by Newman, AJ
Jill stripped all her clothes off and washed her body with hand sanitizer. She now knew where every cut and scrape was on her body. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but the best she could do at the time. She quickly dressed and moved her truck away from the bodies. She needed to get a few hours rest and let her nerves settle down before moving on down the road.
She heard the big pickup before she saw it. Jill had hoped it would go on past the exit because she guessed it was a much higher chance the driver was sick, or an asshat trying to mess with her. The truck stopped, and a man walked around to the passenger side and let a dog jump to the ground. They both relieved themselves, and the man fetched something from the back of the truck. She watched from cover and saw him string the wire from one pole to another. He took one end back to the truck and then sat in the cab for a long time. She could see his lips moving and was shocked when it dawned on her he was talking with someone over the radio. There must be other survivors.
Jill grappled with deciding if she should approach the man and his dog. He seemed to take good care of his pet and was in touch with other people. She longed for the sound of another’s voice. She continued watching without building the courage to approach the man. He drove within a few feet of her, and she could see his face through the jury-rigged window. He was a handsome man with a smile and was about her age. She laughed when she saw he was singing to the dog.
The truck was almost out of sight when she jumped into her truck and followed behind him. She desperately needed someone to talk with, and he seemed to be a decent fellow.
Jill was surprised when she saw the SUV pull onto the highway from behind a sign. The truck had passed the sign, and the SUV fell in behind the man and his dog. She had to slam on the brakes to keep from getting too close to the black vehicle that was now following the truck in front of her. The cop in her was very suspicious. It almost looked like the vehicle was stalking the truck. This just heightened her desire to learn more about the man and maybe warn him about the person behind him.
Chapter 12
Albuquerque New Mexico – July 2038
Jon drove with a sense of urgency after talking with the lady from the CDC in Atlanta. Her voice stirred his feelings for his probably dead fiancé, and even though he wanted to meet her, he didn’t want to tell the world his location. He hadn’t talked with anyone, not trying to infect or rob him since the woman fell off the trail and almost killed him. Weeks had passed, and he was feeling lonely and sorry for himself. Bo was nice to have around but wasn’t very talkative.
He drove past several wrecks and a couple of bodies rotting behind the wheel a few miles after leaving the rest stop at Continental Divide. He had developed a healthy dose of paranoia since the plague began, and he constantly scanned ahead and behind him as he drove.
“Well, well, Bo, a pickup, just appeared behind us. I think I saw it at the stop back there. It’s hanging back a good distance. This can’t be good. I’m going to slow up and see what happens.”
Jon slowed down without stepping on the brakes. The vehicle behind him slowed also. He waited a while before speeding back up, so the person behind him wouldn’t suspect he knew he was being followed. The truck stayed about a quarter-mile behind him and further when he hit a flat straight stretch of road. Jon started to worry about the truck and planned to lose it when he drove through Albuquerque. He was surprised when the truck took the Highway 53 off ramp and headed south to San Rafael. This was a big relief, and he patted Bo on the back and gave him a bit of jerky.
His review mirror didn’t have any more suspicious cars, so he drove on to Albuquerque, continually watching for strange vehicles following him. The suburbs of the city were the same as he had seen before. There were a lot of stalled cars, abandoned houses, and rotting bodies. Many of the dead had been eaten on enough that their bones showed through the putrid flesh. Most had rats and vultures dining on them. He drove around several bodies, making the rats and birds scatter. He hated rats and tried to run them over every chance he got. He even began rolling over the people to kill more rats.
A smile came over his face when he saw the large sign. ‘The largest selection of Guns in New Mexico! Right here!’ He took the next exit and worked his way down side roads to the gun shop. There were only a few decaying bodies to be seen in this neighborhood. A small pack of dogs came running up to him, but a handful of dog biscuits kept them busy. He left Bo in the truck and entered the gun store with his pistol in his hand. No one was there, and there weren’t any stinking bodies around either. The shop had been scavenged. The windows were shattered, and the back half of the building had burned. He looked in a janitor’s closet and found some toilet paper, which he placed into a cart. Leaving the room, he saw a sawed-off double barrel shotgun under the cash register. He picked it up, broke it over, and saw it was loaded with two double aught buck shells. He grabbed a box of shells next to the gun and started to leave when he saw a handwritten note on a chalkboard. It read, Everyone is dead, my family is dead. The virus killed them all. I’m going to Ft Worth to see if my sister is still alive. If you see an old beat up blue F150 on the way to Texas honk! Good luck! I’m getting the hell outta here!
Jon wrote a note on the large board. If you’re alive, try to contact the CDC in Atlanta. They have a secure area, and there are survivors. They need you to help with finding a cure. To contact me, call – 555 867 5309. Jenny.
