The Ending is Everything

by Aaron M. Carpenter

  I ran across the road from the church to the fence and hid behind a small tree, one of many that lined the road to disguise the freeway. I peered out onto the road. I was ten feet from a National Guard vehicle, parked at the top of the on-ramp and next to it was a sheriff’s car. As I watched a small, blue, Toyota crawled up the on-ramp, the vehicles split and made way for the car to merge onto the freeway. As the car passed, the two government vehicles closed ranks.

  Across the freeway, on the westbound side, there was nothing except another sheriff’s car at the top of the off-ramp. So, no one could go the wrong way and get on the freeway heading west. It was as I feared. Once you were on the freeway, there was no getting off, presumably until you reached the camps.

  Along the concrete median separating the west and eastbound lanes, were lines of cars. All empty. Cars that must’ve died and left behind. Hundreds of them lined up heading east. So many, that the fast lane was now a junkyard of cars. How long had the backup been for cars to be abandoned? Ran out of gas? Or just shut down?

  I shook my head and turned away from the freeway and leaned against the tree. Was I still making assumptions? Was the entirety of the freeway blocked as I have seen? I didn’t want to believe it. But, it made the most sense from an evacuation point of view. Get everyone on the freeway and control the population until they arrived at the destination. The ‘Evacuation Centers.’

  I turned back to look at the freeway, straight into the eyes of a National Guardsman. He was walking along the shoulder when he spotted me. We both wore shock on our faces, as I am sure he thought the last thing he’d see is a young man alone standing at the fence, dressed in a black beanie and sweatshirt. I nodded and gave a little wave. He nodded back. Better to act like everything is normal than to show the panic I felt inside. My heart was racing. I turned slowly away and walked across the street back toward the church. I don’t know why I was so scared and paranoid, he wasn’t going to chase me down. I was just one man. But, I didn’t want to take the chance, and I ran back to the car, cursing my smoking habit.

  I drove home, passing by the high school, by the freeway, again, near Day Creek Blvd., and saw the same setup. Police cars blocking the on-ramp for the westbound lanes and the eastbound off-ramp. At the top of the eastbound on-ramp was another National Guard vehicle. I just assumed there were more cars on the freeway blocking the on and off-ramps. I, finally returned home, just before noon, with no clearer direction of what to do before I left. But, at least I knew my instincts were correct. We did not want to get on the freeway.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  11/15/2024

  When I pulled into my driveway, I had a moment of selfishness. I put the automatic gear shift in park, but left the car idling. I wanted to take off, right then and there. Take off for gods knows where. Maybe try to find my brother in Oregon. It had been nice being on my own. Exploring. Not having every decision scrutinized by a committee. Inside was responsibility. Worrying about others. Leading a group of people dependent on me. A week ago, I wanted nothing more than to be left alone. I doubt anybody would’ve shown up here after the bomb if it wasn’t for that damn party. I deliberated with myself, sitting in silence, but, of course, shut off the engine, sighed, and went inside.

  It was just after noon. Everyone was eating lunch. Peanut butter sandwiches as we finished the last loaf of bread in the pantry. They did not look surprised to see me.

  “How’s the outside world?” Zero asked.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Any luck with the maps?” Ethan asked.

  “Nope.”

  In the living room along the wall with the TV stand, carefully placed around my left home theater speaker, were ten suitcases. The dining room had eight boxes of canned food, and all the Welles family camping gear. Sleeping bags rolled up. The five, unused, water jugs were lined up around my right home theater speaker. They were ready to leave.

  “Find anything?” Ethan asked.

  I sat down on the red couch next to the kids who were trying not to get peanut butter all over the place. Trying, but failing. I observed them one by one. The kids. Drew, Jenna, Ethan, and Alicia were at the dining room table. Kaitlyn standing behind the others in the kitchen by herself. She appeared to be the architect of lunch and was making me a sandwich as I sat down.

  “What’s wrong?” Alicia asked.

  “I don’t know how we are going to get out of here,” I said.

  “Why? What happened?” Alicia said.

