Riker's Apocalypse (Book 1): The Promise

by Chesser, Shawn

  Even with two cash registers manned by a pair of no-nonsense-looking men, the line was barely moving. A couple of minutes passed before Steve-O formed up next to Tara. Ignoring the sour look on the trucker’s face he’d just cut, he displayed a handful of pepperoni sticks and asked for an advance on the swear jar money to pay for them.

  With a tilt to her head, Tara said, “Only if you let me and Lee buy you an early dinner at the Iron Pan next door.”

  “Next,” said the cashier, a man in his late fifties sporting a wide handlebar mustache and wearing a hat designating him as a Marine Veteran of Operation Desert Storm.

  Steve-O nodded and displayed the foot-long sticks of spiced beef.

  Tara placed her haul on the worn counter and dug into her wallet for her debit card. Just as she placed the plastic on the counter, a calloused hand came down atop hers and a folded-up wad of bills was taking the debit card’s place.

  Looking up to meet Riker’s gaze, the cashier said, “What’s your problem, buddy?”

  “My sister’s money is no good,” said Riker. He looked at the cash register’s green digital readout and peeled off enough cash from the wad to cover the tendered amount. Then he added three twenties to the mix. “That’s for fifteen gallons of regular off of pump number four.”

  “You’re supposed to pay before you pump,” said the Marine veteran.

  Shrugging, Riker said, “I couldn’t find my own card. And with this leg of mine”—he hiked up his pant leg to show off the aluminum and carbon fiber prosthesis—“the less I walk, the better I sleep at night.”

  The cashier’s expression changed.

  Riker noticed the man’s eyes roaming his face. No doubt he was wondering how the scar tissue stippling the skin around his left eye had come to be.

  After staring for a long two-count, the cashier said, “You left a piece of yourself over there, eh?”

  Riker nodded. “Brought some dark shit home with me as well.”

  “Sorry I jumped your shit, brother.” The cashier offered his hand.

  As Riker reciprocated, his attention was drawn to the small television atop the counter behind the cashier. On the screen a multi-faceted skyscraper wrapped in mirrored glass was on fire. From roughly two-thirds of the way up from street level, smoke billowed from the windows facing camera right. Licks of flame danced behind many of the windows already blown out by the intense heat or some kind of an explosion, whichever the case, Riker hadn’t a clue.

  Noticing Riker’s interest in the television, the cashier said, “That’s Four World Trade in Manhattan. She’s still cooking off. Been going gangbusters for a few hours now.”

  Having already removed the tags and slipped on the wannabe Crocs, Tara called to Riker from the store’s entry. “Let’s go, Lee.”

  Voice full of twang, the man in line behind Riker said, “Yeah, jabber jaw. Why don’t you listen to the lady and get a move on.”

  Ignoring the quip even as his neck and ears flushed hot, Riker said, “What started the fire?”

  The cashier twirled his mustache. “Not an airplane this time. Still, you and me both know who did this. It’s so hard for the media to call a spade a spade.”

  Again the voice at Riker’s back. “Meter’s running.”

  Feeling a wave of tension ascend from his lower back to his neck, Riker turned and found himself looking nearly eye-to-eye with a cleanshaven thirty-something wearing a San Francisco Giants ball cap. Aside from the MLB lid, the man’s ensemble—denim from head to toe, big turquoise and silver belt buckle, and black boots with lug soles—all but screamed over-the-road trucker.

  Decision time. Riker craned and saw Tara and Steve-O between fuel islands and scanning for cross traffic. Discretion winning out over valor, he stepped aside and tipped his Braves hat to the Giants fan. “Good luck this year.”

  The trucker set his coffee and can of Red Bull on the counter. “Thanks. Considering the odd-year curse is still alive and well, we’re going to need it.”

  Riker parted the doors and strode off toward the Suburban. Along the way he could feel his muscles slowly uncoiling. And as a perfect metaphor for this thing he’d brought back from the Sandbox, in his mind’s eye he saw a King Cobra slinking slowly back down into its basket.

