo by morning. And that’s still a possibility, with a little more fuel.” She pointed the end of the hose at him. “Now how in the hell is this supposed to work?”
Recalling her shadow, he said, “While I’ve never done it myself, some say it takes a lot of practice.”
“You just went there, didn’t you, Lee.”
Without missing a beat, Steve-O said, “And you know what they say, Tara. Practice makes perfect.”
Ignoring the last comment, Tara stared daggers at Riker. “You guys are naaaasty.”
Changing the subject, Riker said, “Your gas mileage suffered a bit, eh?”
“I was driving a little lead-footed,” she conceded.
Riker said, “Hard not to in that beast.”
Tara thrust the hose in Riker’s direction. “So show me how it’s done.”
Shaking his head, he took the hose from her and started to suck. He continued until he felt the hose go heavy in his hands. As the first drop of gas hit his tongue, he quickly thrust the hose into the can Steve-O was tending for him.
He said, “And that’s how you do it.”
She said, “Tastes like shit, doesn’t it?”
He coughed once and spit on the ground. “It’s definitely not sweet tea.”
Steve-O rooted around in a pocket. Came out with a handful of white mints. “Altoid?”
Looking the pile over and seeing a good deal of lint and other unidentifiable fibers clinging to the mints, both siblings declined the offer.
Addressing Riker, Tara said, “I made it the three hundred and forty miles to Seymour on that first tank. It was a little after one a.m. and no gas stations were open.”
“Nothing was open,” added Steve-O.
“That’s where you dipped into our reserves?”
Tara nodded. “Had no choice. Pulled off on a side street. I stood guard while Steve-O did most of the work. Those twenty gallons saw us to this lonely little slice of Texas.”
“Where are we and what time is it?”
Tara said, “Check your big ass watch?”
“I don’t have it.”
She asked, “Where is it?”
“In the truck with my coat and other hat.”
Steve-O thumbed on Tara’s iPhone. He said, “It’s 3:18 a.m.”
Tara said, “We’re a few miles shy of Amarillo. Probably a couple of hundred more to go before we reach our final destination. Assuming it’s still there.”
Riker said, “Glass half-full, Tara. Two hundred miles, huh? You know what that means.”
“What does it mean, Lee?”
“It means we will be at Casa de Riker by sunup.” He looked at Steve-O. “You got a song that fits that?”
The brim of Steve-O’s Stetson cut the air. “Nope. I got nothing, Lee Ri
ker.”
Riker slapped the Discovery’s roof. “Hot damn,” he said. “Steve-O finally got stumped.”
In response to the gong-like noise, something moved inside the SUV, causing it to sway to and fro on its suspension.
“There’s a Sicko in there,” Steve-O said. “We didn’t bother looking. Tara says you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”
Hooking a thumb over his shoulder, Riker asked, “What’s beyond the lot?”
Crossing her arms, Tara said, “A few walk-in campsites. You don’t want to go back there.”
The look Riker gave her was a plea for more information.
“I didn’t see what’s back there,” she said. “Steve-O went back there to pee.” Looking to Steve-O, she said, “Tell him what you told me.”
Jaw taking a firm set, Steve-O said, “Zippered tents with hands and faces coming out of them.”
Riker looked up from his task. “Were they ripped? The seams coming apart?”
Steve-O shook his head. A pronounced motion that had his Stetson wobbling on his head. “The hands were pushing out at me. Mouths were opening and closing against the tent. I think it was kids.”
“Just kids playing? Maybe they couldn’t sleep. Being out here in the sticks on a moonless night does that to a person.”
Tara said, “That’s wishful thinking, Lee. And you know it.”
Voice taking an ominous tone, Steve-O said, “They were already Sickos. But they couldn’t see me. So they didn’t follow me back.”
Riker’s mind conjured up an image of tiny faces bulging the nylon, the continuous movement of their unseen mouths opening and closing. Throwing a shiver, he shifted his gaze to the beaten path leading to the walk-in sites, pulled the hose from the full can and, with his thumb, staunched the flow of gas.
Fully intent on steering the conversation away from the unknown horrors lurking in the surrounding woods, he asked, “How’d you two get the filler door open?”
“With your multi-tool,” answered Tara. “Just required a little bit of prying.”
“Firing on all cylinders, Sis,” said Riker as he stuffed the hose into the neck of the second can. After the fuel started flowing, he asked for the tool.
She handed it over.
Ordering Steve-O to watch out for Sickos, he immediately went to work removing the Land Rover’s plates.
As license plates went, these were pretty cool looking. A stylistic red sun floated on a field of turquoise. Horizontal writing above the sun read Centennial 1912-2012. Below the sun, spelled out in larger block letters, were the words New Mexico. In smaller lettering below the state of origin was the state motto—Land Of Enchantment.
***
Twenty minutes after starting the siphoning project, they were all headed back to the Shelby.
Riker led the way. In one hand was the Sig, in the other the tactical flashlight, its beam alternating between illuminating the pair of worn ruts at their feet and the trees and scrub lining the dirt track.
In case some of the things had escaped their tent tombs and had somehow flanked them, he had insisted they maintain noise discipline until they were back to the roadside pullout.
A couple of steps behind Riker, Tara had the fingers of her left hand looped through the handles of two empty gas cans. Though she tried hard at keeping them away from her body, now and again they would strike her leg and bang together. The hollow noise created carried a long way in the night. Clutched in her right hand was a five-foot-long stick as thick around as her wrist.
For quietly braining the first Sicko we see, was her justification for scooping up the stick. The periodic warning rattle of a nearby diamondback was what Riker chalked it up to.
