U.G.L.Y

by Rhoades, H. A.

  I started gassing up the car and thought about the first wave of the infection. An epidemic that caused millions of people to kill each other. No one really knew yet what had caused it and the event had passed so fast there was little the CDC or government officials could do to try to understand it.

  What I saw at the bar was similar. The behavior of the infected was like it was before except they didn't kill the people they attacked. They were infecting each other with purpose.

  Out of the corner of my eye off in the distance I saw headlights swerving back and forth and could hear very faint popping sounds.

  “POP, POP”

  Seconds later, as the lights got closer I realized I was hearing gunshots. Two sets of headlights were rapidly coming towards the gas station. As they got closer I could make out the details of two vehicles. The vehicle in the rear was a police vehicle with an unlit light bar across its roof. A man leaned out of the passenger side window and was firing at the vehicle in the lead.

  I rushed to put the gas nozzle back in the pump and ran around the car, pulling the keys out as I moved. I jumped in the drivers seat and started the engine. The two vehicles were getting very close now and couldn't have been more than a block away.

  I threw the gear selector into drive and pushed my foot to the floor. Just as I cleared the curb and started onto the street the vehicles came into the parking lot of the gas station. They must have been within 100 yards of me and I could see the drivers and passengers clearly.

  The men in the first car were prisoners dressed in orange jumpsuits. The passenger in the second car was leaning out of the window and firing a shotgun repeatedly at the first car. As the two vehicles entered the parking lot of the gas station, a shot hit the right rear tire of the first car. The tire exploded and the car began to roll. The rolling car smashed straight into the gas station store front.

  I could see the surprised faces of the patrons that were huddled inside as the car rolled over and over. It careened through the glass and burst into flames. The police vehicle following, tried to stop but was moving too fast and lost control. The car hit the fuel pumps, instantly igniting them.

  I pushed harder on the gas peddle and tried to get some distance between me and the blast. The desert lit up with the light from the fireball. It was so bright it was almost like daylight.

  I drove North as fast as the car would go. After a few minutes the light from the explosion dissipated and withdrew into a faint orange glow behind me. I shook my head trying to get the image of the shocked faces behind the store window out of my mind. Just ahead on the hill I could see the prison more clearly than before. It was on fire. All I had seen since this nightmare started was buildings burning. I passed the access road to the prison and I could make out the silhouette of people running along the road. It was difficult to tell if they were prisoners or guards. As I drove past I could hear the screech of the infected. I focused my eyes on the road ahead as a shudder went through me.

  14.

  -Miles to Go-

  The drive went on forever it seemed. I drove through the night, stopping when I could for gas or to get coffee. There were a number of small towns, isolated gas stops along the road. The people at these stops were half asleep retirees or high school kids barely awake enough to notice I was there.

  As the night wore on I was getting anxious again. I couldn't stop imagining the horrible state the kids could be in. I was sure Amanda had made a bad call and left them with some “friend” which she tended to do.

  I started to remember how bad the divorce was and how many times she had tried to take the kids away from me. I thought she did it to get more money. I was flushed and could feel anger start welling up inside me at the thought.

  The first light of dawn was beginning to appear in the east. As the sun rose I could see mountains ahead and I began the long climb towards lake Tahoe. I followed the windy road through the foot hills, then into the mountains and reached a turnout that overlooked the lake just as the sun cleared the horizon and daylight filled the sky.

  I stopped the car to stretch my legs. I walked to the edge of the look out and pulled my ball cap down over my brow. In the valley below was Lake Tahoe and if I squinted I could see Lake Tahoe City. That’s where I needed to go to find the kids. I thought again about whether it was a good idea to come here. If this was where she really was.

  She could have been anywhere, she had friends and boyfriends all over the mountains and I didn't know if she would take refuge with family or friends first. She didn't trust her family so she found friends to help her. Anywhere there was a ski resort she had visited there would be a group of ski bums she hung out with.

  I wondered if the information her boyfriend gave me was right. It was too late if he was wrong. I was sure he was dead or infected by now. I decided that he didn't have any reason to lie to me and at this point it didn't matter. I was here now and I was going to look regardless.

  I tried to avoid a creeping desperate thought of what I would do if they weren't there. It was a terrible helpless feeling that was lingering in the back of my mind. I drove on, down the winding road and into the city.

  15.

  -Hopeless-

  Lake Tahoe was a resort town the size of a small city. It had hotels and casinos and a thriving economy built from gambling and tourism. Normally the population this time of year was pretty high, lots of tourists and gamblers.

  There were very few people around as I drove through town. The news of the coming disaster was spreading and I was sure the people here knew what was happening. Maybe those that had the resources took off. Maybe they thought they could find some safe refuge. Maybe they made an attempt at get to their loved ones in areas that were beginning to get overrun.

  I drove through town. The main road branched into a series of small streets leading into residential areas. I turned onto the street that Amanda's sister lived.

