I drove the heavy Ford truck across the uneven lot, testing out the limits of its suspension. The girls jostled about as we rumbled over the cracks and mounds like we were in one of those dune buggies in Baja. But otherwise it was uneventful and I pulled up next to the crumbling walkway and parked.
“I’m gonna go inside first and check it out,” I said.
Opening the door, I stepped my foot out and felt the frigid temperature bite against every bare piece of skin I had. It must’ve dropped 20 degrees since I was last outside and I was standing around still wearing cargo shorts, boots, and a t-shirt.
“Stay put,” I said with a laugh before completely exiting the truck and swinging the door back.
“Max,” Cindy called.
I caught the door before it closed and turned around. She was leaning her head out of the truck with a half-smile on her face.
“Yeah?” I said with a slight shrug.
“Be careful in there and...and I love you.”
“Ok,” I replied then closed the door.
I could see her press her face against the window. I waved then turned around and headed for the store.
Jogging across the shattered pavement, I started to think about what Cindy said. I didn’t expect that out of her and my reaction was almost automatic. What I should’ve said, what I wanted to say was that I loved her too, that I always loved her. But my pride was hurt and that wasn’t easily repaired.
I hurried through the shattered doors and sought shelter between a turned over rack and a rolling cabinet. It was dark inside and most of the store had been looted, but I was certain I could find a good amount of clothing.
The tile floor rolled up and down like a shaken rug. Parts of the ceiling had caved in and there was soot and charred wood in the back where a fire had raged unchecked for hours. Disaster had left its fingerprints everywhere.
Shivering, I rummaged through the pile of clothes next to me. Most of it was accessories like gloves and hunting vests, but I managed to find a thick, camouflage jacket that fit me well enough. I pulled it tightly and soaked in its warmth for a moment.
After that I grabbed a hiking bag and started to fill it with all the women’s clothes I could find. When I was done, I looked around for shoes, but all I found was the left foot of an orange pair of Crocs.
That would have to do. Nothing matched and I doubted much of it would fit well, but it was better than what they had.
I made my way back to the truck like some apocalyptic Santa Claus. As I pulled the door open they all jumped and I offered the hiking bag to them with a smile.
“Here you go. I’ll wait out here for you to get dressed.”
Heather laughed. “Don’t be silly, Max. You’ve seen more of me than my gynecologist. No sense freezing on our account.”
I smiled at her and shrugged. “It’ll be easier to get dressed with less people piled in there. Oh, and I put some jackets in this bag.” I said and handed it to Cindy.
She took it with a half-smile and I grabbed her hand. She resisted slightly, but I pulled her into me and wrapped my arms around her as she leaned halfway out of the truck.
“I love you. I’ll always love you,” I whispered into her ear.
“Now get out of those bloody clothes,” I replied.
She smiled then shut the door to get dressed. It didn’t take her very long and after she put her jacket on she climbed out of the truck and waited with me. She didn’t talk, but she stood there, right next to me. I held her close, my mind drifting to dark places that only her presence kept at bay. It was good to have her back around.
The truck rocked from side to side as Heather and the others finished dressing. A few minutes later they stepped out, clad in dark brown or camo pants, t-shirts that promoted bass fishing and windbreakers.
“Sorry I couldn’t fit more in the bag. I figured I’d bring you what I had before I went venturing to far.”
“Oh, no worries, Max. This is a big improvement,” Heather replied.
I smiled and nodded my head. “I didn’t see any shoes, but I’ll run back in and look for some thicker jackets then check a few of the other stores.”
“We’ll go with you.”
“You should probably stay here. There’s broken glass everywhere. It won’t take me long.”
Heather tipped her head and turned around then walked back to the truck. I started back toward the store and Cindy grabbed my hand.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“Well, at least you still have shoes. Keep your eyes open, it looks empty, but you never know.”
Together we went back inside of the devastated building. The sun was a little higher and I could see more of the messy store. I still didn’t see any shoes inside, but I found some thicker jackets.
I bundled them together into another camping bag and slung it over my shoulder. “You ready?” I turned to Cindy and asked.
“We could use a lot of this stuff. I don’t know for what, but better safe than sorry,” she replied and held up her own camping bag.
“What did you get?”
“Some rope, a sleeping bag…I found a few bottles of unopened water and some gloves.”
“Yeah it looks like they looted this place pretty good before whatever happened here happened. Come on, we need to find the girls shoes.”
“Are they…are they coming to Wyoming? Were you serious about that?”
Cindy had a strange look on her face and it took me a second to recognize it, jealousy. I hadn’t thought about it, but Cindy always had a bit of a jealous streak and the four or five women that were of age definitely took care of themselves. I couldn’t blame her, I’d been pressed up against half naked women for the better part of a day.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I don’t know what to do with them. I just thought I needed to offer.”
Cindy half-smiled.
“Come on, I don’t want to be out here too long.”
