by Joe Nobody
“It’s not that simple,” the commander explained. “This isn’t my first rodeo in the post-apocalyptic world. I need a little more of a guarantee than just your good word.”
Smiling, Toni then nodded toward her busted leg. “Well, normally, I would suggest you use me as a shield until you were out of sight. Given that I can’t walk, that’s not going to work.”
Scanning the garage as if looking for a way out, Cisco’s eyes drifted across the wheelbarrow braced against the door. “How would you like to go for a ride?”
“Huh?” she answered, following his gaze.
“I could load you and the bike in that, and push you until we were out of town, or at least away from your comrades at arms.”
Shaking her head, Toni replied, “Commander, I am sensing that you don’t exactly trust me. Besides, I don’t think the bike and I would both fit.”
“It’s not going to be comfortable,” he agreed, reaching for the handles. “No leather seats or air conditioning for sure. Not exactly 5-Star accommodations, but I think there’s room for both.”
He rolled the makeshift buggy beside her, bending and lifting her gently into its bucket. “Pretend it’s a bus – lay back, relax, and leave the driving to me.”
He then balanced the bike across the rim, careful to keep the weight off her legs. “See? Works in a pinch.”
“And you can push this?” she inquired, making no attempt to disguise her cynicism.
“Yes, ma’am,” the commander brimmed with confidence. “However, I am going to need you to please make sure your carry-on luggage is stored and that your seat back and trays are the in the upright position … and that as much as possible you keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.”
Toni seemed perplexed at Jack’s use of humor to diminish the potential danger of the situation. His eyes met hers, and he realized he needed to give her a more conventional answer to her question.
“I can manage this. We don’t have to go far. Just to the edge of town. And as soon as I’m sure your guys aren’t following me, I’ll take off. I’m counting on them not being stupid enough to risk a shot with you so close.”
Frowning at the prospect of taking on more gunfire, Toni responded, “I don’t know about this. You seem to have a lot more faith in their judgement than I do.”
Jack pointed toward the outside. “Well, then … if I were you,” he began, pausing to make sure she picked up his inferred meaning, “I’d make sure I did a damned fantastic job of explaining things to them. I think it’s best for me to get out of this garage before they decide to come in.”
Toni shifted her weight in the wheelbarrow as she contemplated her words. “Hey, Mickey! You still out there?” she shouted.
Several seconds passed by before a voice sounded through the thin walls. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“Now I want you to listen to what I have to say very carefully. Okay?” She hesitated briefly, mostly to allow the men time to move so they could all hear her voice. “I’ve reached an agreement with this man. I’m going to escort him to the edge of town. Don’t shoot or follow closely. Come pick me up after he’s on his way. Do you understand?”
Again, there was a pause. “Yeah. I understand.”
Toni peered at Jack and shrugged. “Anything else I can do for you, Commander Cisco?”
Taking a deep breath, Jack hefted the two wooden handles and pushed his heavy cargo toward the door. Toni yelped and clutched her leg as he bounced the front wheel over the threshold. Another second later, they were rolling down the driveway.
Jack was tense, to say the least. He fully expected hot lead to slam into his body at any moment. It was also harder to push the single-wheeled hauler through the ash than he had anticipated.
“This is kind of fun,” Toni chuckled as they hit the street. “Reminds me of a rickshaw I toured Tokyo in once. You could give rides … have races … sell tickets … create an enterprise … make a fortune!”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he puffed, trying to gain momentum. “I can just see the posters now – Doomsday Wheelbarrow Races. Come one. Come all. Dodge the vigilantes and their bullets! Outrun the marauders!”
As they traveled along the residential street, Jack caught glimpses of human shapes and rifles shadowing them during their odd excursion. Still, no one challenged them. “Seriously, you don’t have to do this,” Toni said. “Just let me go. I’ll tell them not to shoot you.”
“I wish I could trust in that,” Jack replied, his breathing labored from the effort. “Believe me, I can’t wait for this little jaunt to come to an end.”
