Solar Storm (Season 1): Aftermath [Episodes 1-5]

by Marcus Richardson

  She’d driven almost straight across Arizona and New Mexico for 250 miles and couldn't hold exhaustion off any longer. Albuquerque loomed on the horizon, the next obstacle to clear before another long stretch of open road leading home. She’d rather skip around this city under cover of darkness like she had at Winslow, Holbrook, and Gallup, but Kate knew she’d have barely enough fuel to make it to the edge of Albuquerque, let alone get through it and beyond.

  Another thought popped into her mind as she drove down the lonely high-desert interstate: Albuquerque was the home of Kirtland Air Force Base.

  Kate assumed the local civilian population might congregate near the base. It made sense, she thought, since the Air Force would be capable of moving hundreds and thousands of tons of relief supplies and food to people all over the nation. Any city fortunate enough to have a sizable airbase nearby would enjoy that proximity.

  As she drove on, her headlights illuminated the resting hulk of a tractor-trailer abandoned on the side of the road. Empty boxes and trash littered the highway near the semi-truck, forcing her to slow down her Kia to a crawl.

  Her hands tightened on the wheel—this would make a perfect site for an ambush. She kept a light touch on the brakes as she rolled near the cavernous truck, ready to bolt if a group of people suddenly jumped out.

  What she saw painted on the side of the truck made her desperate to find a safe haven, if only for one night. In big broad letters, painted by hand, the sign read: “FEMA camp at Kirtland AFB”.

  Rolling forward Kate felt her brief flare of hope evaporate when she approached a cargo van not thirty yards from the tractor trailer. On its side was one word: “BEWARE”.

  Kate came to a complete stop and noticed with alacrity the bullet holes that peppered cargo van’s side. She glanced over her shoulder and took a closer look at the van, glowing under the moon’s gaze. The cab had been turned into Swiss cheese with some serious weaponry—she guessed a fifty-cal.

  She turned forward again and sighed, resisting the urge to give in, to give up, to start crying and just spend the night on the road. Kate wanted to rest, she wanted to sleep, she wanted to feel Jay’s arms around her so bad it hurt. Kate looked down at her clenched fists and trembled with the effort to control her emotions. She’d been on the road a week now, running from the end of the world. With hardly any sleep and more stress than she’d experienced anywhere outside of combat, Kate knew she was quickly approaching her breaking point.

  Kate took a deep, calming breath and put her hands back on the wheel. It was time to move. She flicked her gaze at the mirror, bidding the lonely vehicles a sad farewell. Silently thanking whoever took the time to paint the FEMA camp warning, she hit the gas again. She wanted to get through Albuquerque as soon as possible and avoid Kirtland.

  On the western outskirts of town, she encountered a massive pile up of damaged and abandoned cars. It took precious minutes to slowly navigate the twisted warren of charred steel and burned rubber, but she saw blessed few bodies. Kate didn’t even bother to stop and look for gas—the cars were all blistered and burned to the rivets. The conflagration had spread like wildfire among the tightly packed cars and consumed hundreds of vehicles—she couldn't even guess how many people had died.

  There wouldn’t be any gas to be had, she was sure of it.

  Kate skirted the worst of the massive wreck and only had to go off the road three times. At the head of the column, she noticed more and more cars had simply been abandoned in place, not destroyed by fire. Kate killed the headlights and crept forward.

  With the moon nearly set and the sun still a couple hours from rising, it was now or never to perform a covert refueling. Kate coasted to a stop and quickly shifted into park so she could take her foot off the brakes and kill the red taillights that lit up a Prius she just noticed in her rear view mirror, sitting right behind the SUV.

  She waited there behind a big dark truck that had stopped catty-corner across the interstate, blocking the right lane. Hoping she remained invisible from anyone further east who might be watching, she slipped out and grabbed her tools from the back seat.

  Standing in the middle of the road, surrounded by the corpses of hundreds of cars and trucks, Kate was struck by the absolute silence that blanketed the world. Not a single engine hummed, no animals chittered unseen in the shadows—nothing moved except a gentle desert breeze from the west, bringing with it the hope of dawn.