  It was a nice neighborhood. her husband was a local contractor and had done pretty well for himself building vacation homes. This area always had work for people interested in providing a vacation getaway for the rich.

  I could see the house a half a block ahead and in the driveway I could clearly see Amanda’s car. I parked and tried to straighten my clothes up. I looked pretty rough after the events of the night and I didn't want to scare the kids.

  I walked up to the house, took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

  “Knock, Knock, Knock”

  No answer, I knocked harder.

  “Knock! Knock! Knock!”

  Nothing. I pushed the doorbell a few times and heard nothing but a dog barking in the distance. Looking to the right I could see a path that led around the back of the house. I jumped over the railing and walked around behind the garage and into the back yard.

  The back entry was made up of two glass doors, easily eight feet tall, that opened up into the dinning room. I walked up and knocked on the glass. I could see the living room and stairs that led up to the bedrooms on the second floor.

  I could see piles of clothes and small items laying everywhere. They were spread out like a trail leading all the way to where the front door was. They had left in a hurry.

  No one was there and I realized that they were gone. The only vehicle in the driveway was Amanda’s. I had to assume the other vehicles were in the garage.

  I walked back around to the side of the house and looked in through the window to see an empty garage. A trail of items strewn out across the floor. They were really gone. My stomach sank and an overwhelming feeling of loss came over me. How would I find them now.

  16.

  -Alone-

  I was in shock at first, and for a while I sat on the front porch of the house staring off into the distance. I listened to the wind. I could hear birds singing in the tall pines off in the distance and thought there was nothing left to do. I had nothing to move forward for. Suddenly I wanted a drink and I set off to find some place to drown myself.

  I
drove into town and came across a bar that had its front door open. I stopped and walked inside finding a few people sitting at small tables. A few older men sat at the bar. Everyone was watching news reports on the television.

  It had gotten bad. The news was reporting a spread of violence that had completely over run southern California. This thing was spreading so fast that in one night it had over run Los Angeles and all of the outlying areas. All of the suburban areas that stretched across the basin had fallen. There were no resources left to stop it. It was spreading south as fast as the people carrying it could get there.

  San Diego was now in the grips of complete chaos and would eventually fall. The infection would easily cross the boarder into Mexico.

  “You serving?” I asked the bartender. It was 7:00 am and most places wouldn't be open let alone serving alcohol.

  “Yep, what the hell. Grab a seat” The bartender replied.

  I ordered a beer and a shot of rum, made myself comfortable and watched the screen. Helicopters were circling the fallen cities and the cameras showed thousands of people running through the streets. They moved in groups, like swarms of bees.

  One camera showed a group of people who's car had broken down on a crowded freeway, get overrun by a hundred infected. It was horrible. On occasion you could hear the screams of the hosts carry all the way to the microphones on the helicopters.

  “Hey, how about a drink” A young woman was standing next to me. I hadn't notice her walk up as I was staring into the monitor.

  “What? I'm sorry, what did you say?”, I felt sleepy and was having a hard time focusing.

  “Can you buy me a drink?” She said again.

  She was pretty, very tanned, wearing short denim shorts and a tank top showing just enough cleavage to draw my eyes unintentionally to her breasts.

  “I, uh, I'm not really interested in a date” It was Nevada, I thought maybe she was a hooker.

  “Ha” She chuckled “No, I'm not a whore, just stranded and broke.” She smiled at me “I thought I would try to get you drunk and take all your money” she was joking and I knew she was.

  “Yea pull up a chair” I signaled at the bartender “My name is Duncan” extending my hand to her.

  “Eve, thanks for the drink Duncan” she said. She sat down and looked at me intently “You look rough dude, what happened to you”

  I took a long slug off my beer and began to tell Eve what had happened over the last couple of hours.

  “I would call you a liar if I couldn't see it on the TV” She sighed “I'm from La Puenty, just here for the week, but my friends took off this morning all freaked out and I am stuck here with no money and apparently nowhere to go”.

  “Well, neither do I” I said “ Sitting here getting drunk and waiting for our turn to die seems to be as good a plan as any”

  She looked at me and frowned.

  “Fuck it” she said, “lets raise our glasses to the end of the world”

  We sat there for an hour before the TV signal went out. The last word was that most major cities on the west coast were showing infection. San Francisco was beginning to report infection.

  There were several flights that had carried hosts on them. Pilots managed to land at their destination airport without the cockpits being compromised. Post 9/11 FAA regulations had required armored doors to be mandatory on all commercial flights. Infected passengers could not get into the cockpits and harm the pilots so they were able to land.

  In this case, however, this only helped to spread the infection beyond the restricted mobility the hosts had, without the cognitive ability to drive a car or any other transportation. They had no cognitive functions, they couldn't operate a car, or fly an airplane themselves. If they had gotten to the pilots in the cockpits, maybe the planes would have crashed and not made it to populated areas. Once these flights landed they couldn't keep the infected passengers on the planes, and the infection spread into new locations quickly.

