by Chesla, Gary
She reached in the pouch and grabbed Snoop’s leash and tied it to his collar, then lifted him out of the bag and set him down on the ground.
Snoop just sat there, looking up at Fran.
“Well,” Fran said. “Don’t just sit there, I know you have to go, so go!”
Snoop just looked at her for a second, then walked over to the front wheel of the bike and lifted his leg.
“Sorry, I forgot,” Fran frowned. “It’s not any fun unless you can go on something.”
Their break lasted about five minutes, then after a few more pretzels, Fran put Snoop back in the pouch and started pedaling south again.
Traveling today was going a lot better than yesterday.
The further south Fran went, the fewer cars she had to deal with which meant that she could keep a steady pace instead of having to stop or slow down to get around pile ups and the cars that sat sideways across her path.
Snoop also decided that he was enjoying today more than yesterday. He decided to just make himself comfortable and enjoy the ride.
The first few miles, he rode with his head out of the pouch, eagerly enjoying the breeze and the scenery.
But after about an hour, he curled up and went to sleep.
Fran had spent most of the ride talking to Snoop, but when he decided to go to sleep, she decided to let a sleeping dog lie and focus on getting to Stone.
She settled in on a comfortable pace and tried to think of how things were before the power went out and everything changed.
Her life was awful boring, so she couldn’t think of anything exciting to occupy her thoughts.
Next she tried to concentrate on how her life would change after she joined up with John and Flash in Stone.
But it was too hard and not any fun guessing about things she didn’t know anything about
Fran finally came up with a simple game that would occupy her mind but wouldn’t require too much thought.
She decided to count green cars.
She picked green because that was her favorite color.
Fran decided that after she counted one hundred green cars, her reward would be that she could stop for a drink and a pretzel.
As they day went on, Fran decided that green wasn’t a very popular color for cars in Idaho.
So far, she had only counted ten green cars.
She hadn’t picked red cars when she started her game because there were so many red cars.
She would have only traveled a mile before reaching one hundred red cars.
Of course she didn’t want to take a break that soon, but the way she was going, she would never get the chance to stop.
So Fran decided to count blue car and green cars so she could get to take a break before she passed out from the heat.
The sun had peaked earlier, but was still high overhead, beating down on her and she was soaked from perspiration.
The breeze from the moving bicycle helped keep the sweat out of her eyes, but her shirt under the pouch was soaking wet and getting uncomfortable.
Fran’s spirits lifted a little when she saw she was now passing mile marker 209, that meant that she had ridden her bike seventeen miles so far today.
That was almost as far as she had walked all day yesterday.
Yeah, she was making good time, but her legs were getting tired.
Riding a bicycle, she hadn’t expected to get this tired so soon.
When Fran saw the sign that said, “Heyburn – 2 miles,” she decided that would be a good place to stop and drink her first bottle of water today and get out of the sun for a few minutes.
Fran began to get excited about being able to stop for a break when she passed mile marker 210, but it was also when she noticed all the cars on the interstate up ahead.
She slowed down so she could get a better idea of why, all of a sudden, there were so many cars up ahead before she got much closer.
As Fran approached the beginning of what looked like a major pile up on the highway, Snoop’s head popped up out of the pouch.
Fran ignored him as she scanned the cars in front of her, but when he started to growl, Fran stopped the bike.
She slowly looked over the cars but didn’t see anything moving.
When Fran looked down at Snoop, he wasn’t looking at the cars up ahead, he was looking at something at the bottom of the pouch.
Snoop’s head disappeared back into the bag and he started squirming around, making the pouch bounce up and down against Fran’s chest.
Suddenly a grasshopper jumped out of the pouch and landed on the handlebars.
Snoop’s head appeared at the opening of the pouch.
He eyed the grasshopper and began to bark.
The grasshopper leaped off the handlebars and disappeared in the grass at the side of the road.
Fran laughed, “Most dogs have fleas, but you have to be different, don’t you?”
Snoop looked at Fran and yawned.
Fran chuckled, “Nothing like being awakened from a good sleep by a grasshopper.”
Snoop looked around, then looked at Fran and licked his lips.
“Yeah, I’m thirsty too,” Fran said. “Since we’ve already stopped, we may as well take a break here and have a drink before we decide how we are going to get through this mess.”
Fran got off the bike and pushed the kickstand down and stood beside the bike and stretched her arms.
Fran looked around, trying to find a shady spot so they could get out of the sun.
About ten cars in to the pile up in front of her, she saw a shady spot large enough for her and Snoop to get out of the sun, but she didn’t feel comfortable sitting on the ground with all those other cars so close.
“There could be anything hiding under that pile up,” Fran thought then felt chills run down her spine when she saw the sign at the side of the road.
The sign had an arrow pointing to the right and said, “Snake River 1 mile.”
“I don’t even want to think about how the river got that name,” Fran thought.
The sign made Fran think about how the rattlesnakes at the sawmill liked to crawl under the trucks when the weather was hot.
