by Dan Henk
Scrambling to my feet, I lean over the electronic cash register and jab the button to turn on the pump. Casually raising my line of sight, I place a hand on the counter and vault back over. The employee has rounded the edge of the kiosk and is creeping toward the front door. By jumping back over the counter I bring us almost face to face. He freezes in his tracks, lets out a muffled whine, and scampers toward the back wall. I bend over, pick up the gas cans, and kick open the door. Just as I reach the pump, I hear the glass doors fly apart, the employee making a mad dash across the lot. His shrinking form disappears around the side of the building. I fill up the cans, seal them, and lower them to the concrete. Unscrewing the gas cap, I fill up the Land Rover.
Stepping back inside, I notice three two-liter bottles of seltzer water in the fridge. I empty them on the floor and take them out to the pump, where I rinse the bottles out and fill them up. Opening the back, I toss in the gas containers and the sparkling water bottles, and slam the doors. This should get me quite a ways.
Climbing back into the driver’s seat, I hit the gas, spinning the truck out onto the main road, back in the direction I came and toward the interstate. I don’t know where I am. There might be a quicker way, but better to waste time taking a known route than get lost in the middle of nowhere.
After an hour of tooling down the roads of rural America, the scenery alternating between small wooden domiciles and bark-encrusted trunks, I re-enter the small town. As I pass the house I stole the truck from, I scrutinize the weathered abode, the dingy wood paneling geriatric and seedy in the radiance of full daylight. It appears to be vacant. I speed by my old Mustang, nestled like a lost pet on the side of the road. I feel a wave of sentiment and for a moment consider abandoning the Land Rover and refueling the Mustang instead. But I know that’s not the best course. The Land Rover is way more reliable—every rebuilt old car seems to be plagued with minor problems. In light of my current situation, any hindrance, no matter how small, could end up being significant. Not to mention, the four-wheel-drive capability of the Land Rover might come in handy.
I still feel like I’m leaving something behind. Thinking back on my life, it seems something or someone is always getting left behind. I see the exit for the interstate on my right. Ascending the ramp, I head south. It’s now midday, and the sun bleaches out everything. Where are the clouds of last night? I spin the radio dial, trying to pick up a news channel. Nothing except white noise. I keep driving.
An unending sea of trees curtains the highway, their leaves ablaze in the dying throes of fall. The forest gives way to steep gray crags of rock as the road cleaves through roughhewn precipices, the woods flowing up and over the summit in florid convoys of dazzling foliage. Chain link fences hold the glacial masses of slate at bay, omens of a less than stable precipice. The shoulders occasionally break away into frail sidewalls of metal railing, the Spartan balustrade demarcating a yawning abyss beyond.
The hazy vista below often nurtures a small town, the scattered buildings nestled amongst the sweeping woodland. I used to feel like time spent traveling was a waste, but not now. I have an abundant supply, everything seems fresh and different, and the feeling of peace amid the recent turmoil is much appreciated.
The sun crosses the sky, the time change almost palpable as the hope of early morning turns into the blinding reality of midday, slowly fading into the regret and creeping demise of early evening.
Drawing in on the New York City area, I would guess I’m probably roaming through the outskirts of Westchester. I see a car or two, heading away from the borough, but no traffic heading in. I decide to avoid the city. It’s a little too risky at this point. But I have to wonder how it’s holding up. Is it in chaos? New York City was always a strange place, tension bubbling under the surface, everyone such an expert at his or her game face that you never really saw the person beneath. I’m curious to know how the city is faring, but I have a streak of luck going with this stolen vehicle. I don’t want to risk losing it in a major city. The woods thin out, and buildings start to emerge. At first, it’s the placid white stone of small businesses, but that quickly metamorphoses into the tall, dark contours of projects. New York’s great hope—and look how that panned out. They look eerie and abandoned, a core of urban debasement and failed experimentation, rendered neutered and fallow amidst a disheveled throng of forsaken highways.
