Post Apocalyptic Ponies: Revolutions Per Mile, Book 1

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “I hate gravel. The road moves under me. Feels like we're on the ocean.”

  I'd never thought about it. I kind of liked the feeling of sliding around on gravel. I did it all the time in my now-smooshed IROC.

  “I guess you'll not be hauling with the rally drivers, huh?” I let out a hearty laugh. She remained fixed on the road. I thought I heard a subdued affirmation, though. I was truly joking. There were drivers who crossed the landscape using only the gravel roads, but they were few and far between because they were so specialized.

  It took us a half hour to reach the tiny farmhouse tucked next to a brackish little creek. I wasn't a farmer, but I didn't detect any active farming taking place ahead.

  A middle-aged woman came running out to meet us. She carried a small black suitcase.

  “What's she got?” Normally it was impolite, even out on the lonely roads, to ask what someone was shipping inside a closed container. Jo probably didn't even know.

  I thought she was going to reply, but instead she looked in the rearview mirror and wiped her face with her sleeve. I had to admit, she really did sweat bullets driving on that gravel.

  “I have to finish what I started.”

  A noble sentiment for a courier, but with homes burning and war coming, it seemed a little misguided. But then, who was I to tell her? It was only my second war.

  She's just a little reclusive

  By the time I'd gotten there, Jo had already taken possession of the suitcase. The woman nodded to me as I approached. She had long brown hair and a tanned face with a murderous case of crow's feet next to her eyes. Her yellow and red sun dress reached down to her cowboy boots. The dress looked happy—completely at odds with the rest of her environment.

  “You know how to use it, right?”

  Jo nodded.

  “I do. But Evans...” She looked at me with something like regret. “Evans was unable to make it. Someone blew up his house.”

  “What! Oh my God. Why?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Jo countered.

  The woman paused, then seemed to finally notice me. “Hi, I'm Professor Skellert. University of Kansas.” She made no effort to shake my hand. That was a custom that died with all the sickness after the war.

  Then she turned back to Jo. “Your driving with her?” She asked it tentatively, and a bit on the quiet side. Like she pretended I wasn't standing right there.

  “Yeah, I got lucky, I guess. I found this pony on the side of the road being harassed by the flying monkeys, of all things. I saved her, so she kind of owes me.”

  Jo giggled, but the professor turned serious. “They're here? In the south?” She glanced over our shoulders, as if the police followed us in.

  Jo nodded solemnly.

  “Then I guess you're both lucky!” Her words had mirth, but I read her eyes. They conveyed only fear.

  Fear was not uncommon, even in the pastures. The order was being upset in ways I couldn't fathom. Still, I took my role as co-pilot seriously. Stay quiet. Learn from those with the skills. Just like holding wrenches for my dad on those quiet Sunday afternoons...

  I was lost in thought when I heard Jo.

  “Yo! Co-pilot? You in there?” She had taken a few steps toward the car and was waiting for me to follow.

  “Yes, ma'am,” I replied as if snapping to attention.

  She tilted up her seat so she could fit the suitcase into her cargo area, then we both found our placed in her car. As we backed out and turned around, the professor stood with her arms crossed until the last moment. Then she gave a curt wave and headed back for her home.

  “What is she, some kind of oracle? Why is she out here all by herself?”

  Jo chuckled. “Oracle? Naw, she's just a little reclusive. That means anti-social.”

  “I know what it means,” I snapped back, but only because it hit a little close to home.

  “Well, Ms. Gregarious, she lives out here doing research, and stuff. Doesn't want to be bothered with all the normal goings on with farming or running a town.”

  I started to ask, but Jo guessed what was coming next.

  “I met her when I used to run in the pony pastures, like you. I'm surprised you didn't.” She was again clutching the steering wheel while we practically idled along the gravel road. “She used to work at a the University weather station up near the interstate. She always asked if it was still there. I couldn't tell her until I started driving the deep routes. We became...friends.”

