The Sleep of the Gods

by James Sperl

  The last thing Janet saw as the bus drove away were the grimy rear windows filled to the hilt with supplies and food. And she couldn’t have been happier. For if there was even one face staring back at her, the little composure she’d managed to hold together would’ve fallen like a house of cards.

  She waited until it was out of eyeshot before she pushed open the service station door and stepped into the parking lot. She spent the next six minutes watching the final hues of orange and purple sky succumb to the encroaching blues of dusk over the cliffs before her. True sunset was still thirty minutes or so away, but the little show she witnessed would have to stand in its stead.

  She breathed deep and thought she had never smelled air so clean and pure. She stood quietly and listened, the surroundings so quiet she could actually hear the hum of her own ears.

  Nodding to herself she turned back to the snack shop. She could see Derrick through the glass. He was on his feet now, just standing. And waiting.

  Janet approached the door and stopped in front of the chair and the shotgun shell. It stood in stark contrast to its bleak surroundings, the red casing serving as a figuratively apt color choice.

  Carefully, almost with tenderness, Janet picked it up and carried it inside. The door swung on its hinges behind her as she entered, oscillating in smaller and smaller increments until it eventually came to a standstill.

  Janet picked up her shotgun.

  Derrick started coughing.

  Part III: Genesis

  22

  On The Road Again

  Catherine drifted between the foggy middle ground of deep sleep and consciousness. She was too wired to rest and too exhausted not to. Propelling her into full awareness were the unmistakable sounds of someone quietly calling for her attention, the prompts sounding like air being let out of a tire in short bursts, followed by her name harshly whispered.

  She searched the mostly sleeping cabin of the bus until her eyes found Oliver stealing quick glances at her from the rearview window. Seeing he had her attention, he motioned for her to come to the front.

  Removing a sleeping Tamara from her lap and laying her gently on the seat, Catherine headed toward Oliver. She walked past Josh, Madeline and Shelby, each sleeping in separate seats. She continued past Abby and Leanne who, Catherine noticed, were talking quietly to one another and sharing a breakfast of cereal bars and boxed apple juice. She was unsure of the conversation but glad for it. Each girl needed a friend right now.

  “How we doing?” Catherine said as she reached Oliver.

  “Exhausted. But I couldn’t sleep if you paid me.”

  “What’s up?”

  “This,” Oliver said, pointing to the gas gauge.

  Catherine craned her neck around the steering wheel to get a look at the jiggling fuel needle. It danced perilously close to the “E”.

  “How are our stores?” she asked.

  “We tapped out at the last stop,” Oliver declared. “What you see is what we got.”

  “Shit.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “How far are we from Alamogordo?” Catherine said, her thumbnail subconsciously finding her mouth.

  Oliver tossed his head from side to side. “I guestimate roughly fifty or sixty miles.”

  “Jesus, we’re that close.” Catherine looked to the floor in thought. “And how far can we get with what we’ve got?”

  “No telling. It’s like with any car. You don’t know how far you can get when the fuel’s low until you actually do it once. But I haven’t driven this banana enough to have a real good idea.”

  Catherine knelt on one knee and looked over at Oliver. “Can you give me a best guess? A gut feeling?”

  Oliver checked his rearview then side view mirror. “If I’m guessing, I’d say you could have anywhere from forty miles up to possibly seventy or more. I just don’t know.”

  Catherine stood and faced the bus door, grabbing the steel seat pole for support.

  “But here’s the real kicker,” Oliver continued. “I’m not sure how you feel about it, but my personal preference would be to not roll into Alamogordo during broad daylight.”

  “I would agree.”

  “So us being on the same page and all, there may be another option.”

  “Another option?” Catherine’s voice rose optimistically as she turned to face Oliver.

  “Yes. But it’s a gamble.”

  Catherine swallowed hard. “What are you thinking?”

  Oliver adjusted himself in his seat. “The way I see it is this. We’ve got until noon tomorrow—about a day. Option one is we could pull over for now, stay out of sight until the sun goes down then barrel into town and make for the shelter. Or, option two, we could keep going and circumvent the city.”

