by Benton, Ken
“That must be your nemesis with the shotgun,” Debra said as she carefully opened the walkie-talkie box.
“Jessie told you?”
“Told us about your little stand-off with him, yes. Perhaps the colonel’s idea of staying up here a while longer isn’t so bad. Let all the traffic clear out.”
Joel scratched his chin whiskers watching her.
“Good, double A’s,” she said. “We brought a bunch of those.” Debra turned one of the walkie-talkies on and got a squabble, then adjusted the channel tuner until a voice could be heard.
“There we go. They work!” She flipped her hair triumphantly. “Of course, if we let those guys get ahead, it’s possible they could set an ambush somewhere and wait for us.”
“True,” Joel said. This pretty scientist was beginning to be a real asset.
Jessie and Archer returned, carrying the bagged-up tent and a small ice chest. Jessie’s mouth gaped as she neared, which Joel expected to be in protest of the rifle being out. But she pointed at the sky.
Joel and Debra looked up. Joel was utterly unprepared for what his eyes encountered.
Chapter Eight
“Holy shit,” Billy Ray said. “It looks like the sky is on fire, man. What does it mean? Is the world really ending after all?” He turned to Elger, hoping to find reassurance.
He wasn’t disappointed.
“That’s called the aurora borealis,” Elger calmly replied, looking back down at him. “Otherwise known as the northern lights.”
“What’s that?” Billy Ray asked. “Does it mean the power is back on up north?”
“No, dumbass.” Elger shook his head, but then his eyes softened. “Sorry. I guess not everyone in these parts knows about it. It’s a natural thing that happens in the sky sometimes, caused by the sun and magnetic energy or some crap. Usually you have to be pretty far north to see them, like Canada at least.”
“You ever see them before?”
“No.”
They both gazed back at the early night sky. Billy Ray gawked at the brilliant streaks of deep green, fiery pink, blue, and purple stretching from one horizon to the other.
“I don’t think it’s supposed to cover the whole sky like this,” Elger said. “So maybe your first conclusion was correct.”
“About what?” Billy Ray fumbled for a smoke.
“About the world ending.”
When Billy Ray attempted to scowl at him, he found Elger smiling. So he laughed instead, and lit his cigarette.
“Get out of here, man.”
“Well,” Elger said extending one hand, “it must have something to do with this sun flare knocking the power out. Should be a bright night while it lasts, which will probably help.”
“Help how?” Billy Ray placed a smoke in his friend’s fingers.
“With them.” Elger motioned down the hill as he flicked his lighter. “Some of those stuck in the rear may be willing to follow you up the trail rather than wait the traffic jam out, with this better visibility. You know what you are going to say?”
“Just that the service road is clear, a lot faster, and plenty wide enough for a car, right?”
“A truck,” Elger said. “Go for a truck. They’ll be more prone to chance it. Try to find one loaded with quality supplies. Doug and I will wait at the spot we picked. But don’t sound anxious like you are trying to convince them. Do it like you are letting them in on a secret, kind of friendly-like.”
Billy Ray nodded and took a draw. “I can handle that.”
* * *
“I can’t believe we got stuck like this,” Joel grumbled. Hearing the tone of his own voice, he didn’t care for the negativity in it.
But it didn’t appear to affect the others. They were all still straining their necks at the sky.
Damn sky. While they allowed themselves to be mesmerized by it, smarter motorists, or perhaps unobservant ones, got moving. Every vehicle that had been stacked up at the Swift Run Gap entrance station, including those up Skyline Drive, somehow turned and twisted themselves around into a new snarl resembling a Times Square traffic jam—every vehicle, that is, except Joel’s and Archer’s trucks. They remained in place even as those who were beyond them now blocked their path coming back down.
