by Sweet, Dell
“I think so,” Johnny agreed. “I mean if you can't dream, what's the use, right?” she nodded her head as if to say yes before Johnny continued. “Like, I live my life, and you live your life. You believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want. You see?”
“I do,” Lana said. “I guess I'm sort of the same way. I always tried to live without hurting people. I was getting pretty bitter though, I have to admit. I just saw too much that didn't make any sense to me, and I could never understand why, if there was a God, he would let so much bad exist. I guess though, if people want it, it's going to be there. People thought I was bad, but I never really dared to look at myself. I guess I was bad, to a certain extent, but what was I supposed to do?” she seemed pensive.
“I had family, but... Well, you know.... I guess I don't want to get into that: Suffice to say I couldn't be with them. There isn't much for a poor Mexican girl to do to make a living here.“ She had lost her smile as she spoke, replacing it with a wistful pursing of her lips and a sadness that sat deeply within her eyes.
Johnny nodded his head and they both fell silent for a few seconds.
“Lana,” Johnny said. “It really doesn't matter anymore. I mean that sincerely.”
Now it was her turn to nod her head. She hadn't realized it, but his opinion mattered to her, and what he said allowed the small smile to re-surface on her face. She had told herself that she didn't care what he thought about her, but she knew even as she told herself that, that she was wrong. It did matter. It mattered a great deal.
They walked together to the back of the garage, and pushed up the steel overhead door. It took a few minutes to move a couple of the cars out of the way, so that they could drive the pickup out of the garage and into the lot behind the dealership.
Johnny drove the truck across the grassy back lot, and stopped at the rear of a gas station convenience store to look for a state map. Lana followed him into the deserted station.
She filled a paper bag with some groceries, mostly canned goods, while Johnny opened the map and studied it on the counter at the front of the station.
“Looks like the best way out,” Johnny said, “Is still going to be 91. We passed it, we'll have to back track to catch it. We should be able to skirt around most of the traffic, shouldn't we?”
“Believe it or not, I don't really know,” Lana answered. “I mean I live here, or did, but I didn't get out of the city at all, or hardly ever, so I don't know what its’ like.”
She paused and looked at Johnny as he bent over the map. He smiled as he spoke.
“I actually understand that,” he said. “I didn't really know a lot about getting around L.A. Either. I guess you learn how to get to the places you need to get to, and that's about it. No real big deal though. According to the map there are a lot of loops, sort of side roads that go around, and run parallel to 91, and hey, we've got four wheel drive, we can cut through the fields if we have to, right? That will get us to 10 and ten is our ticket east.”
Lana shrugged her shoulders, “I guess?”
“You know,” Johnny said as they climbed into the cab of the truck. “We should stop and pick up a couple of sleeping bags, and maybe tents too. We still need to pick up a couple more rifles.” He didn't want to alarm her, or make her start to worry, by bringing the subject up once more, but the truth was that he was fairly worried himself. If there were armed people running around killing whoever they chose too, it would be kind of stupid, he thought, not to have better weapons. Lana had the pistol, and her rifle. Johnny had his own pistol and a rifle, but he wasn't sure it would do a lot of good. He wasn't a good shot. She surprised him when she not only agreed, but didn't seem to lose her smile when she did.
“I think it would be stupid not to stock up on whatever we can, guns included,” she said, echoing Johnny's thoughts. “You know much about them?”
“Not really,” Johnny confessed, “I've shot a rifle, you know, hunting,” he frowned. “It's been years to be honest, but I think I could learn again. You know anything about them?”
“Well, now that you mention it, I do. At least a little. Not from shooting one, but more from seeing them. There are a lot of pawn shops in my neighborhood, sort of goes with the territory, I guess. That's where I got this,” she said, holding up her small pistol, “I got the rifle from a smashed in pawn shop... There has to be a pawn shop or sporting goods shop out here somewhere.” Almost as she spoke Johnny spotted one across the crowded interstate.
