The End The Beginning (Humanity's New Dawn Book 1)
Page 45
Brian didn’t know what to say but he didn’t have to.
“Look,” Jack said, nodding forward. “Another one.”
There was a station wagon stopped in the road. It stood at a diagonal across the center line of the highway with its rear end in Jack’s lane and its front in the eastbound lane.
“Slow down, Jack,” Simon said. He was sitting forward in his seat, trying to see out the windshield better. Jack did as he was asked.
“Ian, we’re slowing down,” Brian said into the walkie.
Ian flashed his headlights in confirmation.
“It smells bad,” Blaze barked. “This smells bad to me.” He hunched his head down and Karen scratched his head reassuringly while she told the men what Blaze had said.
Jack tested the air and said, “Blaze, you’re right.”
“What is it, Jack?” Karen said, looking worried.
“Shit,” Jack replied. He was almost on the station wagon now and could see the passenger door was open and a body was partially hanging out. Jack could tell by the smell that there were three people in the car. And, like the proverbial train wreck, he knew he had to stop and see. “Tell ‘em we’re stopping,” he said to Brian.
Brian spoke into the walkie and Ian again flashed his headlights. Jack pulled his SUV onto the shoulder just past the station wagon and put in it park. Ian parked behind. Six doors opened and people and animals stepped out of the cars.
“Why’d we stop, Jackaroo?” Ian asked Jack when Jack walked and stood by his side.
“To see,” Jack said. He slowly walked over to the station wagon and Ian stepped in to follow. Blaze approached with his head held low and his tail between his legs.
“Don’t, Jack,” Blaze barked.
“Jack, Blaze says not to,” Karen said.
“It’s okay,” Jack said, not turning around and waving them off with his hand. He was a nurse after all. He’d smelled and seen injury and death. He reached the vehicle and peered inside.
Ian stepped up next to him but he was not prepared for what he saw. “Oh… Oh, God!” He barely turned in time and missed spraying vomit all over the body that was jutting from the passenger door; not that his vomit could have made the scene any worse.
He backed up and hunched over, his stomach heaved its contents until it was empty.
What Jack saw took him aback. The body hanging from the car was a woman. Her face was streaked in gooey blood that appeared to have come from her mouth and oozed up to her forehead and bushy hair while her upper body hung upside down from the car seat to the pavement. Worse, Jack looked at the corpse’s chest. Her left breast was loose from her top and it looked like as if it had burst. An ebony, malignant, branching mass was at the center and Jack had only seen one thing even remotely resemble this. Cancer. But at the same time, cancer was nothing like this.
Jack looked further into the car. In the driver’s seat was an overweight man. He was slumped against the window, as dead as the woman. The bottom of his pants was saturated with drying blood mixed with liquid shit. It was that that Jack had smelled on their approach. The dead man’s face was already pale and drawn and Jack guessed that, given the amount of blood the man had lost, he must have all but been entirely exsanguinated.
And, as if the front seat wasn’t bad enough, the rear held a third body. The worst thing about that body wasn’t its condition, which was indeed horrible, it was that fact that it was probably a three year old girl. Her head was tilted at a bad angle and her mouth hung open. Her dead eyes were open and crossed and looking up at a large hole in the center of her forehead. Jack wanted to believe the girl had been shot, perhaps during the riots after the eclipse, and her parents were taking her body somewhere safe for burial but the hole in her head could not have been made with a bullet. The skull fragments were pointed outward and it looked like a chunk of her brain was missing. Jack looked down and saw it sitting in her lap. It looked to be infected with the same strange cancerous like affliction that the woman’s breast had been.
Jack heard footsteps approaching behind him.
“Jack?” Karen said quietly.
“Don’t come any closer,” Jack said. “You don’t want to see this. I didn’t want to see this,” he said. He looked at the hunk of diseased little girl brain again and couldn’t take his eyes off of it.
“Jack, shouldn’t we go?” Amanda spoke up. “Someone could come.”