But it was just as well. From this spot they could not have positioned themselves any farther than the middle of the snarl at best, so they could not have gotten ahead of the antagonist U-Haul truck. The wisest thing to do at this point, as far as Joel could determine, was to trail in with the last of the pack and try not to be absolutely last, making it difficult for the U-Haul gang to spring an ambush in the short span between the mountains and the interstate. Those idiots didn’t figure to be able to stop anywhere beforehand. And their vehicle would be difficult to hide.
“It’s caused by excited electrons,” Debra explained to Jessie. “But yes, it’s from the solar storm. Particles from the sun collide with oxygen and nitrogen gas atoms, making the electrons race at a faster speed. The different colors are the result of different altitude gasses, mostly. The fact that there is so much purple and blue is providing a visual confirmation of the sheer magnitude of the storm.”
“Because the blue and purple gasses are lower in altitude?” Jessie asked.
“Right! Also, the entire sky being blanketed like this. Usually you only see these displays toward the horizons of the Earth’s magnetic poles, and contained to one side of the sky.”
“So this means the storm is big? As big as you thought it would be?”
“Bigger,” Archer replied, breaking a long silence. “I mean, we knew it had the potential to be huge, but there’s always some hope of a last minute near miss, or at least a partial miss. Now I think the sky is telling us to get ready for … a long vacation from normal life.”
“From life with electric power, you mean.”
Joel watched Archer slowly shake his head without looking at Jessie and respond, “Without electric power, a lot of other services become inaccessible. Like gasoline pumps, as we’ve already seen. As soon as all these cars on the road run out of gas…”
“But there is gas,” Jessie said. “Giant tanks full, all over the country, I’m sure. I saw a movie where some guys in Iraq got gas out of a big tank by just turning a knob to fill up a gas can.”
A loud motorcycle pulling up interrupted the conversation. By now Skyline Drive had mostly cleared. The green Vanagon became the last car in line blocking them in, as it had also been slow to turn around. Only a couple other vehicles remained parked ahead, perhaps deciding to wait out the crowd in an effort to conserve fuel.
The motorcycle, a non-street legal dirt bike, was quite dirty, like its un-helmeted rider—who brushed his short spikey hair as he killed his engine behind the Vanagon, right next to Joel’s truck. He glanced at the four of them, stared at all the cars trying to leave the parking lot below, and then let a powerful blast of laughter erupt.
“Man,” the rider said. “What a mess. I’ll just go back over the dirt road and beat them all to Elkton by an hour.” He began turning his bike around.
“What dirt road?” Archer asked.
“Right up here,” the rider said hardly looking back. “Not 200 yards ahead on the left.”
“The Appalachian Trail?” Jessie said.
“No, no.” He turned to the female voice. “On the left, ten feet past the bend there, opposite the boulder. Goes straight over and down through the farms on into Elkton. Though I suppose it looks like a trail to some. It’s a service road.”
“Wide enough for cars?” Archer asked.
“Sure. The park rangers drive it.” He motioned at the two trucks. “These will have no problem. If you’re gonna take it, stay on the wider path and go left where it forks before the summit, as that way is shorter. Or just follow my tire marks.”
“How about if we just follow you instead?” Debra piped in.
The rider hesitated before replying.
“I guess that’ll be all right, i
f you’re ready to go.”
“We’re ready,” Archer said.
Everyone looked to Joel for approval.
Joel scratched his neck. “Yeah,” he finally said. “We’re ready. Thanks a lot.”
* * *
“You have to choose one or the other,” Mick said from the passenger seat. “Neutral is not an option.”
“Why do I have to choose?” Sammy asked, upshifting after passing four stalled cars partially blocking the right lane of Interstate 66. “What if I don’t know?”
“Then you will die as you stand there looking stupid.” Mick’s answer came with a tone of disgust but included a trace of concern.
Sammy laughed. “Hey, this is a hypothetical situation, so it doesn’t provide all the important details I need to make such an urgent decision. If the real thing happens…”
“Do you want my job?” Mick said. “You two would get along great, waiting for more information while trying not to offend anyone. And given the fires we keep seeing in every city, I think it’s a safe bet the ‘real thing’ is happening. I hope your boss isn’t as wishy-washy as you.”
