“The guys who see the action have a saying.”
“What’s that?”
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
Tara remained tightlipped.
Riker went on, “Getting away from Southern Florida when we did was just plain luck. After that, we kind of stuck to the plan. What I’m getting at is we have to be flexible. The Marines have a saying—Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome. I think we’re all doing a great job at all three of those things.” He craned as if trying to get a better look at something off in the distance.
“You see something?”
“Thought I saw city lights reflecting off the clouds. Probably just wishful thinking.”
“God, I hope Amarillo isn’t showing signs of zombie activity.”
“Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.”
“You’re full of sayings, Lee,”
“That’s not all I’m full of.”
For the first time in a long while the siblings shared a laugh.
Ten minutes after getting underway, with Steve-O sawing logs in the backseat and Tara perched on the front edge of her seat, Amarillo presented as a faint bubble of light hovering above the road just off the Shelby’s right-front fender.
Five minutes later, they passed a sign cluster rising up from the right shoulder. The largest was a welcome sign. AMARILLO was spelled out in big uppercase lettering, the double Ls in the word represented by a pair of red cowboy boots. Below was a tag line written in cursive that read Step Into The Real Texas.
A second sign announced Amarillo as home to Rick Husband International Airport.
Riker steered onto a ramp that took them off Route 287 and onto Interstate 40 West.
To their right was Rick Husband International. It was a single runway affair, the long white strip of cement hard to miss from the elevated vantage. Fronting the runway and lit up like a toppled Christmas tree was a row of squat glass-and-steel terminals bearing a number of colorful signs. On the side opposite the runway was a patchwork of car-choked parking lots.
All of it rambled away from the city, north by east. A few planes were sucked up against darkened jetways. Others sat idle on the far east side of the airport, where the orange oval spills from halide lights on stands made it impossible to tell to which carrier they belonged.
Nothing moved on the runway. And like all of the other airports they’d passed so far, heavy equipment was positioned on this runway.
Riker said, “Who is Rick Husband?”
Tara was already tapping away on her iPhone.
“You have service?”
She looked up and nodded. “It’s real slow, though.” Pointing out across the hood, she said, “Whoa! Looks like we found Viagra World Headquarters.”
As the off-ramp curled around, making a gradual transition to I-40, the airport was replaced out the Shelby’s windshield by downtown Amarillo.
Standing out in the middle of the dimly lit city was a twenty- or thirty-story building. It was a rectangular slab of cement inset with long vertical windows. The monolith looked out of place amongst the dozens of surrounding buildings, most of which barely rose to a third of its height.
Illuminated signage graced the corners of the building facing Riker. Reading a sign, he said, “I’m pretty sure that says Plains Bank, not Viagra, Sis.”
“Both have something to do with people getting screwed.”
Saying, “That they do,” Riker signaled, pulled around a slow-moving Volkswagen Vanagon, and jumped back into the fast lane.
Interstate 40 cut through Amarillo’s primarily residential south side. The city blocks here were set out in a neat grid pattern that mostly paralleled the interstate.
Following the same general tack as the famed Route 66, the interstate continued on, due west for seventy miles, passing by Wildorodo, Vega, and Adrian—all sleepy railroad towns whose origins could be traced back to when the west was still wild.
Crossing the imaginary state line separating Texas from New Mexico, they entered the Mountain Time Zone.
Seeing the time change already reflected on her iPhone’s display, Tara said, “Thanks to entering the great state of New Mexico, we all just gained another hour.”
Riker exclaimed, “Man, oh man. I suddenly feel refreshed. Like I just downed a triple shot espresso.” A lie, because he was growing weary again from non-stop driving. And like the clock rolling back an hour, seeing Steve-O still conked out in the backseat did nothing to alleviate the fatigue setting in. In fact, if it had any effect on him at all, it only served to remind him how badly he wanted to reach their destination, to lay down in a real bed—not a truck bed—and try to forget everything happening in the real world.
