by Sweet, Dell
They had both watched as the cars flipped end for end, and finally landed half in the river and half on a small island that split the river. At the expense of a small amount of paint, which was scraped from the truck as they passed the one remaining vehicle, they managed to get into the Quachita National Forest preserve before nightfall.
Two additional days of travel brought them just into the Alabama border and the small community of Ardmore. They found a logging road just off 31. After Johnny had set up the tent in a clearing back into the woods, he walked back over to take a closer look at the truck while Lana started dinner.
Lana had surprised him earlier in the day when they had stopped by the side of the road to rest. A large buck had wandered out of the trees to their left and stood staring at them in the roadway. She had used the Remington, and carefully sighting, had brought the large animal down. Between them they had managed to dress it out, and had filled a large plastic cooler in the back of the truck with the venison. The smell of fresh steaks sizzling on the fire made the delay worthwhile.
The trip across the country had been tough on them, but it had been much harder on the truck, Johnny saw now, as he looked it over.
Most of the damage was superficial, long scrapes down both sides of the truck, a small dent here and there. The big problem however was mechanical.
The brakes were borderline, soft and spongy, probably due to the rough terrain they had traversed. Johnny had, had to constantly ride the brakes as they went down steep inclines to get around the road when it was hopelessly blocked. The other problem was the motor. It had developed a constant rattle deep within the block every time it climbed even a small grade. He supposed most of it was due to the fact that they had been forced to use whatever gas they could find, and several times that had been low grade unleaded. That and the fact that the fuel injection system had not been set up for high altitude, it had been a desert truck up until it's liberation from the garage in Arizona. The truck was running better than twelve hours at a stretch, most days, and almost all of that was labored driving. As a result the truck had also developed several small oil leaks.
He walked around the truck and looked it over carefully. The tires were chewed badly from the rocks they had crawled over. It looked ten years old, Johnny realized. He pulled the map out of the glove compartment, and after studying it, decided the truck would probably make it to Athens Alabama, and they should be able to pick up something to replace it there. He really hated to though, as he had grown to like the truck a great deal, even become attached to it. But he realized, the truck would never make it the rest of the way.
He tossed the map back into the glove compartment, shut the door and walked back over to the fire. The smell of the cooking venison was maddening.
While he had meant it when he told Lana she had done wonders with the canned stuff, there was nothing like the real thing. He resolved to also hunt around for a case or two of Quick Cold to keep what was left of the meat fresh when they reached Athens.
Although they had seen plenty of wildlife, they had yet to see any people. They both felt, however, that there were people. For whatever reason they just weren't showing themselves. They both understood, to a point, what would make other people distrustful of them. They had seen a lot of evidence themselves, bodies horribly mangled, cities burned, and they had no wish to meet up with the people who had left it. They had found most of the bodies as they passed through the larger cities and towns, and most looked to have met with violent deaths. It was almost as if they were trying to finish the killing that the earthquakes had not been able to finish. And more dead meant more dead rising to whatever that new life was. It wasn't something either of them liked to dwell on too long. It was sobering to both of them, and Lana had taken to carrying the machine pistol with her whenever they left the truck. Johnny had already gotten into the habit of keeping the Remington close at hand, but he too now made sure it was with him, and the safety off, all the time.
Johnny walked back from the truck and sat down next to the fire.
“The truck's in bad shape, Lana. The one front tire's cut to the threads already.” He had also checked the oil and other fluids. “She took two quarts of oil, last two we had, and it's still not touching the stick. Not good.”
She screwed up her face and looked at him pensively. “Well, I suppose I could get a second job. Then I guess we could afford a new one,” her humor caught him by surprise, as it usually did, and he laughed out loud.
“You are nuts, you know that?” he said. They laughed together, and then he told her that they should be able to get another truck in Athens the next day. After that she fished out the meat, which she had wrapped in foil and placed over the coals at one edge of the fire, and they ate. They ate it with relish, and laughed at each other about what pigs they were, and then after a swim in a clear mountain stream that flowed nearby they crawled into the tent.
They were only three miles outside of Athens the next morning, when the truck gave up the ghost.
It died with one dreadfully long rattle deep within the block of the engine. Johnny coasted over to the side of the road and they simply left it. He had tried to start it, but it would not turn over. Johnny took the Remington, and Lana held the machine pistol as they walked along the road. It took the better part of an hour to walk into Athens, but when they arrived it was still early morning.
They had both been bothered by a feeling that they had been followed, or were being watched. It was unsettling, and they were constantly glancing around themselves as they walked, but they saw no one.
They were standing on the pavement of a car lot looking over a long line of vehicles, trying to decide which one to take, when the first shot came.
The side window of the truck directly in front of them imploded, covering the interior in small jewel-like chunks of glass. They both reacted instantly, dropping to the ground and rolling towards the rear of the truck.
