Cody was biding his time. He was standing behind the open lid of the trunk. He winked at Rachel.
He heard footsteps rushing towards him.
Cody took a deep breath. Then he closed the trunk and started firing.
He shot the bald mask first. The nine-millimeter bullet ripped a dime-sized hole through the man’s skull and a gargled gasp was all he could manage before he fell. The four other men panicked when they saw that Cody was back to shooting at his best. Survival instincts kicked in. The plan to seize Cody and Rachel was abandoned and they all fled back towards the Chevrolet in a disorganized mess.
The light coming off the plane was getting closer. The noise of the engine was louder. It felt dangerous just to be there. People on the highway were jumping off the road on either side, taking their chances in the trees and in the open spaces that lay beyond the 281. Others were racing down the highway back towards San Antonio, convinced that the plane wasn’t going to land on the road.
They were too close to it. From where he stood, Cody was certain the plane was targeting the road.
The masks hurried back to the pickup. Cody knew that he couldn’t let them go, not this time. There was every chance that the bastards would find him again further down the highway and try their luck. Maybe they’d find him at the airport. It would just go on and on until they killed him and took Rachel. Or until he killed them.
He had to protect her. That was his job, no matter how grim.
He chased after the fleeing men, dropping them one at a time like skittles. He felt nothing as he watched them go down. Meanwhile, Randall the driver saw what was happening and in a state of panic, he slammed his foot down and the red Chevrolet began to roll down the highway.
Cody pointed the pistol at the cab. He had a solid lock on the old man’s head and all it would take was one more shot. Squeeze the trigger and wipe them out. One big happy family, all dead and spared the horrors of Mary Jane’s ‘New America’.
But Cody didn’t shoot. His arm fell to the side.
It wasn’t that kind of world yet.
The Chevrolet sped down the 281, charging towards San Antonio at high speed. Cody looked over his shoulder at the plane descending towards the highway. It might have been a Cessna. He saw the small wingspan, the twin turbofan engines – it probably held no more than five or six people inside.
“Holy shit,” he said.
Those poor people on the road were trying to get away. But they were caught like a flock of rabbits in the plane’s headlights. Their high-pitched screams filled the air and Cody saw the inevitability of the situation. It was a horrifying sight that was about to get worse.
He couldn’t help them. Nobody could. He only had enough hero left inside him to save his little girl – he hoped.
Another glance at the plane. The Black Widow – she was up there, whispering in the pilot’s ear and telling him to do it. But who else was in that plane with her and the pilot? Was it another case of someone paying an extortionate amount of money to charter a private aircraft in order to get home? Maybe they’d taken their family members aboard. Was there a child on the plane?
“Dad?”
Rachel’s voice pulled Cody back, reminding him of the urgency of the situation. Turning around, he hurried over to the car and stood by the trunk. The lid was slightly ajar but he couldn’t see inside.
“It’s me,” he said, knocking on the lid. “I’m okay. The masks are all gone.”
“I want to come out.”
Cody looked at the plane coming towards them.
“I want you to stay in here for a little longer,” he said.
“Let me out!”
“Trust me,” Cody said. And with that he slammed the trunk shut, ignoring her cries as he climbed back into the Dodge.
When he turned on the headlights he realized that one of them had indeed been shot out by the masks. A one-eyed car – it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be on the road for much longer.
He turned on the engine, spun the car around and raced back down the highway towards San Antonio. His foot pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. As the car picked up speed, Cody’s eyes darted back and forth between the road and what was happening in the rearview mirror.
Down it came. Lower. Losing altitude at a dramatic rate. Now it really did look like an authentic kamikaze plane speeding towards its target. But unlike the World War Two planes, the target this time wasn’t an enemy warship; it was a group of human beings who’d been trying to escape the tragedy in San Antonio. It was almost there – God, it was coming in so fast.
Cody couldn’t take his eyes off it.
“Oh Jesus Christ,” he said.
The small aircraft crashed into the center of the 281. There was a massive explosion and a fireball engulfed the plane and burned through everything and everyone in its path. Thick plumes of black smoke gushed out of the wreckage and raced towards the sky.
It was a massacre.
The ground trembled underneath the Dodge Challenger.
Cody wanted to scream at the top of his lungs. He wanted to cry but his eyes were dry. He wanted to do something to acknowledge those people who’d been vaporized on the road. All they’d wanted was something better, for themselves and for their families – it was the same something he was searching for now.
He drove on in stunned silence. As he did so, he kept the gas pedal pinned to the floor, convinced that the fireball was chasing down the highway after them.
It was a while before he heard the noise. When he snapped out of his daze, he realized that Rachel was pounding on the roof of the trunk.
“Let me out!” she screamed.
“Just a little longer,” Cody said. He scratched at his arm through the sleeve of his shirt. His skin was prickly hot, as if the heat of the explosion was all over him.
He looked at the massive fireball in the mirror.
How would anyone ever know what happened to those people? What if they had loved ones waiting for them somewhere?