I turn off at the exit for the George Washington Bridge. Endless looping rows of concrete interstate swirl around me, the edifices giving way to the wasteland that is the Bronx in a cacophony of scruffy buildings and seedy businesses. There are actually a few cars on the road here. I wouldn’t expect any less from a city of nine million. The interstate twists into a curving exit up onto the bridge. There are no tolls on the New York side. I wonder if the booths on the other side are manned. I notice a little more traffic here, a few vehicles on the opposite expressway, but still not amounting to much. Especially compared to the madhouse urban congestion can be.
I take the lower roadway, and even though the entrance ramp is empty, I see a few other cars on the bridge. I pass an old, white BMW sedan on the left. Peering over, I see a middle-aged Spanish guy wearing a low-slung baseball cap, his upper lip sporting a thin mustache garnishing pockmarked, olive skin. He flies past so quickly that I can discern little else. I notice his eyes, staring blankly forward as if lost in thought... or worse. Not that it matters, in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure everyone’s life has been changed, and there are a million stories to go with the huge population.
I break out of the shadow of the bridge and onto the brightly lit highways of New Jersey. For a moment I feel a strange sense of escape, as if the city is dying and doesn’t want to let me go.
The sun is falling, the glare of the fading day reducing my line of sight. If there were traffic, I’m sure it would be moving slowly, as if battling with the car shade in an effort to make out the road. But there is no traffic, and my truck blazes a forlorn trail through the deserted highways of New Jersey.
It isn’t long before I encounter another tollbooth, the small concrete huts splayed across the road in a dilapidated train. The booths are unmanned, the wooden gates torn asunder. The pieces lie strewn across the asphalt in fragments of black and white. Splintered stumps jut out behind the tollbooths, winsome reminders of societal collapse. The dying sun casts everything into a stark disparity of blackened silhouettes and fiery edges. I was never a fan of Jersey, but at least the highways are monstrous tracts, abetting escape from the suburban corpulence.
Past the ruined gateway, steady streams of faceless commercial buildings flow by on both sides. Their dusky gloom gives the area an overtone of abandonment. A decadent civilization that’s further lost what little vitality it had in its desertion. The sooner I’m out of here the better.
The gas needle continues to fall, and after several hours I need to make a stop. I pull over on the grassy strip straddling the interstate and tug apart the ignition wires. I’m standing halfway out into the fast lane, but there is no danger, only a gossamer breeze that tugs gently at my pant legs. Golden stretches of asphalt extend out in a flaxen river, the shining surface stamped obliquely with a thin queue of white lines. Hulking concrete sidewalls deface the roadside, their brusque enormity topped by a sunny cavalcade of bleary treetops. I empty both cans and the water bottles, and I still haven’t filled the tank. I’ll see how far this gets me. I kick the empty cartons from the road and circle back around. Scraping the wires together, I glance up at the fuel gauge. Three quarters of a tank. At least it’s all highways for now.
Darkness has now descended, and my headlights catch a large metal sign on the side of the road.
“Welcome to Pennsylvania!”
A few minutes later, I start to notice an undulating dark mass blocking out the stars. An approaching storm? Something tells me no. As I keep cruising, my headlights start to fog up. A thick rolling smog obscures my vision. It looks like smoke, and there’s a lot of it. The air g
rows hazy, the whole panorama enveloped in a thick mist. My line of sight dwindles, and I slow down. The air grows dense and polluted. It’s not affecting me, but it’s probably a serious impediment to anything living.
Holy shit!
On the opposite side of the road is a sedan engulfed in flames, its metal carcass moldering in an ashen pyre of Middle America come apart at the seams. The scathing light irradiates the highway, highlighting the woods beyond with a flickering glow. I see another car abandoned on the roadside in front of me, its doors hanging limply half-open, as if the occupants left under extreme duress. It’s a blue Honda Civic. An everyman’s car. Not a good sign.