When they reached the rear of the truck they both crouched low and sprinted deeper into the lot. Another shot rang out as they ran, and Lana watched as a wide hole was suddenly punched through the fender of a truck just a few inches ahead of her. She dropped to the ground and rolled over on her back, raising the machine pistol instinctively in front of her. It was all that saved her life.
Johnny was still running deeper into the lot, not realizing Lana was no longer beside him. The sound of the machine pistols chatter behind him stopped him cold, and he turned and ran back toward the front of the lot.
When Lana had fallen, a tall dark haired kid had appeared from in front of the truck, and directly into the steel sight of the machine pistol. He raised what looked to be an automatic rifle, but before he could fire Lana began squeezing the trigger of the pistol, and it jumped and began to bark in her hands. Johnny had just come up beside her, and watched as the man toppled over, nearly cut in two. The sound of screeching tires out on the roadway dragged his mind away from the still twitching body of the young man, and as Lana jumped up into a low crouch they both began to run towards the road. Johnny stopped only long enough to pick up the automatic rifle from the ground where the man had dropped it.
When they reached the road a small Jeep was moving rapidly away from them, and a blond haired man, not much more than a kid, Johnny realized, was crouched in the back aiming a rifle at them, while a dark haired young woman sat behind the wheel. They both dropped once more to the ground, and opened up on the Jeep as the young man began to fire. The slugs from the young man’s rifle ripped into the pavement, tearing huge chunks out of it close to Johnny's face as he fired back at the Jeep.
The blond haired kid suddenly bolted upright, and seemed to jump from the rear of the Jeep. He landed on the roadway, rolled, and then was still. Both rear tires blew out on the Jeep as Lana's gun continued to speak, and before it had traveled far the young woman lost control, and it flipped several times rolling down the middle of the road. The young woman fell headfirst in a heap on the pavement where she
had been thrown, and had then been rolled over by the Jeep as it continued to flip down the road.
Smoke curled up from the overturned Jeep. Within seconds it attracted a small circle of flames from under the hood that grew and began to curl up and lick at the rubber of the still turning front tires.
“You okay?” Johnny asked, in a panicked voice as he looked at Lana.
“Aún estoy un poco... conmocionada... Good... A little shaken,” she amended.
They both walked slowly down the road to where the bodies of the young man and the young woman lay, they were perhaps twenty feet apart. Lana had thought that possibly the young woman might still be alive, but she was not. Her neck was broken, and they had quietly carried both bodies off the road and into a field before returning to the lot. They had debated briefly whether they should bury them, but had decided not to. It was not a decision made out of spite, but out of necessity. They had no idea whether the three were alone or not, and if they were not, and there were others close by, it might be best to get back to the lot, pick up a truck, and head back out to where the Chevy had broken down as quickly as they could.
They walked calmly back to the dealership, and went inside. They both felt safer inside despite the wide glass windows that fronted the road.
A huge four wheel drive Suburban sat on the showroom floor nestled in between other cars and trucks that surrounded it. It was obviously a heavy duty truck. It sat much higher than the pickup had, and the tires were much more aggressive, and the open cargo space behind the driver's area would be an asset to them, Johnny realized, much better than the open pick-up bed had been with its flimsy vinyl cover. He walked around the truck, noticing that it was also equipped with a winch as the pickup had been, but this one looked to be a lot sturdier to him, strictly heavy duty.
He walked over to a slightly raised area, where a board filled with keys spanned most of the rear wall behind a small, but long counter top. He gave Lana the keys to a convertible that was between them and the doors, and she moved it while Johnny jockeyed the truck around until he managed to get it aimed at the wide glass doors set into the side of the building. He drove it outside, checking the gas gauges as he did.
The truck had dual tanks, and both of them were full. Not that they'll last any longer than the pickups single tank, he thought, but he was still glad that they were full. They edged carefully around the still burning Jeep, and made their way slowly out of town and back to the pickup, watching the side roads as they went. They were both spooked.
When they were still more than a hundred yards from the pickup, they could tell that they'd had visitors while they were gone. Johnny edged the Suburban up carefully to the truck and they searched the surrounding countryside, but decided whoever had been there was gone.
The truck was demolished. Someone or some-ones had attacked it with a vengeance. All the windows were smashed, and the black vinyl cover that had spanned the bed of the truck was slashed to ribbons. The tires had been flattened, and they had dented or punctured nearly every body panel. The camping gear, along with the rest of the venison, was gone. The map they had been using lay ripped and shredded across the front seat, which had also been slashed.
They only walked around the truck once, but it was enough. They both turned without speaking and walked back to the Suburban.
“Doesn't matter,” Johnny said once they were safely back inside the Suburban. “We can pick up more gear down the road. I saw a small sporting goods store about a mile back, it had a little shopping center right next to it.”
“I guess we don't have to deal with the dead here because these people are here and killed or chased them off. But then we got to deal with people alive trying make more dead out the living... One or the other and no in between, I guess,” Lana said.
Johnny shook his head slowly as they drove away.
