Dead Highways: Origins

by Richard Brown

  The fire quickly engulfed most of the tablecloth, the flames climbing as high as a foot and a half.

  “Could use a little help in here!” Robinson yelled.

  I ran into the kitchen, through the billowing black and grey smoke, and began helping Robinson fill the water jugs. Bowser and Aamod stepped in right behind me.

  Jax kept his distance, sitting up on the couch, scouting out the situation, and continuing to bark.

  “I’m gonna get Olivia and take her out back!” Peaches yelled, and hustled away in a hurry.

  “Wake up the others while you’re at it!” I yelled back.

  With the four of us working in tandem, we gradually began to get the flames under control. Robinson was fortunate the fire started in the dining room, as aside from the tablecloth, there was little else that was flammable to catch fire and keep it going. As parts of the tablecloth sheared off and coasted to the tile floor, Bowser would stomp the remaining embers out with his giant clodhopper shoes.

  Through the fog ahead, I saw Peaches carrying Olivia out to the back deck. Naima, Diego, and Luna were all close behind. Diego limped along at a slow gait.

  “Leave the door open,” Robinson said, grabbing the now black tablecloth by one of the corners, dragging it off the table, across the tile floor, and out through the open sliding glass door. “Out of the way. Out of the way.”

  I followed him outside, watching as he hastily dropped the destroyed tablecloth in the center of the deck.

  “Shit,” he yelped, squeezing his right hand into a tight fist.

  “Did you get burned?” I asked.

  “It bit me, but I’ll be all right.”

  A good deal of smoke still rose from the tablecloth even though the fire was out. Even more smoke was coming from the house. I wondered how long it would be before the smell would be gone.

  Hours?

  Days?

  This was just what we needed. I could feel my headache getting worse.

  Then Bowser stepped outside and dropped a bomb on me. “Yo, Jimmy, where’s your grandma?”

  Good fucking question!

  After a quick search of the smoke-filled house, we ended up on the front lawn. Grandma had showed us the way, leaving the front door wide open when she left.

  “I can’t believe this,” I said. “I’m such an idiot. This is all my fault.”

  “You couldn’t have known she’d do something like that,” Peaches said. She had Olivia cradled in her arms.

  “Wrong, I could have known. I saw the way she was staring at the candles on the table, but I never thought she’d try to burn the place down. That’s fucking crazy. What’s wrong with her?”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Peaches said.

  I rubbed my forehead, trying to sooth the building tension inside. “I shouldn’t have left her alone. She’s my responsibility.”

  “So we go look for her,” Robinson said. “She couldn’t have gone far.”

  “Why don’t y’all split up,” Peaches suggested. “Two of you guys go one way. Two go the other.”

  Aamod made a clear expression of disapproval. “I don’t know about that. It may not be safe.”

  “We don’t have any other choice,” Robinson said. “We can’t just let her roam off by herself. We have to find her.”

  “We do?” Aamod said. “If I recall correctly, we weren’t going to do anything about my missing wife, who also ran off by herself. You said it wasn’t safe. And now it is me who is being unreasonable?”

  Robinson sighed.

  “Whatever,” I said. “If he doesn’t want to help, then he doesn’t have to. Let’s just go.”

  I walked away.

  A moment later, Robinson jogged up beside me. We began heading west.

  “Don’t worry, Jimmy,” Robinson said. “We’ll find her. I doubt she even left the road.”

  “Unless she knows we’ll come looking for her,” I said. “And doesn’t want to be found.”

  I turned and glanced back. Bowser was heading east down the street by himself. Behind him, off in the distance, the sun gradually began to rise.

  A hundred yards down the street, we came to an intersection, stopped and looked both ways.

  No sign of her.

  “That Aamod guy is something else,” Robinson finally said, breaking the silence.

  “He’s been through a lot. We all have.”

  “You think he’s telling the truth?”

  “Why would he lie?”