Jack turned around and walked back toward the group. His face had gone pale. “No one’s going to come,” he said.
“What do you mean by that?” Simon asked.
“Because there isn’t anyone around. Anyone alive anyway,” Jack answered. Tears were dripping from his eyes.
“What?!” Amanda gaped.
“Everyone around is dead,” Brian said, almost absently, picking the information from Jack’s mind.
“Jack and Brian are right,” Blaze woofed softly and Karen relayed. “Besides us, and some wildlife, all I can smell are dead humans.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here. Ian, you okay?” Jack said.
“Fuck, I don’t think I’ll ever be okay… after seeing that,” he answered. He panted, held on to his knees and after a moment, regained some composure. “But, I’ll live. For now, anyway.”
Jack scooped River up and held her close, savoring her warmth, and the softness and silkiness of her coat. “You drive,” he said to Brian. “There’s still a good chance I’m gonna vomit. C’mon.”
“What do you think happened to them?” Karen asked when they were back in the vehicles and on the road. They’d travelled about three miles in silence before she spoke and seen four other cars along the road with unmoving occupants inside them.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like that. Nor do I want to see it again,” Jack answered.
“Is it everyone?” Brian asked from the driver’s seat.
“I don’t know,” Jack said again, fearing the answer was probably affirmative.
“Was it that object, Simon?” River asked from Jack’s lap.
Jack relayed for her and Simon thought about it for a moment. “Maybe,” he finally said as they passed another vehicular mausoleum. “Maybe the first spray from the object… maybe that changed us. And the second batch, the explosion this morning, well, maybe it changed everyone else. What did you see on those bodies, Jack?”
Jack tried to hold back his stomach as he pictured the little girl’s chunk of brain lying in her lap. “It was like the most hopped up, aggressive, vicious, vindictive cancer I’ve ever seen,” he stated with a touch of remorse in his voice. Was I cured myself at the cost of others losing their lives? His mind asked.
“And the worst thing I have ever smelled,” Blaze chuffed. Karen translated.
Jack turned around in his seat and looked Blaze directly in his blue and green eyes. “Me too, buddy. Me too.”
74
COUNTY ROADS
It didn’t take long for the two cars full of people accompanied by a cat and dog to realize that the main roadways were not going to allow them the access they needed to get out of Minnesota, much less all the way to Nevada. Highway 12 became impassible just over ten miles farther west from the vehicle with the dead man, woman, and child, and the remains of Ian’s last meal. They had slowly driven past and seen many additional cars and trucks with shadowy, still, presumably horrid corpses behind the window glass before coming across a pile-up that stretched across the three lanes of blacktop just after Bridge Avenue in Delano.
“Looks like it’s been here a couple days,” Brian said from the driver’s seat of the idling SUV. Ian and Amanda stood outside to his left. Brian pointed to a section of the heap of twisted and crushed metal that spanned the highway. The section was covered in residue from a fire extinguisher. “Someone put out a fire.”
“Probably happened after the eclipse… during the crazy shit,” Ian said. He was starting to regain some of the color he had lost because of vomiting.
“It see
ms like we’re still in the crazy shit,” Brian said.
Jack reached to the dash board, removed his Garmin from its mount and switched it on.
“Is that going to work?” Karen asked him.
After a few seconds, Jack presented her with the screen and its display of their current location. “I guess so,” he said.
“Apparently the satellites are still working,” Simon said. “At least, for now, that is,” he added quietly.
Jack was fiddling with the device, moving the map around with his finger. And River watched with great interest.
“What is that, Jack?” she mewed.
“It’s a GPS device,” he answered.
“GPS?” she meowed.
“It stands for ‘global positioning system’,” Brian told her.
“What’s it do?” she mewed in question.
“Hopefully,” Jack started while he played with the device, “it’ll tell us where to go. Yes, there’s a road back there we can take. It’s just a county road but that’s probably for the best, right? Freeways and highways are probably going to be riddled with blockages like this.” He nodded to the wall of scrap metal and rubber twenty yards in front on them.
