by Dell, George
“Billy, where do you want to be when this is over? I mean to live?” Billy thought for a second and considered before he responded.
“I guess it would depend,” he said. “I don't think I would want to live in a city though. I like it here... It's peaceful. I guess some place like this. Mountains, but this is a type of mountains I've never seen. I mean mountains like you would see in New York... Pines, Maples.”
Beth lay on her back, staring up into the diamond studded sky. She rolled over and propped herself up on one elbow next to him as she spoke.
“This place, it used to be a state park, but now it's just a nice lake. Nobody owns it anymore. It would be a good place to be... Away from the city... Build a little community here... There are thousands of places like this now... All over the country. I would like a place like this.” Beth said quietly. She removed the pot from the fire, setting it to one side so it would be there in the morning when they awoke. They crawled into the tent and were asleep within minutes.
The silvery moonlight shown down as they slept, the nearly full circle slowly traveling across the darkened sky.
CHAPTER FIVE
Billy and Beth
March 29th
They awoke early to the chatter of squirrel-talk in the trees. Gray squirrels playfully leaping through the pine branches and running up and down the thick trunks, scolding as they went.
Beth set the water to boil, once she had rekindled the fire from the still glowing coals, as Billy broke camp and quickly loaded the truck. They ate a small breakfast of the leftovers of the meal from the night before, and sipped the hot tea as the sun began to slowly peek over the tops of the trees across the lake. After they rinsed the utensils in the lake, and doused the fire, they climbed into the truck and drove slowly back to the main road. They both felt an urgency to be under way, and once they regained the main road Billy pointed the truck north.
The going was slow, but the farther they traveled the less traffic there seemed to be, and, Billy discovered, if they stayed on the shoulder they could make pretty good time.
Towards mid-morning they turned off onto state Route 260, and began to angle towards the New Mexico border. The going was much easier and they found that they could keep to the pavement, most of the time, which allowed them to make even better time.
Late afternoon found them in the small city of Springerville just inside the Arizona border, and Billy drove the truck into the parking lot of a large shopping mall on the outskirts.
The mall served as an anchor for several large department stores, and a large grocery chain. There were several other specialty shops scattered throughout the mall. They stocked up on canned goods, as well as several packages of freeze dried meats from a sporting goods store in the mall. Beth wandered across the empty mall to a clothing store, and Billy walked off towards a small shop he had spotted as she picked out some clothing for both of them. By the time they had finished it was late in the afternoon. They left the small city behind, and continued into New Mexico on I60. Just before nightfall they reached the Cibola National Forest and Billy pulled the truck off onto one of the dirt roads of the park and found a place to park among the trees. He unloaded the truck and set up camp, as Beth made dinner. She experimented with canned meat along with some freeze dried food, and the result was a tasty stew-like dish.
“Where did you learn to cook, Beth?” he asked, “this is really good.”
“Oh it's just a little something I threw together,” she joked, as she blew lightly on her finger-tips.
“All I ever ate when I was by myself was fast food,” Billy said, “and it all sort of tasted like cardboard after a while. I can't believe you made this out of that stuff we picked up today.”
“Well,” she said, “I did throw in some canned meat. If you think this is good, just wait until I have some decent stuff to cook with.” Billy bugged his eyes out comically at her, and said, “You mean this isn't the good stuff?”
“Not even,” she joked back. They sipped at cups of hot tea as the fire crackled invitingly in front of them.
They were at the edge of the San Mateo Mountain range, and it was somewhat cooler at the higher elevation. They had both remarked though, on how much warmer it was than it should have been. Beth more so than Billy.
Billy and Beth
San Mateo Mountain range
March 30th - April 8th
In the morning they broke camp before the sun was even up and headed out into the chill pre-morning air.
They both enjoyed the scenery as they drove along, and verbally promised that they would take their time when they returned, and stop as often as they wanted to, to look at the scenic mountains.
They both knew it was possible that they might never return. That they could die in the north when they reached whatever destiny awaited them there, but they chose not to dwell on it, as they found it only saddened them.
As they traveled, they encountered less and less stalled traffic, until the road before them opened up, totally deserted for miles at a stretch. Mid-morning brought them to the Oklahoma border, and if they had not had to slow down and find an alternate route around the City of Clayton, they probably would have entered Oklahoma by nightfall.
The stalled traffic had returned several miles outside the city, but once they were within two miles of the city limits, it had become impassable. Even the breakdown lanes were packed full, and the traffic had forced them into the fields that flanked the highway to find a way around. Once past Clayton however, the stalled traffic had once again given way and they spent the night camped beside the highway less than twenty miles from the Oklahoma border.
Noon of the following day brought them to the outskirts of Woodward and more stalled traffic. After taking several shortcuts across open fields, they eventually came upon route 412, which, Billy found by checking the map; they could follow most of the way across the country.