  Robinson shrugged. “Maybe not lie, just over exaggerate.”

  “Oh, he’s good at that. But I tend to believe him. My grandma’s actions tonight are way out of the ordinary. I can’t explain it. She’s never done anything like this before. It has to be a result of the infection. There’s no other explanation. And if she’s acting this way . . . this strange . . . then maybe others are too.”

  “No offense, Jimmy, but your grandma is no young lady anymore.”

  “I know. Nobody is more surprised than me that she’s still—”

  “Hold on,” Robinson interrupted. “You see that?”

  About fifty yards ahead, a figure came into view through the early morning fog.

  We picked up the pace until we were close enough to get a better look. What we saw was an old lady, grey hair in a bun, hunched over, wearing her favorite sweater and nightcap, walking west in the middle of the street.

  “Oh, thank God,” I said.

  Then the fog revealed the others, just beyond her, standing at the next intersection.

  Three of them. All male. Arms down at their sides.

  Facing us.

  Chills ran down my spine.

  I saw Robinson instinctively reach for his gun, and then realize he didn’t have it on him. His expression changed from cool confidence to cold terror.

  “Grandma, stop!” I yelled.

  I didn’t think she’d listen, but she did. She stopped and turned around to face us as we walked up. Robinson looked past her, focused on the three strange men ten feet behind her.

  “Who are you? What are you doing out here?” he asked, trying to put forward his best tough cop voice.

  Didn’t work. They said nothing. They weren’t intimidated.

  All three were white, middle-aged, of average build, and wore normal Florida wear, which meant shorts and a T-shirt. One had a ball cap with a logo on it I didn’t recognize. Another had a scraggily beard. All three had mastered the art of the stone face. They could have made a fortune playing poker in Vegas.

  If Vegas weren’t in shambles.

  And if they weren’t crazy.

  “Grandma, come on,” I said, gently grabbing her arm. “We have to go.”

  All three men took a single step forward, like soldiers on some old battlefield readying to fire.

  Go ahead, I thought.

  I didn’t care. I kept my hand on her arm, and I wasn’t going to let her go. She looked up at me with the same stone face of the three men behind her, and again I felt some unexplainable alien energy pass between us, like I had earlier sitting next to her at the dining room table. She was trying to speak to me without words, directly into my mind, but I couldn’t understand her. God knows I tried.

  “We’ve got to go now,” I said again. “Go home. Remember home? Remember the bookstore? That’s where we’re gonna go. Everything will be fine then, grandma. You have to trust me.”

  The three men now took two more steps forward in unison. But it wasn’t because of anything I said or did. Someone was approaching behind us. I heard the sound of shoes grinding against the pavement.

  It was Aamod.

  He held a pump-action shotgun down by his waist, pointing it in our direction.

  I’d never been so glad to see him.

  “What do you think you’re gonna do with that?” Robinson asked.

  “I told you they are dangerous.”

  They, the three men, stood tall and strong, unwavering, hands still down at their sides.

  �
�They haven’t done anything,” Robinson replied. “So lower the damn gun. Now.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Aamod kept a safe distance, kept the shotgun pointed at the silent road warriors, as he slowly circled away from Robinson. “I know. I’ve seen that look before.”

  “What look?”

  “That look. Right there. On their damn faces.”

  I knew the look Aamod was talking about. Knew it well. My grandma wore it ever since she woke up from the coma. The look of someone who sees everything, but acknowledges nothing.

  “Come on,” I said, tugging on my grandma’s sweater. “We’re going home.”

  And that was when the man in the middle, the one with the scraggily beard, made a sharp move forward. I took my hands off my grandma and stepped out in front, fearing the man would try to harm her. Turns out he only wanted a part of me, and that’s what he got.

  I hit him in the face with all I had, and he didn’t even flinch. My hand sure fucking hurt though. Then he hit me back, right on the side of the head, and I went down like a porn star with two kids and a mortgage.