Chapter 57
Blown away by the lack of a roadblock at the border, Riker exchanged a knowing look with Tara. Afraid giving voice to what he knew they were both thinking might reverse their good fortune, he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he matted the pedal. Once the speedometer needle hit eighty-five, he engaged the Shelby’s cruise control.
Quickly putting ten miles behind them, Riker hauled the Steiners from the center console and handed them to Tara.
She said, “It’s still dark. What good are these going to do?”
“We’re all alone out here. We have been since Amarillo. I figure the closer we get to Santa Fe, the more likely we’ll come up on a state patrol cruiser or the Santa Fe PD ranging to the edge of their jurisdiction.”
“You want me to keep these up to my face for the next two hundred miles?”
“No,” Riker said. “Just scan the road front and back every couple of minutes. Be on the lookout for parking lights off to the side of the road. Really key in on any overpasses you see coming up on the navigation unit.”
Grimacing, Tara cracked open an energy drink and settled into her seat.
***
Ninety minutes later, having covered nearly half the distance to Santa Fe, Tara’s diligence paid off.
“Shit,” she exclaimed, “there’s a black and white entering the interstate on the next ramp.”
Tearing his gaze from the eerily quiet Santa Rosa airport, passing by just off the interstate on their left, Riker picked up the police cruiser. It was awash in light from the standards beside the cloverleaf and sweeping onto the two-lane up ahead, where a second major thruway crossed paths with I-40.
The car was low-slung and wide at the hip. It rolled on performance tires wrapped around basic black rims.
He said, “Looks like a Dodge Charger.”
As the cruiser accelerated and slipped into the fast lane, the Shelby came even with what appeared to be Santa Rosa’s city limit.
Riker couldn’t help but notice the large number of eighteen wheelers sitting idle on vast plats of brightly illuminated blacktop surrounding a cluster of businesses near the freeway interchange. Compared to what they’d seen so far, and that it was four in the morning, the place was hopping.
Tara tapped on the navigation screen.
Stomach growling, Riker eyed the signage coming up on the right. The golden arches of a McDonalds rose above a darkened PaPo’s Pizza joint. A restaurant called Route 66 sat on a short block wedged between the La Quinta Inn and Santa Rosa Econo Lodge Inn and Suites. And really catching his eye was the red Dairy Queen sign looming large just off the interstate to their left.
God, what he wouldn’t give for a bacon cheeseburger and some onion rings right now.
Instead of answering to the hunger pangs, he said, “How far of a lead do you think the cruiser has on us?”
She lowered the Steiners. “Half a mile by now. Maybe a little less.”
Hoping to avoid the State Patrol cruiser, Riker disengaged the cruise control and threw on the right signal.
Tara said, “Looking for gas?”
“That and to let the cruiser get a bigger lead on us.”
“We have enough gas in the tank to get to Santa Fe, don’t we?”
“What’s between here and our n
ext waypoint?” Riker asked.
Tara pinched and swiped the image on the nav screen. Finally, she said, “Santa Rosa’s downtown core … if you can call it that, is off to the left. There’s a second interchange serving the city. After that, nothing but desert for sixty or seventy miles.”
“After that?”
“Santa Fe is forty miles north by west.”
Regarding the gas gauge, Riker concluded they’d be cutting it real close if they didn’t hit a station now. Eyeing the sprawling truck stop, he said, “Let’s kill two birds with one stone.”
Nodding, Tara said, “Looks like we have our choice of stations. Where do you want to eat?”
Appearing between the front seats all of a sudden, wisps of reddish-gray hair going this way and that, Steve-O said, “I spy with my little eye … a McDonalds.”
Bowing to convenience, Riker again let the man have his way. Steering toward the ramp opposite the one the cruiser entered the interstate, he said, “Breakfast sandwiches it is.”
Steve-O’s golf clap was priceless. He donned his glasses and looked to Tara. “What’s new?” he asked.
“You missed nothing. There were no Sickos. No roadblocks. Zero. Zilch. Nada.”