  “Circumvent the city? What do you mean, like another route?”

  “Yeah. In looking at the map we could detour to the east along the three eighty, then catch a couple of local roads south to the seventy. We follow it to the two forty-four, then onto the eighty-two and we’re in the back door of Alamogordo. Real close to the shelter. We’d still be coming into the city just to the north of it, but at least they wouldn’t see us coming all the way down the fifty-four like a beacon.”

  Catherine pondered Oliver’s words. “What’s the drawback?”

  Oliver sighed heavily. “The drawback is that it will take several hours longer and burn a ton a fuel. Between here and Alamogordo there ain’t a whole hell of a lot. Just one town, really, called, Tularosa and I’ve got to imagine that it being so close to Alamogordo, fuel’s probably gonna be pretty scarce.”

  “And the other route?”

  “Well, this is where you need to decide if you’re the gambling type or not. While the route will definitely be longer, we’ll also pass through quite a few small towns up in the mountains. More towns means more chances for fuel and because of their remoteness the likelihood is pretty good that we’ll find some. And more fuel means a guarantee that we make it. We could be in the shelter by early evening. If we decide to push through, we could—and I emphasize could—run out of gas miles outside of Alamogordo. Then we’d have to do the rest on foot.”

  Catherine stared through the windshield at the barren desert landscape. In the distance ahead, just beginning to announce their presence, were the Sacramento Mountains. Freedom and safety had never been so close yet so far away.

  This was a prime example of how ineffectual Catherine felt as a leader. What was the right call? And what if she made the wrong choice, one in which everyone’s lives could be jeopardized? While she had mourned Janet’s absence, she hadn’t actually missed her until this moment. A born leader, Janet would’ve already decided and set a course of action. But for Catherine, the likelihood of unfortunate outcomes wore too heavily on her conscience. It was the sort of situation that made her just want to climb into a closet and wait for it all to be over. But she knew that wasn’t one of the options on the table.

  “Okay,” she said finally, “Let’s look at what we really stand to gain by going around. There may be smaller towns, but there may still be New Human elements running around up there. And if there are all these towns, then that just increases our chance of an encounter with no real guarantee that we find fuel. And how much time will we lose searching for it? These things are smart, too, remember. We know they know how to operate vehicles. If we come across even one that has access to a car and can give chase, we’re dead in the water.”

  Catherine chewed her lower lip and started to sense a euphoric rush as she argued out her options, feeling more and more confident with the decision she was about to make.

  “It seems the only thing we really stand to gain is early arrival at the risk of impatience.” Catherine looked to Oliver to see if this offended him, but he only nodded. “If Warren says the missile strikes are to be at noon then that’s when they’ll take place. As much as I’d like to be there and off this bus, I think our best bet is to find someplace to hole up, ge
t some rest and as soon as the sun hits that horizon, blaze in there like gangbusters.”

  “All right then,” Oliver smiled. “We have a plan.”

  “Yes we do.” Catherine could feel her face warming, like a floodgate of blood had been released into her head. She told herself this is what confidence must feel like.

  “Any ideas on where we could lay low?” she asked.

  Oliver grabbed the stack of map printouts Warren uploaded and rifled through them. “As a matter of fact I do.”

  It was as perfect a spot as they were likely to find in the middle of nowhere. An apparently once thriving industry, the gravel and rock quarry was a veritable playground of enormous piles of stones of varying sizes.

  Oliver followed the dusty road back among the rocky towers until the bus was no longer visible from any direction except overhead. And as far as the group knew, none of the New Humans had learned how to fly.

  Yet.

  Catherine and Madeline cornered Oliver and insisted that he get some shut-eye before their final push in the evening. Too tired to argue or disagree, Oliver politely obliged and scuttled over to a smaller heap of fine granite pebbles clutching a single blanket and pillow. Tossing the blanket onto the pile’s gentle slope, Oliver collapsed, asleep before his head hit the pillow.