“No, he’s anything but wishy-washy. Probably won’t be shy at all in asking me to remind him of when he said I could bring a friend with me.”
“You invited me. You had no gas, remember? If anyone wants to sell me a working car with a full tank, I’m happy to keep on trekking.”
“To Idaho,” Sammy said.
“Yes,” Mick replied in a much softer voice. “To Idaho.”
“Well, maybe we can get there yet.”
“We?”
“Yes, we. In every city we’ve passed it’s not fires I am noticing so much as a few buildings that still have the lights on. Don’t you find that hopeful?”
“Government buildings or medical facilities no doubt,” Mick said. “Which are now running on backup generators. I find it hopeful only in hoping they keep running long enough for me to get situated somewhere before they run out of fuel, punctuating the complete breakdown of modern society.”
Sammy clicked his tongue. “Man, aren’t you a lot of fun. If hospitals lose power for good, won’t patients on life support machines die?”
“Yes. They will.”
“Let me ask you this, then.” Sammy slowed for another traffic jam ahead. “Say you are the administrator of a hospital running on a backup generator, and you have a wing of coma patients, or people on total life support, who will all die in under an hour if the power is out. But you also have other patients who need life-saving operations, or even some whose chances of survival are simply much higher if the power stays on long enough to get their procedures done. And let’s say the fuel supply for the generator is getting low. So you need to conserve power in order to perform the surgeries, and the only way to do that is to pull the plugs on the coma people, knowing you are killing them, to give others a better chance at survival. What do you—”
“Pull the plugs,” Mick said. “That’s an easy one.”
“Really? Just like that?” Sammy came to a full stop behind a line of cars squeezing together on the shoulder. “I should have made the question harder. But you seem to have an answer ready for everything.”
“Watch out for this girl,” Mick said.
“I see her, thanks.”
Sammy steered to avoid the pedestrian, a young woman sitting on her knees on the shoulder. From what Sammy could see of her she appeared attractive, at least until she leaned and vomited. Sammy noticed this spot had a lot of telephone wires crisscrossing and suddenly didn’t feel great himself. Probably a temporary psychological reaction at seeing someone get sick.
The next thing he knew the girl was walking right alongside his truck, as if she were fine. And she was indeed good-looking from all standard male evaluation points. Maybe a tiny bit heavy in front.
Mick rolled his window down. She glanced inside and manufactured a smile.
“Are you all right?” Mick asked her.
“Yes,” she answered in a sweet voice. “Thanks. It’s just this pregnancy. My car ran out of gas. Do you know why the sky is all lit up like a rainbow?”
“It’s gotta be from the solar storm,” Mick answered her. “The same thing that caused the power blackout.”
“That’s what I was thinking, thanks.”
The girl then bent to take a closer look inside the truck. When Sammy had to stop for traffic, she did, too.
“I don’t suppose you guys have room to squeeze me in there for a few miles?”
* * *
Elger took hurried puffs on his half-smoked cigarette as the sound of Billy Ray’s bike drew closer. The kid definitely had a fish on the line. Hopefully he wouldn’t blow it by being too obvious. The erratic approach of the motorcycle was unnatural, which could only mean he was moving slow enough to allow the victim to keep him in sight.
Elger’s eyes fixed on the open stretch of path below, just before the fork. The positioning of the ambush should be perfect, and from here he had an unimpeded view, thanks in part to the extra light from the sky.
Any second now. Yep, there was Billy Ray, bursting into the clearing with extra throttle up the incline. He looked behind him, and then up in Elger’s direction. Fool.
“Doug!” Elger shouted.
“Yo!” Doug shot back.
At least Doug was sharp. Before Elger could issue him instructions, the fish appeared on the trail—an older full-size pickup. The loud motor meant it was probably diesel. Nice.
But then another pickup trailed into the clearing behind it, this one a darker color.
Two trucks!
