by Ryan Schow
“If it stays like this up to Sacramento, we might be able to make it in few days rather than a few weeks.”
“We just needed to get out of the city,” she says, placing her hand on my knee. “I’m really glad I met you, Nick.”
“I am, too,” I say, glancing over at her. “I feel…lucky. Like maybe we were, I don’t know, destined to meet. You think that’s corny?”
“Totally.”
“Yeah, me too. But possible never-the-less.”
“It’s not really corny,” she says. “I used to write romance novels, remember? I can do corny better than most.”
“Are there any of your stories based in the apocalypse?”
“Those are two genres that just won’t blend no matter how hard you try.”
“Yeah. Agreed. But if you could write that novel…”
“I wouldn’t even try.”
“It could open up with the old springs of a rusty El Camino rocking, the sweet, sweet scent of rodent urine—like a honey nectar, but sour—wafting in the air,” I say with a grin.
“Already my vag is drying out…”
“Okay, let’s try this. A gorgeous girl—”
“Gorgeous?” she asks.
“Don’t interrupt literary genius when it’s unfolding,” I say. Then: “A gorgeous girl, caught between two men, one with a beard and muscles, the other charming but distraught. When sexual tensions arise, and danger mixes with intrigue, will this damsel in distress—”
“I’m not in distress—”
Flashing her a look, I say, “Will this damsel who is definitely in distress go for brawn and facial hair or good looks and a quirky sense of humor?”
“The skinny guy.”
“I’m not skinny,” I say, “I prefer to think of myself as lean. Can you see Marcus on a skateboard trying to ride a halfpipe?”
She laughs and says, “No way,” to which I say, “Exactly.”
“Besides,” she says, running her fingers through my hair, “I already chose you.”
“But he’s the alpha.”
“No, Nick, he’s not. He’s security. A damaged soldier. That in itself can be a story, but it’ll only end in heartbreak and most likely abuse.”
“Don’t tell him that.”
“Why?”
“Because he said just as much. He likes Amber, but his dad was heavy handed and short on patience. The way Marcus tells it, his old man drove his mother into an early grave, then pretty much told Marcus to piss off forever.”
“Jesus,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“How did we go from romance to drama to dysfunction?”
“Um, we started talking about Marcus.”
“And that’s why I chose you. He’s got a better beard”—she says, feeling the heavier addition to my face—“but your soul is still intact. You’re still a good person, capable of making me feel loved and safe.”
“And who says the end of the world can’t get a little mushy?” I add.
“Only the kind of writer who thinks he’s above the rules of writing,” she says, giving my earlobe a tug.
Most of the cars hit by drone fire seem to have scared the other cars off the highway before it was too late. This left us with long stretches of at least one lane or a solid shoulder to drive on. We’re making pretty good time, seeing a few people here and there, but really nothing of concern. It’s when I find myself feeling most comfortable that we embark upon the city of Compton. The thing about Compton is, I’m terrified everything bad we used to hear about the city will now be a hundred times worse. It wasn’t. But that didn’t mean we didn’t encounter trouble.
Of that we most certainly did.
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Nine
It happens just after Alondra Blvd. That’s when we see the potential problem. You know how when you see a bunch of pigeons in a residential neighborhood sitting all together on a telephone wire? How they’re packed wing to wing just cooing and crapping on everything below? That’s how it is on the left side of the freeway, which consequently happened to be the area next to the 710 with the closest concentration of homes.
There must have been forty of them. All just sitting out there on a large, white brick wall on the side of the freeway. All kinds of vines or whatever seem to snake up the sides of it, but on top, there’s no way to not see this army of potential misfits.
“Give me a pistol,” I tell Bailey, unable to keep the alarm from stealing into my voice.
She checks the magazine, sees a copper jacketed round inside, shoves it in and slaps it home. She then pulls back the slide and says, “One’s in the chamber.”
I roll down the window, not really comfortable shooting left handed because I haven’t tried before, but feeling like this might be survival by luck and firepower alone. Usually I’d speed up. Just race past them all, but we can’t. We’re moving at thirty miles an hour tops because the vehicular debris is more than usual, and that’s what makes this such a dangerous road.
“Get down and get the shotgun ready,” I say. The shotgun won’t work well for this kind of distance, but maybe the fact that it’s a shotgun will have them thinking twice. By now, Bailey’s muttering fear-laden curses under her breath and trying to breathe while folded over in this nasty two-seater.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” I hear myself say. “Maybe they’re just airing out their socks.”
“Um, Nick?” Bailey says. “It’s not about their socks.”
Marcus coasts past the group, half of them now aiming weapons at him. I see a pistol come out the window of the Mack truck and know Marcus is giving them something to think about. Or a reason to shoot if these kids turn out to be real thugs instead of fangsters (fake-gangsters).
As Marcus drives by, no one shoots, but the second Marcus pulls his gun back inside, a shot is fired, hitting what I think is the top of the sleeper.
“Dammit,” I mutter. And then I open fire. Three shots off my left hand and I’m not feeling it. “Take the wheel!”
“I can’t see!”