  “The freeways are a definite, no go. Unless we want to be taken straight to the evacuation centers.”

  “You saw it for yourself?” Ethan asked.

  “The freeways? Yes,” I said. “The off-ramps and on-ramps are all blocked by either barricades, the national guard or police.”

  “What’s that mean?” Zero asked.

  “It means once we’re on the freeway, we are not getting off until they let us,” Drew answered for me.

  “Thanks,” I said to Kaitlyn as she handed me a sandwich. She sat down beside me, there was enough room for her to squeeze in between the girls and me. I nodded and said, “Drew’s right. Once were on the freeway.” I took a bite of the sandwich, “We’re not getting off.”

  We sat in silence. No Maps. No Freeway. Nowhere to go. Then I remembered what the old man said. “Any of you know anything about roads along power lines and fire roads or any back roads through the mountains?” They turned toward me, mid-bite, like I was mad. “I didn’t think so.”

  “I know what you mean,” Drew said. “But, I don’t know where we could even find them. Sometimes when we go camping, you run across a lot of those types of back roads.” He paused and took a bite of his sandwich. “But, who knows where they would lead.”

  “I came to the same conclusion.”

  We ate the rest of our lunch in silence. Kaitlyn was leaning against my shoulder. I sat staring straight ahead, searching my mind for an answer that never came.

  It was Alicia who broke the situation down to its bare components. “We have two options then,” Alicia said, while she took the empty lunch plates from the children. Natalie had been using her finger to clean off the excess peanut butter and gave her mom a dirty look when she turned her back toward the kitchen. “We can stay here and hope whoever comes to enforce the evacuation, doesn’t bother with us. Or, if they do come, we could hide somewhere, in the attic maybe.”

  “Like Anne Frank,” Zero said.

  “Yes,” Alicia said, rolling her eyes. “The other option is to try and get out of here and the only route we know of, that won’t get us on a freeway is either through Big Bear or Lake Arrowhead or take a chance on some back road where we have no idea where it may lead.”

  “That about sums it up,” Ethan said.

  “So, we should vote, either we leave and try to get out of here tonight? Or we stay here and play it out?”

  Everyone looked around at each other. Zero shrugged. Drew beamed at Alicia with pride. Ethan and Jenna, still seated at the dining table, were whispering to each other. I looked at Kaitlyn, and her eyes told me how I needed to vote.

  “I vote we head out tonight,” I said.

  “Me too,” Zero said.

  “Jenna and I are down,” Ethan said. Jenna said not a word.

  Alicia looked to Drew. “Whatever you want babe. You know I can’t make a decision,” he said.

  “We go then,” Alicia said. Then she turned to me. “What other supplies do we need?”

  I looked at her, with sincere admiration. As I was complaining about being in charge, internally. Alicia had stepped up and got things moving again. “We need to go around and find gasoline. Find some way to take it with us. We should go in Zero’s truck and your SUV. Which gets what miles per gallon?”

  “About thirty six on the highway, less than that, maybe twenty five, on the streets,” she replied.

  “Right so we will need at least a half tank of extra gas to get to Utah, and I would rather not have to stop at a gas station.�
�� I paused thinking. “Zero, what gas mileage does your truck get?”

  “Thirty two. Thirty three. On the freeway. Twenty-four on average. I think. The dashboard will tell me,” he said.

  “Okay, we need to siphon the gas from the rest of our cars and fill up the truck and SUV. Then we head out tonight as soon as it gets dark.”

  An hour later I found myself with a garden hose in my mouth, blowing air into my cars gas tank. A second tube curved out of the tank into a one-gallon gas can I used for the lawn mower. Thankfully, Zero showed me the correct way to do this. I tried to accomplish this task, as I saw it performed in the movies. Sucking on the hose till the gas came out. Zero said I could kill myself doing it that way, or at least, it would make me sick. The way I was doing it now, was less toxic. It was slow going, one gallon at a time, but by three in the afternoon, we had the truck and the SUV filled. The math in my head said the SUV and truck could both go about four hundred miles, on a full tank of gas. But, that was if we were on the freeway going seventy. That wasn’t going to happen. So, we figured we would need an extra ten gallons of gas, to make the trip. Three, empty, three-gallon water jugs plus the one-gallon gas can, equals ten.

