ocalypse (Book 10): Drawl (Duncan's Story)

by Chesser, Shawn

  Apparently spewing facts and figures like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man had distracted Duncan to the point that he was about to miss their turn. So all at once, with the ODOT sign announcing the Interstate looming large and green like a ping-pong table, Charlie yelled a warning at Duncan to get his attention, said a quick prayer in his head, and released his grip on the shotgun.

  Nothing doing. His shout had no immediate effect and the turnoff was too close to make without killing them both at this rate of closure. Duncan seemed to be in a trance, eyes locked dead ahead, while inexplicably his right hand was coming off the wheel and crossing overtop his left as if he was about to haul the wheel hard right.

  As the shotgun hit the floor with a metallic clatter, simultaneously Charlie clamped down on the handle near his head two-handed and closed his eyes. Seeing only the capillaries backlit and bright red against his lids, he envisioned the Dodge missing the turn and going airborne straight through the green sign.

  They had one thing going for them, Charlie thought as his life flashed in front of his clenched eyes: If the sign didn’t shear off and impale them both with those massive white stilts attached to it, the initial impact should be violent enough to bleed the truck’s speed from fifty to survivable before it collided with the cement underpass abutment.

  It was just the kind of glass half-full, lemonade-out-of-lemons type of wishful thinking Charlie was known for when facing long odds.

  However, never straying from the original laser-straight heading, Duncan let loose one of his trademark cackles and pinned the pedal to the floor, quickly adding another ten miles-per-hour to their forward momentum. “Making diamonds over there,” he drawled. “Cause it looks like Old Man got one over on ya again.”

  Face drained of all color, Charlie opened his eyes just in time to see the ODOT sign—just a large blur of green at that extreme angle—whip by in his right side vision. A half beat later, when the decline went level, gravity pushed the Dodge down on its suspension and the sun was blotted out by the cement overpass scything the air a dozen feet above their heads. After passing underneath the Interstate, 122nd was flanked on both sides by medium-sized trees until it crossed Fremont, where it started a more gradual downward run toward the Columbia River a mile or so ahead.

  Charlie exhaled sharply as the sunlight warming his face reassured him he was still among the living. Then, fighting the urge to reach over and throat punch his old friend, he barked, “That was wrong on so many levels, asshole.”

  His laughter finally subsiding, Duncan wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and said, “Gotta be ready for anything, Charlie my boy. We’re living in a totally different world now.”

  Acting unfazed, Charlie quietly drew in a calming breath. “I assumed we were taking the Interstate, that’s all.”

  “Oh yea of little faith,” Duncan quipped. “We’re not taking the Interstate. Not if I can help it.”

  ***

  Five minutes after nearly making Charlie soil his shorts, Duncan ground the Dodge to a jarring halt at Marine Drive, the terminus to the road they’d been following since leaving Foster roughly seven miles back.

  “If we aren’t taking 84 east,” Charlie said arching a brow, “then what’s the plan?”

  Duncan smiled, but remained tight-lipped.

  Drawing a blank as to what hole card Duncan was hiding, Charlie took a quick inventory of their surroundings.

  At roughly ten o’clock were a handful of squat one-story buildings encircled by a chain-link fence and mostly obscured by a picket of small trees. Through the trees he saw the steeply pitched metal roof of a multi-story boathouse moored in the marina below. Beyond the marina, in the middle of the wide and swift-moving Columbia River, was a thickly treed island that completely obscured the river’s edge on the Washington side.

  “You’re planning on stealing a boat, aren’t you.”

  “Go fish.”

  Shaking his head, Charlie turned around in his seat to look out the rear window. The knot of cars that had been keeping pace with them up until the stunt at the Interstate on-ramp were no longer in sight.

  Duncan kept his foot on the brake and watched his friend crane around left. He saw Charlie’s gaze follow the empty two-lane west where it hooked left with the river’s bend. Finally, after sitting there quietly at the T-junction for a handful of seconds, the light came on in Charlie’s eyes.