  But Catherine was a different story. Running on pure adrenaline, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to relax and enjoy what would be the last sunny day for a long time to come.

  Instead, she set to scrutinizing the bus and pondered ways to make it lighter. Less weight equals more fuel efficiency, she remembered. With the eye of a drill sergeant and the determination of an Olympic athlete, Catherine stood in the aisle of the bus and pored over every last nook and cranny, searching for anything that could help lighten their load and aid their cause.

  For starters, there was really no need to carry so much food. In another day, they would either make it or they wouldn’t. All the food in the world wouldn’t help them. With a brief request that resulted in approval from Madeline, Catherine had convinced her along with the help of Abby, Tamara and even Leanne, to take what was left of the food and prepare a massive feast. This was met with such marked enthusiasm that within minutes the food stores had been unloaded and laid out, meal planning set into high gear.

  Once the food and water were gone—the water’s absence surely relieving the bus of significant weight—the next item slated for removal was a no-brainer.

  With forceful kicks, Catherine ejected the empty and now useless fifty-gallon fuel barrels from the rear of the bus. Crashing to the ground with a thunderous clang, Catherine feared she might have woken Oliver. But a quick glance through the grime covered windows at his still sleeping shape and she knew she could probably set off a bomb and the exhausted man wouldn’t hear it.

  The two obvious culprits removed, Catherine scoured the bus for other offenders. Glancing in, around and under the seats a sudden thought struck. Why not? she said to herself.

  Josh had taken temporary residence at the top of one of the tallest mounds of rock to serve as a lookout. Calling him down, Catherine walked him over to the bus and handed him a portable tool set she found beneath the driver’s seat.

  Josh narrowed his eyes suspiciously. But when Catherine explained to him what she wanted done, she found Josh—much to her surprise—to be receptive rather than hostile to the idea. Taking the toolbox, Josh boarded the bus. And for the next three and a half hours he removed every seat in the cabin.

  The sun was minutes away from setting. Josh had arranged the bus seats like a movie screening room with all chairs facing in the direction of the quieting star. It was the final performance, after all, and deserved a proper sendoff.

  Madeline had, indeed, prepared a magnificent feast. Using every last resource at her disposal, it seemed there was nothing the woman couldn’t conjure up. Using only simple collapsible camping pots and pans and a mish-mash of food that had been haphazardly tossed into the bus in a hurry, the meal bordered on gourmet.

  It was a four-course affair. A plate of grain crackers with salami and olives started things off followed by a simple bean and vegetable soup assembled from an assortment of canned goods. Following this was a pasta and rehydrated mushroom dish seasoned with dehydrated spices. The best was saved for last as a dessert of peanut butter chocolate fudge was served along with instant coffee or cocoa. A source of pride for Tamara and Abby, they had taken turns beating and whipping instant milk until their arms were sore in order to achieve something that remotely resembled butter for Madeline. To them, fudge had never tasted so good.

  Catherine couldn’t agree more.

  As she sat with a full belly and watched her daughters giggle and tell tales about their baking adventures, or witnessed Josh’s continued self-assurance grow with each passing day while he talked quietly with Shelby, a disturbing yet peaceful thought crossed her mind: if they didn’t make it, it would be all right.

  It wasn’t her intended outcome to be sure, but dammit they had tried. And if this was the last sunset she would ever see then at least she would be with her family and know that every possible effort was made to reach Warren and reunite her family. She just hoped he’d be able to move on if fate had a different blueprint in mind for them. It was truly the only source of sadness for her, Warren’s well being. And it crushed her to know that she would never be able to tell him how much she had loved him and the incredible life they had built together. The wonderful children they had raised. The enormous joy that had been her life, more often full than it wasn’t. For it hadn’t always been smooth sailing between the two. Sometimes, it had been downright ugly. But for her money, it was the best thing around.

