“I watched you on the cameras.” He said conversationally. “I know you’re angry and you have a right to be but before you do what you came to do, will you answer a question?”
Jessie’s eyes darted looking for a trap, an ambush or weapons aimed at him.
“You knew.” Horowitz continued when Jessie didn’t reply. “You knew exactly what to do. You’ve used the machine, haven’t you? You’ve traveled to the past or future or perhaps both.”
He turned to face the boy with the ancient eyes and the guns pointed at his head.
“Did you go forward? What did you see?” he implored. “What was it like? Did I leave my mark on the world? I only wanted to make it a better place.”
“You left your mark.” Jessie answered and holstered his Glocks as he started forward. “but it’s a better place without you. You’re a destroyer. Your way is not the way.”
“My Tower?” Horowitz asked, anxiety in his voice as he stepped back against the railing “does it help? Does it save mankind?”
Jessie stopped his advance and looked at the CEO. He was putting on a brave face, he knew what was coming. He knew he’d never talk or fight his way out of it. The breeze tossed his perfectly coiffed hair and he licked his lips in fear. The simmering anger, the quiet rage that had propelled Jessie across the country to extract his vengeance was fading as exhaustion rolled through his body. He almost felt pity for the man. He could give him a little peace before his twelve-story plunge.
“It does.” He said. “I’ve seen it with his own two eyes. There are towers like these sprouting up from jungles and forests. Self-sustaining communities rebuilt from the ashes of the old cities. There are statues of you, the man who had the vision, in every atrium. You are honored as the creator, the pioneer, but Marylin is the one who finishes your work. She leads the world forward.”
With shaking fingers Horowitz combed his hair back in place and smiled. He straightened his tie and when Jessie started forward again, he rolled over the railing and disappeared from view. Marilyn covered her face as the Road Angel peered over the balcony. He heard the splatter of impact as Horowitz landed in the midst of the horde surrounding the building, their cries of hunger then silence. Within seconds, the undead closed ranks again and started pawing uselessly at the concrete and steel.
“It’s all yours now.” Jessie said.
“Is that true?” Marylin asked, her face ashen and looking older than he’d ever seen her. “Everything is going to get better?”
“Maybe.” Jessie said on his way out. “That’s one possible future. It’s up to you to make it happen.”
4
Loose Ends
Jessie idled into the A’Le’Inn tourist shop parking lot in Rachel, shut off the motor and waited for Christopher while Bob sniffed around. Everything happened pretty much the same as before. They had dinner, he told them about Lakota then left the family to head down to the underground base. He knew how to get inside and had the big vault door open a half hour after he arrived. He had a few days to kill before Chris, Valerie and the kids showed up and he spent it exploring instead of opening case after case looking for the time travel files. He knew the couple and their children were important in the overall scheme of things. They helped the world rebuild. He didn’t know how or why but sometimes when he landed, even in the far future, the colony they started had been as influential as Lakota or the Tower.
He took the tags off the cases that held the returner belt and the manuals for the time machine and replaced them with new ones he made. He found an empty case, created a label then packed away the super soldier vials and hard drives. He found the computer password on the blotter, updated the numbers on the cases and changed the descriptions to something completely mundane. The most powerful artifacts on the planet were now listed as a prototype plant growth timer, detailed manuals on the building and construction of military grade file cabinets and an experimental dog deworming medicine. When he was satisfied they would never be found, he started scrolling through the various devices stored in the facility. He wasn’t really looking for anything in particular but there had to be some awesome prototype tech hidden away. DARPA couldn’t have spent all their black budget money on research to find bigger and better ways to kill people. Somewhere in some of those millions of aluminum cases there had to be some cool James Bond type spy stuff or maybe even some early versions of the blasters he’d been using for years. He became pretty good at reading government names and deciphering what they meant and by the time Chris yelled his tentative hello through the propped open door, he had already depleted the fuel in the jet pack, nearly broken his ankles with the jump boots and replaced the heavy Kevlar lining in his jacket with lightweight armor.
It was thin as denim, light as silk and reacted to bullets by spreading the impact over the rest of the cloth. There were bolts of it in various colors. Some of the things he found were primitive equivalents to equipment he’d had when he’d been light years in the future and half a universe away. He was impressed and a little awed. If the jump gate on the other side of Saturn hadn’t been destroyed in the wars some ten thousand years ago, earth would have been close to joining the rest of the inhabited systems in the galaxy again. He wondered if the scientists knew about it, if they’d photographed its shattered remains. Probably. They had filmed the ancient faces on Mars and if he remembered right there had been a lot of interest in sending probes to Saturn.
He gave the couple and their children the grand tour of the facility, offered to drive them back to civilization but as they did before, they decided to stay. They weren’t trapped anymore. They could leave if they wanted, the white Raptor pickup trucks were out in the parking lot.