  Kate took a breath of dusty air and set to work. She wanted to find gas, refuel and get around Albuquerque before dawn if possible. She moved behind her car and investigated the big SUV the Prius had rear-ended. All the doors were open and several bags had been upended on the ground, surrounded by pebbles of safety glass.

  Kate took a knee and felt for the gas tank under the SUV’s jacked-up bumper, resting on the accordion-like hood of the Prius. She winced at the gunshot-loud sound of each hammer blow echoing off nearby cars as she pounded the screwdriver with the hammer. Finally the Phillips Head pierced the tank and she ripped it free, allowing the tangy scent of gasoline to fill her nostrils as the liquid drained into her container. The stream looked more like a trickle—she didn't see any way it could fill her can.

  She made sure the red plastic can on the ground wouldn't tip over under the stream of gas and dried her hands. Looking around while she waited, Kate noticed the bags on the ground sat on top of all the glass. Whoever had been in the car survived, had pulled their bags out before leaving them behind.

  Why would you do that?

  She moved to the first bag and unzipped the unassuming duffel. Inside she found diapers, baby clothes, a few small, well-used toys, and some children's board books. She closed the bag with a reverent touch and sent a prayer Heavenward that the child whose belongings she now held had survived.

  Please God, let this child survive. Let their parents survive…please…

  As she moved from car to car, checking bags and contents, she gathered what gas she could. Some cars only had a dribble of fuel left, others a little more. No one vehicle had enough to fill her container, so she had to make the rounds. Even after the second time she'd emptied the little red container into her own car, she realized she needed at least two more fill-ups: one to top off her own tank, and one more to fill the container as an emergency reserve.

  Wiping the sting of gasoline vapors from her dry, tired eyes, Kate moved to another staggered chain of cars wrapped around and conjoined with each other in an obscene-looking death embrace. As she approached, a new smell overpowered even the gas coating her hands and clothes. She stopped in her tracks at the eye-watering odor.

  Death waited for her in those cars. Kate backed away, one deliberate step at a time, her shoes crunching on the gravel and busted glass. Turning, she made for a different clump of cars a little further away. She had seen too much to deal with moldering bodies on top of everything else. She just wanted some gas—she didn't need any more than she already had. Kate decided her sleep was too precious to waste on screaming and sweating and crying.

  Kate knelt and rested her head against the cool metal side of the latest car to yield up its treasure of fuel and closed her eyes. Did the whole world suffer the same fate? Was it this bad everywhere? What had happened to all the people who'd been in these cars?

  She forced herself to top off her car and go back out into the darkness one more time to fill up the gas container. The fact that her car was fully fueled and ready to go gave her no small comfort. Her nerves already on edge, she was prepared to bolt at the first sound or sign of danger.

  In the end, she found nothing but the cars, the gas, and a few bottles of water left behind. She drove away from the huge accident scene with enough gas to see her safely to Amarillo and a lot more questions than she wanted.

  What happened back there? Where did all the people go? Why did someone feel the need to paint the warning signs on those two trucks?

  Kate mulled over these thoughts as she eased her car around the final turn in the grim
parade of abandoned cars and spotted the silhouette of Albuquerque in the distance. Without the benefit of lights, the landscape around her looked remarkably unchanged from the desert. Most of the buildings she could make out from the road were low and squat, set off in the distance and indistinguishable from the dark, frozen ground all around.

  Only when she crossed the Rio Grande and burst into trees lining both sides of the interstate did it register that she’d reached the city proper. Riding I-40 along its elevated bed, Kate cruised as fast as she deemed safe and crossed two-thirds of Albuquerque before she encountered another moving vehicle.

  A dark, blocky truck with flashing blue lights emerged from a surface street down below the interstate. She instantly recognized the Humvee as an Air Force MP patrol vehicle. For a second she almost pulled off to meet them—after all, she was a reserve officer and in such a crisis, being a fighter pilot might be beneficial.