“And more of the cars like the one that you and Ian saw inside of… and I smelled,” Blaze woofed from between Simon and Karen. Karen let the group know what he had said.
“Well, let’s get to it then,” Amanda said and turned to head back to Ian’s car.
“Hold on a minute,” Jack said and Amanda halted.
“What’s up, Jack-Ladder?” Ian asked him, peering through the open window.
“If we’re gonna drive the county and back roads, it’s gonna take twice, if not three times as long to get there. I’m not sure I like the idea of being out there like that for so long. Something could go wrong. Someone might get hurt.” He glanced at Ian and smiled. “Sure, buddy, that doesn’t mean much for you but,” Jack’s face turned grim, “but it matters for the rest of us.”
“So what are you saying, Jack?” River meowed.
“I’m saying we don’t know if the dam is going to be what we hope it is but it sure as shit has to beat the land of the dead and God knows what the fuck else is out there. I’m saying, no monkey business. We get there and we go without dicking around,” he replied.
“There are six of us,” Simon said. “We could easily drive virtually nonstop and get adequate rest at the same time.
“Exactly,” Jack said and pointed at Simon.
“So only stop for what, bathroom breaks?” Brian said.
“And probably we’ll need more gas at some point,” Jack added.
“Probably no shortage of that,” Amanda said indicating the vehicles around that had either been abandoned or had become tombs for the dead.
“And we’ll have to stop to switch drivers,” Karen contributed.
“Yep,” Jack replied. “I think it’d be best to have at least two people awake in each car so-“
“-we can keep each other awake,” Brian interrupted, finishing Jack’s thought for him.
“Hey!” Jack snapped but he followed it with a smile. “Stop poking around in there.” He shot Brian a thought that politely said he meant it. “Anyway,” Jack continued, “Two drivers, one navigator with the GPS and the fourth just for support. To the other driver. And, Blaze?”
“Yes, Jack?” Blaze barked. Karen didn’t need to translate; it was clear to everyone what the Dalmatian had said.
“I’ll need your help with… the sensory aspect. You know? The scents and sounds.” Jack addressed the group as he continued. “It’d probably be best if we avoid contact with other people as best as we can. We’re sitting on a nice stock of stuff that anyone would probably love and kill to have. Not only that, if there are other survivors, they could be like us, you know, evolved.” Jack glanced at Simon and continued, “And we don’t have the slightest idea what sorts of things they might be capable of. We have to stay sharp. We all have to stay sharp, especially when we stop. If anyone feels or sees anything questionable or suspicious, weird, whatever, get on the walkie. No hesitation. But you and me, Blaze,” Jack returned his gaze to the heterochromatic eyes of the Dalmatian, “we’ve gotta stay extra sharp and keep us away from other people. Can you help me with that, boy?”
Blaze barked proudly and without hesitation. Translation was, again not needed. “Of course I can!”
Karen scratched his ears and said, “Good boy.”
Blaze’s tail slapped the backs of the two middle seats for the first time since they’d gotten in the car and he woofed, “Should we be in different cars then, Jack?”
Jack didn’t know what Blaze had said that time and looked to Karen.
“He wants to know if the two of you should ride separately,” Karen told Jack.
“That’s probably not a bad idea, Blaze,” Jack said. “Good thinking.”
“Thank you!” Blaze barked. His tail slapped the seats harder.
“You’re welcome,” Jack responded, not needing a translation.
“Will you come to Ian’s car with me please, Master Karen?” Blaze chuffed.
Karen stole a glance at Simon. Jack had changed his bandages and reported his injuries were healing nicely. She found herself excited for the time when she could see him without the bandages. And now, when asked to separate from him, she was hesitant.
Simon noticed Karen’s glance and blushed. But before he could say anything Jack spoke up.