“I don’t feel like I want to run into any snakes today,” Fran said to Snoop, “With how hot it is out today, I think we’ll just stay away from those cars.”
Fran looked off to the sides of the interstate.
On the right side, off in the distance, Fran saw a town.
“That must be Heyburn,” Fran thought. “If there are zombies running around again, we don’t want go over that way. We need to stay away from towns and cities.”
Fran looked off the left side of the interstate.
Off to the left was nothing but sand and scrub brush.
About a hundred yards out there stood a single tree.
Fran looked at the cars in front of her, then she looked back at the tree.
She decided that she didn’t want to even try to walk through all these cars.
“Well Snoop, I think we can kill two grasshoppers with one stone,” Fran smiled. Snoop apparently didn’t get her joke. “If we get off the highway and walk out to that tree to take a break, after our break, we can walk through that brush and get back on the interstate after we get past all these cars.”
Snoop put his two paws on the top edge of the bag and tried to pull himself up out of the pouch.
Fran reached into the pouch and lifted Snoop out of the bag.
She set him down on the ground next to her and took hold of his leash.
“You need to stretch your legs and I need a break from you hanging around my neck.” Fran said, then pulled the pouch over her head with her free hand and hung it on the handle bars.
She pulled the sticky wet shirt up and away from her chest and stomach and immediately enjoyed the cool feeling of the desert breeze blowing against her bare wet skin.
After a few seconds, Fran dropped her shirt, put both hands on the handlebars and pushed the bike across the highway and do
wn the embankment.
It took them a few minutes to get to the tree.
Fran grabbed the bag of pretzel, a bottle of water, propped the bike up on the kickstand, then walked over to the tree and sat down and leaned back against the trunk.
Fran and Snoop had a drink of water first, Fran out of the bottle, and Snoop out of Fran’s cupped hand.
They ate the rest of the pretzels then Fran just sat back and enjoyed the shade.
Fran leaned her head back against the tree, closed her eyes and listened to the eerie silence.
She tried to imagine the sound of cars driving on the interstate below, the way it had sounded before.
She wished that when she opened her eyes that the pile up of abandoned cars would be gone, but she knew that wouldn’t happen.
If that was going to happen, it would have happened weeks ago.
The time for wishing that the world would return to normal was long gone.
If she wanted to live, she had to concentrate on dealing with the way things were now.
The world was never going to be like it was before.
Fran opened her eyes and looked at the cars scattered about on the interstate.
Of everything that mankind had accomplished, all that was left was a pile of mangled metal and empty buildings.
It almost felt like humans had never existed.
The silence and the skeletons of a past civilization made Fran feel alone.
She felt more alone out here in this vast wasteland than she had felt back at home.
At home, at least everything felt familiar, but here she was in an alien world.
The fact that Fran had never been more than ten miles from home, made her feel even lonelier as a feeling of despair came over her.
She had been excited when the trip began, but now she was beginning to wonder if she would actually be able to complete the journey on her own.
She still had so far to go.
Sitting under the tree in the shade was turning out not to be the kind of break that Fran needed.
She couldn’t keep from thinking about all the things that had gone wrong or could go wrong.
The only thing that was going to ease her mind was to get back on the road and ride.
“Let’s get out of here Snoop,” Fran finally said. “I don’t like this place.”
Fran got up and slipped the pouch back over her head, then picked Snoop up and slid him inside.
She put the kickstand up and started pushing the bike across the sand.
Fran took a wide angle back towards the interstate to avoid the pile up at the intersection.
It took her fifteen minutes to make it back to the highway, but her spirits lifted when she saw that the southbound lane of Route 84 looked clear for as far as she could see.
She pushed the bike up on the highway, got on bike and started to pedal.
Four miles later, Route 84 took a sharp right turn, heading directly south.
A few miles after the change in direction, Fran knew that she was in the desert.
She rode for miles without seeing any signs of life as she rode though what looked like a desolate wasteland.
She could see for miles, but there wasn’t anything to see.
There weren’t even any cars on Route 84 out this way.
Fran realized that all the people that had tried to get out of the city didn’t make it very far.
Those that had managed to get out of Twin Falls, hadn’t made it past Heyburn.
Heyburn was the end of the line for any travelers trying to go south on Route 84 when they were forced to stop and face the zombies.
Hopefully, that meant that she wouldn’t have to worry about running into any zombies until she got closer to Stone.
Fran forced herself to keep pedaling, she knew tonight she would have to deal with leg cramps after how far she had traveled.
She knew it would have been much worse if she had tried to make it all the way to Stone.
She needed another drink, but tried to ignore the desire to stop and she pushed on a little further.
Hopefully if she waited and drank her second bottle of water before going to sleep, her legs wouldn’t cramp up so bad tonight.
The sun was getting low in the sky.
Fran estimated that she had maybe another hour of daylight remaining.
John had told her last night, that when there was about two hours of daylight left, to stop and give him a call on the CB.