Three blocks later, Jack’s legs were on fire, his shoulders going numb. The commander began to seriously question if his body would last to the edge of town.
Ahead he spied a cluster of heavy utility poles alongside the road. There were three of the thick, wooden trunks in close proximity. It wasn’t the perfect cover, but they just might offer him enough time.
Pretending to ignore the formation, he waited until he was almost past and then cut hard right. “What in the world do you think you are doing?” she quipped from the bucket.
“Ride’s over,” Jack snapped. “Nice to meet you, Toni. I wish you and the lovely town of Pinemont all the luck in the world. And oh, seriously, try a hotbox style greenhouse to grow your crops. It works!”
Jack moved in a blur as he pulled the bike from the wheelbarrow and then, using the utility poles for cover, mounted the machine and began pedaling.
He turned to glance over his shoulder and spotted Toni still sitting in her mobile perch, a slight grin lighting up her face. “Good luck, Jackson Cisco. I hope things are better in Texas.”
No bullets came Jack’s way as he accelerated out of town. He arrived back at the scenic overlook before he stopped pedaling at top speed. Again, he decided to use the shoulder for a rest and drink.
“You were lucky, Commander,” he whispered to the empty valley. “Damn lucky. You can’t count on that. You have to get better if you’re going to find Mylie and the girls. Much better.”
Chapter 9
Jack wanted to put more miles between himself and Pinemont, but exhaustion and the approaching darkness nullified that desire. He needed to set up camp.
Hiking to the edge of the overlook, the commander peered down at the exposed rock face and sheer walls below. With the bike, there was no way he could negotiate the terrain. Again, his transportation was a liability.
On the opposite side of the California highway he observed more of the same. Concluding that further pedaling was in his immediate future, Jack shrugged and started to remount his two-wheeled steed.
A path of sorts caught his eye. On the far side of the pavement, a slight opening snaked between two truck-sized boulders. A hiking trail?
Rifle in hand, the commander trudged through the ash and poked his head between the towering, centuries-old slabs jutting perpendicular to the ground, defending the entrance of a hidden chamber. Winding his way through the passageway, the ash thinned, and evidence of life before the disaster lay exposed at his feet. A crushed beer can, two plastic water bottles of some age, and a spray-painted message announcing that J.M. loved S.B. momentarily transported the commander to a simpler time and place.
He remembered his teenage years in Tennessee before he headed off to the Academy – a time when his thoughts had been consumed by the joy of fast cars, loud music, and young love. Didn’t every small town have a spot where the rebelling teens would sneak off to drink beer, make out, and escape the prying eyes of those overbearing adults?
Back home, he had not been a stranger to Fallen Rock, the niche a few miles outside the city limits that was a secluded and popular hangout. On a Saturday night, the isolated spot might boast any number of local teens. Sometimes they just congregated along the rock slab and talked. Other times, wild parties and public brawls earned the rendezvous site a somewhat infamous reputation confirmed by strobing blue lights and screeching sirens. Was he looking
at Pinemont’s getaway?
Jack probed further through the narrow channel, following the natural gaps in the rocks. Another 30 yards in, he entered a wide room in the stone that contained the cinders of an old fire on the packed dirt floor accented with rudimentary skewers and an empty marshmallow bag.
Like the entrance, the adolescent retreat was strewn with litter and adorned with a collection of handpainted masterpieces. Evidently, use of this clandestine meeting place had been passed down through the generations, the faded patches of graffiti claiming that the class of 1978 rocked, the rain forests should be saved, and Woodstock is alive and well today. Jack paused briefly to consider how archaeologists thousands of years from now would interpret the plastic refuse and modern art. “It’s surely not the Rosetta Stone,” he whispered under his breath as he considered the historical significance of s’mores and free love.
Jack scouted the area, unable to find any other way in or out. The rock formations on all sides were very steep … over 30 feet high in places. It was a fortress of sorts.
