by Henson, Lynn
“Donovan Pendrake. This is my wife Eloise,” he replied amicably.
“I’m Blake Walker. This is my friend Bree.”
“A pleasure,” he smiled.
“Anyway, I was just telling Mr. Pendrake that we’d help him find some gas,” he diplomatically told Bree.
“Did you?” she replied icily. “Well, we’d better get to work on that then.” She turned and pushed the doors open and walked outside.
Blake looked back at the Pendrakes with his most consoling look. “I’m going to go help her with that. Please feel free to use what remains of the facilities. The hot dogs are at your own peril though.” That actually seemed to soften the couple and they started looking around. Blake followed Bree outside.
Bree had gotten back into the GT-S and started the engine. She gestured at him to get in as well. When he did, she stared straight ahead and said, “What was that about? We shouldn’t be helping anyone, we’ve got problems of our own.”
“Aww... they’re harmless! They were probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. We can take a little time to help them out,” he pleaded.
She turned sharply to look at him, her hands turning white gripping the steering wheel, “The smart thing to do would just be to drive away. Helping them doesn’t benefit us in any way. Even worse, the longer we stay here the more likely someone or something that’s not so friendly will come by and fuck us.”
“You’re wrong Bree,” he disagreed, voice thick with emotion, “There is a benefit to helping them. We get to keep some of our humanity. I don’t know about you, but if we just look out for ourselves we will start to lose what makes us different from animals.”
Her grip on the wheel relaxed, “That’s just how the world is. Even if we pretended it wasn’t, deep down everyone is an animal. And that’s going to become more and more obvious the longer this epidemic goes on.”
“I like to think that some of us can grow beyond that,” he replied righteously.
“Alright, alright. We’ll help the cute old English couple,” she said, exasperated. She shut off the engine and got out of the car. He followed her and watched her pop the hatchback and pull out a tube, and a black grenade. “Whoa! What’s that?” Blake pointed at the stuff she just got out.
“It’s a siphon,” Bree answered. “We have to be able to get gas without working gas stations.”
“How do we get it out of the gas pumps?” Blake asked, looking closer at the siphon.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “I was going to see if there’s another car around here.”
It didn’t take them long to find a tow truck parked behind the station.
“This might work,” she told him, “Go inside and try to find the keys.”
When he came around he’d found that Mr. Pendrake had started a small campfire outside the store in one of the parking spaces. He smiled at Blake, “Used to be scout a long time ago.”
“What’s the fire for though?” Blake asked, dumbfounded.
“It’s tea time,” he replied matter of factly.
“Where’d you find the wood?” he asked, perplexed.
He gestured at the food mart, “They sell individually wrapped pieces of wood for your hearth.”
Mrs. Pendrake came outside with a metallic coffee pot presumably full of water. She handed it to her husband who looped the handle on a metal pipe and hung it over the flame. She looked at Blake, “Do join us for tea.”
Blake suppressed the urge to respond with an English accent, “In a moment. We think we’ve found a solution for your, uh, petrol problem. I’m going inside for a bit to work on that.”
They looked relieved, “Cheers! Carry on then.”
He went inside and went back to the ruins of the counter to begin his search. It wasn’t long before he found a few sets of keys in the drawers and went outside to try them out. The couple was examining packs of Snoballs while they waited for the water to boil. He moved past them and went around back where Bree was waiting and tried the keys. The tow truck started up and Bree drove them around front to park next to the Pendrakes Chevy Aveo. The couple stood up and started walking towards them, but Blake waved them back down. Bree got out and started transferring gas from the tow truck to the Aveo. Mrs. Pendrake handed him a paper coffee cup with a bag of Earl Grey inside. She shrugged at him, “You can’t really find good tea at a gas station, but you make do. Water should be ready soon.”
Bree came over then and took the proffered paper cup with a tea bag inside. “Your tank’s full,” she announced. “Also, I put what was left from the truck into a gas can for later.”
“Thank you so much, Miss Bree. It was very kind of you,” Mr. Pendrake said gratefully.
She waved it off, “Thank that guy. I wanted to drive away and pretend we never ran into you.”
The couple exchanged a glance. “Well, I’m certainly glad you didn’t. You’re the first normal people we’ve seen since leaving Las Vegas. It would’ve been a shame to find that even the people who haven’t yet succumbed to disease weren’t much better than the ones who have.”
Interested, Blake asked, “You came from Vegas? What’s happening there?”
“We’re actually from England, on holiday,” he replied, “Then people started behaving strangely and the hotels started asking people to stay indoors while they brought the situation under control.”
“I think that only made it worse,” Mrs. Pendrake added.
Mr. Pendrake nodded in agreement, “Those with the illness were already inside, and it spread. The authorities there were not helpful either. I offered my services to one of the soldiers, but he told me to go back to my room. He insisted that the situation was under control.”
“Donovan was a military doctor before retirement,” Mrs. Pendrake clarified.