  “Shit” I said under my breath...”Sigh, I need to leave” I had considered over the last hour that I would rather make a run for Friday Harbor, a small town on an island in the Pugent Sound in Washington.

  It had donned on me to go into the hills and hold up. Maybe I would try to survive until this problem passed but I knew it wouldn't. If I couldn't be with my kids there was no real reason to survive anyway. I didn't have the will to do it for myself. They were the only reason I had survived this long as it was.

  Through deployments to war zones while I served in the Navy, to bouts of depression that occurred over the years, and eventually through my most recent breakdown, I decided that I didn't get to make the decision to end it myself. God or life could take me but not my own hand. So I had to live as long as I could, and do what ever it took to do that.

  I got up everyday through recovery because my kids needed me to. I needed to keep working and make enough to take care of them. I knew I had to live long enough to get my youngest son off on his own. Then I could die.

  But what if I never found them? What if they got killed because their mother was a self serving asshole that only thinks of herself? There was no reason to hide and I decided go for the island since I had no trail now to follow to find the kids.

  First I could head for the central valley, then drive North. I always liked the pacific north west so it was settled in my mind, that is where I would go.

  “Now?” Eve asked “What do you mean? Do you have a plan?”

  “Look Eve, I can't hide. I have to do something and maybe I'll find a way to catch up with the kids. I'm going to head up to Washington and work my way to a small island up there. Maybe there’s still something there.”

  I raised my hand to the bartender and ordered one last beer. “It was nice to meet you Eve and I wish you luck getting back to your life.”

  “What life? I came up here with some hope of starting over but now... whats the point?” She looked at me with expectation.

  Christ. I thought, she wanted to tag along.

  “Could you use some company?” She put her hand on my thigh.

  I knew she wasn't interested in me. She was just looking for someone to take care of her. What the hell I thought, I could use some companionship and getting laid wouldn't be a bad thing if she was into it. I could certainly use the release.

  Maybe we could make each other feel better if not emotionally, some physical comfort would be worth the trouble.

  “OK, finish up and grab your stuff. The cars out front”

  17.

  -Eve-

  I sat in the car facing the bar and watched my new companion walk out pulling a suitcase bouncing on rollers. She was very pretty. She had a petite frame, blond, nice body. Her breasts were large and perky. I thought they had to be fake.

  She didn't offer up her age but she had to be in her late twenties, maybe early thirties. I briefly wondered how she got abandoned by her friends and why she had been trying to start over up here. Based on the way she talked in the bar I expected she would tell me all about it. She liked to talk about herself.

  We headed out of town and started the long trip around the lake and through the hills to the west. After several hours we started heading down into the San Joaquin valley, Into the central valley of California.

  The valley was flat and desolate. As we drove through the foothills I could make out farms stretching into the distance. We headed for the I99, one of two major travel arteries that flowed north through the valley. Eventually we would connect to the I5 freeway which would take us north through Oregon and into Washington. I figured that if I could get to Whidbey Island in Washington we might find some way to cross over to Friday harbor. I was familiar with the area, I had been stationed there in the 1990's.

  As the day wore on we drove north passing small farming communities. Most of the communities were small and some seemed devoid of life. Maybe they always looked that way. It felt eery and empty.

  We made stops when we needed to, each time I would find
a gas can that I could fill and strap to the roof of the SUV. There was no sign of life in some places. In others people were noticeably on edge but had not been affected yet.

  My companion was very talkative at first. She went on and on about everything under the sun. I decided she was nervous and not sure about me yet. Eventually she settled down and fell asleep. I was grateful for the quiet, but happy she was getting comfortable enough to feel like she could rest.

  As the sun set on the second day I was exhausted and searched for a safe place we could stop for the night. I thought it might be dangerous to stop at a hotel so I turned off the road where there was nothing but farm land. I drove out into a field and parked the car. Eve began to stir, she opened her eyes and asked what was going on.

  “we're going to make camp for the night” I said “out here in the middle of nowhere we should see ahead of time if anyone is coming”.

  She looked scared, maybe she thought I was going to kill her out here in the middle of nowhere. I laughed to myself then decided to put her at ease so she would relax. I made a fire and we sat across from each other.

  I looked at her and started to talk. telling her more about myself, who I was and what I did for a living. I told her about my divorce and the struggle to keep my kids in my life.

  I figured I sounded pretty boring and messed up to her. I wanted her to feel that I was not a threat, but I didn't want her to get attached to me either. If I was clear about being a geeky middle aged scientist that was dumped by his ex-wife and was an emotional mess, maybe there would be no chance that she would consider me worth pursuing. Once we got to a safe populated area she would move on and that was fine.