  Returning to the SUV, Riker saw that Tara was behind the wheel and Steve-O had already commandeered the passenger seat. Before taking his spot in the second row, he spent a moment squeegeeing the residue from the trip through the corn off the windshield and back window. The human detritus on the passenger side would have to remain. No telling if he could contract the virus or whatever it was by coming into contact with it. Better safe than sorry was a good a policy as any, Riker figured.

  Finished, Riker slid in the back on Tara’s side and was surprised to find that with her seat run forward in its track he was left with ample leg room. So much so that his knees didn’t touch the seatback in front of him, a rarity in nearly every vehicle he had ever ridden in. He also noticed that either Tara or Steve-O (likely the latter) had placed the pack containing Mom’s ashes on the seat next to him.

  Tara adjusted the mirrors and fired the engine over. Flicking her gaze to the rearview, she asked, “Iron Pan?”

  Riker said, “The reader board says their chicken fried steak is on offer for $12.99.” He raised his hand so Tara could see it. “I vote yes on Iron Pan. Steve-O?”

  “How much is in the swear jar?”

  Tara steered away from the fueling islands, looped around behind the Shell market, and slid into a diagonal space a dozen feet left of the restaurant’s front doors.

  Throwing his door open, Riker said, “We’ve got your meal covered, Steve-O.” Before stepping onto the blacktop, he reached across the seat and grabbed the NRA bag by its straps.

  Tara killed the engine. “Lee,” she said, catching him before he closed his door. “Why didn’t you want me to use my card?”

  Riker stuffed the stubby shotgun in the bag diagonally, then threw it over one shoulder.

  “Is it because our names may be on a log in the coach’s office?”

  He nodded. “They had our IDs all night long. We may also be listed on a BOLO … be on the lookout, in layman’s terms.”

  She made a face then said, “How are we going to pay for our meals?”

  Riker closed his door. “I’ve got eighteen bucks left.”

  Tara actuated the alarm with the key in the lock. “That’ll do if we’re eating toast and drinking water.”

  “I’ll use my card. It’s got about seventy or eighty bucks on it.”

  She shifted from foot to foot. “How is that any different than me paying for the cokes and stuff in the store with my card?”

  “Because,” he said, “we’ll be leaving immediately after we pay, not loitering around for an hour while we eat.”

  “How do you propose we pay for lodging tonight? They take the card and authorize it for a nominal amount before we even check in. That’ll give anyone looking for us plenty of time to track us down. All damn night, actually.”

  “While I’m paying for the meal, you go to the ATM and take out as much as it will allow you to.”

  A knowing look crossed Tara’s face as she nodded in understanding.

  “By the way,” said Riker. “Those rubber shoes are awesome.”

  “Don’t blow smoke, Lee. They’re butt ugly.”

  Riker chuckled. “At least now they’ll let you in the restaurant.”

  Throughout the entire conversation, which lasted a minute or two, tops, Steve-O’s head had been panning back and forth as if he was spectating an Olympic-caliber ping-pong match. When the siblings finally paused to draw a breath, Steve-O nodded toward the restaurant and reminded them both of how hungry he was. Then he showed them his left hand and rubbed his thumb and pointing finger together—universal semaphore for you owe me money. “D-A-M-N is still a bad word,” he added. “And that’ll be one more quarter for the curse jar, pretty lady.”

  Tara smiled as s
he followed her brother and their new friend into the restaurant. Seeing a waitress acknowledge them with a nod, she went to her tiptoes and spoke into her brother’s ear. “Maybe I should have bought a bar of soap in the store. Wash both of our mouths out, Lee.”

  Chapter 50

  Being the dead zone of time sandwiched between lunch and dinner, they were seated immediately at a corner booth overlooking the road fronting the truck stop. Kitty-corner from the Iron Pan, south by west, was the closed stretch of I-69. Flanked by low bushes, it was barely visible as it shot off due south from the nearby overpass. There were a few vehicles, mostly passenger cars, heading north. Not a single vehicle was moving south. Which struck Riker as strange. Even this far removed from Middletown and the supposed shooting-cum-biological-incident that was now being augmented by a radiological incident. He’d already stopped obsessing over the former correlated happenings of the day before. Hell, he’d had hours to think about all of that as he stared at the ceiling in the high school basement and was still unsure of what had really happened.