Steve-O smiled big and looked to Riker. “I saw the insides of my eyelids. If it’s good enough for Lee Riker, it’s good enough for me.”
Smiling at the solid endorsement, Riker looped them back around to the McDonalds. Slalomed through light standards on an otherwise empty lot. Then nosed the Shelby into the single-lane drive-thru.
They encountered the kind of crowd one would expect to find at four in the morning in a town with no discernable nightlife. No crowd at all. The place seemed deserted. Not a single car in the lots, front or back.
After waiting patiently for a few seconds, no kind of greeting spilled from the speaker. Riker glanced at the menu board. Taped to the board above the speaker grille was a sign he’d missed the first go-round. Please pull to the second window was written in black ink on back of a strip of blank receipt paper held in place by clear tape.
Riker craned to see what he was getting into as he pulled forward.
The bi-fold doors parted and out popped the cherubic face of a young woman who looked to be a year or two away from her first legal drink.
She said, “Sorry to have you pull ahead, it’s just easier this time of night.”
The tag on her uniform blouse said her name was Bethany.
Bethany had a point, thought Riker. Hard enough to understand through those speakers what the person inside was saying. From a reverse perspective, a potential customer with a few drinks under their belt slurring an order through the same connection likely came across sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher.
“No worries,” he said. “I completely understand.” Without a menu to consult, he ordered from memory. “We’ll need five sausage egg McMuffins. Two black coffees. Why don’t you add two orders of pancakes with syrup and butter to that.” He craned toward the backseat. “Whatcha drinking, Steve-O?”
“Hot chocolate.”
Wearing an expression that clearly said Finished? the drive-thru girl tapped a chewed-on fingernail on yet another handwritten sign. It was partially hidden on one of the bi-fold doors. On the sign were exactly six items.
It was at this point Riker noticed two employees standing some distance behind the drive-thru girl. Arms folded across their chests, the man and woman, both in their twenties, were looking at Riker and Tara as if the siblings were visitors from another planet.
After reading the menu, Riker said, “Give us five apple pies, five hash browns, and two coffees.” He paused. “Sure you don’t have hot chocolate?”
Bethany shook her head. “Just coffee, sodas, and water. More bad news … we’re out of apple pies. Only flavor we have left is pumpkin. Is that going to work for you?”
Nodding, Riker said, “It’ll have to do. Add a coffee. You have chocolate syrup or hot fudge?”
Though her face wore a vacant expression, Bethany nodded as if the question had registered.
“That’s called a mocha,” she said. “We can do it,” and banged out the order on an iPad-type device attached to a till.
In a matter of seconds the rest of the skeleton crew was crowding Bethany at her window. The twenty-something man with dark bags underneath his eyes handed over a paper sack smelling of pumpkin spice and hot grease. “Sorry about the limited menu,” he said. “We haven’t received anything from the central warehouse in two days. I guess stations from here to Arkansas are having a hard time getting fuel for their pumps. Trucks are just sitting while product spoils.”
Pointing in the truck stop’s general direction, Riker asked, “How about the plaza? Do they have any fuel?”
The man shook his head. “Nothing. Been about three days since their last tanker showed up. I hear there’s a lot of stranded truckers sleeping in their rigs.”
The woman who had been hanging back and pouring coffees craned around Bethany.
She was waifish, with pink locks of once-blonde hair tucked under a restaurant-issue cap. Heroin-chic was what sprang to mind as Riker got a better look at her.
She shot a nervous glance at the darkness crowding in on the Shelby. “What’s it like out there?” she asked.
Riker thought he detected a touch of fear in her tone, but before he could respond, Bethany added, “Have you guys actually seen a … zombie?”
Riker was a little taken aback. It was the first time he’d heard a stranger call the living dead anything but Bolts, Slogs, Zips, or Sickos. After taking another beat or two to compose an answer, he said, “It’s real bad back East. All the way through Louisiana, actually. As far as zombies?” He shrugged. “I’ll just say that I’ve seen things I cannot easily explain, and leave it at that.” Hooking a thumb at Tara, he added, “She saw them first. Little over a week ago. Back in Indiana.”
