Wandering Highway

by Ike Warren

They walked east down McCree Road in Garland which was lined with parked cars on either side of the road, all of them mere shells of the efficient machines that they had been before the blast. To their left was a two thousand foot span of nothing but pale concrete and brand new cars of a Nissan dealership. All scrap metal now. On their right was a large apartment complex with more cars parked out in front. On the street in front of them there were more cars packing the tiny road as if they had been arranged into a grid for an obstacle course. Allan had never taken notice at just how many cars there were in the world. They were literally everywhere and now it seemed like for every person out there walking on the roads there had to be at least a dozen or more cars parked in their way. Before the blast all of the automobiles blended in as integral parts of modern society, but now that they were all useless piles of metal they stood out like sore thumbs, all of them cumbersome and unmovable, littering every parking lot, side street, and highway like all the trash and beer bottles that littered the roadsides.

  “Car apocalypse.” Allan said aloud. It was such a random thing to say, but Jennifer nodded her head in agreement as if she was thinking the same thing.

  Their eyes caught movement in one of the apartment windows and they stopped and turned to see a ghostly shadow standing in one of the windows on the first floor. The shadow reacted to being noticed by Allan and Jennifer by darting down below the window still. They walked on and in another window stood the silhouette of a person who this time did not flinch when it was apparent that they had been seen. In the apartment window above them was yet two more dark figures that appeared from behind a set of vertical blinds.

  Jennifer whispered to Allan while trying not to move her lips, “Why are they staring at us?”

  “They look afraid.” Allan replied.

  “They’re the scary ones. They could easily come out here and attack us.”

  “These people have already made it to their homes. Now they are afraid of people coming and taking what they have.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because if that was me in my home here in this place so close to so many desperate people walking along the highway, I’d be looking out my windows just like them.”

  “They’re scared of us and we’re scared of them kinda thing?”

  “Exactly. And the sooner we get out of here the happier we’ll all be.”

  They picked up their pace through the maze of broken down cars and soon found their way back to the highway. When they stepped back onto highway 635 it was mostly clear of cars going in their direction but the traffic and resulting wreckage of the huge traffic jam was still thick going the opposite way. Allan forced himself not to look and he tried not to acknowledge the odors of the dead, but the smells could not be ignored. A breeze wafted across the wreckage and the pungent smell of decaying flesh once again entered his nose and he felt another strong urge to vomit.

  He knew that it would be a disaster if he were to throw up. His body was relying on the tiny amount of precious liquid in his stomach to stay hydrated and he couldn’t afford to lose any of it. He forced his mind to focus on something else. Anything would do as long as he could think of something other than the horrible scene on the opposite roadway. He tried to turn his mind to Samantha but as he breathed in the awful odors his stomach turned and all that he could think about was all the stinking bloated bodies that sat rotting beside him. He thought of Jennifer and the many struggles that she had already endured. He wondered how many more struggles they would face before their journey’s end. He saw her waddling beside him and he thought of their unborn baby inside her womb and he wondered what troubles might he have experienced of his own. A bird flying above them squawked and Allan looked up to see a pair of large black buzzards circling overhead. In the wreckage to their left, another bird squawked as if in reply to the first bird and Allan instinctively turned to look toward its call. His eyes met an entire flock of buzzards gathered around a half burnt car that appeared to have been ripped in half by a yellow minivan. The birds were feeding on the remains of what looked like a female corpse. One of the birds was perched on her chest and was pecking at her face and it turned and squawked at Allan with a long string of flesh hanging from its mouth.

  Allan’s stomach rolled and he collapsed beside the grassy shoulder of the highway. His stomach muscles contracted uncontrollably in an effort to expel its contents but nothing came out except for spit. He began coughing and Jennifer put her hand on his shoulder, “Get it out babe.” She said.

  “There’s nothing to get out. I haven’t eaten anything in days.” He replied. It was as if his stomach had forgotten that it was empty and it continued attempting to regurgitate despite the fact that there was nothing to actually throw up.