  She spun the wheel a couple times around a pothole, and the rear end did a little fish tail as she gave it too much gas. I was really surprised she was as tense as she was on the gravel, as it was almost a capital offense for a driver not to be competent in almost any condition. I was very tempted to say something to that effect, but it wasn't my place.

  “You all have your demons, Perth,” is what my dad would have said.

  After an eternity, we reached the pavement of the north-south trunk line. Jo pulled out onto the road, but immediately pulled over to the shoulder. I spun around, thinking the police had caught me again—us again—but that wasn't it.

  She jumped out and I was relieved she was only doing a rock check. Having a piece of gravel lodged in the tires was fine when you're going slow, but when a rock flies loose at 100 miles per hour...well, let's just say you don't want to be on the receiving end of that mistake.

  I rolled down my window when she was on my side. “Come on, girlfriend, I can't stand this sitting still.” I laughed to cover my fears. I hated sneaking along the gravel, I hated what we were doing on the side of the road, and I hated not having my own car so I could fix both of those problems. My joke must have carried that deeper seriousness because she didn't have a snappy retort for me. She just watched me while she bent over to pull rocks from the front tire. The deep thinking was broadcast through her eyes.

  And yet, when I studied her face, she was looking beyond me. Beyond our car. She looked back on the horizon. I couldn't see the plumes of smoke anymore, but I knew they were there.

  Up over a hundred

  While sitting there, a couple dots showed up well ahead of us on the blacktop. They grew into cars and I could see the sleek black shapes approaching at a truly breathtaking velocity.

  “Drivers up,” I called out to Jo. She finished her work at the tire, saw where I pointed, then ran around the front and hopped in. Only seconds later the cars were upon us. Their lights flashed and their custom front grills sucked in air like hungry hippos.

  Jo sat with her mouth open. I rubbed my arms with nervous energy.

  “Hey! We have to go.” I shook her shoulder, pleading. Deep down I knew it was silly. If the monkeys wanted us, there was no way to stop that from happening.

  Jo made no effort to move. The low rumble of her Mustang engine was even and subdued, as if it too were watching and waiting.

  They arrived with the force and ferocity of the race cars they were. From the ground it's difficult to judge speed, but the two together moved with the grace and rigidity of arrows in flight.

  They roared by almost as one explosive boom of engine and wind noise. The second was only a few feet behind the lead car. They paired up to get somewhere in a hurry.

  Currents of air moved Jo's car from side to side as they passed. We both turned to watch for the brake lights. But the red never came on. They continued at the same speed, crested the next little rise and descended out of sight. The whole event happened in about thirty seconds.

  We both let out the air we'd sucked and held in our lungs.

  Jo snapped out of it. The engine, ready for input, responded to her foot. The car jumped out into the northbound lane and she clutched and shifted through all six gears until she was up over a hundred.

  I immediately felt better, and apparently she did as well.

  “I don't think they're here for us. That's not Taylor's car.”

  I was relieved, but I couldn't help wondering. “Where do you think they're going?”
/>
  She offered no clues, if she had any.

  A few minutes later, she let off the gas. Then she coasted to a stop, again on the shoulder. For a long minute she sat silently in her seat, staring at the empty road ahead.

  “I think I know what this is about.”

  She turned to me with a sheepish look. “It wasn't coincidence I pulled up to you when the monkey's got you earlier today.”

  I didn't know how to take that.

  While formulating my feelings, she continued. “I think they burned the Evans' house. I told them that's where I'd be.”

  “Why?” It was the only word I could get out.

  “Look, I'm sorry. But you're in this now. I need a co-pilot or none of this will work.” She took a deep breath, bolstering herself. “You can either get out and I'll send a bike to get you, or you can stick with me. I hope you'll stay.”