Jon snickered as he sang the Tommy Tutone song- 867-5309 - Jenny on the way to the store next door. The store had also been looted, but still had some snacks. He added the snacks to the cart and pushed it to the truck. He stopped abruptly when he heard growls behind him. He turned to see several large dogs snarling at him in a threatening manner. He opened a package of the beef jerky, pitched it to the ground, and pushed the cart to the truck. Samantha began honking her horn to scare the dogs away, but they ignored the sound. Jon heard the snarling again and saw a fight break out among the dogs. He opened two more packages of the jerky and threw it at the starving animals. They stopped fighting and ate the jerky. He didn’t have a lot of room left in the truck but shoved the cart’s contents into the back seat of the truck. He placed two bottles of orange pop and a couple bags of jerky in the front seat and then closed the door and drove away before the dogs could turn on him.
He didn’t realize how scared he was until he noticed his hands shaking. He thought, There are just too many ways to die these days. If the plague didn’t get you, the wild dogs or rats would.
His hands shook as he twisted the top off the bottle of pop. The dogs had scared him. He added vicious dogs and beasts to his list of bad things that had happened to him. He started singing ‘867 5309’ again, and the tune was soon stuck in his head as he drank more orange soda and fed Bo more jerky and Slim Jims.
“I need a drink, my nerves are shot to hell,” Jon groaned as he braked and then drove into a Porsche dealership.
Samantha said, “Jon, remember the Corvette. You’re going to kill yourself. You know damned well alcohol and driving don’t mix. Oh, shit, if you’re going to do it, please take my spare memory card with you.”
Jon checked his pocket and found the card. He waved it in the air and said, “Got it.”
“Jon, tell me to follow you.”
“What?”
“When you wreck the car, I can find you.”
“Okay, I won’t drink, but I really want to. Follow me. Crap, I’m talking to a car again.”
Samantha joked. “I’m the only friend you have these days, and God knows you need someone to watch over you.”
“Are you my guardian angel?”
“It’s a dirty, thankless job, but someone has to do it.”
He wanted to try his hand at driving a much more powerful car. He opened the door for Bo to let him out. Then he walked up to the dealership door. It was locked, so he retrieved the sawed off shotgun from the truck and opened the door. Well, actually, he blew all of the glass from the door with two blasts from the shotgun
and walked into the showroom. The showroom had several high performance Porsche sports cars. The car he wanted to drive was in the showroom. It was a 2038 – 911 GT4 RS with 790 HP and a top speed of 225 miles per hour. A car worth driving was all he could think. He searched the manager’s office and found the key fob. He opened the double glass doors and started the Porsche. The car immediately took over and tried to tell Jon what to do. After several warnings not to, he fumbled around and selected the manual driving mode. The beautiful silver sports car roared to life, and he drove it out to the truck where he filled the gas tank from his spare gas tank. He grabbed his orange soda and drove away, leaving Bo scratching his ear.
Jon didn’t want to die, but he did want to drive this expensive race car and put it through its paces. He’d seen the traffic signs for the airport on the way into the city. He knew the runways would be much safer than the city streets. He cautiously drove the three miles to the airport and opened the gates to the runway with his magic double barreled key. There were only a few airplanes on the taxiway, so he cruised around the runway and taxi strips building up courage and speed. He didn’t want to make the same mistake he made earlier by running into a plane or building.
The car was ungodly fast and scared him every time he floored it. He spun out several times before he got the hang of going around flat curves at a decent speed. The longest runway was three miles long. Jon drove up and down it several times until he felt good about how fast he could go before having to brake. He stopped the car at the southwest end of the runway and floored the gas pedal. The car had an automatic transmission, so he just kept the gas pedal floored until it screamed down the runway at 235 miles per hour and hit the brakes. The car spun out of control for a second, almost flipped, and the computer took over. Red lights flashed, brakes squealed from side to side, and front to back until the car headed in a straight line again. The problem was the car was still going thirty miles per hour when it went under a jumbo jet and crashed into a small aircraft. Jon unfastened the three-point harness and climbed out of the half-million dollar sports car. He rolled on the ground and brushed himself off.
Jon jumped up in the air and yelled. “Damn, that was fun!”
Jon had hit his head during the crash. He was a bit woozy and didn’t see the person with the field glasses watching him from a distance. The person ran out on the tarmac but didn’t get there in time to stop Jon. He climbed into an old single engine bi-plane. Jon thought it would be nice to taxi around the airfield, but was too scared to attempt to fly. His dad had been a pilot and had let him fly a bit after the plane was already in the air. He sat behind the controls trying to start the engine when he felt a blow to his head. His world turned black.
☣☣☣
The woman who dragged Jon out of the plane and shoved him into the back seat of the black SUV didn’t see the person with the field glasses watching her from a distance. Jill was too far away to save Jon. She’d followed both of them to the Porsche dealership, but couldn’t warn the man. He peeled out in a sports car and left his dog and truck. The person in the black SUV followed him. Jill saw Bo and didn’t know if she or the man would ever come back, so she coaxed Bo into her truck and tried to catch up to them.