  Finally the breeze shifted and the wind blew in from a different direction and fresh air filled his airways. When his stomach had finished heaving he stood up and wiped the saliva off the sides of his mouth. As he gathered his balance his entire body screamed at him. From his feet to his legs to his stomach to now a pounding headache. Everything burned and ached within his body and though he had complained of being exhausted many times before in his life, he found a new meaning for the word as he suffered out there on the highway.

  Chapter 12: The Warehouse

  She would always run up and throw herself on him and say, “I love you so much daddy.” He would hug her, sometimes forgetting that she was just a little girl, squeezing so tight as if she were an adult and for a moment he would fear that he had hurt her until she would release her hug with a big grin on her face. He had always been so amazed at how fast she was growing up and he was blown away by some of the things that she would say. Her latest thing was to pat him on the leg and say, “I love you big fella.” Where Samantha had picked that up from or if she had made it up herself Allan didn’t know, but he thought it was awesome and he would imitate her by patting on her leg and replying, “I love you too little girly.”

  Their bond was remarkable from the moment that she was born. The extent of his love for her surprised even himself. When the subject of having children came up when he was younger and long before he met Jennifer, he was always the first to strike the idea down.

  “I’m not good with kids.” He would tell his friends and he was convinced of that. When Jennifer became pregnant he was filed with a great amount of anxiety. He had assured himself time and again that children were not his thing, and now he was to be a father? The worry would sometimes wake him up in the middle of the night and he would ask himself daunting questions. How can a man who doesn’t like kids be a good father? It was a question that he would ask himself over and over, even in the delivery room, but when that little baby girl came out crying and afraid of the world, something changed in him. From that moment on his love for Samantha was unquestionable and his need to provide and protect her was eternal.

  As he walked along the highway the reality hit him that he was not there to provide for her now. Is Samantha in need of anything? Is she hungry? He felt his pace quicken as the anxiety rushed over him. He was not there to protect her from any of the terrible things that she might have experienced in his absence over the past few days. Is she ok? Is she safe? Is she alive? His pace quickened in further desperation to reunite his family.

  “What the hell?” He heard Jennifer call out from behind him. He looked back and realized that he had been running. He stopped and waited for Jennifer to catch up and she kept the same what-the-hell expression on her face as she approached him.

  When she caught up he apologized, “I’m sorry, but we have got to hurry up and get back to Samantha.” His tone was frantic and Jennifer reached up and wrapped her arms around him. He was a good father. The fact that he was so concerned about raising a child before Samantha was born proved it. He had been filled with so much worry and doubt, asking himself how would he live with a child, and now that he had Samantha in his life, his greatest fear was losing her. With his wife’s arms hugging him he let out a
sigh to which he added softly in her ear, “We really do need to hurry though.”

  They walked in silence, both feeling the gravity of their situation. It would be days before they could reach Samantha unless they could think of a way to get home faster.

  An idea came to Jennifer and she spoke first, “When I was a little girl my grandfather use to have some horses that he would take me riding on.” She said, “It’s been a long time but I bet I could remember how to ride one. What if we find a pasture with horses on it somewhere and use them to get us home?”

  Allan thought about it for a moment and replied with a list of objections. “First, I don’t see any horses anywhere around here and if there were you’d better believe their rightful owners are going to be prepared to protect them. Second, I’ve never ridden a horse before and I have no idea how to manage or care for one.” His third objection was that even if they were to find some horses and if they somehow managed to figure out how to ride them, people on the road would see them as mounted targets and they were sure to be stopped and have the horses stolen from them. He withheld this last objection because he had an idea of his own that might make them targets too, but it was the only idea that he thought might get them home faster.

  “I have another plan. It will take us a little bit out of the way but I think it will be worth it.” He grabbed Jennifer’s hand and they walked down the embankment of the highway and slipped onto another side street. Jennifer was hopeful that he had the solution to their problems and she did not ask where they were going out of fear of ruining her optimism.

  He led them down Ferguson Road in Garland, walking southwest for over a mile. Their detour in the opposite direction from home took longer that he had expected and just when he noticed Jennifer getting agitated and ready to ask “How much further?” they reached the intersection of Maylee Boulevard where another huge pileup of cars were waiting to distract her from the thought. There was a motorcycle with its front tire implanted into windshield of a truck but much to Allan and Jennifer’s relief, neither the remains of rider of the motorcycle nor the driver of the truck were present.