  I rolled on the pavement, realigning my senses. I looked up and saw the other two men go for Robinson and Aamod, just as the bearded slayer came down on my throat with two hands.

  He took my breath away, and not in a good way.

  But it was the loud blast of the shotgun that saved me.

  The bearded slayer, distracted by the sound, took his hands off me and leapt back to his feet. Next thing I knew he had a hole in his chest the size of a softball. A second later he collapsed, but not before his blood, guts, and maybe even his last meal, rained down on me.

  I slipped as I tried to stand up, and then succeeded the second time.

  The man who had stupidly attacked Aamod lay face first on the ground, his hat a few feet behind him, not far from the bearded slayer. The third man who had attacked Robinson must have been the smartest. He immediately ran off after seeing what happened to his buddies. Aamod wanted to shoot him in the back as he went, but Robinson talked him out of it. As for my grandma, the diversion gave her the opportunity to continue her trek west down the street. She was about thirty yards away, walking as though she had not a care or concern in the world—like she hadn’t just been a witness to two men taking a load of buckshot in the chest.

  “What in the fuck was that about?” Robinson asked, hands on his knees trying to catch his breath.

  “I told you,” Aamod said. Then he racked the pump on the shotgun, spitting out an empty shell and chambering a new one.

  Robinson dusted some rocks and dirt off my shoulder. “Jimmy, you okay?”

  Okay?

  Not really.

  I was trembling. My head hurt. My heart felt like it was playing the kick drum to a Metallica song. And worse than anything, some dude spilled his guts to me—literally. But, wait, no, I take that back. The worst thing was I still had to try and get my grandma back from whatever wonderland she had wandered into, even though I knew it was probably impossible.

  “Better hurry and get her,” Robinson said. He looked over at Aamod. “You cover us.”

  Aamod nodded. You could tell he almost wanted to ice more of those goons, and he’d get his chance.

  We didn’t get two steps closer to my grandma before Robinson stopped and said, “Um . . . guys.”

  Half a dozen people emerged from both sides of the road, around my grandma, and began heading fast our way. In no time, six more joined them.

  “No, no,” I said.

  “How many more shots you go in that thing?” Robinson asked.

  Aamod looked down at the shotgun in his hands. “Four.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I began to slowly back up. “No, no, no. What are we gonna do now?”

  “Sorry, Jimmy,” Robinson said. “We got to go. We got to leave her.”

  “But . . .” I began.

  But nothing.

  He was right. The herd of twelve was coming in quick, now at a full run.

  I took a deep breath and whispered, “Goodbye.”

  Then the three of us took off back toward Robinson’s house.

  Chapter 31

  Run.

  Run.

  Run.

  It’s amazing how fast you can run when people are chasing you, and not in a friendly game of tag—people who want to hurt you, kill you, rip you to shreds. If nothing else, I was faster than Robinson and Aamod, so I wouldn’t be the first to die.

  Halfway back to the house we met up with Bowser. He had heard the gunshots.

  “What happened?” he asked, breaking into stride beside me. “Who are those people?”

  “Tell you later,” I said, huffing and puffing. My shins started to burn. “Just keep running.”

  Peaches was still outside when we reached the front of the house, bottle-feeding Olivia. Naima stood beside her, enjoying the sunrise.

  “Everybody inside!” Robinson yelled. “Now!”

  The house was no longer filled with smoke, only the smell lingered on. I ran to the guest room and pulled Sally, and the extra magazine I had for her, out of one of my suitcases. Robinson brought out two nine-millimeter handguns from a locked safe in his bedroom. He gave one to Bowser.

  “I’m sure you know how to use it,” he said.

  Bowser played dumb. “Just point and pull the trigger, right?”