  The bathtub of emotions swished and sloshed. Anger on one side for reasons that were unclear, and pride on the other that she said she wanted me to help her. She'd hinted at achieving the one thing I wanted more than anything else right then: the open road of the interstate. Even that might be upset if war was coming. It was a “now or never” moment for me.

  All I had to do was stick with her. I didn't see that I really had a choice.

  “Well, you did get me away from those guys.” I had already forgiven her. I admit, I was a sucker for abuse.

  I almost felt the tap on my shoulder from behind. I didn't need my father involved in any of this. He'd have me on the side of the road waiting for the motorcycle rescue guys to come “rescue” me back to the safety of Hays.

  “Not this girl.”

  “What?” Jo responded.

  I'd said that out loud. Don't tell anyone, but sometimes I got things mixed up. My dad did that to me.

  “Kind of like Penn, eh K-Bear?” My dad asked with a mischievous chuckle.

  He always knew just how to push my buttons.

  I held on as Jo turned the car around.

  For about the fifth time today, we were heading for trouble.

  I wasn't a pony anymore

  “Hang on, I'm going to open him up,” Jo declared.

  Yes, it was trendy for us girls to name our cars after boys, though I'd heard that made it harder to lose one in a wreck. Searching my feelings, I had no such remorse over the loss of my own car. I'd never thought to name it.

  The U-turn was done gingerly, always to preserve tire rubber. Yes our empire of grass contained something like a million derelict cars, but finding a good high performance tire was still next to impossible.

  Then she kicked him in the guts. With crisp gear shifts she had us up over a hundred, which was the typical playground couriers frequented.

  “Let's do this.”

  I watched as the speedometer continued to fall down the right side of the arc, ever toward the bottom. On a good day I could take my car—my old car—into the 130s or 140s. Not because it couldn't go faster, but because an old car like that was more prone to a mechanical failure. Also, it sucked down buckets of gasoline. Just like Jo was doing.

  Fortunately the Hwy 183 trunk line was mostly a straight shot from Hays—in the middle of the state—to the southern border of the place I call home. It doesn't have a name anyone can agree upon, though they try. Horse Lands. The Ogallala Plains. Western Kansas Peoples. But most of us just call the whole thing Hays, because they're the town that brought it all together.

  The police cruisers were hard to catch. In fact, I assumed it would be impossible except they had to slow down at the town of Kinsley.

  A funny town. You pick up a lot of gossip and rumor on the road, but I heard the town leaders in Kinsley got tired of fast cars blowing down Main Street and running over their people, so they parked derelict cars in a serpentine path through the city blocks. It was probably murder for any big rig to traverse, but it was a lucky break for us because we saw the twin cruisers up ahead in the winding maze.

  “I'd bet anything they're going to the south gate. Nothing else makes sense.”

  I didn't want to sound self-important, but—

  “What if they got word that you and I were at the Evans place, and then reported it at the Greensburg Sheriff's Office?”

  She turned with what I guessed was admiration. “That's a really good idea. But if that was the case they could just radio in for them to hold us. It would have been easy. We were standing right there like a couple of stupid ponies.” With a smile she said, “I didn't mean anything by that.”

  I had no worries. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't a pony anymore.

  “No, they're heading somewhere else. Somewhere that would make sense if all this is a war.”

  It took her a few left and right turns to work it out. The Kinsey Snake had several cars going in both directions, mostly local slow rollers. A few couriers, like us. Jo hummed a series of uh-huh's and nuh-uh's to herself, like she was thinking and driving at the same time. She seemed to have it worked out by the time we hit the open southbound highway once more.

  She left plenty of room for the police cars, but it didn't take them long to get a horizon in front of us, even while kicking the Mustang in the pants.

  “Jake here is going to need to fuel up soon.”

  Just like I said. Buckets.

  When we came to the turn off for Greensburg, I knew I was wrong. The police sped right by.

  “Sorry, girl. Nice try.” She said it kind of snooty, but I chalked it up to stress. Her hands were solid hooks from gripping and managing the steering wheel. Any misstep at those speeds and it's good night K-Bear.