“There's one,” Johnny said as he pointed.
They left the truck beside the stalled traffic, and walked through and around the cars to the large shop. The shop was picked over, but they spent the better part of the afternoon outfitting themselves from the racks in the shop and carrying what they needed across the road to the truck. The pickup had a black vinyl bed cover. They opened it, stored the tent and the sleeping bags along with the other camping gear inside it, and then snapped the cover back into place.
“It probably won't keep everything totally dry,” Johnny said, “if it rains, I mean. This is more for show than protection,” he said indicating the cover. “But it should still do all right.”
They had both picked up weapons in the shop. Johnny had picked out a deer rifle, a fairly impressive looking Remington. He had also picked up several boxes of the ammunition the rifle took. Lana had settled on an entirely different sort of weapon. It looked more like a machine gun of some sort to Johnny, and she also picked up several boxes of ammunition and spare clips for it. She explained to him that it really wasn't a rifle, but a machine pistol, and that it could fire better than seventy rounds a second if it were converted to full automatic. This one wasn't, she said, but she had seen some that were. To Johnny it still looked like a machine gun, and he joked that the sight of it alone would probably scare anyone.
By the time they had loaded the truck and gotten under way it was late afternoon. Even with the late start, and the slow going due to the stalled traffic, they managed to make it to the Colorado River in Ehrenberg Arizona just before nightfall.
THREE
I flexed my hand and looked around the kitchen in the flickering candle light. Writing about it is bringing it all back, like I'm right back there. Lana's rifle and two spare clips lay on the table top now. I haven't needed it yet, but the night is young. Who can tell what it will be like in a few hours from now when the light is entirely gone: When all the dead wake in the old barn across the road. My rifle is also loaded, but I have less ammunition for it and it isn't worth a damn up close. Lana was a lot smarter about weapons than I was... Much smarter.
It's so goddamn quiet. I hate that. That quiet. These bastards don't breath, they don't trip and fall, they aren't clumsy... You would never know they are there, never know it at all. Jesus, I... Never mind. My mind wanders too much. Too goddamned much. I'll be back...
I took a walk around. Upstairs I can still see a faint line of sunlight on the far horizon. The yard is dark. I can't hear any more sounds. It's unnerving. The boards are all in place, everything seems secure. I'm back at the table...
The cramping is gone from my hand. I guess in the digital age we just don't write much, but when it's all you got, it's all you got. The whiskey is holding out. I'm being careful with it, don't worry, not that it will make a bit of difference...
We had passed a sign and entered into Arizona. We made great time on the open road...
ARIZONA
The country had been turning more arid as they drove, the river was an oasis. Off to the north giant plumes of smoke blanketed the sky, seeming to spread across the entire length of the horizon. They had both wondered what it might be. Lana had checked the map and she though it could be Yellowstone or something close to Yellowstone.
Shops, stores, and even an RV park had sprung up around the interchange. They foraged for food in the late afternoon and gassed up the truck before evening began to take the sunlight. The air had a bitter, hot smell to it, the river flowed sluggishly
, the water gray, and a scum of yellow white foam and ash rode the slow current. They sat in the truck and ate quietly while the map lay open across their legs and the seat top. Their eyes would drop to the map and then jump back up to scan the area. It had seemed too quiet, and there were no bodies anywhere. No sign of life either, and the stores and shops had not been looted. Some were still locked up. Empty RV's in the park when they rolled slowly through it. Neither liked the feeling, the whole place felt wrong.
“Johnny,” Lana waited until his eyes left the map and met her own. He lifted them to follow her own gaze. “The silver building over to the right. The door just opened and then closed.”
Johnny frowned. “Not something the dead would do, is it?”
“We didn't think they would come out in the daylight,” Lana said.
As Johnny watched he saw the door edge open slightly and then close just as slowly. “Saw it... I don't like it. Dead or alive they know we're here and they're checking us out.” He dropped his eyes back to the map.