“Formerly with 16 Medical Regiment,” he informed them proudly. “Then when night fell it seemed like hordes of them had gotten in and were attacking anyone who hadn’t been infected. We were only able to escape because of Mrs. Pendrake’s love for penny slot machines,” he caressed her arm.
“I insisted on going down at two in the morning to play,” she affirmed, “It’s a weakness of mine.”
“When we did, we saw them congregating across the entire ground floor. Attacking anyone who was playing through the night. We immediately ran back up to our room which was fortunately on the second floor,” he continued.
“I don’t like heights,” she explained, “I insisted on a room as close to the ground as they could manage.”
“It was fortunate because, for some reason, the emergency exits were locked tight,” he continued, “We had to go back to our room, force the window open, and climb down using bed sheets we knotted together.”
“Opening the window was the hardest part,” she interjected, “The one in our room wouldn’t open at all.”
Mr. Pendrake nodded in agreement. “We had to search for a tool for that. We finally found an ax in housekeeping.”
“He chopped at the window until it shattered.” She rested her head against his bicep affectionately. “Quite dashing really.”
“We recovered our rental car and left as quickly as we could,” he said while stroking his wife’s hair. “The power was out completely, but I think because we got out before those afflicted with the disease attacked in earnest, the roads were still fairly clear.”
“We decided to drive to Los Angeles,” she added. “We were hoping that under the circumstances, we could get our return tickets changed so we could go back to London by way of the airport there.”
Blake shook his head. “We came from there. What happened in Vegas sounds similar to what happened in Los Angeles. The power was out when we left. We were evacuated to the convention center and then attacked while everyone was asleep. I doubt the airport is operating.”
The Pendrakes looked crestfallen at this. “Well, thank you for telling us. At least we can try another major city. Perhaps San Francisco is still under control,” he
said hopefully.
“I really hope that’s the case,” Blake sympathized.
Steam rose from the coffee pot and Mrs. Pendrake poured the hot water into everyone’s paper cups. “Why don’t you travel with us?” Mrs. Pendrake suggested. “Safety in numbers.”
“I dare say that is an excellent idea,” Mr. Pendrake agreed, sipping the hot beverage.
“That is a tempting offer,” Blake admitted.
“A word in private please,” Bree requested. “Please excuse us,” she asked of the Pendrakes.
“Of course,” Mr. Pendrake nodded.
Bree moved them a short distance away. “We can’t go with them,” she said sternly.
“But you heard them. Vegas isn’t any better than Los Angeles.”
“I still have to go.”
“Because your sister is there.”
“That’s right.”
“Vegas is overrun though… Did you get in contact with her somehow?”
“No. But she’s a student, so I think there’s a good chance she wasn’t on the strip when things fell apart. I can’t be sure she’s not gone or dead. But I have to try to find her,” she told him, voice filled with emotion.
“I wish we knew for sure that she’s still there.”
“Look, you can go with them if you want to. I won’t take it personally. But I have to try to find her.”
Blake thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t like going somewhere we know is dangerous, but you’re going to have a better chance of finding her if I’m backing you up. If you have to do this... I’m in.”
Bree smiled, looking more relieved than he’d expected, “Thanks, Blake. Let’s tell them our decision.”
sixteen
Night was falling as Blake and Bree said their goodbyes to the Pendrakes.
“Take care of each other out there,” Blake said, “You should have enough gas to get you to San Francisco with the extra fuel tanks.” Bree stared passionately at a point on the ground.
Mr. Pendrake gripped Blake’s hand and shook it warmly. “Thank you, Sir Blake. Without your help, I’m not sure what would’ve become of us.”
Mrs. Pendrake looked determinedly at Bree and without warning, she rushed forward and threw her arms around her. Bree stiffened up and leaned away as much as possible under the circumstances, looking strangely enough like she was being squeezed out of a tube of toothpaste.
“Thank you as well, Miss Bree. Without your ingenuity, we’d probably be walking through the desert. Now we have a good chance of getting home.” Bree relaxed and allowed herself to be squeezed until Mrs. Pendrake was satisfied.
“Cheers. Oh and beware the fake soldiers.” Mr. Pendrake waved and went to the passenger side of his car to let his wife in, closing it after her.
“Wait, what? Fake soldiers? What do you mean?” Blake asked.
“I’m quite certain that the soldiers that were managing the crisis were fake,” Mr. Pendrake told him.
“How do you know?” Blake pressed, astonished.
“Their uniforms were all wrong. Missing unit patches, pins attached in the wrong places, things like that. Unless the US military has become slovenly, I don’t see how they could’ve been real soldiers.”
“You’d be able to tell just by going on that?” Blake asked.
Mr. Pendrake nodded. “Oh, yes. Most certainly. Also, the way they wore their uniforms was a bit dodgy.”
“Wow,” was all Blake could say.
“Be careful,” Mr. Pendrake recommended. “There’s definitely something amiss. Don’t let yourself be diddled.”
“Um, okay?” Blake agreed, half understanding.
He then walked around to the driver’s side and got in himself as he offered another wave, shutting the door immediately after.