  Voice taking on a serious tone, he said, “We can’t go anywhere near PDX, if that’s what you’re thinking. News 8 broadcast some footage from the airport cam yesterday. It was crawling with military. A tent city was going up.”

  Duncan signaled a right turn. “You’re getting warmer. But PDX isn’t what I have in mind. I’ve got a better idea,” he said enthusiastically. “Came to me after a very disappointing conversation I had yesterday.” He plucked his phone from his breast pocket and saw two bars showing on the outside display. Good as it gets. He flipped it open one-handed, and worked the buttons to access his Favorites list. Which wasn’t lengthy, because he was sitting next to his only friend in a five-hundred-mile radius. The bar buddies he had exchanged numbers with over the years didn’t fit his definition of friend. From past experience, of the half dozen or so names of bar acquaintances he’d inputted into the phone, not a one of them could be counted on for much of anything. Duncan’s experience was you buy a round for a couple of fellas and nine times out of ten they forget to reciprocate. Ask them to meet up at the horse track and they no show. To him, they were just names and numbers with no real significance. So he scrolled right on down to the L section where he found his brother’s number and hit Send.

  Chapter 35

  Just like the previous calls he’d placed to his brother in Utah, once the ringing ceased, Duncan heard the same stock recording telling him that “all circuits were busy” and urging him to “try again later.”

  Crestfallen, he flipped the phone closed and tossed the worthless brick of circuitry-filled high-impact plastic into his NRA bag.

  “No answer, huh.”

  “Nope. Means I have no choice but to soldier on. My bro and I have an understanding: family comes first. Always did when our folks were alive. When Dad was refitting oil rigs in Texas, I was the muscle at home. When I came back from Nam, I helped Mom with my little brother.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You’re an only, Charlie. Spoiled brat, right?”

  “Just drive. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  And he did. Blinker still flashing away dutifully to no audience, he turned right real slow. There was nothing moving on Marine Drive for as far as the eye could see. However, when he consulted the rearview mirror—a very necessary habit he hoped to follow religiously going forward—he saw a flight of six dual-rotor helicopters moving slow and low, north to south. Probably Chinooks ferrying troops and supplies from Fort Lewis, Washington, an easy hundred-and-twenty-five-mile drive north on Interstate 5. And judging by the artillery pieces slung underneath the two nearest CH-47s, whoever was tasked with saving Portland had a hell of a fight on their hands.

  A brooding silence filled the cab. With the river snaking by on their left, brownish-green and benign, Duncan took his eyes from the road long enough to size up Charlie, who, in the thirty minutes since the incident with the dead thing, had thrown a couple of hard-to-miss shivers. Big 7.0s on the scale, in Duncan’s opinion. Also troubling, his friend’s upper lip and brow now glistened with a perpetual sheen of sweat.

  “You OK?” Duncan asked, as a marina entrance guarded by three gun-wielding civilians slid by on the left.

  “Just feeling a little peaked, that’s all.”

  “Maybe you’re a little dehydrated. You had more to drink yesterday than I did.”

  Smiling at the dig, Charlie flashed Duncan the bird. He hinged over and took a bottled water from his pack. Cracked the seal and drained it in three gulps, making the brittle plastic bottle pop and crackle with his final swallow. He chucked the empty to the floor. “
Thar she blows,” he said in a choked voice a tick before letting loose a long, drawn-out belch.

  “Goshdang, Charlie.” Duncan inadvertently took his foot off the accelerator and turned away. “You have a side of deep fried roadkill with that chilidog last night?”

  Charlie smiled and answered with another burp.

  Duncan crinkled his nose in disgust at the odor. It was sweet and vaguely familiar. Something he had experienced recently, yet couldn’t quite put a finger on.

  “Payback’s a mother,” Charlie said, in front of a burst of laughter. “Think about that next time you wanna try that missed turn bullshit on me.”

  “I’m sorry. Deflect with humor is how I deal with stress. You oughta know that by now. Plus, you seemed to be getting a little sleepy on me back there.”

  “Maybe you should take up smoking.”

  “Quit that years ago.”

  “But you kept on drinking.”