Elger’s mind raced as he hoped in earnest that no more vehicles would follow. Billy Ray was supposed to find an easy victim. Two trucks were not as easy as one.
But they held twice as many goods.
“We got two,” Elger yelled back to Doug. “And they look primo. You take the front one.”
“I’m ready,” Doug replied. “Hope your boy stops them at the right spot.”
“Don’t worry about him. As soon as they stop, move on the first driver.”
“Yep.”
Doug was in a good place, concealed in the brush just before the summit. Elger moved to the opposite side of the trail, which was sparser. Trying to hide here was pointless. He kept his shirt over the bulge in his pants and stood to wait.
Billy Ray reached the last switchback. This is where keeping the victims in close tow would pay off. When the bike came into view, Elger began casually walking forward.
He stepped out into the road until the first truck’s bright headlights hit him, and then moved all the way to the side as if getting out of the way of traffic. Billy Ray only glanced at him in slowly passing. So far so good.
When the first truck was close enough, Elger made eye contact with the driver and nodded, noticing a woman in the passenger seat. The driver didn’t strike him as an easy mark: a thirty-something, healthy-looking dark haired man whose eyes projected the image of someone sharp and aware. Elger would have preferred a different victim. But it was too late, and the reward would be high.
Billy Ray stopped the dirt bike and killed the engine ten yards beyond, just as Elger came about even with the door of the first truck, which was red in color. So was the woman’s hair.
The second truck had now pulled close behind and dimmed its brights enough to see that it was black. Another couple occupied it. A brief glance at the second driver told Elger he wouldn’t be any problem.
That’s when Doug stepped out of the bushes with both hands stiff to his pistol, the way a cop would, pointed at the driver of the red truck—which hadn’t quite come to a full stop yet. He yelled for him to stop and keep his hands visible, the way a cop would. Doug was doing it right.
Elger pulled his piece. But before he could do anything more, the red truck lurched forward—directly at Doug.
The driver was out of view before Elger could aim. Doug surely could have gotten a shot off at him, but no doubt would hav
e paid for it in being slammed by the vehicle. Doug jumped backwards into the brush instead.
Elger trusted Doug to handle it and turned to the second driver, who reacted with flailing and indecisive movements. Elger was quickly at his door and put a stop to that with a gun at his head, a foot from his window.
“Come out of there now!” Elger shouted. “And don’t be stupid!”
The driver, a nerdy-looking fellow in a dress shirt, nearly froze with fright. His woman, a kind-of-hot blonde, also became a statue, but her cold blue eyes suggested she was at least retaining some control. Neither should be much trouble, though Elger had to repeat the instructions to the driver. This truck was well supplied, so would be a good take even if the red one managed to escape.
When the nerdy driver finally complied, slowly getting out and following Elger’s orders to step away into the open, Elger glanced forward at the first truck to see how Doug and Billy Ray were doing.
He turned barely in time to see—and hear—Doug fire a round. The driver’s door of the red truck was now open and Doug, having reemerged from cover, had, surprisingly, not shot at the truck but back into the bushes he’d just come out of.
The woman in the first truck screamed and ran out the passenger door, right into the waiting arms of Billy Ray who quickly wrapped her up, evoking further shrieks.
“Over there, with them,” Elger said to the nerd, motioning his gun barrel toward Billy Ray and the redhead. The nerd nodded but his eyes moved to his own woman as he took the first step.
Elger turned to her also, to give her the same instructions—only she was no longer there. The passenger seat being empty, Elger quickly scanned the rest of the interior and then the outside around the still-open driver’s door of the black truck.
Two more gunshots fired from the bushes ahead, drawing his attention back. They didn’t sound the same as Doug’s first shot.
“Doug!” Billy Ray shouted, almost letting go of the redhead. He managed to keep one hand grasped on her wrist while struggling to move forward, as if he desperately needed to see Doug. His eyes connected with Elger’s for a moment, and in that instant communicated a message that things were going horribly wrong.