“I’ll stay back with you and when you get tired, let me know and I’ll give you a lift for a few. We can do that as long as it takes to get your body used to being out here.”
Chris smiled and thanked him. Matt reequipped, then the pair headed back to the group. Matt took a second look at the truck, admiring it. Aside from the shattered glass windows and the sun-stained paint, he could see himself driving a truck like that. He pictured himself in the driver’s seat, cruising down the silver strand with his windows down and his music roaring at ear-piercing levels. It saddened him to think he had never had a chance to drive. One more year, and he would have had his license.
Greg stopped at a Chevron gas station and food mart a few miles north off a freeway exit. A chrome fuel tanker was still parked with its hoses plugged into the underground tanks. A giant sign with dated gas prices stood high above their heads, the digital costs erased by time and the fallen grid. The gas tanks themselves sat upright with their nozzle and hoses disconnected from gas thieves and frantic families trying to escape death.
Inside, the team waited and unpacked. As Matt approached, Steve was pulling a mummified corpse out to dump its body. The sight of the dead body scared Chris. He jumped and squeaked as he hid behind Matt.
“Nobody wants to share bed space with a dead dude,” Steve muttered as he dragged it by. He dusted off his hands with a few claps before he went inside.
The shelves remained mostly intact, but no items remained to scavenge. Several tiny price signs hung clipped to the aluminum racks: $7.99 Paleo Beef Jerky, $1.99 Snickers.
Jody yelled out from a hidden room somewhere deep inside the shop. “No coffee anywhere in this place. All I want is one little taste, but apparently that’s just too much to ask for.”
“Are you seriously still griping about some coffee?” Greg asked. “It’s been a good how many years since you last had some?”
“Not the point, friend. I’m craving some. Tell you what, we will find some.”
“Did you think to look at the coffee shop across the street?” Matt asked. “You know, the one that says ‘Café.’”
“Wait…we passed a coffee shop?” Jody said, astonished, as he emerged from the back office. “Why didn’t we stop there? Everyone knows gas stations were picked dry.”
“Well, then, I reckon you ought to have been looking for one,” Greg said.
“We’re stopping in there tomorrow before we head north,” Jody said firmly, then laid down on his sleeping pad with a thud.
“It’ll probably be just as empty,” Greg muttered.
They slept between aisles of empty racks and on any floor space with enough room to lay a thin foam pad on. The noises that came with the night were suppressed by the double-paned, tinted glass windows and stucco walls that encased them in their temporary berths.
It wasn’t until they heard glass crack and pop under the weight of wheels and the clatter of horse’s hooves come to a stop under the station’s canopy that any of them stirred awake.
6
It’s All Yours
Tony sat atop his horse with his ultra-light, slide-out trailer in tow. He had acquired it through means he wished not to admit, but they were nothing he would ever hold against himself. He considered this as his family rested inside, safe and protected from the unpredictable nature of the wastelands. His wife and two sons—although at the moment, either boy could be mistaken for a highly ungroomed girl—slept soundly after a hard day’s travel. He wasn’t sure where he was headed, but he needed to keep moving. Everyone did. It wasn’t safe to stay in one location very long because what the dead didn’t consume, the living would.
His conscious thinking slowly drifted into dreams as his head lolled to the side and his body slumped over, almost tipping him out of the saddle. He’d been up for two days now, maybe three, pushing relentlessly as far away from there to go somewhere, anywhere but where he had come from.
Tony shot up, startled by his dreams and that strangely lucid state somewhere between consciousness and sleep. He rubbed at his eyes with muck-crusted hands and blinked rapidly to bring into focus the nearing horizon.
“A gas station,” he muttered. “We can rest there. Just a little bit farther. For them.”
He touched his side, where he leaked blood liberally. The wound hurt. It burned with infection, and pus had started to form on the outer edges and deep inside the flesh, inside the meat and muscles. He needed to rest, or he would die. The infection required time to heal; he needed sleep. And if he was lucky, some antibiotics.
Tony veered his horse to the right and pulled in under the canopy of the Chevron gas station. His horse trotted in place then came to a stop with a loud neigh.
“Good girl,” Tony said. He bent over and patted her head, running his hand through her mane.
The gas station looked like any other he had come across, recklessly discarded with a rotten corpse or two lounging around nearby. He listened for any noises before deeming it safe to dismount and let his family out of the safety of his camper.
When his feet hit the ground, the impact sent a wave of pulses through the wound that almost paralyzed him. His first instinct was to grab the injury, but he avoided it just in case someone was looking. Instead, he squinted and clenched his teeth so painfully tight, something in his mouth cracked, and he had to swallow back vomit.
“Looks clear,” he said to himself.
He looked around for tracks, didn’t see any that looked fresh, and decided it was okay to let his family step out. He banged on the door twice with the side of his fist. The rumble of knocking thundered under the vacant canopy. A few crows cawed and flew off.
Too loud, he thought.
His wife unlocked and opened the door from the inside. She stepped out into the fresh night air in a pair of dingy tan pants and broken sandals. Her breasts were exposed with only her long, strawberry blonde hair to cover them. Two small children darted out from behind her, naked and wild.