  Oliver helped himself to seconds of fudge and sat beside Madeline, offering her compliments for the wonderful meal. Madeline demurely accepted his comments, but Catherine could sense a more profound range of emotions percolating just below her serene exterior. She thought Oliver sensed it, too.

  Abby and Leanne continued to chatter, the two having formed some sort of sisterly bond. Abby demonstrated to her the lesser-known functions of a now defunct text messager she had taken from Bayview mall. Her fingers danced over the keypad in a way that only exemplified her proficiency. And Leanne couldn’t have been more intrigued. In fact, Catherine could swear she got the first glimpse of a smile since having met the young woman and decided in that instant that despite her justifiably bedraggled condition, she was quite striking.

  Shelby and Tamara sat beside each other with Josh occupying the seat just behind them. His feet were propped up on the back of their chair in a true display of typical teenage male awkwardness. Catherine knew he would rather be the one sitting beside Shelby, but allowed his sister to continue to reside there without a fuss.

  Mashing the remaining crumbs of fudge between her thumb and index finger, Catherine tossed the last vestiges of her dessert into her mouth and followed it with a swig of piping hot coffee. She leaned back in her seat and seemed to be the only one to notice the sun as it dipped below the horizon for the final time, everyone else oblivious to it as they carried on with their private conversations. Brilliant orange light outlined the few clouds circulating overhead in electric hues. Purples and reds gradated to lesser colors of themselves, the sky a tapestry of pastels only a painter could place there. Yes, if this was it then so be it, she thought. There were worse ways one could die.

  Full, content and surrounded by new friends and her own family, Catherine snuck away to the bus to have one last look at the map and to review their soon to be executed route one last time.

  There were worse ways one could die. Catherine just hoped one of those ways didn’t happen tomorrow.

  23

  Alamogordo

  “There it is,” Oliver said, his raspy voice cutting through what had been an otherwise intensely quiet ride.

  Catherine crawled from her sitting position on the floor of the darkened bus and stood beside Oliver. She peered through the w
indshield and stared out into the dusky evening. The sight before her unnerved her in a way she hadn’t expected.

  Alamogordo was rapidly approaching, the city’s low-lying profile a veritable black-on-black against the backdrop of the imposing Sacramento Mountains. But it wasn’t the lack of light and shadowy appearance that shook Catherine to her core. It was the presence of light.

  “Shit,” she mumbled.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Oliver said.

  Half expecting, but mostly hoping, to find Alamogordo a ghost town, Catherine winced at the random glints of light that peppered the horizon. Even from their distance from the city, she could detect the glow from building windows, likely shuttered presences residing behind the scrim of unnatural light as they awaited the rise of the next morning’s sun.

  This discovery, however, brought about another question: Why had she not seen any light from the water when coming ashore? Surely in a city that large there should have been some evidence of light playing along the cracks and crevices of boarded up windows. But she had seen nothing. The only conclusion she could reach was that the New Humans must’ve taken greater pains to conceal themselves due to the large number of “real” humans still moving about the city. The fact that so many points of light were visible in Alamogordo spoke volumes as to the likelihood of finding any human presence there. And this gave Catherine the creeps.

  She broke from her thought and stole a look at the gas gauge. “How we doing on fuel?”

  “So far, not even so much as a hiccup,” Oliver said as he sat rail straight, his eyes trained ahead of him in the darkness. “I think she’ll make it.”

  Catherine nodded gratefully. If they could just get the bus as far as Alamo Canyon Road, then half the battle was won. According to Warren’s maps and instructions, the road was one of several access points into the Sacramento Mountains, located southeast of the city proper. Following the road as far as it would take them into an area called, appropriately enough, Deadman’s Canyon, they would then abandon the bus and continue on foot. Warren had left explicit instructions to bring the Sat phone, not so much for its calling capabilities—which he warned would most likely be useless since the only communications authorized in the shelter, both incoming and outgoing, would be via high-level encrypted messaging—but for its GPS system. Once they were all on foot it would be up to the gizmo in the phone to tell them where to go. Without it, they would be stumbling around in the dark aimlessly.