  This new red herring, though, was pure bullshit in his opinion. By all rights there should be emergency vehicles passing through. If the people responsible for the ongoing nuclear incident charade really wanted to cover up the ghastly nature of the biological outbreak and had half of a brain, they’d run a couple of NEST (Nuclear Emergency Search Team) trucks down the freeway, lights ablaze and sirens wailing. Let the WANE 15 cameraman and Harry Hairdo get a whiff of it and go all breathless and broadcast it live to every television in a hundred-mile radius. That would certainly seal the deal on the cause du-jour for any fence sitters. It would also likely serve to deter the random Curious George or those striving to become “YouTube famous” from disregarding the electronic reader boards Riker was certain were deployed on every access point to major routes of transit well beyond the original quarantine zone.

  The waitress who seated them returned with a stainless Bunn urn and poured coffee all around.

  “You’re having coffee?” said Riker as he slid his menu aside.

  “Barista’s gotta stay awake, too.” Tara regarded the well-proportioned (34-26-34 sprang to mind) forty-something with a smile and thanked her.

  The waitress, whose nametag read CHLOE, set the coffee urn on the edge of the table. “Everyone decided?” she asked, a pen and rumpled pad of paper appearing in her hands.

  “The reader board outside sold me,” said Riker. “Chicken fried steak, extra gravy. Eggs over easy, sourdough toast, and hash browns with Frank’s Red Hot.”

  Chloe tucked a stray blonde curl behind her ear. Licking the pen, she said, “I like a man who’s ready and knows exactly what he wants. The Frank’s sold me.”

  Riker removed his Braves hat and smiled. “I put that shit on everything, Chloe.”

  Chloe seemed to melt for a second but composed herself marvelously. Giving Steve-O her undivided attention, she nodded and held the pad aloft with the pen poised and ready to go.

  “The same,” said Steve-O, placing his menu atop the rest. He looked to Riker. “And you, Mister Red Hot, owe the swear jar another quarter.”

  Riker sipped his coffee and looked toward the interstate. Same view, except the light spill from the WANE van was more pronounced.

  Still nothing going south.

  Tara removed her stocking cap. Under Steve-O’s watchful eye, she ran a hand over her short braids, checked the dozen or so rubber bands, then quickly donned the hat and tucked it all away again. “Don’t worry about getting paid for us being a couple of pottymouths,” she said to him. “We’re good for it.”

  “Or will be real soon,” added Riker with a sly grin.

  Chloe delivered the food and they ate in silence. Scarfed down their food was more like it.

  Holding it angled like a snowplow’s blade, Riker ran his last piece of toast across the plate. Moving the spilled yolk and sausage gravy remnants to one side, he scooped it all up, folded the triangle of toast over on itself, and downed it in one bite like a tiny, finger sandwich.

  “Going to lick the plate, too?” ribbed Tara.

  Riker glanced at Steve-O’s half-full plate, then stared at Tara’s vegetarian skillet, only partially consumed and still steaming. “I’m going to the bathroom. Be right back.”

  ***

  The restaurant was full of mostly truckers and locals, the latter sitting in a couple of tables pushed together and jawing lightheartedly with one another. The former seemed a diametrically opposed group, sullen and stiff and eating by themselves though they were seated along a bar on round stools and nearly elbow-to-elbow with each other. A half-dozen men and a couple of women all silently ruminating on how and when the loads languishing in their trailers would get delivered.

  The Iron Pan’s walls were decorated with oil paintings of farm equipment and old trucks sitting in weeds and going back to nature. There were a few that depicted various wild animals in their natural habitat, none of it close to the Iron Pan. All of the pictures were for sale. Even if he wanted to know the price, the numbers were too small for Riker to see without donning a pair of magnified readers.