  Since they had no protection, all four girls, including Olivia, hunkered down in the corner of the dining room. It was the only room that didn’t have any windows. Diego, who was also unarmed, would keep an eye on them, even though that really meant hugging on Luna. He had a badly bruised leg and could still barely walk by himself. Jax was lying beside him, trying to boost his spirits. The rest of us took up positions around the living room. Robinson and Aamod on the front end, Bowser and I guarding the rear. We hid behind furniture, guns ready to fire, and waited.

  Waited, holding our breath, sweating from the run, adrenaline giving us phony courage.

  The house was quieter than a church service filled with white people.

  But that would change.

  At any moment, the crowd of silent warriors would come through the front door, the back door, the windows.

  And so we waited.

  My hands were slick. I readjusted my grip on Sally, told myself I’d shoot any bastard that got near me or my new friends. No more shooting people in the legs. Shit just got real.

  Real fucking bad.

  And nasty.

  I rubbed my head with my free hand. It still hurt after the punch I’d taken. The bearded slayer sure had a solid overhand right. He wasn’t much for dodging buckshot, though—his flesh and blood covered my shirt and pants. I looked like a little kid after their first time eating lasagna, and not the vegetarian kind.

  “See anything?” Robinson said.

  Bowser moved closer to the sliding glass door, peaked outside.

  I checked my watch. Almost seven. The sun was still making its slow climb over the trees.

  Bowser looked back at Robinson and Aamod on opposite sides of the front door and shook his head.

  Olivia started crying. Peaches began rocking her to get her to quiet down, with only moderate success. She had Olivia’s baby bag slung around her shoulder in case we had to leave in a hurry.

  We waited and waited.

  Any minute.

  Finally, Bowser said, “I don’t think they’re coming. They probably just ran off.”

  Robinson moved toward the window next to the front door and slowly peeled open a corner of the curtain with the barrel of his nine.

  “What do you see?” Aamod asked, kneeling down in front of the door with the shotgun grasped tightly in his hands. When Robinson didn’t respond, he stood up and looked out the peephole. “I think I see one.”

  Robinson moved away from the window and got back into position, back against the wall next to the door. “Get your ass down,” he said to Aamod.

 
Aamod kneeled back down. “I thought I saw one. Maybe two.”

  Robinson shook his head. “Nope. There’s more than that.”

  “How many?” Bowser asked.

  “Five or six.”

  I set Sally down for a second so I could wipe the sweat out of my eyes. The house felt like the inside of an oven. “What happened to the rest of them?”

  Bowser again crawled next to the sliding glass door and peered out on the back deck. “Shit. Found ‘em.”

  “What?”

  “The rest of them,” Bowser said.

  “How many?”

  “Another five or six at least.”

  “They have the house surrounded,” Aamod said. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “What are they doing . . . waiting us out?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Robinson replied.

  “What then?”

  “They’re getting into position. They’re gonna come at us from all sides.”

  Well, that made me feel good. Yeah, I was feeling much better now.

  I glanced into the dining room. Peaches had managed to get Olivia to settle down by sticking a pacifier in her mouth. Beside her, Naima was fidgeting with her hands, which must have been sweaty because she kept wiping them on her pants. Next to her was Luna and her big, strong, slightly disabled protector, Diego. Luna looked more shaken up than Naima. Diego was whispering something in her ear, something that didn’t appear to be helping ease her anxiety.

  I turned back to look at Bowser, and about had a heart attack.

  Someone was standing on the other side of the sliding glass door looking in—a young woman, mid-twenties, with long, dark tangled hair, and sickly pale skin.

  I pointed. “There’s . . . there’s . . .”

  Jesus, get it out, Jimmy. Sentences, if possible.

  Bowser turned to look where I was pointing, and then jumped back in surprise. “What the . . .” He hurried to his feet and pointed his gun at the young woman. “What does this bitch think she’s doing?”

  Staring him down. That’s what she was doing.

  And we were staring her down, including Jax, who began barking.

  “What do you want me to do?” Bowser said, voice shaky. “Robbie . . . ?”