Fran wanted to stop and try to contact John, but she was hoping to find a place where she could stay the night first.
She didn’t want to end up sleeping out here on the interstate.
The next mile marker said it was mile 250.
“God, I’ve pedaled this bicycle over fifty miles today.
The next sign Fran saw said, “Juniper- 10 miles.”
Fran stopped the bike in the middle of the interstate and just stared at the sign.
Snoop, when he felt Fran stop, decided to stick his head up out of the bag to look around.
“Snoop, there is a town about ten miles ahead, but I’m too tired to go any further,” Fran sighed. “Besides, we should probably stay away from towns. There might be zombies there. I don’t want to run into any zombies, especially when it’s getting dark. I can’t see in the dark as well as you can. John said that I shouldn’t travel at night because in the dark I won’t know where I’m going and could end up getting in trouble. Since I don’t know where I’m going in the day time, we better find a place to stay while it is still light out.”
Snoop just yawned.
“I knew you would agree with me,” Fran smiled as she looked around. “But there isn’t anything out here but sand and rocks. I don’t see anywhere for us to stay. John said we should climb a tree and sleep up off the ground if we can’t find anywhere else to stay, but there aren’t any trees out here.”
Fran studied the land on both sides of the interstate.
It was hard to see very far because of all the heat waves rising up from the highway and the sand, making the landscape appear blurry.
The only unusual break in the monotonous scenery that Fran could see was a gully near the highway a few hundred feet up ahead.
Fran pushed the bike down the highway until she came to the gully.
She walked over to the side of the road and saw that the gully continued on and ran under the road.
Where the gully met the highway, a three-foot high drainage pipe went under the highway.
Fran walked across the road and looked down to see where the pipe came back out.
“I don’t know Snoop, we could sleep in the pipe, it would at least get us out of the open and out of sight,” Fran said. “Let’s go down and take a look. If it’s muddy and full of crap, I don’t know where we are going to sleep.”
Fran pushed the bike down over the embankment until she came to the end of the drainage pipe and looked inside.
The inside of the pipe, like the rest of the desert was dry as a bone.
“It doesn’t look as comfortable as our bathtub, but I’m not sleeping on the highway, out in the open,” Fran said and sighed. “Hopefully it will be only for one night. I think Stone is only twenty more miles, so we should get there tomorrow. What do you say buddy?”
Snoop just looked at Fran.
“So you’re leaving it up to me,” Fran said. “Well I say it’s better than nothing so we’re going to stay here. I just don’t want to hear any complaints from you, understand?”
Fran unpacked the bike and moved her things into the drainage pipe.
As she looked at the hard-looking corrugated metal pipe, she wished she would have brought her sister’s bookbag today after all.
It would have made a good pillow for her head and at night at least she wouldn’t be able to see the ugly pink bag.
After unpacking the bike’s basket, Fran and Snoop drank the day’s second bottle of water.
Then Fran began to set up the battery and her CB.
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“I don’t care if John is only five miles down the road from here,” Fran said. “He can come here if he wants, but I’m too tired to go one more mile.
Fran leaned back against the uncomfortable pipe and connected the final wire on the terminal for the CB.
Fran pushed the button on the microphone and spoke.
“This is Newb, can anyone hear me,” Fran said.
“Hi Newb, where are you? I was expecting you to be in Stone today,” a female voice replied.
“Hey Flash,” Fran replied. “It appears that Stone is a lot further away than John thought. He said it was only a fifty-mile trip, but it is more like ninety miles.”
“Men are like that,” Flash laughed. “For some reason they always seem to leave out the important details. So, where are you?”
“I’m staying the night in a drain pipe on Route 84 about ten miles north of a place called Juniper,” Fran replied. “Last night I stayed in a trailer in an RV park. That was nice, but there isn’t anything out here but rocks and sand.”
“Juniper,” Flash answered then paused for a moment, “You’re only about twenty miles away. You should be here by tomorrow. It’s still a long walk, but I think you can do it.”
“I’ll be there by noon,” Fran replied. “I found a bicycle yesterday. It’s a lot faster than walking.”
“Way to go Newb,” Flash laughed. “I bet you and Snoop look like Dorothy and Toto from the Wizard of Oz trying to find the yellow brick road. Does your bike have a basket for Snoop?”
“It has a basket, but I packed the battery and the CB in the basket. I made a pouch out of a pillow slip and put it around my neck to carry Snoop,” Fran replied. “I think he likes it. He slept most of the day.”
“It sounds like you have everything under control. I’m proud of you Newb,” Flash said. “So where is your boyfriend tonight? I got on the air and expected to hear you two being all mushy and stuff.”
Fran chuckled.
“I haven’t talked to him since last night,” Fran replied. “He said he was in Blue Creek and he would be in Stone today. He did say that he would start north on Route 84 after he made it to Stone and try to meet up with me. I couldn’t find a place to stay until a half an hour ago. I was supposed to call him when I stopped to find out where he was. But he wasn’t on the air when I signed on.”