  Then she saw a sign in the distance advising all drivers to slow down and prepare to stop as they approach the FEMA camp. Further details emerged as she passed another sign just behind the first, warning people they would be subject to a stop and search before admittance to the camp was granted.

  So, they were going to take everyone's things but promised to give them back at some point? Kate frowned as she considered that thought for a moment. Her eyes picked out the glow of hundreds of lights in the distance to the southeast. The camp was huge—bigger than anything she'd imagined. It was like a small city unto itself on the outskirts of Kirtland itself.

  Holy shit…

  Kate imagined what it must be like, cramped in a space that size with untold thousands of people—sure it was a huge camp, but Albuquerque looked deserted, there had to be hundreds of thousands of people over there. She she realized she'd might not be welcomed with open arms—she could very well be ignored and shunted away by overworked officials, packed into the refugee camp there to wait for the next handout and unable to leave.

  Kate decided not to surrender to the MPs.

  She punched the gas in an attempt to outrun the armored Humvee and weaved in and around stalled cars. She risked a glance out the right window and realized she couldn't directly see the other vehicle—it was below the elevated highway—but she could see the reflected blue lights as they lit up the surrounding landscape.

  Kate frowned. They were easily keeping pace with her underpowered economy car.

  Her only chance to escape was either to outrun them through sheer luck or take an exit ramp and try to lose them on surface streets. She figured any base security worth his salt would know the ins and outs of the local streets, so getting off the interstate would be a risky proposition at best.

  According to the signs flashing by as she roared down the interstate close to a hundred miles an hour, the next on-ramp was coming up and the Humvee could merge onto the highway. She gripped the wheel with sweaty hands and clenched her teeth. She wasn't going to be stopped—not by the Air Force, not by people trying to take her vehicle, not by anyone.

  She was going to make it home, she was going to reach Jay.

  The blue lights flashed through the passenger window, reflecting off the buildings below the elevated interstate, but she noticed with a wry smile they were no longer keeping pace. She hoped against hope that traffic accidents or abandoned cars down there slowed the MPs. Second by second, she pulled ahead, a few yards at a time. Kate kept the accelerator floored and continued to weave in and out of cars on the interstate.

  She saw the on-ramp approaching faster than she would've liked. The MPs would be on her in a matter of seconds. She blew past the on-ramp and continued toward the eastern edge of Albuquerque. Her only chance at escape lay in speed and more than a little luck.

  The blue lights disappeared from her passenger window. Then to her supreme disappointment, the rearview mirror lit up with blue strobes mounted atop the Air Force MP Humvee.

  “Damn it guys, you don’t give up, do you?”

  With the headlights flashing in the mirror in time with the blue light bar, Kate knew its would only be a matter of time before they caught her now. Her little compact car wouldn’t out perform the big diesel Humvee.

  The only thing left to do was to keep going. Perhaps they might turn back to Kirtland if she made the mountains east of Albuquerque.

  Kate checked her fuel gauge, happy to see she still had well over three quarters of a tank. Unless they shot at her, Kate figured she might have a decent chance of—

  A sharp metallic ping echoed from the rear of the car. A split second later, she heard the muffled crack of a gunshot.

  Son of a bitch!

  Kate swerved into the right lane in time to hear another gunshot. This time they missed. She waited again, imagining herself taking aim at the speeding car, then jerked back in the left lane at the last second. Just as her car across the line, she swerved back to the right and the next two shots also missed.

  Kate grinned and continued to jerk and weave until the rear window exploded in a shower of glass and noise. She screamed and scrunched her shoulders as the bits of broken glass ricocheted around the car. Instead of the roar of her tires, she now heard what sounded like a hurricane as the wind howled through the ruined rear window.

  They fired several more shots, each one making Kate scream. She swerved as she recognized panic was setting in—her arms grew stiffer and stiffer.

  Don’t stop—keep juking. Evasive, evasive! Stay loose!