  I'd reminded myself of my dad. It surprised me he wasn't around to criticize me. I guessed because I wasn't the one behind the wheel.

  The final twenty miles went by in a blink. When we arrived at the small town I thought for just a second that we'd taken a wrong turn and found Greensburg again. Like the former, this town had cars parked in every square inch of real estate. Unlike Kinsley they'd left their main street open, which allowed us to punch through behind the cop cars.

  I'd run freight to Coldwater, but it was so far south it wasn't one of my regular stops. I'd never been beyond it.

  “The gates are a couple miles down the road.” She sounded jittery, now that we were near the end. “I can't believe I was right. The one time I needed to be wrong.”

  I was totally at her mercy. Being a passenger never sat well with me, which was why I reveled in being a driver...and basically made no friends the past couple years. But now the responsibility sat heavily on my conscience. Wasn't a good co-pilot supposed to offer suggestions—better, and smarter routes—and stuff?

  She turned roughly to the left on a short dirt track that led to a nearby small stand of trees. “This is perfect. I didn't know it would be this easy.”

  “Easy? What are we doing? Why are we stopping?”

  “It's time for you to earn your pay.” She laughed with a touch of sarcasm.

  She exited her door, then went to the back and lifted the trunk. Not knowing what else to do, I followed. I admit I was curious what she had back there, so this was the perfect excuse to be nosy.

  She stood there smiling at me.

  “Are you ready to see how we do things up north?”

  “Oh, God yes!” That's what I was thinking. But I couldn't sound like a child.

  With a passable shrug and a look of indifference I tossed out, “Sure.”

  I thought there'd be a gate

  “That is not what I was expecting.” I hated to sound like an amateur, but I had to face facts. Ponies don't normally travel with guns. It's part of the reason they call us ponies: it's perfectly safe. Having guns in the car would more likely result in us shooting ourselves.

  My dad, bless his heart, was screaming at me how wrong I was. I won't share his words. You can imagine what a protective father might say about the need for guns in the hands of vulnerable young women in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't yet willing to admit he was
close to right.

  Anyway, Jo pulled up a hidden handle in her cargo space and the whole thing lifted. All the crap she'd kept on top—all the misplaced and mismatched junk—was a diversion for what she kept underneath. I don't even know what to call it. It looked like some kind of spaceman's gun.

  Jo only knew me for a few hours, but dammit if she didn't already subscribe to my newsletter.

  “You're wondering what this thing is, aren't you?” She practically danced in place in anticipation. “This is a Barrett Model 82A1 50-cal.” She looked at me with a huge grin, then looked at her gun like it was her baby.

  My face must haven't conveyed the proper level of awe.

  “Nothing?” The smile faded. “You don't find this the least bit cool?”

  Out here there isn't much to do with a person's time. I fill it by driving and when I'm not driving I'm wrenching on my car so I can drive it again, faster. Sometimes, I sleep. Thats. About. It. The thing I saw under her gaze might have well have been alien for all I cared.

  That's not what I told her.

  “Yeah, it's really cool.” Then, to distract her. “Are we going to shoot the cops?”

  “What? No. Why would I shoot cops?” She smiled with the “you're a silly little girl” smile, then got to work yanking the gun out of the car. She wasn't a large or strong-looking girl, but we all need decent upper body strength to handle the wheel at high speeds. It had some heft to it, and she grunted until it was firmly in her hands.

  She looked like a miniature Amazon warrior princess holding that gun. It was damn near as tall as her. I had to give it to her, she was rockin' it.

  “The first thing I'm going to teach you about the interstate is to trust no one. I don't trust those cops. This,” she nodded to her heavy-barrel friend, “is how I learn who's up to no good out here. Come on.”

  She put the gun on her shoulder and pointed inside her trunk. “Can you grab a couple of those mags?”