  Bypassing the restrooms whose doors were labeled BUCKS and DOES, Riker parted a pair of saloon-style swinging doors and found himself inside a wide-open low-ceilinged bar. It was dark inside, most of the light coming from the illuminated bottles behind the distant mirrored back bar and pair of flat panel televisions flanking it.

  In a few long strides, Riker covered the distance to the bar. Like the breakfast counter behind him, the men bellied up to the polished slab of wood here were wearing mesh trucker’s hats and stooped over in silent repose. One man lazily stirred his cocktail with a straw. Another hoisted a longneck beer as he stared straight ahead at the mirror, surreptitiously sizing up Riker.

  To a man, the bar patrons were fixated on the televisions. Filling up the screen left of the bar was the same burning building. Same channel: Fox. Same crawl at the bottom. Thanks to the size and placement of the screen, the font was large enough for Riker to read.

  “Need a drink?” asked the redheaded bartender. She had paused and looked over her shoulder only long enough to make the offer, then turned back to face the television to her right.

  “No thanks,” replied Riker. “Got coffee cooling at my table.”

  He squinted and read the crawl long enough to see a story about a man attacking kids in a SoHo preschool come back around on a second pass. Strangely, not a single word about what was happening in Middletown, Indiana merited a mention. There was nothing about the supposed bus shooter’s foray into the MU biology lab. Nothing concerning the mass casualties outside of the MU atrium. It was clear nothing was more important than traffic being at an hours-long standstill in lower Manhattan. Not even a radiological mishap in Middle America that would normally set reporters’ tongues a wagging on both coasts. As far as the cable news network was concerned, Middletown and the broad swath of quarantined real estate surrounding it had been swallowed up by a black hole.

  The television the bartender was fixated on was still broadcasting from a live remote somewhere near Daleville, the town the reader board had indicated was under a travel advisory, whatever in the hell that meant.

  The crawl on the screen below the female reporter was mostly doom and gloom. A few words scrolled by indicating the roads in and out of Middletown were expected to be closed for forty-eight hours while the hazardous material response crews made the area safe for travel.

  The omission of a couple of things stood out. First, there was no mention of bereavement counselors for the families of victims and surviving witnesses. Not a phone number or email address. Nothing. Second, and this one truly unnerved him, was the fact that there wasn’t a list of evacuation or decontamination sites. Nor was there a single instruction as to what one should do if they feared they’d been exposed to radiation. Surely a mishap with the severity to effectively seal off a town of several thousand residents from the outside world would have officials doing
everything in their power to let the local population know how and where they could find the necessary help.

  Everything he had seen so far on the two televisions started him to think the two incidents were somehow connected. And all of those same things had also led him to believe the government at every level from the top on down didn’t want that connection to be known.

  Riker tore his eyes away from the televisions and retraced his steps back to his table.

  Chapter 51

  Riker sat down and described what was on the televisions in the bar.

  “We better get going, then,” said Tara, craning to find their server.

  Chloe showed up a few seconds later with the check and Tara’s card in one hand and a large take-out cup in the other. Judging by the steam wafting from the lid and recycled paper sleeve wrapping the cup, he guessed he was about to be the recipient of a fresh cup of java.

  My kind of woman, he thought as he slid in next to Steve-O, who had just wiped his mustache and was in the act of throwing the proverbial towel in on a plate well-cleaned.

  Wearing a big smile, Chloe handed Riker the coffee, brushing his hand with hers in the process. “Here you go, sweetie. And you take it black just like my daddy.”

  Riker smiled and thanked the buxom woman.

  Steve-O said, “I think she has the red hots for you, Lee Riker.”

  “Your friend is very perceptive,” Chloe said before walking away with an exaggerated sway to her well-rounded hips.

  Tara signed the slip and pocketed the card. “She was way out of your league, Bro.” She craned to find the ATM. “How long do you figure we have before our whereabouts are detected by me using my card?”

  “If they are even looking for us and happen to be in the area, And that’s a big if.” He paused for a beat. “I imagine they’d be here real quick, if that were the case.”