“Okay,” he said after a few moments. “Let's get off the road, run a ways out... Follow the highway. That takes us away from civilization to a degree, but eventually that will bring us into Phoenix.” He waited for her to nod her understanding. “There's a lot of desolation between here and there, at least on the map.”
“Desolation is fine as long as the dead aren't there.” Lana said quietly.
“Less likely to be,” Johnny agreed.
A few minutes later they were running through the desert that ran alongside I 10. There were not a great many cars or trucks there, but in several places there had been wrecks that closed lanes down. With no one to clear them they would have ended up in the desert anyway. And there seemed to be a dirt road that ran beside I 10 for as far as they could see.
The landscape in the distance had been changing as they drove the day away, but with the sun setting a few hours after they set out once more it was hard to tell what the surrounding countryside was like. Johnny dropped speed and flicked the trucks high beams on. A short while later Lana was sleeping, her head heavy against his arm. He drove through the night and into the early morning before she woke again.
August 14th
Johnny had eased the truck up onto I10 and the tires bouncing over the broken asphalt had awakened Lana.
“Not a big city... A town from the looks of it. Phoenix is close. Ten, fifteen miles maybe. Can't really tell from the map,” Johnny said. A gas station loomed out of the early morning gray and Johnny wheeled the truck under the roof that covered the pumps intending to siphon some gas to top off the trucks tanks. He shut off the motor and they both listened to the tick of the hot metal for a few seconds as it cooled.
“Coffee would be really nice,” Lana said. “No way do we want to go into Phoenix... Too dangerous.” She yawned and then covered her mouth and laughed. “Mal aliento, dios... Morning breath.” She zipped open her knapsack, retrieved a bottle of water, her toothbrush and some toothpaste. She stepped down from the truck.
Johnny opened his door and settled his feet onto the pavement. It wasn't just old pavement, he saw, it was gray, washed out, used up: There was no black left in it. Lana stood slightly in front of the truck, her gun in one hand, the toothbrush working around her mouth on its own. In a blur her free hand was reaching to catch the rifle which was just coming free of her shoulder. Johnny had his own rifle off his shoulder and into his hands before he even saw what had alarmed her. She spit out the toothbrush, pulled her gun and flicked the safety off. Three men stepped out of the shadows of the open garage bay.
They were kids, Johnny saw. Or at least not much more than kids. They walked slowly forward.
Lana raised the rifle and pointed it at the lead kid. “That's it.” She said.
She didn't scream it, softly spoke it, Johnny thought later, but the kids stopped in their tracks.
“What's with the fuckin' guns?” The lead kid asked.
“Ours weren't aimed at you until you aimed yours at us,” Johnny said. He hoped he sounded as cool as Lana had.
“Bullshit,” one of the other kids said. “You had it in your hands when I looked at you. That's why I got mine ready.”
“I don't want to kill anyone today,” Lana said.
“It really don't bother me,” The third kid said. His eyes were blood shot. They had interrupted him while he was sleeping, it seemed. He kept rubbing at his eyes, Lana saw.
“I think you're right... Can't matter if you're dead,” Lana said.
“Hey,” the lead kid said, “Maybe all's we want is to party a little.”
“Well I don't know if Johnny swings that way,” Lana said.
“Pretty funny,” the kid responded. “Look... It's our town. We ain't the only ones here. You shoot there will be twenty more here in seconds. Then everybody dies.”
“Oh... I guess I didn't see it right,” Lana said. “I can see where it might be preferable to get raped and then murdered instead of getting murdered outright.”
The one in the back, the one with the sleepy eyes, stiffed a yawn and reflexively raised one hand to his mouth as his eyes slipped shut for a split second. Lana shot the lead kid in that split second, Johnny had the second guy a moment later. The third kid opened his eyes to a changed situation.
“Just give me a reason,” Lana said. “Any reason.” The kid released the rifle he held and it dropped from his hands to the pavement.