They spent that night by a quiet lake that reminded them of the one back in Arizona. They were just outside the small town of Cleo Springs Oklahoma. They were both becoming used to the traveling, and had each developed a routine they followed every night when they stopped. They had twice seen smoke off in the distance that day, as if to the east of them some great fire were burning. They had correctly guessed the reason long before they reached the fire. Someone, or something, had set the entire city to flame.
~
For several miles before they reached and successfully passed around and beyond the city of Enid Oklahoma, black oily smoke had hung over them in the sky. They had been forced to detour more than twenty miles to the south, running through the fields to get around the still burning city. Even from that distance they could feel the heat, and occasionally see the flames leaping into the sky.
When they stopped that evening at a small lake just off 412, the glow of the fire was still visible in the distance behind them. They were both tired and dropped off to sleep before the last vibrant colors of dusk had fully faded from the sky.
The next day they traveled steadily onward toward the distant mountains. The going was slower and they had to stop several times to move stalled vehicles out of the roadway, or take other routes that were less traveled. They kept on a roughly north east direction, rising only slightly up through the states.
They had finally been stopped by the wreckage of three cars that had collided on the Quachita river bridge on 270. The collision had taken out the concrete and the guard rail on one side of the bridge. There had been a fire after the wreck. And the heat must have been tremendous. Two of the cars were wrapped around the steel guard rail that had either broken on impact or in the fire after that had shattered the remaining concrete that was still connected to it. Billy managed to winch one of the cars out of the way, and together they had pushed the other two off the bridge and into the river.
They had both watched as the cars flipped end for end, and finally landed half in the river and half on a small island that split the river. At the expense of
a small amount of paint, which was scraped from the truck as they passed the one remaining vehicle, they managed to get into the Quachita National Forest preserve before nightfall.
Two additional days of travel brought them just into the Alabama border and the small community of Ardmore. They found a logging road just off 31. After Billy had set up the tent in a clearing back into the woods, he walked back over to take a closer look at the truck while Beth started dinner.
Beth had surprised him earlier in the day when they had stopped by the side of the road to rest. A large buck had wandered out of the trees to their left and stood staring at them in the roadway. She had used the Remington, and carefully sighting, had brought the large animal down. Between them they had managed to dress it out, and had filled a large plastic cooler in the back of the truck with the venison. The smell of fresh steaks sizzling on the fire made the delay worthwhile.
The trip across the country had been tough on them, but it had been much harder on the truck, Billy saw now, as he looked it over.
Most of the damage was superficial, long scrapes down both sides of the truck, a small dent here and there. The big problem however was mechanical.
The brakes were borderline, soft and spongy, probably due to the rough terrain they had traversed. Billy had had to constantly ride the brakes as they went down steep inclines to get around the road when it was hopelessly blocked. The other problem was the motor. It had developed a constant rattle deep within the block, every time it climbed even a small grade. He supposed most of it was due to the fact that they had been forced to use whatever gas they could find, and several times that had been low grade unleaded. That and the fact that the fuel injection system had not been set up for high altitude, it had been a desert truck up until it's liberation from the garage in Arizona. The truck was running better than twelve hours at a stretch, most days, and almost all of that was labored driving. As a result the truck had also developed several small oil leaks.
He walked around the truck and looked it over carefully. The tires were chewed badly from the rocks they had crawled over. It looked ten years old, Billy realized. He pulled the map out of the glove compartment, and after studying it, decided the truck would probably make it to Athens Alabama, and they should be able to pick up something to replace it there. He really hated to though, as he had grown to like the truck a great deal, even become attached to it. But he realized, the truck would never make it the rest of the way.
He tossed the map back into the glove compartment, shut the door and walked back over to the fire. The smell of the cooking venison was maddening.
While he had meant it when he told Beth she had done wonders with the canned stuff, there was nothing like the real thing. He resolved to also hunt around for a case or two of Quick Cold to keep what was left of the meat fresh when they reached Athens.
Although they had seen plenty of wildlife, they had yet to see any people. They both felt, however, that there were people. For whatever reason they just weren't showing themselves. They both understood, to a point, what would make other people distrustful of them. They had seen a lot of evidence themselves, bodies horribly mangled, cities burned, and they had no wish to meet up with the people who had left it. They had found most of the bodies as they passed through the larger cities and towns, and most looked to have met with violent deaths. It was almost as if they were trying to finish the killing that the earthquakes had not been able to finish. And more dead meant more dead rising to whatever that new life was. It wasn't something either of them liked to dwell on too long. It was sobering to both of them, and Beth had taken to carrying the machine pistol with her whenever they left the truck. Billy had already gotten into the habit of keeping the Remington close at hand, but he too now made sure it was with him, and the safety off, all the time.
Billy walked back from the truck and sat down next to the fire.