Jessie swung by the Three Flags and grabbed Stabby’s Xbox out of the Brutal Retort tour bus. The black paint on the old school bus was peeling off in places and the yellow peeked out. Stabby had bemoaned the loss of his saved games and the characters he’d spent a hundred hours building. Jessie liked the wild front man of the band enough to drive hundreds of miles out of his way. Or maybe he was just doing anything to put off going back. He really should be getting home, back to Lakota but a part of him was dreading it.
He was rudderless.
He shoved aside an empty cereal box and crumpled beer cans then sat on the ratty couch, stared through the dusty windshield.
He didn’t have a purpose anymore and didn’t know what to do with himself. Scarlet was gone. He had no driving urgency to fix things, to correct the mistakes of the past. He wasn’t hunting for anyone and no one was hunting him. He didn’t care about retrieving trinkets for people or settling down in one of the walled cities. He wanted to get away. To be left alone. He missed the little home he’d shared with Maddy on the backside of nowhere. He thought about his short time with Sandy and his mood darkened. He’d thought he’d liked her, maybe even loved her a little but that had been a mistake. She couldn’t get past the way he looked. No one had been able to except Scarlet. And Maddy. He sighed and leaned back, watched the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams.
Bob nosed through the guitars, old clothes, empty whiskey bottles and other rubbish the heavy metal band had left behind. Other than startling a nest of mice, he found nothing of interest and hopped up on the couch with his master. Jessie idly scratched him behind the ears and they both drifted off to sleep in the warm afternoon. One dreaming doggy dreams of rabbits and treats, the other a melancholy wandering through an empty landscape of fog and darkness.
5
Lakota
They knew he was coming before he got there and a small group were gathered at the gate when he arrived. After the mandatory bite check, he let his mom pull him into a long hug and didn’t try to break away. He saw the concern in her eyes and she kept repeating that she couldn’t believe how much he’d grown. He thought the words she was looking for was how much he’d aged. He hugged her and let her mother him. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been dead, curled into a ball in a dirty radiation su
it. Most of his old friends were there and welcomed him back warmly. After the first shocked reactions to his changed appearance, they accepted that life on the road was hard.
“Keep on living rough and you’ll be clomping around like Cobb in another few years.” Stabby said. “You should come back home, mate. The wars are over.”
His dad shook his hand then pulled him into an embrace, Scratch told him he was as ugly as ever but said it with a grin.
His old warehouse was still there, his mom hadn’t let anyone move into it although there was new construction all around. She was still finding new residents houses and Eliza was still keeping her spreadsheets. They were expecting a big influx of people soon although it wasn’t general knowledge yet. The Admiral who had taken all the naval survivors to San Clemente island was in talks with Gunny about getting some of the soldiers and sailors back to the mainland. They were overcrowded, they couldn’t maintain the nuclear subs or naval ships and many of the people were wanting to get back to civilization and the safety of the walled cities.
His mom tried to make him promise to stay for a while, not run off and loose himself to the road again.
“Just stopped in for a visit.” He told her. “There’s one last thing I need to do before I settle down for good.”
She smiled but when she looked into his eyes, she didn’t think he would ever stop running from whatever haunted him.
Some of the retrievers were ditching their gas guzzling muscle cars, they were repurposing old diesel trucks. The gasoline was starting to break down and the cars didn’t run very well on it without additives. The gas plant down in Texas still wasn’t producing fuel, they had run into trouble with damaged components when the plant hadn’t been shut down properly and most of them were proprietary. It took time to track down compatible units and retrofit them. Anselmo was still making Ethanol but that didn’t do the retrievers much good. Their cars wouldn’t run on it and if they were converted, then they couldn’t scavenge fuel in the wastelands. They found a market for it with the tractors and generators though, so they kept producing it.
The following afternoon Jessie had his old chop top Mercury up on the lift and was taking some measurements to see if he could stuff a Cummins diesel in the engine bay sometime in the future. He didn’t want to give up his machine and get a truck like most of the others were doing. He’d rather do a powerplant swap. He’d had too many happy moments driving around with Scarlet, nearly every part of it had some sort of remembrance for him. There wasn’t much left of her in this world besides a few journals and the locket he wore. She was mostly just memories.
Slippery Jim and his crew of scofflaws were the first to arrive the next afternoon on their bicycles and skateboards. They brought chips pilfered from a shipping container, soda pop liberated from the supply warehouse and a bag of doggie treats for Bob. The children made themselves at home in a way only children can and before he knew it, Jessie was cajoled away from working on his car and was defending his high score on the Pacman machine. Except it wasn’t a Pacman game. It was called Pucman. Everything else was the same, just that one letter difference. Something had changed. He wasn’t in the exact same world he’d left and he wondered what other subtle differences there were that he hadn’t noticed.
Scratch and Stabby arrived with their girlfriends and dusted off the grill. Before long, the welcome home party was in full swing, a live band was playing and burgers were on the grill.
Griz brought him a set of customized Glocks that he’d reworked. Jessie immediately swapped out his guns, put the old ones back in the trunk as spares.