“They soiled themselves,” she said before she bent down and gently kissed him on the lips. “We have to get them new clothes.”
“I know, love, but I need to rest for the night. We can look around in the morning.”
She kissed him again, this time with her eyes closed, and smiled, clearly unaware her husband’s injury had worsened.
“I’m going to look around inside the shop and see if there’s anything we can use,” Tony said.
He coughed and used his fist to cover his mouth. The pain was searing, and with each hack, he grimaced.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired and sore. Don’t worry about me. Just clean the boys up, and I’ll be back in a minute.”
Tony turned around and walked toward the quick shop’s double doors. He considered telling his wife about the wound, but he didn’t want her to worry anymore about him. She had enough to worry about with the boys. They had become ravaged little animals over the last few months of being on the road.
When Tony opened the door, he found himself face-to-face with a petite woman, her auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail and a very large, high-caliber rifle aimed directly at his face. His vision went immediately black, and it became hard to breathe when an unfamiliar hand clapped over his mouth and nose.
“Don’t scream,” a deep voice said as another man came out of the shadows and slid behind them to shut the doors.
Tony’s wife, her back turned to chase down the boys, never saw their shadows move on her husband.
“Quiet now,” Steve whispered into the man’s ear.
Tara lowered her rifle as Matt and Greg moved closer. Tim and Sean stood behind the cash register and attempted to keep Chris from spring-boarding over the counter to see what was going on. Matt heard them tell the boy in hushed voices to stay down.
He walked around and faced the man, searched him over with his eyes. He could tell he was injured. Blood had soaked through his rag of a shirt, and he favored one side of his body as if to escape t
he pain from the other. One of his legs trembled as he stood on his tiptoes. With Steve’s hand wrapped around his mouth and holding him in place, the man could barely touch the floor. Matt didn’t see any bulges protruding anywhere off his body, either. It didn’t look like he had any guns on him, and he was curious about that wound, too.
“Listen, my partner’s going to let go of your mouth,” Matt said. “Don’t scream for your wife or kids or anyone else traveling with you, for that matter. We don’t mean you any harm. Do you understand?”
The man nodded once with wide, panicked eyes, his skin flushed, while Steve waited for his order. After a pause, Matt gave him a curt nod.
Steve released his grip on the man’s mouth and watched as he crumpled to the floor in what looked like agonizing pain. Almost immediately, his hands darted to his wound, as if hoping to protect it. He lay on the ground for a minute before he tried to stand. Steve put a boot on his shoulder and pushed him back down, but stopped when Matt waved him off.
The man groaned as he picked himself up, still clutching his wounded side. “What did you do that for? I’m with my family, for Christ’s sake.”
The room was silent as everyone, including this stranger, waited for Matt’s response. Why had he done it? Why had they treated this stranger so roughly when all he’d done was show up on a horse-drawn RV with his wife and kids?
“Look, I don’t know you from the next. And to be honest, I can’t recall the last time I ran across anyone out here who didn’t want to do me and mine harm. So, you’ll have to excuse our abrasive nature,” Matt said.
“Fair enough,” the man said as calmly as he could but his voice cracked with nervousness.
“What’s your name?” Matt asked.
“Tony. My wife out there is Julie. And those are my two boys, Johnathan and TJ.” Tony paused as if waiting for Matt to introduce himself, but Matt stayed quiet. “If you mean what you said, I’d like to get going, if it’s all right with you all—”
Matt cut him off. “How did you get that wound in your side, Tony?”
Tony looked down to where he still attempted to cover the hole in his side. He pulled his hand away. It was bleeding more. His palm was soaked in fresh blood.
“We got attacked a few days ago, barely escaped. It’s not safe to sit around in one place for too long, and we tried to do that. You know, sit around. Anyway, the family we were traveling with didn’t get so lucky.”
The man’s face went slack as his voice faded off with his thoughts. Tony dropped his head and looked away from his wound, staring off into the distance.
“Look, I’d like to get going. My wife is going to worry if I’m in here much longer. She doesn’t need to see this.”
Matt looked past Tony at his family. One of the boys relieved himself on one of the gas pumps. Julie stared with focused eyes toward the store where he and his team interrogated her husband. The other boy ran in circles around her.
“You get bit, or is that wound from thieves or something?” Matt asked.
“Nah, I didn’t get bit. If that was the case, I’d turned already, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“How long have you all been on the road traveling?” Matt asked.
With a laugh that sounded more uncontrolled than intentional, Tony spat back, agitated, “Didn’t I just tell you? It isn’t safe out here, man. We’ve always been on the road…traveling.” Tony waved his hand in the air, making a circular motion. “It’s the way it is. You stay put, you die. If not by the hordes, the damn cannibals will get you. It’s how it’s always been. Nothing’s changed. Christ Almighty. Where have you all been living?”
“Yeah, about that, we don’t get out much,” Matt lied.
“Maybe you should go back to where you came from, then.”
“Wish we could,” Matt said. “Unfortunately, like you said, it ain’t safe to be in one place.”