Steve-O brought up the rear. In each hand was a nearly full five-gallon can. Riker guessed each one weighed about forty pounds. The man had lifted the cans with ease. So it wasn’t so much the weight that was the problem, it was the gas sloshing around inside that was throwing off his equilibrium.
And the heels on the man’s boots.
And the rutted track.
All of the things conspiring against Steve-O caused him to walk with a side to side sway and stall out completely every third or fourth step. The loss of forward momentum usually lasted a half-beat before he got it going again.
Riker had teased him along the way, saying he had the penguin walk down and all he needed to complete the look was a black and white tuxedo.
Steve-O said, “Eff you, Lee,” and dropped the cans in the dirt.
Riker stopped in his tracks.
“Take it back,” demanded Steve-O.
Having been the butt of many a joke about his gait, Riker issued a sincere apology. He even offered to carry the cans the remaining hundred feet to the Shelby.
In the end, the apology was sufficient. Steve-O picked up the cans, lugged them to the Shelby and, without another word, leaned inside and pulled the lever to open the fuel door.
Working by feel in the dark, he transferred the siphoned fuel into the Shelby.
While Steve-O went about his task, Riker clamped the tactical light in his mouth and used the multi-tool to install the pilfered plates.
Finished, he called out for Tara.
No response.
Swinging the beam toward the Impala, he saw Tara flanked by the pair of cans she’d carried back from the parking lot, busy siphoning fuel from the Impala. A few feet to her left, illuminated by the outer ring of light, the zombie at the wheel was craning in her direction and smashing its pulped features against the detritus-slimed window.
***
Returning to the Shelby a few minutes later, Tara’s gait was nearly identical to Steve-O’s when he had been loaded down.
Setting the cans next to the Shelby, she said, “That’s about seven more gallons to add to our haul.”
“Haul is right,” Riker said, hefting the fuller of the two cans. Looking to Steve-O, he added, “Never let anyone try to tell you that you can’t pull your own weight, Steve-O. Because you can. In more ways than you may know.” He paused for a second, then added, “And I’m sorry for poking fun at you.”
Offering a fist bump, Steve-O said, “Apology accepted.”
To seal the deal, Riker rapped knuckles with the man.
Chapter 56
Once Riker had steered the Shelby through a big U-turn across the dusty pullout, Tara called out the turns until they were back to Highway 287 West.
Ten minutes after topping off the Shelby’s tank, Riker had her clipping along in the slow lane at a conservative five over the posted limit.
Though the high-intensity headlights and bumper-mounted LED light bar illuminated a wide swathe of the shoulder and road ahead, Riker wasn’t able to see much of anything beyond the fence bordering the deserted two-lane. Aside from the tangle of wiry scrub crowding the fence, and random tumbleweeds picked up by the blue/white headlight wash, he was totally in the dark, both figuratively and literally, as to the makeup of the landscape beyond. For all he knew, there could be a mountain or canyon or mesa somewhere out there.
He couldn’t answer whether the dirt of the Texas Panhandle was tan, red, ochre, or a combination thereof.
“I feel like I’m still staring at the insides of my eyelids,” he announced.
“I am staring at the insides of mine,” Steve-O declared. Which was true. He was leaning against the passenger-side rear door, eyes closed, glasses perched atop the Stetson sitting on his lap.
Riker regarded Tara. “What did you make of the rest of Texas?”
“Not much,” she answered. “Just lots of neon beer signs and lit-up gas station reader boards telling me I was shit out of luck if I needed gas.”
“How about Dallas/Fort Worth? Was the lady captain blowing smoke, or does Romero have a foothold there, too?”
“Like you chose to do when we got close to Shreveport, I took a route that kept us south. We saw people looting. Lots of broken windows. Cops everywhere, speeding this way and that way.” She went qu
iet for a few seconds. “Lee … parts of Dallas were burning. Farther north, huge sections of the city were completely dark. Even the skyscrapers were just black obelisks.”
“Sounds like they were experiencing rolling blackouts. That’ll cause unrest among the locals. Nothing says government is failing you like a prolonged power outage.”
Tara drew in a deep breath and then exhaled sharply.
“You OK?”
Shaking her head, she said, “Not really. You want to know why I didn’t wake you?”
Riker said nothing. Kept his attention on the road.
“The locals in the small towns between the Dallas suburbs and Seymour, where we fueled up from the cans, were doing the same thing as the folks in Florida.”
“Standing guard at their freeway ramps.”
“Yep,” she said. “And the silver lining to that cloud is that every single one of the military vehicles we saw were rolling east.”
“Towards what I imagine is a rapidly shifting front line in what’s looking more and more like a losing battle being waged against our own population.”
Throwing a hard shiver, Tara asked, “How much fuel do we have?”
Glancing down, he said, “Half a tank, give or take.”
She did the math in her head. “If you don’t drive erratically like me, that may get us all the way there.”
He said, “Is that the plan?”
She said, “The plan was blown the second we got on that ferry.”
He said, “Tara, you know I wasn’t on the tip of the spear over there in Iraq, but whenever I was around the guys who saw a lot of combat, I kept my eyes and ears wide open. I was just trying to learn what to do and what not to do in order to stay alive in a war zone. That’s all. I wasn’t trying to live vicariously through them, or anything like that. To be honest, I felt like I was doing my part over there. Mostly when I was driving for my brothers, though. For fellow soldiers. Ground pounders as we called them.”
“What’s your point, Lee? You’re kind of rambling.”
The Plan Page 32