“Can't shoot me I ain't got no gun... Can't... Can't shoot me...” He spun and looked off toward a rag tag collection of trailers that lined a dirt road in back of the station. “James!” he screamed. “James! Killers!” he turned back to Johnny and Lana. “Can't shoot me... I ain't armed... Can't...” Johnny shot him.
A second later the truck roared to life and Johnny spun the wheel hard heading back towards the drop off from the pavement, back the way they had come.
Lana bounced around the cab and smacked her head hard enough on the windshield to star the glass when the truck left the pavement at better than fifty miles an hour and hit the hard packed dirt that ran alongside I10. She finally got her balance, swept one hand across her forehead, looked at the blood and cursed lightly in Spanish. Behind them three trucks had launched off the pavement and were running hard to catch them.
“Dammit,” Johnny said. He pushed the pedal to the floor, there was nothing else for it. The glass in the back window starred a second later as Lana rammed the rifle stock into it. Another hit and the glass fell out into the pickup bed area. She raised the rifle and began to fire back at the trucks. A second later a hole punched through the windshield to Johnny's left. He mashed the pedal harder into the floorboard feeling the truck skate across the hardscrabble of the desert as it flew beside the highway.
“We have to get north, the other side of the highway. If they squeeze us south we'll be in the goddamn Mexican desert,” Lana yelled above the scream of the engine.
“There's stalled cars up there,” Johnny yelled back. “On the highway!”
“There are bullets down here and they're gaining on us,” Lana yelled back.
“Better sit down,” Johnny yelled.
“Just do it, Johnny!” She continued to fire out the back window.
Johnny turned the wheel hard right and the truck lurched hard to the left, threatening to roll over as the center of gravity changed. It nearly rolled before it hit the edge of the pavement, broke over, and then became airborne. It came within ten feet of a stalled, wrecked semi and trailer and then it plunged off the other side of the highway so smoothly that Johnny couldn't believe it had actually landed.
“Nearly broke my neck slamming it into the ceiling,” Lana yelled. She fell silent. “I...” She started, but an explosion from the highway stopped her words.
“Hit that truck,” Johnny screamed. “Has to be.”
“Keep it floored though, Johnny. Keep it floored.” She stayed where she was, staring out the back window, knees driven into the seat top. Johnny's eyes stra
yed to her ass, and then snapped back to the road. He watched the hard packed earth fly by.
“Roads coming up... Dirt roads,” Johnny said. He had no sooner said it than the truck hit the slight rise and flew across it.
“Like back roads, looks like,” Lana said. “Nothing on the map.” She was trying her best to read the map as the truck bounced and tilted. One hand clutching the seat back held her in a somewhat stable position as she looked at the roads. “Looks like all dirt roads, back roads and then it falls away to nothing. Just keep it pointed at the mountains in the distance.” She turned completely around and sat down with the map in her lap. “Must have hit the truck or each other. Whatever it was I don't think they will feel like coming after us again... Johnny, we can't screw up like that again. I don't know what I was thinking letting my guard down like that, Dios mio!”
Johnny said nothing. Lana went back to reading the map.
“Start breaking left, Johnny. There's a river... No, maybe some sort of waterway, not a river, too straight. It ends and then picks up again a few miles later. We can get through and into the desert from there.” She looked at the map for a few more minutes, “Maybe twenty miles or so. Just run right by I10 and we should be good.” She turned and peeked over the back seat once more. “We're leaving a lot of dust, Johnny.”
He looked over at her.
“We gotta figure this out too. I mean, we're going backwards, back to where we came,” Lana said.
“I could loop out deep and then swing back,” Johnny said.
“Yeah, except in this desert you can see dust for miles... The dust is the problem.” She leaned over and looked at the gas gauge. “Less than a half tank.” She frowned.
“We've got gas in the back,” Johnny threw in.
“I'm thinking this... We hit that water way, or an out building, has to be something around here. We crash, sleep the day away, and then tonight we run across the desert to the other side of Phoenix. What do you think?”