With Cindy beside me, I headed through a cluttered breezeway and into the atrium. A circular window towered above us where all the glass had been broken and fallen out. A small airplane wing dangled from the opening, tangled with the bent metal framing. My mind took off, imagining what had occurred, but it didn’t take long to find out.
As we exited the other side we walked into a small courtyard that was centered between seven different stores. The remnants of a small Cessna were interlaced with the side of a brick wall, leaving almost nothing recognizable.
“I hope they died quickly,” Cindy said.
“Or maybe they got out before the crash.”
“Dying quickly is all you can hope for anymore,” she replied grimly.
I looked away from the crash and checked out the rest of the courtyard. There was a fountain in the middle that was split apart and all of the water had long since drained away. It seemed like no place was safe from earthquakes.
There was a collection of trash and debris everywhere I looked. But as far as I could tell, at least almost everyone had escaped with their lives. If people had died here, the earthquake or fire had erased every trace of them.
“Where to?” Cindy asked.
I shrugged and kept looking around. I was stuck in my head, wondering why the world seemed so lonely now. Over the last few weeks I’d been through hell, but I couldn’t fathom the idea that I was alone in that.
I could almost count the number of people I’d seen on my fingers. Where had everyone else gone? In the back of my mind I feared some worst-case scenario, where only pockets of our civilization had survived. With that thought, returned the pressing need to get to Wyoming. That was the only way we’d be safe, the only way I’d find answers.
“Max!” Cindy called out. “Where to?”
“Sorry…this way.”
We left the courtyard and scoured the other stores. One by one, we moved broken shopping carts and barreled through mounds of debris and overturned furniture. Eventually, we found several pairs of water shoes and while
they weren’t really made for the frigid conditions, they would have to do.
We returned to the front of the shopping mall weighed down with bags. I was happy to have found so much and I was sure Heather and the others would be overwhelmed to have something covering their feet.
“Heather,” I called out as I sat the bags onto the ground and reached for the door. “We finally found so—”
I paused then spun around and surveyed the rest of the parking lot. Cindy stopped a few feet behind me and huffed.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“The girls, they’re gone.”
CHAPTER 27
UPON OUR MAYFLOWER
“Heather!” I shouted.
My voice echoed across the barren lot. The forsaken swatch of hopelessness answered back in silence. I spun around anxiously, but there was nothing. They’d vanished.
“Max,” Cindy said in a low voice. “Max, they left. You don’t owe them anything.”
“What?” I asked with slanted eyes.
Cindy put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. “Let’s just leave,” she said sharply. “They’re fine and don’t we have somewhere to be.”
“Cindy, we can’t just leave them without knowing where they went.”
She groaned in response then lifted her head and pointed. “Over there, the hotel.”
I followed her finger to a ran-down hotel across the street. It was old and dingy, but made of brick and had survived whatever disaster had claimed all of the other structures.
Cautiously, we walked across the street and stopped outside of the River Inn. The place was ancient, like some kind of lost artifact from the 1800’s. I was surprised it hadn’t been condemned and demolished years ago.
The entrance was a grime-covered revolving door with gold plated framing. I walked up and placed my hand up to block the glare as I peered in. Suddenly, it started to swing and whacked me in the face, knocking me off of my feet.
“Oh my!” Heather said as she stepped outside. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry.”
I gathered myself and stood up. “What are you doing in here?”
“You took the keys…it’s cold.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. I found you shoes, they’re back at the truck.”
“Thank you so much, for all you’ve done,” Heather said in a strange tone.
“Where is everybody else?” I asked.
“There inside, keeping warm.”
“Well, call them down. We need to get moving.”
Heather took a deep breath. She looked back to the hotel then to me and Cindy. “I think we’re gonna stay here.”
“What?” Cindy snapped before I could reply.
“Look, we are grateful for everything you’ve done. More than I can express, but we’re safe now. This, whatever this is will get worked out. We’ll be safe here until then. The hotel is empty and it’s only the one door in. We already found something we can use to keep it locked.”
I wanted to protest, to tell her how crazy I thought she was. There was no help, no working this out, if she stayed here she was definitely going to die. But I could tell by the look in her eyes that there was no convincing her. She’d made up her mind.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Heather smiled then nodded.
“I’ll get you your shoes…and we have a bag of supplies. You can find more back in the mall.”
Cindy cut her eyes at me, but I ignored her. Heather smiled and grabbed my hand.
“Thank you so much. Thank both of you.”
I jogged back to the truck and grabbed the bags. I offered to help Heather take them in, but she was the self-reliant type, now that she wasn’t chained to a cinder block. We exchanged a few more words, hugged, and then she headed back inside with the others.
“You gave her everything,” Cindy growled as I cranked up the truck and headed for the highway. “You didn’t think we needed anything?”
“We should be in Wyoming by the morning. We won’t need any of that.”
Cindy laughed. “Maybe you, I haven’t eaten in three days.”