“The truck's in bad shape, Beth. The one front tire's cut to the threads already.” He had also checked the oil and other fluids. “She took two quarts of oil, last two we had, and it's still not touching the stick. Not good.”
She screwed up her face and looked at him pensively. “Well, I suppose I could get a second job. Then I guess we could afford a new one,” her humor caught him by surprise, as it usually did, and he laughed out loud.
“You are nuts, you know that?” he said. They laughed together, and then he told her that they should be able to get another truck in Athens the next day. After that she fished the meat, which she had wrapped in foil and placed over the coals at one edge of the fire, out, and they ate. They ate it with relish, and laughed at each other about what pigs they were, and then after a swim in a clear mountain stream that flowed nearby they crawled into the tent.
They were only three miles outside of Athens the next morning, when the truck finally gave up the ghost.
It died with one dreadfully long rattle deep within the block of the engine. Billy coasted over to the side of the road and they simply left it. He had tried to start it, but it would not turn over. Billy took the Remington, and Beth held the machine pistol as they walked along the road. It took better than an hour to walk into Athens, but when they arrived it was still early morning.
They had both been bothered by a feeling that they had been followed, or were being watched. It was unsettling, and they were constantly glancing around themselves as they walked, but they saw no one.
They were standing on the pavement of a car lot looking over a long line of vehicles, trying to decide which one to take, when the first shot came.
The windshield on the truck directly in front of them imploded, covering the interior in small jewel like chunks of glass. They both reacted almost instantly, dropping to the ground and rolling towards the rear of the truck.
When they reached the rear of the truck they both crouched low and sprinted deeper into the lot. Another shot rang out as they ran, and Beth watched as a wide hole was suddenly punched through the fender of a truck just a few inches ahead of her. She dropped to the ground and rolled over on her back, raising the machine pistol instinctively in front of her. It was all that saved her life.
Billy was still running deeper into the lot, not realizing Beth was no longer beside him. The sound of the machine pistols chatter behind him stopped him cold, and he turned and ran back towards the front of the lot.
When Beth had fallen, a tall dark haired kid had appeared from in front of the truck, and directly into the steel sight of the machine pistol. He raised what looked to be an automatic rifle, but before he could fire Beth began squeezing the trigger of the pistol, and it jumped and began to bark in her hands. Billy had just come up beside her, and watched as the man toppled over, nearly cut in two. The sound of screeching tires out on the roadway dragged his mind away from the still twitching body of the young man, and as Beth jumped up into a low crouch they both began to run towards the road. Billy stopped only long enough to pick up the automatic rifle from the ground where the man had dropped it.
When they reached the road a small Jeep was moving rapidly away from them, and a blond haired man, not much more than a kid, Billy realized, was crouched in the back aiming a rifle at them, while a dark haired young woman sat behind the wheel. They both dropped once more to the ground, and opened up on the Jeep as the young man began to fire. The slugs from the young man’s rifle ripped into the pavement, tearing huge chunks out of it close to Billy's face as he fired back at the Jeep.
The blond haired kid suddenly bolted upright, and seemed to jump from the rear of the Jeep. He landed on the roadway, rolled, and then was still. Both rear tires blew out on the Jeep as Beth's gun continued to speak, and before it had traveled far the young woman lost control, and it flipped several times rolling down the middle of the road. The young woman fell headfirst in a heap on the pavement where she had been thrown, and had then been rolled over by the Jeep as it continued to flip down the road.
Smoke curled up from the overturned Jeep. Within seconds it attr
acted a small circle of flames from under the hood that grew and began to curl up and lick at the rubber of the still turning front tires.
“You okay?” Billy asked, in a panicked voice as he looked at Beth.
“Good... A little shaken,” she amended.
They both walked slowly down the road to where the bodies of the young man and the young woman lay, they were perhaps twenty feet apart. Beth had thought that possibly the young woman might still be alive, but she was not. Her neck was broken, and they had quietly carried both bodies off the road and into a field before returning to the lot. They had debated briefly whether they should bury them, but had decided not to. It was not a decision made out of spite though, but out of necessity. They had no idea whether the three were alone or not, and if they were not, and there were others close by, it might be best to get back to the lot, pick up a truck, and head back out to where the Chevy had broken down as quickly as they could.
They walked calmly back to the dealership, and went inside. They both felt safer inside despite the wide glass windows that fronted the road.
A huge four wheel drive Suburban sat on the showroom floor nestled in between other cars and trucks that surrounded it. It was obviously a heavy duty truck. It sat much higher than the pickup had, and the tires were much more aggressive, and the open cargo space behind the driver's area would be an asset to them, Billy realized, much better than the open pick-up bed had been with its flimsy vinyl cover. He walked around the truck, noticing that it was also equipped with a winch as the pickup had been, but this one looked to be a lot sturdier to him, strictly heavy duty.