Leaning across the console, Tara established eye contact with Bethany. Voice taking a serious tone, she said, “Zombie was the first word that came to mind when I saw a dude die and then come back to life. One second he was flopping around and bleeding out. The next thing I know, he was sitting up and tearing a woman’s throat out. Call ‘em whatever you want to call them, just remember that they’re deadly as hell.”
The man slapped a pile of napkins on the stainless-steel ledge between the bi-fold doors.
Taking the napkins, Riker said, “Some of them we’ve seen are fast. Others are slow. Seems like the younger and more fit ones among them fall into the former category.”
Bethany’s head tilted to the side. “Former?”
“The younger and more physically fit zombies are the fast ones,” Tara said. “We call them Bolts.”
The other female employee passed Bethany the hot drinks.
As Bethany went about snugging the drinks into the beverage carrier, the man leaned in and stuck his face close to the window above the bi-fold doors. Breath fogging up the glass, he said, “You two are full of shit. There is no such thing as zombies or dolts or ghosts or the effin Blair Witch. You all are just feeding the rumor mill and these two are eating it all up.”
Riker took a twenty from his cash wad. Handing it to Bethany, he locked eyes with the man. “I saw the state patrol headquarters down the road. How many are working the interstate any given night?”
Bethany took the twenty and answered the question. “One on the weekday nights. Two days and weekends.”
The other woman added, “They have six or seven working most holidays.”
Though he thought he knew the answer, Riker said, “How about tonight?”
“Vern’s all alone tonight,” said the man. “He just left here with coffee and food a few minutes ago.”
From the backseat, Steve-O said, “I’m eating while it’s still hot.”
Tara said, “Go ahead.”
The sound of paper being torn filled the cab.
Riker said, “To prove we’re not full of shit, I want you t
o go back to the office and call Dispatch. Tell the person who answers that you just saw a zombie. I guarantee you the person will not think you’re full of shit.”
Bethany shot a look to the man. She said, “Do it, Kyle.”
He said, “It’ll come up ‘McDonalds’ on their caller ID and we’ll all be fired.”
Tara said, “Use one of your phones.”
Kyle said, “Same thing happens when you use a mobile. And there’s no way I know of to block it.”
Figuring the gaunt-looking man had experience in the matter, Riker said, “There’s a pay phone out front of the restaurant a block down. I’ll give you the money so you can go down there and make the call.”
Kyle seemed hesitant.
Bethany tried handing Riker the change from the twenty.
Riker said, “Keep it. Go ahead and give Kyle what he needs from it.” He peeled a hundred from his cash wad. Slapped it on the counter. “If Kyle is told he’s full of shit and Vern isn’t dispatched, Kyle gets the money for his troubles.”
“What if Vern shows up?” asked Bethany.
All business, Riker said, “Means the infection or whatever it is has crossed over into New Mexico and we all have something to worry about.”
Staring Benjamin Franklin down, Bethany said, “The hundred?”
“You all split it,” Riker said. “Call it an early Christmas present.” He saw Kyle back away from the window. Through a sliver of space between Bethany’s shoulder and the wall to her left, he saw Kyle shuck his apron and don a navy-blue windbreaker.
Riker said, “Ladies, looks to me like Kyle is accepting the challenge.” Gesturing to the edge of the lot, where the spill from overhead lights was mostly nonexistent, he added, “I’m going to park over there so we can eat.”
Easing the Shelby against a picket of medium-sized trees about fifty feet from the drive-thru window, where they all still had a clear view of I-40’s westbound lanes, Riker shut the motor down.
Saying, “What now?” Steve-O passed the sack of food forward.
“Yeah, good question,” Tara said. “What now?”
Taking a long pull from his coffee, Riker said, “Now we sit back, eat our food, and watch the show.”
The Plan Page 33