by R. M. Smith
He stopped chewing for a second. “So?”
“So, could you please leave us alone?” Mindy said. “We haven’t done anything to you.”
“Ma'am,” Doug said politely, “Please shut the fuck up.”
Doug took another drink. As the bottle was tilted up, I quickly body-tackled him. He dropped his rifle. We both went down to the ground. He was a strong kid. In a second, he had me pinned to the ground with his knees. He laughed, barely out of breath. “Guess you didn’t know I was the top of my wrestling league in high school.” He reached back as he grabbed his rifle. He pointed it at my face. “One more move like that and your wife there will be a single mother.”
Mindy was being held by the other guy. Her arms were pinned back.
“C’mon man,” I said. “What do you want from us?”
“Just to cross,” he said, arms outstretched. “Nothing else...well, some of your food. If we get across, then we’ll let ya go.”
“What is it, a bridge?” I asked. “Why can’t you just go around it, like walk through a field or swim across a river - or something – to get passed the bridge?”
Slowly he got off of me. He stood looking at me, lying on the ground, then he offered me a hand to get up. I took it. “Listen,” he said “we don’t mean any harm to you people, but for some reason I don’t think you two get it.”
The other guy let Mindy go. She came over to me. “What don’t we get?” she asked.
Doug said “The split. You don’t know what it is.”
We both shook our heads. Other than what the stranger had told us back in Dallas, we had no clue.
Doug said “The earth has split in half. That’s what the split is. It’s like a huge chunk of the earth has broken loose from the planet. They say that this part we’re on is sinking. They’re evacuating people from this part. There are helicopters all along the split flying people to the safe side.”
Mindy was holding me tight. She asked “How long until this part sinks?”
The other guy said “It already is. Some of the guys in charge have said that anyone left alive on this part are going to die soon.”
Doug continued “This section is going to break free from the rest of the earth. It’s going to be slowly pushed out of the rest of the earth’s gravity. It will be lost to space.”
Mindy and I were looking at him, unbelieving. Back at the casino, we never would have thought that such a thing could be happening.
“Listen,” he continued. “I’m sorry for the way this has happened. Let me apologize. I never meant any harm.”
“It’s ok,” I said. “There is plenty of food in the cooler.”
“I’m Doug Owens,” he said. “Private First Class Owens. My friend here is Private Gary Hollis. We’re AWOL from the army.”
“AWOL?” I asked. “Why did you leave?”
“We wanted to find our families. Mine is from Cooper, Texas. We went back there to find them, but the town is gone – I mean, literally gone. A large section of the city has crumbled down into the split. The other half was crushed by other parts of the earth caving in around it. Where my house was…it’s not even there anymore. If it was, the house would be floating in midair. I don’t know what happened to my family.”
“I was from Sulphur Springs,” Gary said. “It’s on the other side of the split. That’s where we’re heading now. We were hoping you’d help us get there – but we didn’t know how to approach you honestly. It was Doug’s idea to do the hostage thing.”
Doug said “Since we went AWOL – let’s see, five weeks ago – we know the army’s been looking for us. They sent some guys to find us. I know we’re being tracked, but we need to get across. We’ve been up and down the split from Texarkana all the way down to Greenville. There’s no way across. Do you think you two can help us?”
I looked at Mindy. Her face was emotionless. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to help or not. Personally, I didn’t know what to think. In the back of my mind I still couldn’t help but to think that this was probably just another one of Washburn’s ploys. I said “Let me talk this over with my wife.”
Doug said “Alright.”
I took Mindy by the hand and led her over to the exit door of the hotel. We didn’t go inside. I asked her “What do you think?”
“I think we need to see this split. I’d be more willing to believe their story if I saw it with my own eyes.”
She was right.
I looked back to the other guys. “How far is it to Texarkana?”
“Around 90 miles or so, why?”
“We want to see the split. When we see it, then we’ll help you across.”
“We could head back south here,” Doug said. “It’s about 20 miles back down to Cooper.”
“What are you driving?” I asked.
“We have a jeep on the outskirts of town. We didn’t like to drive into town before we knew it was clear. We saw you two looking down on us when we were siphoning fuel a little while ago.”
Mindy asked “Have you seen any zombies?”
Gary said “No ma’am, they are all walking to the split in the northeast.”
“Northeast Texas?” she asked.
“No, the northeast part of the United States, like up near Utah, Idaho, places like that.”
“Why? What’s making them go there?” I asked.
“We have no idea,” Doug said. “It might have come from some nukes that went off up there.”
“Nukes?” I asked. “Are we at war?” I didn’t want to tell them we were from there. I mean, on one hand I trusted these guys. On the other, I didn’t. They had planned to use us as hostages. I couldn’t exactly just forget what had happened between us, but for the moment, they seemed trustworthy enough.
“We weren’t. But we are now.” Doug said.
Mindy asked “Who are we at war against?”
Gary said “Zombies.”
As we drove south to Cooper, Mindy and I talked about telling them about the guy near Fort Worth. He had said there was a crossing point there, but we were hesitant because we weren’t sure if these guys were actually all on the same team. Maybe they were working together to try and trap us.