More thumping from the back.
“Dad!” Rachel yelled from the trunk. “I want to get out of here.”
Cody knew that he couldn’t keep her in the trunk for any longer. She’d heard the blast and there was no way he could hide the aftermath from her. It was too big. He slowed the Dodge to a stop and wiped the sweat off his face. Then he stepped outside into the warm air.
He tried to take a deep lungful of air. Breathing had never been so hard. It felt like someone was trying to smother him with a pillow on a hot summer’s night.
Cody opened the trunk and helped Rachel climb out onto the road. She stood up straight and gasped as she looked at the fireball blazing in the north.
“What happened?” she said. “I heard the noise but…”
“A plane crash,” Cody said.
Rachel stared at the smoking horizon.
“What about all those people?” she said.
“Some got away,” Cody said.
They stood with their backs propped up against the Dodge Challenger for a minute or two. They were two spectators with front row seats to the end of the world.
Cody put his arm around Rachel.
“Want some water?” he said.
She didn’t take her eyes off the wreckage. “Uh-huh.”
Cody handed her one of the large bottles out of the trunk. Rachel held it with both hands and took a long drink. Then she passed it back. Cody drank the lukewarm water, letting it spill down the sides of his mouth.
“Are you ready?” he asked, wiping his mouth dry with the back of his hand. He screwed the lid on the bottle and put it back into the trunk.
“Ready,” she said.
When they got back in the car, Rachel climbed into the passenger seat.
11
They drove south.
Cody tried his best to ignore the wreckage that lingered in the mirror. He shut his mind off to what had happened – the masks, the plane crash, and most of all the fate of those people who
’d got caught on the highway. He couldn’t allow himself to get caught up in a tidal wave of emotion or it would overwhelm him. That would come later.
It was hard to forget however, when San Antonio was going up in flames to the south. There was nowhere to turn to escape the calamitous events triggered by the Black Storm.
“Bad things are happening everywhere,” he said.
The road – that was all that mattered. That and the airport.
“Are we still getting on a plane?” Rachel said. “After…that?”
Cody looked at her sitting to his right in the passenger seat. It was a novelty seeing her there; it was as if a little woman now possessed the body of his ten-year-old girl. A little woman with a teddy bear.
“Are you scared?” he said.
“Aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But I asked you first.”
“I’m not that scared,” Rachel said, eyeing the dried bloodstains on the passenger seat. She was doing her best to avoid sitting on them, so much so that she was only using about half the seat. “Not as scared as you.”
Cody nodded. “It’s not a bad thing to be scared,” he said. “It happens to everyone. You wanna know what the scariest time in my life was?”
Rachel looked at him. “What?”
“When you were born,” Cody said. “You were so weak. It was because of all the bad things that your mom put in her body. I was so scared – I kept thinking the worst was going to happen and we didn’t really know anyone down here in Texas – we had no close friends and family. You and Mom were in hospital and I was alone, just thinking all the time.”
“You told me I had trouble breathing when I was born,” Rachel said.
“Yeah,” Cody said. “Well it was a bit more serious than that.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“Well you didn’t need to know before,” Cody said, glancing over at her. “Maybe you do now though.”
Rachel had her arms folded and she was scowling at him. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “To remind you…to remind us that bad times don’t last forever.”
Cody shook his head. It sounded like he was reading from a bad script. And he’d read his fair share of those over the years.
Her eyes were restless. She looked back and forth between Cody and the road. “What happened?”
“Thought we’d lost you a couple of times,” Cody said. “You almost died Rachel and I had to prepare myself for the worst. It would have killed me, maybe really killed me. But you didn’t quit kid. You knew how to keep fighting and look at us now. Still fighting to stay alive. Look I don’t really want to get on a plane either but we’re running out of options. Take a look around you honey, it’s not safe on the ground around here.”
“But it’s so dark,” Rachel said, looking up at the sky. “What if we crash too?”
Cody pointed a finger at several cracks of light – white specks like a glint of gold sliding around a prospector’s pan. They were pushing back against a tide of darkness.
“There’s gotta be something…”
His voice trailed off. It was a meager hope and they both knew it. The alternative however, was to give in.
Cody kept his eyes on a smoke-filled collage of red, orange and yellow on the southern horizon.
“We’re going to be okay,” he said.
They drove past Stone Oak, then the westbound and eastbound flyover bridges that connected the 1604 and the 281. Cody knew he had to stick to the 281 all the way, at least until he saw the first signs for the airport.
That should be anytime now. They were getting close.
Rachel held Bootsy by a single arm. The teddy bear was hanging over the edge of the seat, its legs dangling in midair and on the brink of falling into the abyss. Cody knew she was still worried – who could blame her? But he didn’t know what else to say to reassure her. Everything that came out of his mouth sounded forced – like he was giving the big chest-swelling inspirational speech prior to the third act of the movie. He was playing that guy – the hero who picks up his fallen comrades and who instills hope and enough juice to carry them home to victory.
It was a demanding role.