  “You sure that’s gonna work?” Ethan asked as were taking out one of the empty water jugs.

  “No,” I said. “But, I don’t think we have any other choice. I think if we were planning on storing gas in them, for a long time, that would be a bad idea. But, they should be okay, as long as we don’t take weeks to get there.”

  “You know it’s gonna take weeks, now that you said that,” he said and gave a half-smile.

  “Yeah, I always seem to do that. We should stop every hour and top off the tanks. Just to be safe.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “What plan?” Zero asked as he came outside with another empty water jug.

  “Oh you know, just a plan to make sure we don’t blow up your truck with all this gas in the back,” Ethan said.

  Zero stood straight up. His eyes darted from the truck to the empty jugs. “Could that happen?”

  Ethan and I laughed. “Not if we do this correctly?” I said.

  “Assholes,” Zero said.

  We found an abandoned, or rather we hoped it was an abandoned car, a block from my house and siphoned that gas. We filled another one and a half jugs of gas with that car. We loaded it onto Zero’s dolly and wrapped it with my blue tarp and heaved it into the truck.

  At that moment, it started to rain.

  “We need to get inside now!” The ferocity with which I yelled, made Zero and Ethan jump and we ran into the open garage for cover.

  “What’s going on?” Zero asked, once safely inside the garage.

  “Radiation,” I said. Zero looked around as if to say “where?”

  “The rain. It could be carrying a high dose of radiation.”

  “Could be?” Ethan asked.

  “Could be.” I shrugged. “Better safe than sorry, right?”

  “Look what I found!” Zero said as he was looking at one of my shelving units along the wall of the garage. In between a pair of empty coffee cans, he pulled out a pack of Camels. “Smokes!”

  “Sweet,” Ethan said.

  I went to the walkie-talkie that was on the washer, at the back of the garage, and radioed the host inside. “We are stuck in the garage since it’s raining... We will head inside when it stops. Over.” Since my garage was detached from the house, we were stuck inside the damp, dusty garage until the rain deceased.

  “Okay. You guys have enough gas?... over,” Alicia responded.

  “Almost. Another trip around the block to find one more car should do it... over.”

  “Great. We are all getting pretty anxious in here. The girls have almost finished The Hobbit. I told them we were about to go on our own adventure like Bilbo. But, that seemed to scare them more than it meant to,” she said and laughed. “Over.”

  “Yeah, I doubt we will run into any goblins,” I said. “We need to change clothes since it rained a bit on us. So, we’ll see you inside shortly. Over.”

  I put the walkie on top of the dryer. At the front of the garage Zero and Ethan sat on green foldout chairs smoking, watching the rain come down outside the open garage door, like two Hobbits.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  11/15/2024

  At 5:14 p.m., our journey finally began. The Welles family, along with Kaitlyn, were to lead in the SUV. Zero, Ethan, Jenna and I followed in Zero’s truck. Drew led because he knew where he was going. By his estimation, we could take Baseline Street, all the way to the road that went through Lake Arrowhead or even further east to the one that passed through Big Bear. I wasn’t thrilled about taking that route the entire way, but it was the only non-freeway road we knew of, that could get us to our destination. If we saw any official vehicles, we would pull over or down a side street. I had my AR (Windham Weaponry Carbon Fiber SRC AR-15, Semi-Automatic) with me in the front seat and my handgun (Smith & Wesson M&P9 Pro Series) behind my back. If we ran into any major trouble, Zero would pull in front of the SUV. If we needed to, we could drop down to a side road for a bit, but Baseline was the road we were to stay on. My real concern were intersections with freeways. We had to pass at least one, and I was worried about the number of official vehicles around those locations.

  We exited the north side of the suburban development onto a side road to avoid the intersection with the 15 freeway and headed east with the sun already set behind us.