When we came upon Cooper, Mindy’s grip around my waist grew stronger.
The first thing I saw was the town’s white water tower. It was leaning to the south against the other wall of the split. The split went up about 300 yards. Spilling over the edge was thousands of gallons of water. It was falling onto the top of the water tower, splashing down its sides. Roots, telephone wires, underground cabling, pipelines, anything that had been underground was now sticking out the side of the split. I could see the different layers of sediment in the deep dirt.
As I looked east and west, there were more roots and pipes sticking out of the huge wall. It seemed surreal. The wall went as far as the eye could see in both directions. In places, there was steam rising or water falling over the edges. Broken pieces of highway hung over the edge. Buildings and houses were teetering on the edges.
The roaring of the falling water was deafening as it came over the side.
“That’s Cooper Lake draining out,” Doug shouted. “I used to swim in there as a kid.”
“Holy fuck,” I whispered. “This is unreal.”
I needed to look over the edge. I had to see it. I walked closer but then was grabbed roughly from behind by Doug. “You’ll fall man!” he shouted. “The edges are very weak and unstable.”
Just to prove his point, a little to our west a huge tree teetered and fell over into the split. More earth and rock caved in with it. “We should step back” he hollered.
“The only way up to the other side of the split is in a helicopter,” Doug said as we walked further away from the split. “As far as Gary and I know, the only ones are in Texarkana.”
I looked at Mindy and she nodded to me, saying it was ok to tell them. “There was a guy in Dallas” I said “who told us this same story about the split. We didn’t believe him. We
thought he was high or something. He told us there was a way across south of Fort Worth in some town near there – I forget the name now.”
Doug and Gary perked up. “Do they have helicopters?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “He didn’t go into details. He just said it was safe.”
“Let’s go there, then,” Doug said. “We can avoid Texarkana totally.”
We backtracked to Denton where we headed south. Again we had to zigzag through overturned vehicles, destroyed bridges and angled concrete. It was a rough ride. By the time night fell we had only gone 17 miles south of Denton to a small destroyed suburb of Fort Worth called Haslet.
We built a small fire. Each of us ate one unwrapped plastic wrap of stripped steak.
“Where did you manage to find steak in all of this?” Doug asked.
“In a walk-in cooler in a casino,” I said, a laugh escaping me.
“The hell were you doing in a casino? Gambling?”
“Scavenging,” I said. “Looking anywhere for food.”
“I hear ya there. We had a bitch of a time finding anything. So much shit has been looted its nuts.”
I nodded. Mindy was sitting next to me, her head on my shoulder.
Gary was looking at us both. “You’re lucky to have survived together,” he said, “being married n all.”
“We met because of this,” Mindy said. “We didn’t know each other before.”
“You’re married though, right?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “We got married by another man we met – he was a preacher.”
“He didn’t make it,” Mindy said quietly.
No one said anything for a while. We watched the fire, listened to the popping of the wood as it burned. We all got lost in our own thoughts – of families gone, loved ones dead.
Finally we all turned in. Mindy and I slept together in a sleeping bag. The guys slept on the ground.
The next day we continued on our difficult trek southward. We tried to stay on the main highway but in so many places the concrete was tilted at such an angle it made getting past it nearly impossible. We took side roads or anywhere the ground looked flat enough to drive over - anything to get further south. It seemed like the split was millions of miles away. The day dragged on and on.
Clouds started coming in around noon. By the time it started getting dark, a steady rain was falling. It made traveling even more difficult. Several times, the jeep got stuck in some mud along the side of the road. One time we nearly ditched it, but after some strong cussing, Doug finally managed to work it out of the muddy ruts.
We finally found the split as we came into the town of Alvarado. There were spotlights shining down from the other side of the split. The rain was pouring down through the lights.
“They have electricity,” Mindy said quietly.
“Hey! Down here!” Doug yelled.
No one looked down to us from the other side.
“They’re probably all asleep,” I said. “It’s late. Let’s just wait til morning to cross.”
“Fuck that, I wanna get out of this rain,” Doug said.
“We all do, man,” I said. We looked for any kind of shelter. There was a destroyed overpass a few hundred yards behind us. One side of the overpass did offer us some cover for the night. We slept in our wet clothes. I don’t think any of us really slept that well at all.
We woke up the next morning to a heavy drizzle.
Doug and Gary were already awake. They were over by the split peering down into the gap. They were soaked.
Up on the top of the other side of the split, we heard helicopter engines starting up followed by the chopping of rotor blades. Within a few minutes, a helicopter rose to a hover then slowly moved over the edge.
It was coming down for us.
“Yes!” Doug hollered. “We’re going to cross!”
The helicopter landed neatly on the crooked ground around us. The side door was opened.
Doug and Gary, being closer, ran to the doors first. They hopped in. They stood up inside the helicopter, waiting for us to get there. When we did, they pulled us in. We all sat down on the deck of the chopper.