The smog thickens, and the interstate climbs, ascending onto a high rampart. I hear explosions far ahead, in what I assume is downtown. Dark obstructions force me to weave haphazardly as I cruise through what has become an obstacle course. Nothing living seems to be moving around in the thick soup, but I slow down regardless. The last thing I need is to flip this vehicle in the middle of what looks like a war zone.
The wind picks up, clearing a rift through the smoke, and I can make out a large body of water off to my left. The rippled surface shimmers in the glare of a city ablaze. Small shockwaves reverberate, rumbling through the Land Rover and causing the ground to tremble. Flashes of light spark off like mammoth fireworks, pulsing through the smog, followed closely by a massive tremor. The smoke starts to fight back against the breeze, gushing in with renewed vigor and blanketing everything. My Rover lurches continually, vibrating with small impacts. I jerk the wheel, trying hard to avoid the blurry silhouettes. A piercing wail cuts through the din, a wretched dirge that suggests more an animal in pain than anything human. Sickly thumps follow, accompanied by an organic crunch that sounds like gnashing bone.
The dense banks of filth swirl in a confusing vortex, burying the lines of the road in an impenetrable miasma. I don’t dare slow down, but for all I know I’m headed toward the side of the bridge. The Rover starts to vibrate violently over uneven ground, and something slams into the side with a wet thud. I step on the gas, and the truck bounds forward. Small particles bombard the windshield, materializing out of the billowing clouds just before a suicide run into the glass. Splatters of grimy ocher dot the glass, sprawling out in viscous tendrils of slime. Shadowy forms, their details obscured by the smog, float in and out of the mist.
Just as the maelstrom seems unnavigable, the haze thins out, and I can make out more of the roadway. It doesn’t look quite as chaotic as it did seconds earlier, mainly just littered with small debris. I could swear there was something else in the chaos I just passed through. Something larger and more foreboding. The fog recedes as I distance myself from the dying city. It’s looking like it’ll be a long drive to Mexico.
CHAPTER X
THE FIRST TASTE OF SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY
It’s still night as I roll into Baltimore, the dreary industrial city almost unrecognizable in the current climate from the urban sprawl I remember from my days in Virginia. There’s no ambient luminosity, but the glare of my headlights cuts a depressing view through the bleak landscape. Drab gray buildings, rundown structures propped up by an obstinate refusal to fall.
The houses escalate into a more advanced strip of manicured road. The sandy asphalt progresses into smooth lanes of concrete, the highway mantled by a spurt of green signs. The roadsides are edged with squat barriers of stone, a somber queue of trees lining the periphery. A glint of glass and steel glowers through the woods, a constant reminder that the trees compose a thinly veiled shield from the manmade ennui that lies just beyond.
The highway elevates, surmounting a low-lying bridge as it surges through the bowels of Baltimore. A car passes in a flash of brilliance on the opposite side. It’s the only car I’ve seen in an hour.
The road escalates into a multi-lane complex of concrete dividers and towering brick sidewalls. Forlorn electronic signage announces absolutely nothing as I close in on the blackened maw of the Fort McHenry Tunnel.
I slow down to thirty as I roll in. Filthy white panels line the walls in a coating of cheap ceramic. The polished edges reflect the gleam of my headlights in a milky sheen that looks neither healthy nor friendly.
The tunnel twists in a constant sharp curve, reducing my line of sight to a few hundred yards. My headlights expose a shadowy form. It looks like a homeless bum, his grubby billow of black pants and worn work boots smothered under a bulky huddle of threadbare brown rags. As I roll past his head turns, glowering at me in a deranged grin of rotted teeth. Greasy strands of black hair shroud his filthy mug, while specks of dirt and spittle besmirch his salt and pepper stubble. An ancient scar rides up his cheek, curving around the orbit of his eye and terminating in a confluence of wrinkles as it weasels into the eyebrow. I keep driving.