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out an energy bar and tossed it to her. “I kept a couple.”
She snagged it and tore it open. Before I could say a word, she’d devoured the entire bar and was searching the cabin for something else. I handed her the other two bars that were tucked away and gave her a bottle of water.
“Well now we don’t have anything,” I said.
Cindy grinned then dug into her pockets, but the only thing she came up with was the jagged piece of cardboard I’d given her back in the basement. I frowned and she reached out and grabbed my free hand.
“I know you don’t want to hear it now, but I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so, sorry. I was fucking stupid,” she cringed. “Whether we die tomorrow or 60 years from now, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
I didn’t know what to say so I forced a grin onto my face. My feelings were still confusing and I tried to not think about any of it. When I did, an uncontrollable anger swelled inside of me and I wanted to avoid that at all costs.
At some point in the day Cindy fell asleep. I managed to stop at three different gas stations before she noticed and luckily enough, this one had gas.
“What’s going on?” she asked as she sat up and wiped the drool from her face.
“Nothing,” I told her. “Finally found some gas.”
“Where are we?”
“Wyoming,” I replied with a smile. “Just outside of Rawlins. We’ll be there in a few hours.”
“We made it? We made it!” she screeched then started to cry.
I grabbed her and pulled her into my chest. She wrapped her arms around my waist and squeezed. It felt like she never wanted to let me go.
“We’re almost there,” I whispered. “We’re gonna make it.”
“I love you…I love you so much,” she cried.
“I love you too.”
We held each other for what felt like a lifetime, but not nearly long enough. The UV lights of the abandoned gas station buzzed over our heads like an applause. Cindy was right, we had made it.
Eventually, I filled the truck up with gas and pulled back onto the highway. The night pressed on and two hours became three and then three became four. And as the sun rose over the mountains the ranger station in Dubois came into view.
“Cindy!” I hissed and shook her arm.
She shot up and stared around before fixing her eyes up ahead. “Is this it?”
“Just past the ranger station,” I replied.
The truck rolled slowly by the small outpost that housed several cameras. The facility was a decoy, a way of deterring nosey eyes before they got close enough to see anything and giving security a fair warning of intruders.
The station was closed and had danger signs posted everywhere. The area was supposedly off limits to travelers for undisclosed reasons, but it was so remote that if someone stumbled upon the station they knew exactly what they were looking for.
Ten miles up the road I stopped at a 15-foot-tall black, iron gate. It ran from side to side as far as the eye could see. Near the opening there was a single digit keypad attach to an inconspicuous wooden post.
I stepped outside and pressed my thumb against the silver-plated number seven. Almost immediately the gate started to open and I felt a wave of excitement stir in my stomach. We had done it, against all odds we were here and my journey that had cost so much was almost over.
“I can’t believe we made it,” Cindy said as I climbed back into the driver’s seat.
I leaned over and gave her a kiss, fighting back tears of joy. My hands trembled as I gripped the steering wheel and piloted the rumbling truck around the bend.
“So, what happens now?” Cindy asked.
“I’ve gotta get in touch with my team, hopefully Bruce is here. But now we live, we get to survive.”
My heart thundered like a stampede of buffalo, t
he closer we got. I took a deep breath as I tried to contain my excitement. The feeling was overwhelming, like the culmination of a life’s work.
The road started to straighten out and I could see the top of the building that had been built right into the mountain. The bold letters that read “13 M.L.S.” stood out like a hand reaching for me.
I parked out front and took a deep breath. “We’re here,” I said and opened the door.
I stepped onto the gravel covered lot and made my way to the control station outside. There was a small console recessed into the wall like an ATM machine. I slid out the keyboard and started to run the authentication process.
“What are you doing?” Cindy asked.
“This is the only way in. The system monitors, who can come in, how many people are already in, when to seal the facility…it monitors everything.”
I finished inputting my information then anxiously waited. Turning around, I looked up into the looming mountains that rose overhead. It was the most at peace I’d felt in a long time.
“You built this?” Cindy asked and interlaced her fingers with mine.
“I helped design it.”
“Wow.”
The console suddenly beeped and I jumped then spun around.
“What?” Cindy asked.
I laughed. “It’s nothing, just caught me off guard.”
A string of green text began to scroll down the monitor. I leaned in and with my index finger traced each line as I read them aloud.
...………Authentication sequence complete……………
Version 7.62
Site: 13 Mayflower Launch Station
System user: Max Neilman
Life support status: 100%
Charging system: 100%
Solar Operating level: 27%
Solar system availability: 100%
Primary systems: 97.6%
Backup systems: 100%
Water tank 1: 87.9%
Water tank 2: 100%
Water tank 3: 100%
Water tank 4: 100%
Primary fuel system: 8.3%
Secondary fuel system: 100%
Press 7 for more systems info….
Intake status: Open
Deconstruction- The Complete series Box Set Page 33