The helicopter started going up. The drizzle sprayed around us in the heavy wind from the rotor wash. Some of the drizzle came into the copter causing me to close my eyes. The water felt fresh on my face.
When I opened my eyes, Mindy, Gary and Doug were gone.
I looked around, panicked.
The pilot turned in their seat to look at me. It was a woman wearing a fur-lined captain’s cap. Some of the woman’s hair was missing – or, had it been ripped out? The woman looked familiar to me. Suddenly, I realized it was Tara. Half of her face had been eaten away by earthworms. She smiled at me. Her mouth was full of dirty slugs. One of them fell from between her teeth and others fell out the side of her ripped cheek. She gargled at me “We’re going up, Dan! Up! Up! Up with the slut!!”
Then I noticed the co-pilot. It was Donna. She was staring at me. It looked like she had a bullet hole in the center of her forehead. One of her eyes was full of blood, the other was missing. She nodded to me as she blinked steadily with her one eye.
I turned. I needed to get out of here!
Mel was standing next to the side door. Her head was cocked at an odd angle. She was naked, fingering herself. “I miss you,” she smiled showing her rotten teeth. She stared at me with her gouged out eyes.
Then Rachel was next to me, naked, a long dildo was strapped around her waist. She was swinging her hips back and forth making the dildo spin around in front of her. Her neck was sliced. I could see her collarbone sticking out of her neck. She giggled, “Do the helicopter...do the helicopter, Dan. Fuck me in the helicopter, Dan…”
…helicopter…
…the helicopter, Dan! It’s coming…
“Dan, wake up, the helicopter is coming down!” Mindy was shaking me to wake me up.
Just a dream…I thought. Holy shit!
Standing up I shook my head. It was drizzling. Mindy’s hair was soaked, matted to her head. Gary and Doug stood side by side, looking at me, water dripping from their clothes.
“I’m ok,” I said. “Bad dream. Let’s go.”
We watched the helicopter come down. It landed with a bump on the twisted ground. The side door opened. The guy who claimed to be a geologist held the door open. He waved for us to come over.
All four of us got to the helicopter together. The geologist reached for Mindy first. She took his hand. He yanked her in and then helped the rest of us up. When we were all sitting down, he gave the pilot a thumbs up, slammed the side rolling door shut, and we took off up along the side of the split.
“Hello again,” he hollered at Mindy and I. “I’m glad you came back!”
I nodded my thanks to him.
The drizzle turned into a heavier rain. I watched out the front windows as the rain was thrown around by the rotor’s spinning. The pilot had the windshield wipers going at high speed.
Fucking Rachel, I screamed to myself. I hadn’t thought of her in a long time. Why would she suddenly come back to me? And Tara too? And fucking Mel! Jesus!
The helicopter stopped ascending. We then flew to the southeast.
We landed in the center of a small town’s business district. It was a large open square area surrounded by small shops. An American flag hanging on a flag pole whipped in the winds of the rotor blades.
The geologist said “I’m sure you’re going to like it better on this side of the split” as he opened the door.
Right outside, not more than fifteen feet away, a line of soldiers in chamo weather gear stood in the rain. They all had rifles pointing at us. Rain dripped from the rifle barrels.
Behind them, a larger man stood. He wore an officer’s hat. I didn’t recognize him. He had a rain slicker on.
“We got them sir. We are allowing them to cross. They will land in Alvarado.”
“Excellent. We have been after these two for too long. I�
�m going to give you a commendation for this, Sharon. Job well done.”
Master Sergeant Dean Sharon nodded. It was about damn time someone noticed his work. He’d been busting his ass down here in Texas for too long without any pats on the back.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
“Keep them held until I get there.”
“Yes sir, I will. We’ll hold them in a temporary brig until we can move them back to Garland.”
“Fine. Have a room set up for me too. I’ll be tired after the flight in from Omaha.”
Sharon snapped, “Yes sir, we’ll get it taken care of.”
It was a small, deserted town. Small empty businesses lined the center of the town. At one time I imagined that a gazebo might have sat in the center of the square. Now our helicopter sat on the cement pad. Rain was pouring down.
The geologist helped Mindy out. I followed. Doug and Gary stayed inside.
“Morris, take these two to the city hall,” the officer behind the line of soldiers said as he nodded to Mindy and I.
The geologist nodded toward a small building on the northwest side of the city center. We hurriedly ran toward that direction in the rain.
The officer then commanded “Private First Class Owens and Private Hollis – we know you’re in there. Come on out!”
The empty door of the helicopter stood open but neither of them came out.
“Warn them,” the officer said.
One of the soldiers in the line fired a warning shot over the top of the helicopter blades.
Still they didn’t come out.
By that time, Mindy, Morris and I were at the entrance of a small one-story building. A sign outside told us that this was the Alvarado City Hall. Morris opened the door for us as we went in.
There was a long large stand-up receptionist’s desk as we went in. The electricity was on in here, too. Behind the desk, a woman sat at a typewriter typing something very quickly. Morris looked at her with a strange sideways smile as we passed her. He led us down a hallway.
We passed a few closed doors. Behind one I thought I heard someone sending a Morse code message.