  As they turned left on Maylee Boulevard Allan reassured her. “Not much further.”

  They walked south down the residential street until they came upon an obscure building with a desert sand colored exterior and a sign on the top portion of it that said Garland Bicycle Supply in black blocky letters.

  Jennifer stopped. “A bicycle store?”

  “Well it’s more of a bicycle warehouse.”

  “How did you know about this place?”

  “About a year before we met my neighbor who lived in the apartment beside me worked here and he needed a ride to work. He gave me 20 bucks to drive him here. I’m just glad the warehouse is still here and we didn’t walk a mile and a half in the wrong direction for nothing.”

  “You don’t think it’s already been looted?”

  “I really hope not.”

  “We walked this far out of the way on a hope that it hasn’t been looted? We’ve passed hundreds of people on bikes. This was probably the first place everyone stole from.”

  “I think people hit the easy targets first. The big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target that line the interstates. This place is obscure and out of the way so I’m hoping no one has gotten to it yet.”

  They approached the warehouse cautiously. When they reached the front entrance Allan was relieved to see that the double glass doors were still intact and he saw no signs that the building had been vandalized. He cupped his hands around his face and pressed against the glass and looked inside. In the lobby there was a desk with a telephone and a desk lamp sitting on a countertop. Below that, on the surface of the desk, was a computer monitor with a keyboard and mouse and various papers scattered about.

  “I think we’re in luck.” He said and he turned and looked at Jennifer, “It looks like it was still and active business and it doesn’t look to have been looted.”

  Jennifer peeked inside and then she tugged at the glass doors but they only rattled in their hinges. “Locked.” She said disappointed.

  Allan thought for a moment and then walked over to the ditch between the road and the parking lot and found a pile of rocks near the culvert that had been placed there by city workers to help prevent ditch erosion. He picked a rock up and lifted it over his shoulder and walked back toward the double glass doors.

  “What around you going to do with that?” Jennifer asked nervously but without answering Allan flung the rock into the door, shattering the glass into a thousand pieces. The broken glass crackled under their feet as they stepped inside the doorway. Behind the front lobby was a swinging door with a window in the middle of it that opened into a large warehouse with long rows of steel shelving. Large hanging lights hung from the ceiling, all of them dark but above the lights in the ceiling were fiberglass skylight panels spaced evenly amongst the corrugated metal roof that let in just enough light for Allan and Jennifer to see inside the dimly lit warehouse. Along the rows of steel shelving were hundreds of brown cardboard boxes with black and white barcode strips printed in on them that sat upon wooden pallets.

  The sheer number of boxes was overwhelming and Allan walked aimlessly down the aisle. “Where do we start? There’s no labels on any of the boxes.”

  “Looks like they had an electronic inventory system.”

  “Little good that does us now.”

  They began pulling out boxes randomly, one after another after another. Most of the time they found boxes filled with dozens of more boxes with tiny bike parts inside. Other times they would open boxes only to find bicycle handlebars or wheels but never a whole bike that was ready for assembly.

  “It’s going to take forever if we have to piece meal a bicycle together from all these parts.” Jennifer said.

  They spent an hour sorting through more boxes until finally on the next aisle over they came upon a section of boxes with the letters R2R handwritten in black permanent marker on the front of them.

  “Wonder what R2R stands for?” Allan asked.

  Jennifer paused for a moment and then it appeared as if a light bulb had gone off inside her head. “Ready to ride!” She exclaimed.

  They quickly pulled out one of the boxes and the first one that they opened was a big box that had a label inside it that said Kent-Tandem with a picture of a two seated bicycle on it. It was a silly looking contraption with two of everything. There were two seats and two sets of pedals and two handlebars. Allan looked at the picture on the box and wondered how in the world they would be able to navigate such a big bike around all the stalled cars on the road.