“Doesn’t matter…”
I switch hands, start firing with my right hand and now these pants-sagging fools are scattering, but not before they return fire. By the time my mag is empty, most of them have dropped over the other side.
“Shotgun!”
The gun slides into my hands. In the half second I have to wait, I see Marcus’s gun outside his window firing as well. The kid who took the shot, he’s standing up now, going full Scarface, until he’s not. I fire off the shotgun, but it’s Marcus’s shot that snapped the kid’s right shoulder back and dropped his dumb ass over the other side of the ten foot wall.
The remaining kids jump off the other side for their dear lives and I follow Marcus when he can finally step on the gas and high tail it out of there.
We don’t slow until we see the signs for 710 to Pasadena and the 105 headed to El Segundo. Marcus pulls the truck to a stop. I fall in behind him feeling overly exposed. Just our side of the road is six lanes plus a dry hillside and an abandoned big rig. Who knows what’s on the other side of the hill? Then again, I’m still a bit jumpy from what happened earlier.
As I walk up to the truck I see three bullet holes in the side of the sleeper, all of them high. Either the kids were bad shots or they were smart enough to aim high in case there were passengers inside, which there were.
“Stupid kids,” Marcus says, eying the bullet holes.
“No kidding.”
“I think I need some of that diesel,” he says, sizing up the deserted eighteen wheeler then stretching. “You probably need to gas up, too.”
We’re around about six or seven cars and an SUV that’s smashed into the back of a Kia Rio. It looks like the two cars are lodged together, and already I’m seeing the events unfold in my mind. The Lincoln Navigator smashed into the Kia, got that Sprite can of a car stuck under its grill, tried to detach but couldn’t and had to make a run for it.
Inside, however, on closer inspect
ion, a big fat guy is dead in the front seat, his seatbelt still on. Bullet holes riddle the hood, the windshield and the roof of the car.
Mystery solved…
“I’ll grab the gas cans, you grab yourself a Snickers bar,” he says, heading for the El Camino.
“Why a Snickers bar?”
“You’re going to need it when you’re done sucking gas out of that Navigator.”
“We don’t need to do that just yet,” I call out.
“Procrastination will get you killed my friend. Just think back to your days as a skateboard fluffer for the real pros.”
Laughing to myself, but irritated that I have to do this at the same time, I head to the Mack truck, say hello to the girls, then ask for a candy bar.
Corrine hands me a Payday then pulls it away at the last second and says, “What do you need it for?”
“Covers the taste of gasoline in your mouth when you get done siphoning fuel from a gas tank.”
“That really works?” she asks.
“Yeah, you want to come learn how to do it?”
“If I’m going to do your job, then I’m keeping the candy bar,” she says, conversational for the first time since we’ve met.
I snatch the bar from her and say, “You’re watching, I’m…”
“You’re sucking,” Amber jokes and we all laugh, which seems nice because we’re finally starting to feel at ease with each other.
“Very clever, Amber,” Corrine says as she follows me with the hammer and screwdriver to pry open the gas tank.
I’m fiddling with the Navigator as Marcus is at the Mack truck pouring in the last of the diesel. I can’t seem to get to the damn fuel door open because it’s got a custom lock. Corrine and I wait for Marcus to finish. When he’s done he comes up with a crowbar, tells me to move, then wiggles the straight end into the fuel door’s seam. With a mighty yank, he pries it open and voilà, we’re good.
“Get to it,” he says, walking off.
I show Corrine how to siphon the gas, we refuel the El Turdo (as Bailey has begun calling it) and I devour the Payday because I got too much gas in my mouth.
“Amateur,” Marcus grumbles as I’m spitting it up and coughing.
After that, we collectively decide on the 105 to El Segundo. It should be a cleaner route. “From there we can take it past the 110, to the 405,” Marcus says, “which we’ll take north all the way to the 5. After that, we ride the 5 all the way home.”
Bailey’s home, not any of our homes.
Hopefully once she’s done telling her fiancée she’s no longer his part time lover, she’ll start thinking of me as being her home (says the selfish guy who shouldn’t believe in a post-apocalyptic love story…).
Two days later, we’re all cranky and ready to not be on the road anymore. We make a water run in some residential pit, replenish our stores from a half-full but newer-looking hot water heater, then resume with the caravan of two until we hit the 5 where we encounter a most unexpected sight: relatively clear roads.
Oh sweet Lord above, can this be?
Marcus gets the rig up to seventy and this beat-to-hell piece of crap follows, although it’s loud inside and we have to roll down the windows because it smells too much like urine in here when the A/C blows hot.
Here and there we encounter obstacles along the way: abandoned cars, pushed-off-the-road cars, eviscerated cars. Then the vehicular hindrances return. So now we’re back down to twenty, and then ten miles and hour and then we’re pushing cars off the road again. But all along the way, it seems like some of the bigger wrecks in and around the cities have been moved.
But why? And by whom?
“I thought someone once said something about interstates being built for the underlying purpose of military movements.”
Bailey shrugs her shoulders and says, “I don’t really know why our government does the things they do, or did.”
“Me neither,” I mumble as we finally get a break in the traffic.