“This is a good spot, Jester.” Scratch said as they stood around the fire at the beach. The warehouse had been a boat repair shop at one time and was across the road from the shoreline. “You could make a decent living fixing boats or renting out jet skis. Things are slowly getting back to like they once were. People have money, they want to spend it.”
“Maybe.” Jessie said noncommittally. He didn’t think he could deal with seeing people every day. Not yet, anyway. He needed some time.
Scratch was right, the people wanted to be entertained now that they were safe and everything was more or less back to normal as long as they remained behind the walls. It would be like that for years. The danger outside was still all around so most of them would stay safely tucked away. There were still hordes of shambling undead, day one zombies trapped in buildings, crawlers covered in dirt with weeds and grass growing out of them. There were packs of savage carnivores that feasted on the undead and hungered for the flesh of the living. There were plenty of bandits and highwaymen roaming the roads even though the large armies had been defeated. Wild animals were a concern, too. Bear, wolf and mountain lion populations had exploded. The people would stay hidden behind the walls for years to come as long as they had enough truckers or retrievers to get the things they needed.
The party lasted long into the night before Sheriff Collins hit her flashing red and blue lights and told everyone to get home, some of the neighbors were complaining about the noise.
Jessie was glad when everyone finally left and he had the place to himself again. He cleaned up, put things away and shut everything down.
“Wanna go for a ride, Bob?” he asked and held open the door.
Bob didn’t hesitate.
Jessie pulled the travel guide from between the seats, checked his map for the best route to get to the Split Rock Lighthouse and they left before the sun rose. He chased his lights through the night and hit it hard the next day. He only stopped to refuel and didn’t slow down until he was far away from the traveled roads and into unexplored territory in upper Minnesota.
He slowed his pace, drove up the coastal road of Lake Superior with the windows down, Bob sleeping in the passenger seat and one of Scarlets’ playlists keeping him company. It was hard to be in a melancholy mood with her music coming through the speakers. She liked upbeat and happy songs and it didn’t take long for him to start humming along. The tires sang on the pavement, the car was running well and he was looking forward to a few months of solitude.
He had to clear trees and debris a few times. No one else had traveled along the road since the outbreak and he was fine with that. He wouldn’t be bothered by random explorers or retrievers. He and Bob hit up a few stores along the way and stocked up on canned foods and dry goods. He grabbed extra gas canisters for the camp stove and everything else they’d need for an extended stay.
The lighthouse sat on a cliff overlooking calm waters and he spent a day clearing out the handful of undead that were wandering around the parking lot. He dragged the bodies to the edge and tossed them to the deep water far below. Food for the fishes and he wouldn’t have to smell them.
He and Bob whiled away the days with long hikes, extravagant camp stove dinners and lazy afternoons soaking up the sun with a good book. He snuck up on a dozing moose and tried to ride it but that left him with a sprained wrist, covered in mud and laughing at himself.
He pulled a radio and some speakers out of an old Bronco and rigged an antenna to the lightning rod at the top of the lighthouse. Using the Merc to charge a few batteries, he was able to pick up a clear signal from Radio Lakota most of the time. It came in especially clear at night when Scratch and Stabby played their god-awful music. The show was pretty entertaining though, the two had a good rapport and covered a lot of the news in the entertainment world. Things were getting back to a sort of normal. Up Jumped the Devil and Pretty Boy Floyds had live music every weekend. There were karaoke nights and school plays, high school football and stock car races. Griz had started three-gun competitions and every settlement had people competing for the grand prize of a set of custom-built revolvers. With all the wars over, Gunny had some free time and blew off his presidential duties by holding fishing tournaments every month.
Jessie enjoyed the clean air, the sun and wind and rain. It had been years since he’d had those things. The other planets he’d been on had been different. Diffe
rent gravity, different oxygen, different suns. Earth was home and he healed. His heart mended and the days got brighter as time passed. He didn’t wake up thinking about her, spend the day remembering their short time together and fall asleep at night missing her.
He let her go. She was safe with the one she loved and they would be just fine.
6
Gunny
“Gonna add a whole bunch of swinging dicks and this town is already short on the ladies.” Griz said as he carefully tapped the engraving file on the 1911’s slide. “Deb says half the fights she breaks up are over a girl.”
“Don’t I know it,” said Gunny, feet propped up on the big man’s cluttered desk as he idly ran a cleaning rod through his disassembled Glock. “Gonna be tight on housing, too, even if most of them go to other settlements. Probably have to build some new apartment buildings.”
They were in the back of Griz’s Gun Shop passing the time. Griz was working on a custom build for a retriever and Gunny was, once again, hiding from his presidential duties that mostly consisted of listening to people complain about one thing or another.
“We can’t turn them away, though. Carson says they’re overpopulated, getting scurvy from living on fish and San Clemente was never intended to feed and house that many troops. They’re seven and eight people to a room. The Admiral tried to downplay it but they made a mistake putting all their eggs in one basket. The subs are broken, the ships don’t have enough fuel to go anywhere else and they’re dying. Slowly starving to death. You ever been to the island?”
Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos Page 4