The trail in was so slim he wondered if the bike’s handlebars were going to be slender enough to pass. “Only one person could fit through here at a time,” he whispered. “At least no one will be able to rush you.”
With the fading light and ever-present threat of the new-age thunderstorms, Jack decided he’d join the younger crowd and camp in the rock room.
He returned to find his ride undisturbed, his the only boot prints visible in the ash. Rather than retreating directly to his evenings’ accommodations, he climbed aboard the machine and pedaled up the road a short distance.
Again, he dismounted, and walking the bike, left the pavement. He stepped a few feet into an area with brown, dead, knee-high weeds and then stopped.
The commander hefted the bike into the air and carefully chose his steps. His original tracks were still visible from the trip in, and Jack positioned his tires to reuse that footprint.
He rode carefully now, struggling to maintain his front tire in the original imprints. When he was even with the entrance to the teen hangout, he stopped and carried the cycle into the opening. A moment later, with a handful of dead vegetation, Jack was sweeping clear his tracks. “Archie, you’re a very wise man,” he chuckled, standing back to admire his tradecraft.
The effect wasn’t perfect. While a skilled tracker would eventually figure out his ruse, Jack decided it would be difficult in the low light. He hoped to be well on his way first thing in the morning.
Starting a fire crossed Jack’s mind, but he opted against it. While it was no doubt going to be another cold night, the smell of smoke and the glow of the flames might make any passerby curious. Besides, his campsite inside the chamber should be a little more temperate than the outside environment. Mindful of Toni’s lumberjack friends, he decided to heat a meal on his small stove and then set up his sleeping bag.
He simmered a mixture of Archie’s vegetables using nothing but water. Jack pined for some good olive oil and a dash of spices, his taste buds remembering an excellent stir-fry he’d enjoyed just before Utah had cast off. Unfortunately, that wasn’t on the menu tonight.
Resting and eating the warm veggies helped Jack’s attitude. Tomorrow, he would return to his friend’s ranch. The day after he’d have the water wheel working like a sewing machine. He’d have made his fledgling effort to contribute to the recovery of civilization. After that, he’d find himself on the road for Texas.
Using a minimal amount of liquid, he washed out his pan and spoon-fork utensil. It then occurred to Jack that he didn’t have anything to dry his equipment. “Note to self, obtain some sort of small towel and some dish soap,” he mumbled, stuffing the kit back into his pack wet.
He returned to the path, pulling up several handfuls of the dried grass that seemed to prefer the cracks and crevices of the rock formations. “Keep your bedroll off the ground if at all possible, Boy Scout,” he whispered. “It’s going to get very cold tonight.”
At one point while gathering the withered foliage, Jack’s boot caught on a small vine and nearly sent him tumbling into the volcanic residue. An idea then occurred to the commander – a trip wire might provide an early security system.
After building his mattress of grass, Jack scoured the rock room for an empty beer can. He then swept away the ash until he’d uncovered a handful of pebbles small enough to fit through the hole in the aluminum top. It made the perfect rattle.
Using a strand of dried grass through the pop-top’s handle, Jack tied his noisemaker to the offending vine and set the can on a low, stone outcropping. He then purposely stepped into the trip wire, grinning widely as his device made quite the racket banging down the ledge. “Those gung-ho Navy SEALS ain’t got nothing on this old submariner,” he chuckled.
Jack returned to his camp, making sure he’d repacked all of his gear. He sat for a moment, unlacing his boots while trying to slow down his mind. He was in that odd state, a place where his brain was still racing while his body was dog-tired.
He took a while brushing the ash from his clothing. He didn’t feel secure enough to completely undress, yet he didn’t want to soil the inside of his sleeping bag. Sleeping on microscopic shards of pumice could provide him with the kind of exfoliation a guy could do without.
Finally, ready to hit the sack, Jack zipped the bag tight and then adjusted the edge of his pack that was pulling double duty as a pillow. The hard-packed earth offered less than cushy accommodations, one particularly offensively placed rock generating a string of curses and requiring relocation to the other side of the campsite. It wasn’t the Ritz.