“You want to listen to the radio?” Cody said, reaching for the antique Music Master on his right. Despite insisting that he was done with the radio, Cody was still curious about who was out there. “Now that we’re closer to the city maybe we’ll pick up something interesting. What do you say?”
Rachel shook her head.
“I don’t want to listen to any more of those stories,” she said.
Cody yanked his hand away from the radio like it was rigged with explosives.
“Gotcha,” he said.
“How long till we get there Dad?”
“Ten minutes honey,” he said. “We’re almost there.”
“Where is everyone?” Rachel said. “What happened to all the people leaving the city?”
Cody shrugged. “My guess is that anyone who was traveling north saw the plane crash and took off in another direction. Or at least they saw the smoke rising from a distance. Being the cautious types, they had a change of heart and went east or west instead. That’s what I would have done.”
Rachel was looking at him. She opened her mouth to say something but then stopped herself.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing.”
“Spit it out.”
“What do you mean?” she said.
“Something’s on your mind kid. Tell me, please.”
She looked at Bootsy.
“What were those people going to do to me?” she said. “The mask people.”
Cody gave the steering wheel a little squeeze. “They were going to take you away with them,” he said.
“What for?”
“When you were older they were going to…”
“What?”
“Use you.”
She was quiet for a second.
“Use me how?”
“You know, to make babies for them. To be a mom.”
Rachel screwed up her face in disgust. “Why?” she said.
Cody shrugged. “Because of the way things might go in the future,” he said. “We don’t know what’s happening with the government, the police and army – those things might not even be there anymore. People are going to have to figure out how to look out for themselves. The way Mary Jane was telling it, people are going to do better with a big family behind them. I guess. They wanted you because you’re young and healthy and you would have given them lots of sons and daughters.”
“That’s disgusting,” Rachel said.
“It is disgusting,” Cody said. “Listen to me kid – from now on ask yourself this question every time you meet someone new – what does this person want from me? Everyone’s getting desperate out there. Food supplies are low. There are water shortages. People are scared and they’re doing bad things, not necessarily because they’re bad people but because they’re desperate.”
Cody reached a hand out and ruffled Rachel’s blonde hair.
“You’ll be alright,” he said. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“And I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Rachel said.
Cody smiled. “Sounds like we’re going to make it then.”
The steady hum of the Dodge’s Hemi engine was constant and soothing as the car traveled south. Cody’s eyelids were getting heavier. Once he got on the plane, he wanted nothing more than to sit back and drift off into a deep sleep. And to dream – to dream of anything except the Black Storm.
“I’m going to miss Spring Branch,” Rachel said. “All my friends are back there.”
Cody thought about the explosion from earlier – the one that happened during his encounter with Kate, aka the Black Widow. Had they turned the car around and drove north back up the 281 to Spring Branch, what would they find instead of their home? Fire and smoke? Or maybe nothing at all.
And what of Rachel’s friends
?
“You were happy there,” Cody said. “Weren’t you?”
“It was alright.”
“I know it wasn’t the most exciting life,” Cody said. “But the most exciting lives aren’t always the happiest. Take it from somebody who knows.”
“You were happy there too,” Rachel said. “You liked writing your articles for the magazines and the websites. You liked being boring.”
Cody smiled.
“It was the best home I ever had,” he said. “Hands down kid. When I was a boy – younger than you are now – your grandparents moved us around a lot. Hippy communes, trailer parks – that kind of thing. Real colorful existence. Sometimes it was fun. We’d meet new people all the time but sometimes it was tough too. My brothers and sisters and me – we had to work hard, busking, doing lame tricks and telling crappy jokes on the street, just so we’d have enough money to eat that night. It was a lot of work being free. And we never hung around the same place for long. I’d start making friends and then my dad would make an announcement, telling us that we’d be moving on soon. We didn’t really stop moving, not until I got the part in The Forever Boys. And look at me now, huh? On the move again.”
Rachel lifted Bootsy onto her lap. She pushed a piece of loose stuffing back into one of several holes on the teddy bear’s body.
“Why didn’t we bury Mom in Spring Branch?” she asked. “With us.”
Cody looked over at her.
“Your mom wanted to be cremated,” he said. “I took her back to California.”
“I know,” Rachel said. “But where is she? Exactly?”
“I scattered her ashes near the Hollywood Reservoir,” Cody said. “Went up there disguised in a hat and dark sunglasses. It was just me and your mom. It’s real pretty up there and your mom loved it. On a sunny day, the lake and the trees are just beautiful. You can see the Hollywood sign too – I think your mom would have gotten a kick out of that. I’d always hoped to show you that spot someday. Maybe I still can. Someday.”
Rachel didn’t say anything else. She sat in silence, doing repairs on Bootsy, her fingers frantically trying to keep him intact. As the car traveled south, she worked furiously, trying to seal up all the holes in order to prevent the teddy bear’s polyester guts from spilling out all over the car.
Mega Post-Apocalyptic Double Bill Page 54