When they reached the small sporting goods store he pulled as close to the front doors as he could. The parking lot looked deserted, but the dealership had also looked deserted, and he was taking no chances. They looked the huge lot over for better than ten minutes before they left the truck. He wished they didn't have to stop at all. The sooner they were on the road the better, as far as he was concerned. He supposed it probably wouldn't be any better stopping somewhere else though. They entered the store and took turns watching the lot as they picked up what they needed. Besides a handful of dead, all head shot, the store was empty. Lana looked over the bodies.
“I guess some archaeologist is going to dig all this up in forty thousand years, if we all survive and have to come up with some explanation as to why so many skulls show evidence of bullet holes... Makes me wonder what they'll say... Religious practice? Sacrifices to Dios?” She asked.
“Hopefully they'll never know what this was really about,” Johnny said quietly.
By the time they had re-outfitted themselves it was nearly dark. The setting sun casting the lot in deep shadows, and Johnny was glad he had parked the truck close to the doors. They debated staying. They could sleep right inside the small shop Lana argued, but Johnny didn't want to, and Lana's argument was halfhearted at best. They both decided they would rather put as many miles as possible between them and the small town. In the end they left despite the descending darkness, and they did not stop that night at all.
Johnny drove while Lana slept, and towards daybreak as they were nearing Fort Deposit the road disappeared into the water. They had stood looking as the sun rose higher into the sky. It was water as far as the eye could see. The air carried the tang of salt. They were both at a loss for words. Finally, Johnny angled the truck down off the pavement, turned it around and drove back to an old logging road he had seen a few miles back. He dropped down off the pavement and followed the rutted road into a quiet, forested area and killed the hot motor.
They quickly set up a small camp in the sparse morning light, and then crawled into the tent. They held each other tightly as they drifted off to sleep.
~
Lana awoke long before Johnny, and now sat outside the small tent, watching the last rays of light fade from the sky. It seemed to seep slowly away, and darken the sky above the trees. The wind kicked up briefly, blowing the dead leaves across the ground. They scratched and rattled as they went, making her think of small skeletons rattling in the wind. She felt afraid, and had since she had awakened earlier. She couldn't explain it to herself. She had been tempted to awaken Johnny, but had decided after twice starting to do so, to wait until he awoke on his own.
She could tell now though, by the change in his breathing, that he would soon awaken, and she walked to the small fire she had built earlier to start some coffee brewing. She placed the small tin pot on the coals next to the fire.
She was sitting by the fire wondering how to approach the subject of what next, when Johnny rolled out of the tent. She turned around to face him, and she saw the sadness etched into his face. He's worried too, she thought, and before she could complete the thought he proved her right.
They had been undecided for a short time after they had found the highway arcing down into the water somewhere inside what had been the border of Alabama. They would have to go back, but where? They had been heading south, not an absolute place, but south nonetheless. South was now out of the question., The water had stretched away as far as they could see to the south, east, and then arced away forming a new coastline to the west. Far out in the water there was a low blur on the horizon. Maybe it was land, maybe it was wishful thinking. They had starting backtracking the next day.
Lana poured coffee in the small tin cups for both of them before she spoke. “Where are you thinking?”
They had backtracked all the way into Kentucky. Stopping last night at what they assumed was the Ohio river, too tired to decide what was next.
He shrugged his shoulders as he responded. “I think we can start heading for the East coast. What do you think?”
“I guess so, I... I don't know. It certainly won't hurt, and w
here else would we go?” she stared into the fire as she spoke. “I think we should be a lot more careful though. I get the feeling that those people we ran into aren't the only ones around who would just as soon kill us, and I'm not kidding myself about it, I think it was pretty clear. They didn't want to talk, or even to just take us prisoner or something, they wanted to outright kill us. No sense pretending about that.” She paused.
“I mean, I really thought there, for a second, that they were just scared or something, or maybe saw me and... Well, you know. But that wasn't it.”
When she finished he nodded silently, and then sipped from the cup before he spoke. “You're right, I just didn't want to think about it, Hell, I couldn't think about much of anything except getting as far away as possible, and I kept thinking about the truck too. Did they do that before they tried to kill us, after, or was it someone else? There's no real way to tell, but even if they were alone I'm not kidding myself that there won't be others just like them. We do have to be careful,” he paused, thinking. “In fact I think we need to get off the main road from now on. These parks, rural areas seem better. No dead... Few dead anyway... Fewer people. I never thought I would say fewer people was a good thing, but,” he shrugged, “Guess I just did. I don't think it's safe... You agree? I mean, there are lots of other roads that parallel the main highway. I guess it just seems like the smart thing to do, and it feels like the right thing to do. What do you think?” he asked.
“I think you are right. I've been sitting out here thinking about pretty much the same thing for quite a few hours, and you're right, we have to be careful, and you're also right about the main road... It just doesn't seem safe, or the safest way to get anywhere anymore.”