  “Baby steps. I haven’t had a nip since yesterday. Crazy what the dead starting to walk will do to a guy. Who knows … let’s see what the next few days brings. Maybe I’ve got this one licked too.”

  “Cold snap in Hell,” Charlie quipped. “That what you’re predicting?” He was hit by an especially vicious tremor that caused his teeth to chatter.

  Duncan leaned forward against his shoulder belt. Looked Charlie over. “You sure you’re OK? You’ve been dry, too. You having a case of the DTs?”

  “I’m fine,” Charlie insisted as a station wagon, its roof covered with all manner of stuff barely concealed under a flapping blue tarp, passed them from the other direction, the wall of air in front of it setting the Dodge to rocking.

  Duncan stopped the line of questioning after the unequivocal retort. However, as a compromise with his gut that wouldn’t stop tingling, he made a pact with himself to keep a close eye on his friend from here on out.

  ***

  A little over three miles east of the Fast Eddy Marina and its armed guard detail, Marine Drive set off on a course divergent from the river. As the two-lane angled away from the Columbia, Charlie spotted a pair of four-door sedans, one white, one black, stopped nose-to-tail on a narrow paved drive a yard or so from a closed wrought-iron gate. Rising a good ten feet above the cars, the gate and adjoining chain-link fence was topped with flopping coils of razorwire. On the northeast corner of the massive facility rose a billboard-sized sign emblazoned with the words Chinook Recreational Vehicle Storage. And parked on the vast expanse of weed-choked gravel inside the perimeter fencing were just that—scores of recreational vehicles. Most of the acreage was home to motorhomes. Motorcycles, boats, and smaller personal watercraft were wedged in with the Winnebagos, Fleetwoods, Itascas, and gleaming Airstream trailers.

  Between the parked cars and looming gate two men stood with their backs to the road. They were hunched over, presumably trying to jimmy the lock.

  As the Dodge drew even with the short drive feeding the RV place, the men stopped what they were doing and cast hard looks over their shoulders.

  Seeing a flash of red and recognizing the tool in one of the guy’s hands for what it was, Duncan said, “Don’t mind us fellas. We’ll be doing a little breaking and entering ourselves real soon.”

  Charlie kept his attention on the action as they passed by. As soon as it was apparent to the men that the interlopers in the old pick-up were moving on, the taller of the two went back to attacking the gate with the largest pair of bolt cutters Charlie had ever seen. And when the big guy shifted his body back around to face the gate it became apparent, save for the empty driver’s seats, that the two cars didn’t have room inside for another soul. Gear on the package shelves had concealed the fact there were at least four additional people crammed into each car. Faces wearing expectant looks turned and tracked the Dodge until the perimeter fence blocked it from view.

  “They’ve got the right idea,” Charlie blurted. “C’mon … rethink your stance on a water escape. Let’s turn around and get one of those thirty-foot cabin cruisers. Put it in the water the next chance we get. Ride this infection thing out on one of the islands we passed back there.”

  Shaking his head, Duncan said, “I don’t know how my brother’s doing. From what you said, Salt Lake is a shit show with this infection. No ifs, ands, or buts. We’re going to Utah.”

  Still craning around in the direction of the RV depot fading away behind them, Charlie said, “Let’s get something roomier then. An RV. Maybe a twenty-footer with a toilet.” He dabbed the sweat off his lip and brow. “And a working air conditioner.”

  “No need,” Duncan answered. “I’ve got a better idea.” He braked the Dodge hard and wheeled it left into an empty turn lane and through yet another red light.

  Charlie eased his frame back around, hunched over the dash, and fixed his gaze left. Then, as another shudder rocked his body, he saw what lay diagonally beyond the intersection and knew exactly what his friend had in mind.

  Chapter 36

  Port of Portland was emblazoned in big white letters on the sign a dozen yards off the pick-up’s left front fender. Also in white, below the first line but in much smaller font were the words Troutdale Airport North Entrance.

  Beyond the sign was a twelve-foot post where two fence lines met. Running off south and east from the corner post, both runs of chain-link were topped by triple-strand barbed wire angled out toward the road so as to deter anyone from illegally accessing the west end of the single runway.