“Time to go,” Jack spat out. He was obviously agitated. “If you’re switching cars, do it now. Otherwise, we wait to do it. Ian, Amanda, move!”
“What’s goin’ on, Jack?” Brian said but when he prodded into Jack’s mind he got the answer just as Jack said it.
“Someone’s coming,” Jack and Brian said in unison.
“No,” Blaze chuffed, his nostrils twitched as he sampled the air. “Two someones. From that way.” He nodded in the direction of the eastern side of Bridge Avenue, which was just before the blocked off Highway 12.
“You heard him then,” River meowed loudly and arched her back and her tail stood up in a poof. “Get moving!”
“C’mon, Master Karen!” He was standing at the door, his haunches quivered in anticipation.
Karen snatched one more look at Simon and saw what she’d hoped to see. Then she saw him kissing her. A vision, yes, and of all the ones she’d had so far, this one brought no suspicion, consternation, apprehension, confusion, speculation, or trepidation. It only felt right. A small smile curled her lip before she threw open the door.
Karen and Blaze dashed out of the SUV and headed for Ian’s Honda where he and Amanda were already waiting. Brian had the SUV moving almost immediately after their departure and swung the vehicle and its trailer around in a wide arc, trying to and succeeding at not hitting any other cars. Brian drove the SUV south with Ian hot on his tail. At Jack’s instruction, they took a right on County Road 30 and proceeded west.
And that’s how they rode. The group of eight traveled west and south on the lesser used county and dirt roads of the Minnesota prairie into the farmlands of South Dakota. They followed these south into the cornfields of Nebraska and then the wheat fields of Kansas. Kansas rolled to small portions of the Oklahoma panhandle and into the painted land of New Mexico. They bounced several times across the borders of the four corner states.
They stopped to relieve themselves. They stopped to siphon fuel from other vehicles and they changed drivers on these stops. They stopped once even to bathe in a small clean looking river. The men armed the women with guns and the animals and separated from them around a small bend in the river so the women could have some privacy. They didn’t know it but the water they were in was actually very clean and potable, which it had not been two months before. This stop, at fifteen minutes, was the longest stop of their journey.
They avoided the people that Jack and Blaze smelled and heard but the amount of people in that category was small; so maddeningly small.
Jack and Blaze separated and walked around, testing the air with their senses while the rest of the group stood at the ready with the hand and shot guns. After a couple of moments Jack and Blaze rejoined the group.
“We’re alone here,” Jack said and for the first time in over a week, he felt relaxed.
Blaze’s tail wagged happily in the air.
It took Art Spektor almost fourteen hours longer to reach the Hoover Dam. He had started his approach to the southwest by going south out of Minnesota and into Iowa. He’d made good time cruising confidently through the stalled and wrecked vehicles on the interstates before finding it impossible to get through Omaha. He went south from there and crossed northern Oklahoma but was forced into a series of impassible roads that forced him onto smaller streets and slower speeds.
He didn’t even seem to notice the death in the vehicles as he passed them. His mind was on just two things: sex, the most depraved and utterly humiliating kind; and cold blooded murder.
In the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, two weeks after he had assassinated Jack Thomas and his neighbors, Art approached the Hoover Dam from the east, on Highway 93. He stopped his car on a shoulder and stepped out into the morning with only the clothes on his back, his new hand gun and one extra magazine.
He walked toward the dam.
75
LOSS
It had been two weeks since Karen Thomas had lost her husband. She had not even been able to see him laid to rest and today, found herself wondering if that ever even happened. Sunday morning, she was outside the visitor center and gazed over at the massive concrete structure to her left and the sapphire blue water that it restrained and her eyes felt akin to the dam; holding back tears for her Jack. She had barely had the chance to properly grieve over the man who had intimately filled such an extensive portion of her life and found she wondered if she ever would. She didn’t want to be sad or depressed over the loss of her husband. She wanted to celebrate his life by living hers and keeping the memory of their relationship alive.