Blake tracked their progress out of the gas station and towards the interstate where he finally lost sight of their vehicle. Slight motion caught his eye as the car disappeared. They were very far away, but they looked like people walking. A lot of them.
“Can we get out of here now?”
Blake glanced to his side where she had materialized. She was looking at the figures in the distance.
“Yeah,” he said, trying to keep his voice from cracking. “Let’s get out of here.”
seventeen
The road unfolded as they sped down the freeway. Bree was driving as fast as her high beams allowed, which wasn’t fast enough if her intermittent complaining was any indication. It was still so fast that Blake was too scared to sleep. He was focused as intently as she was on the road ahead as illuminated by the car’s lights, and every bit of debris, or stalled car, or wild animal in one case that suddenly entered their cone of light would make the bottom drop out of his stomach. Not only did none of that phase her, but she was also able to avoid it all easily as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. He glanced at her again, her face impassive, right hand firmly on the stick shift and the left at ten o’clock on the steering wheel, her gaze steady and somehow fiercely monitoring the visible patch of road ahead. Again, he considered asking her to slow down, but he dismissed the idea again because he didn’t think she would anyway. She’d probably speed up. Instead, he released the death grip he had on the handle above his window and wiped the sweat onto his jeans and asked, “How much longer do you think?”
“Maybe another two hours,” she muttered, still staring determinedly ahead.
Despite the terror of Bree’s driving, Blake slipped into an exhausted sleep only to come awake when Bree gasped and the squeal of tires brought him fully awake, the next moment he flailed his hands out and screamed as the car spun out of control. During that moment, the lights of the car played across a huge crowd of people who seemed to fill the road ahead.
“What the fuck?” he managed to blurt out before the car suddenly stopped spinning and started forward again.
Blake twisted to his left to look out the back window and definitely confirmed that they were now moving away from a large group of people.
“What the fuck?” he reiterated.
“I hope the side road is drivable,” Bree replied as she decelerated and made a hard left turn to exit the highway using an exit that they’d previously passed.
“What was that shit you just pulled? I thought we were going to crash?” he gasped.
“Well, we were going a little fast, but there was no going through all those people. So I pulled the e-brake and turned us around quick,” she replied.
“What?” he said, dumbfounded. “Do normal people drive like that?”
“I drive like that,” she said as she negotiated the exit and started accelerating. “I just haven’t had many chances to do fun stuff like that. Traffic laws and such,” she shrugged.
Blake tried to think of something to say to that, but nothing came so he continued to stare at her with his mouth open. After a few moments of silence, Bree spared a quick glance at him. “Would you stop that?” Blake clamped his mouth shut. “Thank you.”
Blake could see the highway where they had been driving until three minutes ago and what could only be hundreds upon hundreds of infected people lumbered along it. Some of them staggered off the highway and fell as they drove past. It was as if the car had a strong magnetic pull and was attracting them as they drove by. “Any chance they’ll get in your way?” he asked, worried. Bree shrugged, “I hope not. I’m guessing they think as slow as they move, so when they react to us, we’ll already be past.”
Blake allowed himself to relax, “What does your sister do in Vegas?”
“She’s a student at UNLV.”
“Really?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“I was going to guess blackjack dealer.”
Bree’s grip on the steering wheel tightened.
“Umm... at least it seems like the sick are moving away from the city,” Blake observed.
“Yeah. There’s that at least.”
“Maybe when we get
there, the government or whoever will have taken control again.”
Bree’s grip on the wheel relaxed, “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Hey, it’s possible!” Blake persisted.
“Vegas is definitely one of the most important cities in the country,” she replied sarcastically.
“Isn’t there like a military base in Las Vegas? They’d probably make restoring order to the city their first priority,” he reasoned.
“You’re forgetting that the military is part of whatever is going on. And besides that, if they weren’t in on it, there wouldn’t be that parade going on over there,” she gestured at the highway.
“Well, but Mr. Pendrake said that the soldiers handling the evacuation were fakes.”
“Then what happened to the real military?”
“Well, we could try to find out?”
“It’s not exactly high on my priority list.”
But if the city really is out of control, that doesn’t present an ideal situation for trying to find someone.”
Bree sighed and nudged the accelerator further down. Blake started feeling again like they were driving too fast. He gripped his door handle and watched the road ahead.
Luckily, the side road was clear of traffic and demented pedestrians, so they were able to make decent time despite not being able to use the freeway. Blake was trying hard not to look at the herd of people, but couldn't help stealing a glance now and again. They were no longer as dense as when they first almost smacked into it, but there was still a steady stream of them moving purposely towards the west. Blake still wondered what was driving them. Was there some kind of group mind that directed them like ants to some greater purpose? Or was someone directing them like at the convention center? If so, who? Thinking about the possibilities gave him chills.
Time seemed to lose meaning in the darkness. Blake struggled to stay awake despite the terror Bree's nutty driving shot through him whenever he looked forward.
"I don't know what's scarier. Your driving or that I’m getting used to it."