  “Even better than a boat or RV,” Charlie said enthusiastically. “We’re flying to Utah, aren’t we? You devil. Why didn’t you say so earlier? I would have packed lighter.”

  Leaving Marine Drive’s eastbound lane behind them, Duncan said, “You didn’t know Stump Town Aviation had an east office, did you?”

  Charlie nodded his head up and down. Grimacing, he said, “You mentioned it once or twice. Didn’t dawn on me until I saw the sign. I assumed the Hillsboro facility was the only concern of Darren’s you managed, though.”

  “Used to manage. He let me go, remember? And there you go assuming again.” Suddenly Duncan’s silver brows came together in the middle of his forehead. “You don’t look so good,” he said, voice full of concern. “You’re kind of pale. I gave you the benefit of the doubt back there at the T. Chalked the pallor up to the flat light of summer.”

  They were on Sundial Road and heading north along the fence paralleling the runway on their right. At the end of the drive Duncan swung wide right and eased the Dodge into a chute of cement Jersey barriers fronting a trio of humongous robin’s-egg-blue metal hangars.

  Charlie clicked out of his seatbelt as the truck slowed to a crawl, hung out the window and adjusted the side mirror so he could see his face square on. “You’re right,” he said, staring at his reflection. “I look like death warmed over.”

  “Probably just food poisoning, like you thought. Old chili’s probably the culprit,” Duncan said. Or maybe Bicycle Girl’s spit is the culprit, he thought grimly. “We get inside, you can splash some water on your face. You’ll be good as new.” He stopped them beside a yellow cube roughly the size of a basketball. It was mounted on a waist-high pole—also yellow. He fumbled in his wallet for the keycard he’d failed to return along with his keys that last blur of a day at the Hillsboro facility.

  “Why’d you keep that?”

  “Forgot to turn it in. Hell, my head was reeling from getting fired. Not to mention I was nursing the mother of all hangovers. First job I’d lost since not showing up at Tastee Freez when I was sixteen. Lost that one on account of a girl.”

  “And this one on account of Jack Daniels,” Charlie said. “Damn shame.”

  “I don’t need your sympathy.” Hoping the power was still on, for one, and secondly, that the card would still be recognized, Duncan leaned out his window, stretched his arm to full extension, and ran the card through the reader. A quick swipe that made a snicking noise. Which was followed by a distant hum as an electric motor came alive. Then
there was a soft click as the attached pulley and wire system hidden under the cement pad started the wheeled fence on a slow motion left-to-right creep.

  Charlie said, “First hurdle cleared. Brings us to hurdle number two.”

  Still waiting for the gate to clear the entry lane, Duncan flashed Charlie a questioning look.

  To which Charlie said, “If there’s a helicopter in there, will you be able to get it started and fly the thing?”

  “Maybe on the first,” Duncan said, easing the Dodge through the open gate and onto the airport property. “As for part deux, flying a helicopter is a lot like riding a bicycle … once you learn how, you never forget.” He spun the wheel, worked the transmission into Reverse, and backed them into a spot adjacent to the door servicing what used to be a spartanly appointed office.

  The Dodge rocked subtly and then the engine cut out. “Hurdle number three,” Charlie said. “What if the helicopters aren’t fueled up?”

  Duncan said nothing. He grasped the rabbit’s foot and yanked the keys from the ignition.

  Charlie watched the gate return to its starting position, then turned back to face Duncan. “If it has fuel … you can fly it all by yourself, right?”

  “Done it many times. Why? What are you getting at?”

  “I’m going to be doubling up here in a second. Probably be of no use to you … in any capacity.”

  “Diarrhea?”

  Charlie nodded. “Stomach’s cramping up real bad. I’m feeling nauseous, too. Figure it’ll be coming out of me from both ends any minute now.”

  “There’s a bathroom inside. Let’s go.” He shouldered open his door and stepped onto the sun-splashed blacktop, noting his parking job, which was nowhere near acceptable. The rear dual wheels were in the spot reserved for Darren, while the front wheels bracketed the blue and white wheelchair symbol stenciled there.