Near the last pileup just outside of Bakersfield, we stop to stretch, eat a little something, then drink some water and fill up the cars. When we’re done eating, we siphon some more gas for the tanks, just in case. For some asinine reason, Corrine now wants to do the siphoning, so Marcus teaches her to pry open a gas tank door, open the tank and feed the hose down into it. He shows her how to give it a pull (sans the locker room jokes), spit out the excess gas and then watch as gravity works to fill the gas cans.
Corrine gets it the first time with more fear than frustration, then immediately gags on the fuel, coughing it out before promptly wolfing down a handful of packaged cookies with a sour look on her face.
“I can still taste the gas,” she says.
“Yep,” Marcus replies.
From Bakersfield we hit a stretch of open road where drones probably didn’t go after the cars and their drivers. That said, it appears whatever cars were on the road had a chance to get off the freeway with no immediate plans of continuing on.
A few hours pass and we’re closing in on Fresno. Overall, the drive leaving Bakersfield has been pretty painless.
“This sure is a swell ride, Nick,” Bailey says as we’re rambling along at a stiff seventy, the widows rolled down, our hair blowing around.
“Tell me about it,” I say.
“You couldn’t have gotten something that was a little less rank?”
“I was wondering when you’d start complaining again. In my head, I’ve been complaining for hours.”
“My nostrils are officially burning.”
“Well the ‘junker car lot’ was open when Marcus and I went shopping, so he picked this. Are you hearing me? He picked this.”
“Loud and clear.”
She unbuttons her shirt a few buttons, past the bottom of the underwire bra she’s wearing, letting the sweat bead and trickle down to her tummy. Fanning herself, she’s acting like what she’s doing is no big deal. I look over and it is. Forcing my eyes north, following the line of her neck up to her jaw and then to her eyes, she’s as hot as me and sweating just as bad. On me it feels sticky, gross. On her, not so much.
“What are you looking at?”
“I was looking at your boobs, but then I thought I’d be polite and look into your eyes.”
“As much as I appreciate the attention, keep those baby browns of yours on the road, Mister,” she says, pointing her finger forward to where I should be looking.
“But just in case,” she says, summoning a glance.
I look and she’s got her bra cup pulled open. She’s showing me her nipple when this big green beast flashes past us, causing us both to jump.
“What the hell?” she all but screams, sitting up straight and adjusting herself.
Three more vehicles flash by, all of them Humvees. Up ahead, a good mile, we see them stopped, partially blocking the freeway, but not all the way. Two men in fatigues are out, while three more of what look to be civilians remain inside.
“Stay put,” I say when we’re stopped.
“I’m not a dog,” she says, getting out with me.
We both walk up to where Marcus is shaking hands with the guys. They only stopped to ask if we’re okay and see if we need help because, according to them, there’s almost no one on the roads.
“That’ll change though, now that the drones are down,” one of the two soldiers says. “People will want to get back home to their families. Where you headed?”
“Sacramento,” Bailey says.
“Long way home under these conditions.”
They’re wearing camo pants with tight tan t-shirts, and both men are well built with weapons on their hips.
“Why are you guys out here?” Marcus says.
“We’re clearing the roads.”
“On whose orders?”
“Chain of command sort of went south with the EMP, but we’re reestablishing. Our hope is that if we need to migrate north, or if the north needs to migrate south to rebuild, we’ll at least need the freeway
s.”
“How long you been at it?”
“Only recently. Since the EMP hit.”
“And that somehow makes sense to you?” Marcus says, causing the two men to exchange looks.
“He didn’t mean it like that,” I say.
“Yes I did,” Marcus says.
“There’s nothing else for us to do,” the one with the fabric name tag that reads Hooper says. “The people in town, they’re going to kill each other inside of six months and there isn’t anything we can do about it. They already have Sac on lockdown—”
“How do you know that?” Bailey asks.
Hooper hooks a thumb over his shoulder to one of the Humvees and says, “Riley’s from Sac. Came down here looking for his mom, but she’s not around anymore so now he’s with us.”
“So you guys are just trying to be useful, right?” Marcus says. “You’re just passing the time?”
“You act like that’s a bad thing,” the smaller of the two says, posturing up, almost like he’s offended by Marcus’s abrupt line of questioning. Honestly, there isn’t much of Marcus that isn’t abrupt. He’s all long silences and an inability to engage in anything more than small talk and aggression.
“Bring your tits back down, man, I’m doing the same thing,” Marcus says. “Just trying to get these people home.”
“Then what?”
“How the hell do I know?” he pops off. Except he doesn’t say hell. What he says rhymes with truck, or suck, or Chuck. Inside the big rig with the opened windows, Amber covers Abigail’s ears and I’m shaking my head.
“We’ve got kids in range,” I whisper.
“She’ll learn these same words soon enough, and before long the only delicate ears we’ll be closing are yours,” he says, causing the two men to snicker at the insult.
Shaking my head, eyes back on Hooper, I say, “What do you mean Sacramento’s on lockdown?”
“It’s a good thing. They’ve got a perimeter set on all the major thoroughfares. Both ends of Hwy 50, both ends of Hwy 80 including 65.”
“That’s where I’m heading,” Bailey says. “Just up 65, to Lincoln.”