  She realized the more she tightened up, the better chance she'd flip her little car and die in an accident. Either that, or she might not swerve enough and get shot.

  Focus…stay focused and loose.

  The side streets suddenly thinned and the number of buildings lining the interstate trickled to nothing. She had reached the edge of Albuquerque. As she roared east toward the brightening horizon, she noticed the MPs behind her slowed to a stop in the middle of I-40 and turned broadside. They fired one last parting shot, but it never came close.

  "Yippie ki-yaay motherfuckers!" she shouted into the wind.

  Kate laughed as she kept the accelerator to the floor and roared off toward the mountain range just east of town. She made it. If she’d allowed herself to slow down a second longer when she was considering whether or not to turn herself in, the MPs would've had enough time to catch her.

  At 90 miles an hour, it only took Kate a few minutes to pass through and out of the mountain range east of Albuquerque. She roared down the largely deserted road and continued east toward Amarillo.

  Some ten minutes later, Kate had calmed down and released her iron grip on the steering wheel. She could barely hear herself think over the wind roaring through the rear window. It was only then she noticed the fuel gauge had dropped to a quarter tank.

  Oh, shit. They hit the gas tank!

  It explained how she’d lost so much gas in such a short amount of time. She drove a Kia Forte, not a Ford 350—there was no way she could have gone through almost half a tank in ten minutes.

  After the lights of the refugee camp faded to a dim glow on the horizon, she stopped on the side of the road. A search for the bullet hole that punctured her tank ended up a failure, so she poured the rest her reserves in the little red can into the gas tank. Knowing full well that too would leak out of the perforated car, she had little choice—without being able to find the hole or holes she couldn't even attempt to plug the tank. Kate sighed and climbed back into the driver's seat.

  A few minutes further down the road, Kate stared down at the blinking orange light that signaled the imminent death of her vehicle. She’d grown rather attached to the little rental car from Los Angeles—they’d been through a lot in the past week and she hated to see the plucky little 4-cylinder just sputter to a stop…but it did.

  With a reluctant acceptance of the inevitable, she released her iron grip on the imitation leather steering wheel and sank back into the driver’s seat, sighing. There was no use willing the poor thing one more foot down the road—
without enough gas to power the engine, her little car wasn’t going anywhere.

  Kate stared at the road, still illuminated by her headlights. She could just make out a green sign up ahead indicating the town of Santa Rosa lay 10 miles away. She guessed there’d only be an hour or so before dawn—there was no point in setting out on foot at the moment. Kate decided to prep for a long march.

  She knew she was somewhere west of Amarillo, but wasn’t sure if she’d made it to the Texas border or not. Either way, she was out in the middle of a lot of cold, dry, nowhere. Water would be her first and top priority if she was going to make it home—or any distance—by foot.

  She’d seen more traffic the further east of the Rockies she came. At first there had been only a rare car, or the glimmer of headlights in the distance every hour or so. Now that she needed to abandon her vehicle, she hoped each new car she encountered wouldn’t be full of gun-toting renegades hell-bent on recreating a scene or two from Mad Max.

  Kate chided herself as she opened the door and stood to stretch her legs in the pre-dawn darkness. She glanced at the bullet holes decorating her car’s rear quarter panel near the gas tank. The idea of sticking her thumb out and hitch-hiking held little attraction. She wasn’t the type to try that in the best the of times, let alone the end of the world. Any one of the cars she infrequently encountered could be driven by…

  Kate closed her eyes. Not everyone is like Stacy and Alan. Most people are probably just trying to find somewhere safe to go. Like you.

  Nonetheless, she vowed to never have her chef’s knife out of arm’s reach again.

  Kate rummaged through the meager remains of her supplies. Sorting through what was left of her beef jerky and tuna by flashlight, she figured on maybe two or three days worth of food if she really stretched it.

  She was little better off when it came to water. The downside was the water—in individual plastic bottles—was going to be harder to transport without a backpack. Her flight bag was too small—like a mini messenger bag.