Dawn has crept in as I reach the outskirts of Northern Virginia—and my first real signs of trouble. The expressway spreads out into a wide bridge of concrete, the level span pedestrian and bare. Smooth asphalt flows into stubby sidewalls, the entire expanse far too Spartan and open. A barricade of sandbags chokes off the far end. Armed guards, as well as some tanks and other mechanized vehicles, are scattered about behind the barrier.
Fuck! I assumed Virginia broke from the Union and this was their reserve forces acting as the state military. No way to blow through, not with those tanks. I don’t know if I could survive a cannon round, but I do know this Land Rover wouldn’t stand a chance. I can’t talk, and given my appearance, I don’t see any easy way of crossing that roadblock. I think the best plan would be to head back and take a smaller road in. At least the resistance won’t be as heavy. I’ll have to head around metropolitan DC and try the other side.
I slow to a stop, the soldiers a few hundred feet ahead of me. The intense light blurs everything, casting the landscape into glaring splotches and blue-hued shadows. The concrete barrier splitting the highway doesn’t let me traverse to the other side. I pop into gear and spin the truck around, the wide trio of lanes facilitating my evasion as I accelerate. I glance in the rear view mirror at the distant militia. If they can see me, they’re making no attempt at pursuit. Most cars probably turn around when they see the barricade, and there’s no reason to assume I’m any different. I take the first available exit, circle under the overpass, and reenter the highway on the other side. The beltway, as this stretch of road is known, forms a giant loop around DC. I’ll have to backtrack toward the Arlington side. Maybe I should have taken that to begin with. It’s a more isolated and less urban area, but a good hour out of the way. I look down at my gas gauge and notice I’m running on a quarter of a tank. Goddamnit! Hopefully I’ll have enough fuel to make it into Virginia.
Over an hour of flowing through the sequestered corridors of I-495, a ceaseless shroud of woods alternating with lofty brick walls in an effort to shield the population from the bustle of traffic, and I’m closing in on the George Washington Parkway bridge. The suburban shroud has declined into a rudimentary thicket of trees and underbrush, the foliage enlivened with the fiery hues of fall. The sprawling gamut of a bridge reflects a lustrous sheen in the mid-morning sunshine, the wide thoroughfare rolling out in a multitude of lanes as it spans the river. And choking off the opposite bank is another line of sandbags. Some unfriendly looking mechanized armor lies ensconced behind.
Braking to a halt, I scan the distant conformation. A notch in the sandbag wall bolsters a .50-caliber machine gun, the barrel languidly pointing skyward, closely tended by a soldier. Nothing else moves, the long, shining stretch of roadway silent and abandoned. A feeble breeze cuts through, buffeting the vinyl soft top. I’m wasting gas. Screeching around, I head back. Maybe I can cut through DC. I take the first exit, circling under the overpass and back up onto 495. I head to River Road, the closest street that I know how to navigate. It should get me to the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, which turns into Route 66, and that will lead me back to 95. All that time spent in Northern Virginia wasn’t quite a waste after all.
Funny how things work out.
Crossing through the dreary suburbs of Bethesda, Maryland, I drift by a McDonald’s, nestled smugly between two used car lots, their garish streamers flapping lazily in the wind. All the commercial properties are shuttered, the dreary structures extending in a leaden train of gas stations and multilevel buildings. The lots all empty, the windows bare.
The forlorn queue thins out as I venture back into the suburbs. I see a speckling of incandescence in the houses. The monotonous train of brick or wood-paneled dwellings looks not quite deserted, but far from alive. Little domestic huts that have no place in a changed world. A few cars, all with the wear of a few years and even more miles, mope sullenly in the driveways. The underbrush seems to hold the premises in no more respect than the owners. It clusters about in loose thickets of scrawny trees and unkempt foliage. In places it walls off the neighborhood, in others it blithely tramples through the hollows between buildings, occupying the gaps that no one cares or dares to groom.