“Listen, I ain’t here to cause anyone any trouble. Just let me go, and I won’t say a word to the missus. We’ll be gone before you know it.”
Matt considered his options. The reality was, he didn’t know if Tony was telling the truth or not. For all he knew, Tony was a cannibal and had gotten injured trying to feast on another family. But there was the possibility Tony was being truthful, and to put him out on his ass without any help would almost certainly be a death sentence for him and his family. Matt had to consider what was best for his team.
“Look,” Matt said. “I’m going to let you go. I don’t have the supplies to help you or the food to feed you and your family. We barely have enough for ourselves. If I could spare something I would, but I just can’t.”
“That is greatly appreciated,” Tony said. “And I understand. Things are…well, scarce these days.”
Tony turned and hobbled out of the store. He did not attempt to hide his injury from his wife now. She gasped as he approached. His boys ran over and attached themselves to their father’s legs as he dragged himself painfully toward the horse. His voice was nothing more than muffled noise once the door closed. It was impossible to tell if he was talking about the events that had just unfolded or if he was attempting to corral his family and move onto the next location. Either way, the gas station was compromised, and Matt and his team had to move on.
They waited for Tony to be clearly out of view before they packed their gear and moved on. Everyone was hyperalert. Every bird chirp and kicked pebble was a gunshot or some threat encroaching on them. Chris kept having to urinate. The twins became short-fused bombs who snapped at any attempt to communicate with them. The team needed more rest to recover. They needed food, not the scraps they had been eating. Matt needed to decide when to stop and rest or they would crumble.
They took surface roads through town, paralleling Tony’s direction. The streets themselves were cluttered with abandoned cars, dumped shopping carts full of useless, spilled goods, backpacks, torn tents, and canopies. Sleeping bags and pads that had become part of the overgrowth of weeds and shrubs were home to rodents and feral cats and dogs. The human bodies that once accompanied those lost items had either rotted away or wandered off. The roads were nothing more than a landfill of society’s failed attempt at survival while it waited for rescue. It was sad how poor of a state the world had reduced itself to in the end.
As Matt waded through rubbish, dodged rusted car parts, and avoided stepping on the carcasses of dead animals, he found the perfect place to rest—a coffee shop. A small morale boost for Jody, and a general win for the team.
Once inside, he decided never to rest at a gas station again. The walls were lined with shelves stacked full of merchandise for sale: ceramic coffee mugs with trendy little quotes, French press coffee makers, and tiny bags of specialty coffee.
How has this place not been looted clean?
There were also magazines and newspapers from the last day they were delivered, fifteen long years ago. A few books and laptops had been left abandoned on several spaced-out tables with an array of seats. Some chairs were wood with cushions, some were just wood, and there were even a few comfortable-looking recliner chairs in the corner. It was a time capsule for the day the world shifted from regular cultural habits to survival of fittest.
Sean and Tim ran around and picked up bags of coffee and threw them at each other. Jody attempted to grab those bags for himself. Chris picked up a tablet with a cracked screen and looked it over, completely perplexed. Steve walked over to the large glass display case that showcased rotted food remains and a graveyard full of dead flies.
Were it not for the former barista who lay behind the cash register, and another who hung limply out the drive-through window, the place was in great shape. Matt could almost smell the freshly brewed coffee and the tingle of spices that topped lattes and chai teas. He could faintly hear the sound of coffee grinders as they buzzed and chopped whole beans to prepare them for roasting.
“Nice find, son,” Greg said.
Matt huffed a sigh of relief. “Yeah, a
in’t too bad, is it? Let’s rest here for a while.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jody answered up with an ear-to-ear smile.
“I’d be okay giving it a day or two,” Matt added. “We need rest, and this place seems safe enough. I’m a little surprised at how much is still sitting around in here. If we’re lucky, we can scavenge some of these stores and be in a much better place.”
Greg smiled. “Yup, I’d have to agree with you there, son.”
Tim and Sean dumped the bodies out the drive-through window. Tara found a way to the roof to look out over the waste that surrounded them. Matt took note of the different stores that surrounded the coffee house, then secured the doors and drive-through window.
They didn’t bother to unpack. They all went to sleep. Whether it was on the tile floor surrounded by torn bags of coffee and the beans that spilled out of them, or on comfortable fabric chairs with their legs propped up on tables, they all found a place to sleep and did so without protest or concern.
7
Mistakes Were Made
“Three, two…” Tara’s voice faded.
“One” was replaced by action, no words spoken. “One” was the moment the slack released and the faint click of the trigger connected the firing pin to the primer, which caused a small explosion inside the casing of Tara’s .308 OBR.
Chris peered through Tara’s magnified scope and watched the round penetrate his intended target. It punched a hole right through the center of the O in the faded red stop sign.
“Yes!” the boy exclaimed. He turned away from the scope and smiled brightly at Tara, who lay next to him, observing. “Did you see that? I hit it.”
“I did,” Tara said. “Not bad for your first time.”
She smiled thoughtfully at the boy, and he returned her smile with a sweet one of his own.
A Thousand Miles To Nowhere: An Apocalypse Thriller Page 7