  I grabbed the walkie-talkie and depressed the yellow button, with the Batman symbol. “Keep at this speed. And before we get on Baseline take a long look before we turn. Over.”

  “Gotcha... over,” Alicia said. If we were within a car length or so, the walkie worked fine. Any further and we ran into static issues.

  We passed under Interstate 15 on Victoria Street and materialized into an area that was undeveloped, that reminded us that we did live in an over developed desert. With the vehicle lights off and the sun set, it was dark and ominous, as we passed under the freeway into another world. Next, we arrived at a dead end and a right turn on Cherry Place.

  At Baseline Street, there was a gas station and a small shopping center on the left. A crowd of cars, scattered around the parking lot, and at the gas pumps. People moseyed around aimlessly. One man was pulling on the gas pump, over and over, like it was a lawn mower. Finally, he considered the nozzle, confused at its inability to perform its one function, then slammed the pump back into place. One important thing to remember when the power is out; most gas stations no longer function.

  “I think we’re good to turn,” Alicia said. “Over.”

  “Okay, let’s go for it. Over,” I said.

  Slowly, Drew pulled into the intersection with overhead traffic signals as dead as the rest of the city and turned left. Zero followed close behind. We stayed in the slow lane, traveling thirty-five miles per hour. We were no longer in Rancho Cucamonga and now were in the city of Fontana. If Rancho had seemed dead, Fontana was on its last legs. Every now and then a car would come up behind us and pass by. As another vehicle passed us on the left, heading the same direction it honked and flashed its lights on and off. How nice, I thought, he was trying to warn us our lights were off.

  As we continued East, the suburban sprawl of prosperity, slowly gave way to the suburban sprawl of poverty. While Rancho Cucamonga would be considered a wealthy city, despite its certain areas, like a mobile home park, Fontana and Rialto were far more typical of the Inland Empire. A vast suburban sprawl of mixed races and average to below average incomes. A concrete jungle with gang violence and some neighborhoods you would not want to visit at any time of day, let alone at night after a mandatory evacuation.

  “Blake.” I heard Alica say over the walkie. I had been peering out the side window as the neighborhoods passed. I looked ahead and saw a host of police lights.

  “I see it, turn left here,” I said. We had been on the road twenty minutes. We turned left at an inters
ection with another non-operating traffic signal. “Keep going and try to find a way around. Over.”

  “Will do. Over,” Alicia replied.

  We headed north on an unknown street. Reading the street signs was difficult in the evening light. We stopped at another intersection which led into a residential area. Drew kept us headed north. We passed an elementary school that was deserted. Went through a stop sign. Then ran into a dead end. I saw the sign as we passed that read: Not a through street.

  “We are gonna turn back on the last street... over,” Alicia said. We turned around, and as we did, I noticed the big brick wall at the end of the cul-de-sac. The 210 freeway.

  We headed east and continued to weave ever so slowly in the direction we wanted to travel.

  It was Zero who saw the lights first. “Blake,” he said. I looked up and saw flashing red and blue lights about a quarter mile ahead, along with white headlights. Five police vehicles and many large vehicles that I could not make out. Drew pulled over, and Zero followed.

  “What do you see? Over,” I asked into the walkie.

  “Not sure. It looks like a shopping center on the left and tons of police cars. Some, maybe Army vehicles and about ten school buses,” Alicia said, slowly. “What’s with the school buses?” I wasn’t sure if she was addressing me or not. “We are going back the way we came. Over”

  “Okay? Over,” I said.

  “This is getting to be ridiculous,” Zero said. Ethan and Jenna sat in silence. We were headed back the way we came. Drew turned south on a side street, and we followed close, crawling through the streets of a residential neighborhood. Small, single story, two or three bedroom homes, built in the late sixties. Most had bars on the windows.

  Abruptly, Drew pulled over next to a large tree with branches that hung over the street, in front of a single-story home with two dark front windows between a red front door. In the darkness, our eyes had adjusted, and besides the few moments where we ran into other cars, or one of us used our brakes, the world had acquired the look of a low-contrast black and white movie.