  “This is perfect.” Jennifer said with excitement. Allan looked to her with a frown and saw her standing there with a big grin on her face while rubbing her belly. Her stomach was bulging. It looked larger than it had previously and Allan prayed that it was just the dim light of the warehouse that was casting odd shadows and not some kind of abdominal swelling as a result of all the recent stress and trauma.

  “Is it even safe for you to even be riding a bike?” Allan asked.

  “Sure it’s safe. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “I’m just thinking about the baby. Will riding a bike hurt it?”

  “I’ve had friends that rode bikes late in their third trimester and they never had any complications. Besides, you led us all the way over here to get bikes and you didn’t think of this before?”

  “Sorry, it never crossed my mind until now.”

  Allan lifted the tandem bicycle frame out of the box and placed it on the floor. “This thing is massive.” He said.

  “Do you think it will be difficult to maneuver around all the wreckage?” Jennifer asked as if reading his thoughts.

  “That is my concern exactly.” Allan replied. “Let’s keep looking.”

  The rest of the boxes in the direct vicinity were all similar two person bikes. In the next section of boxes they found some two wheeled bike trailers. Allan pulled one out
of a box and unfolded it on the ground.

  “This might do if we can find a regular bike to hook it on to.” Allan said.

  “Aren’t those trailers for little kids?” Jennifer asked.

  “Allan put his hands around the trailer seat to size it up. “I’m sure you could squeeze into it. It’s more maneuverable than those big two seater bikes and it will be safer too. I think this is perfect.” He said with a grin. Jennifer looked at him with a frown on her face, unsure about the idea of riding inside the tiny trailer.

  They continued looking for a regular bicycle for another half hour when they finally found some boxes that appeared to contain regular bike assemblies. The first one that they opened was a classic style bike with just a single pedal gear but Allan opted to keep looking for a bike that had more gears on it with the thought that a single gear would be difficult to cycle up hills, especially with a trailer attached and a pregnant woman inside. The next box contained a Mongoose 26 inch men’s mountain bike. Allan pulled the bicycle information packet out of the box and read that it had a total of 21 gears.

  “I think this one will do.” He said.

  Together they pulled all the pieces out of the box and set them down on the floor in a configuration that resembled a fully assembled bike. He dug into plastic wrapping of the information packet and pulled out the single-use wrench and socket that was included inside. He opened the instruction booklet on the concrete floor and began putting the pieces together. As he tightened the bolts with the little wrench he thought about all the times that he had opened a box that had come with similar tools and he had always immediately discarded them, opting to use the wrenches and sockets from his professional tool set in his garage instead. This time the cheap little wrench that came in the bicycle box was a godsend to him.

  He spent a good part of the afternoon putting the bike together. The instructions were becoming difficult to read and he realized that the light from the skylights was becoming dim as the sun was no longer shining directly overhead. He was just finishing tightening the front wheel assembly when he heard a loud crash come from the front of the building. The sound was similar to that of the glass front doors when he had shattered them earlier and Allan looked over to where Jennifer had been sitting to give her a what-the-hell-was-that kind of look but she wasn’t there. He quickly checked his surroundings looking for her but she was gone. In his focus on assembling the bike he had blocked out everything around him and he couldn’t even recall her ever leaving the area. He was about to call out her name but he became afraid to do so out of fear of drawing attention of his presence to whatever had just made the sound out front. He cursed himself for having allowed her to leave his sight again, a promise that he had made to her just hours earlier. He rose to his feet and with the little bicycle wrench in his hand he walked slowly toward the entrance of the front lobby. He poked his head through the doorway and looked at the broken glass of the front doors that laid spread out across the front entrance area. It all looked the same as they had left it and he kept searching the room, looking for an intruder while wielding the bicycle wrench for protection. Beside him he heard the sound of a woman shriek and his heart leapt inside his chest. He pointed his wrench-dagger toward the sound and turned his body quickly to face the intruder. There he saw Jennifer standing in front of a vending machine, the front glass of it shattered and the rock that he had used earlier to break the front door was lying on the ground next to the machine. In her right hand was a Snickers candy bar and her other hand was resting on her knees as she was bent over herself in laughter.