He wrapped the carbine’s sling around his wrist, a survival technique he remembered from an old war movie he’d watched as a kid.
Just moments later, the whistle of a slight snore echoed softly in the chamber.
Jack didn’t know where he was. The sun had yet to rise, leaving the rock room nearly black in the night. Recovering from the nocturnal void that still clogged his mind took several seconds.
Soon enough his awareness recharged, a quick check of his watch indicating the time was 0500. “Too damn early,” he croaked with a throat dry from slumber and grit.
The CamelBak alleviated his thirst, the commander rising with a grimace. His entire body ached, from yesterday’s use of idle muscles and the cold, unforgivingly hard ground.
Somehow, he managed to stand and find his boots, groaning at the stiffness in his joints. He felt dirty and craved a cup of coffee.
He decided to chance his small flashlight, his effort to set up the camp stove and fill his pan with water made more difficult by the lack of light.
Slowly he began to loosen, each movement bringing less discomfort than the one before. He rubbed warmth into his hands over the small flame, briefly wondering how long the limited canister of gas would last.
The MREs he’d packed included breakfast options. Given the chill that wouldn’t seem to leave his gut, Jack decided that he’d splurge and consume every morsel in one of the priceless, pre-packaged meals.
It took 20 minutes to heat and serve, the commander licking his dirty fingers to pick up the final crumbs from the plastic containers. What he enjoyed the most, however, were the tiny packets of sugar, salt, and pepper that had been included in the government-issued fare. In addition to the exquisite cuisine, he couldn’t remember enjoying a cup of hot java as much as he savored that morning’s bitter brew.
Another quarter of an hour passed as Jack cleaned and repacked his kit. He took his time, refilling his magazine and making sure his rifle wasn’t gummed up from the pumice that found its way into everything.
Soon, he was vacating his less than plush lodgings and pushing the bike back toward the outside. He had no idea what time the sun would rise but wanted to be as close to the pavement as possible. He forgot about his own trip wire, the rattling, aluminum container of rock sending an icy shot of fear up his spine. “Now you’re good and awake,” he smirked, kicking the can as
hard as he could.
He exited between the rocks, stepping onto the shoulder and scanning the eastern sky. There was no sign of the sun just yet. “Maybe El Sol has decided to sleep in this morning,” he chuckled. “That sounds like a great idea, actually.”
Jack walked his ride across the road, naturally curious about the scenic overlook and what the pre-dawn view might hold. One of the nagging features of this new world was the continuous sense of isolation and loneliness. If he spotted lights down in the valley, that would mean people. Human beings that were walking, breathing, and cursing their stiff joints, too. “Misery likes company,” he whispered, reaching the guardrail.
The commander shook his head in astonishment as he gazed out into the dark. There were lights. A lot of lights, and they weren’t very far away. To his right, back toward Pinemont, he spotted a line of glowing illumination, the vision reminding Jack of a string of Christmas lights dangling in the breeze.
A moment later, he realized that the tiny points of brightness were moving. “What the hell?” he growled, trying to rub more of the sleep from his eyes.
It was then that the commander realized that he was seeing torches … a lot of them … being carried down the mountain toward Pinemont.
He couldn’t see who was carrying the miniature balls of flame, but there were at least 20 points bouncing and weaving along some sort of trail. “The lumberjacks,” he whispered, the dawning realization causing his gut to cramp. “They’re heading into town. They’re going to surprise Toni and her friends. And I bet they’re not going showing up with pizza and beer.”
Jack hesitated, his heart telling him that he needed to pedal like hell for Pinemont and do his best Paul Revere imitation. His head, however, was in disagreement.
Just yesterday, half of the men in that town shot at him with murderous intent. The woman who runs the place was no doubt taking Jack’s name in vain when she woke up this morning and felt what his bullet had done to her thigh.