She’d lost sight of them while getting the dog, but soon heard the screaming sound of the Porsche’s engine. She followed the sound to the airport but didn’t arrive in time to warn the man. Stopping at the entrance, she saw the silver car narrowly miss the large jet and plow into the small aircraft. His antics after the crash made her laugh until she saw the woman in black drag him from the plane and stuff him in the back seat of her SUV. Jill backed up to the building and ducked down in the seat while the black SUV sped past her. Jill followed from a distance. She didn’t know why, but she felt this man was worth saving.
Bo sat in Jill’s front seat and chewed on a piece of summer sausage as the vehicle followed the SUV. Jill talked with the dog as though he were human and going to answer at any moment.
“What’s your name, boy? You sure are a handsome fellow.”
Bo yawned and moved close to her. He laid his head on her lap and went to sleep. She stayed far enough behind the SUV that she only saw it on long sections of straight highway. They drove for over four hours at around fifty miles an hour until she saw the sign for the Texas border. The sun was low in the sky. She noticed the glare in her mirrors kept her from seeing behind her, so she pulled closer to the black SUV. The SUV slowed about an hour later, several miles from Amarillo. The sun was almost down when she saw the SUV’s lights. Jill braked hard, checked her light switch, and turned it to off.
The SUV slowed even more, and the driver appeared to be searching for something. Then the vehicle drove off on the right side of Highway 40, stirring up dust. Jill thought the person driving was crazy until she saw every speed sign and mile marker had been flattened for several miles. Jill couldn’t imagine what the heck the woman was trying to accomplish. Then the SUV steered back onto the pavement and stopped in the middle of the road. Jill pulled off the side of the road into a gully and found her binoculars.
The woman dressed in black took several bags and boxes out of the back of the SUV and began placing small markers on the side of the road about a hundred feet apart, heading toward Jill. She breathed a sigh of relief when the woman put the last box about a half-mile from Jill’s position. The lady walked back to the vehicle and opened both doors on the passenger side. She stayed busy doing something to the vehicle for a few minutes and then sat in the passenger’s seat.
Jill’s interest was piqued, and her imagination went off the chart, wondering what the woman planned to do with her victim. She left the dog in her truck and skulked along the side of the road in the ditch toward the SUV. She stayed out of view and made it to within a few feet of the woman.
Jill heard a voice. “I have the subject and am parked on Highway 40’s eastbound lane about half-way between Bushland and where Highway 335 crosses Highway 40 on the west side of Amarillo.”
There was a pause, and then Jill heard. “Why do you need to know what I look like? Dumbass, I’m the only lady on Highway 40 with an immune man. He’s drunk but living.”
There was another pause then, “Of course I’ve marked my location per your instructions. Be here on time, or I’ll take him on to the buyers in Mexico. Daybreak is good because it’s too damned dark out here to be traveling at night. I’m catching a few ZZZZs and will greet you in the morning.”
Another pause and Jill heard, “Yes, it’s just him and me. I’ve only got one bag,” then silence.
Jill walked back to her truck and was startled by the too familiar and deadly sound of a rattlesnake’s rattle. It was very dark, so she stopped, and then backed up a couple of steps. The snake had crawled up on the warm road to stay warm during the chilly Texas spring night. Jill took her phone from her pocket and shielded its light from the view of the person in the SUV. She turned the flashlight app on and was shocked to see several snakes in her path. She walked sideways off the road to avoid the deadly monsters and watched carefully for more.
She stopped before opening the truck’s door. “Oh shit! The dome light and marker lights will come on when I open the door.”
It was now very dark, and even a small light could be seen for miles. She looked in the bed of the truck and found a screwdriver. It took a few minutes, but she removed all of the tail lights and front marker lights. She found a blanket in the back and covered the window. The door opened, and she crawled in for the night after taking the dome lightbulbs out of their sockets.
Neither Jill nor the woman in the black SUV saw the large Ford truck following them. Samantha hadn’t told Jon the memory card was designed to stay in constant contact through satellite communication with the original copy and Ford Motor Company. Samantha’s monitor showed a human figure with Jon’s face speeding across a map.
Chapter 13
Highway 40 - West of Amarillo Texas – July 2038
Jill woke up in a
sweat. She sat up and thought, This man was being sold to someone interested in why he was immune. They will experiment on him. I must be immune also. I need to save him.
Jill checked her watch and saw it was four o’clock. She only had about an hour before daylight to capture and tie up the woman and take the man as far away as possible. She opened the truck’s window so the dog could get out and prepared to leave. Jill dressed in black and proceeded along the ditch to the SUV, where she stopped to listen. She moved closer to the vehicle. The passenger side window was open, and she could hear breathing. She pulled the long zip ties from her back pocket, lifted the woman’s hands, and zip tied them together. The woman woke up startled and ready to fight. Jill’s flashlight highlighted the 9 mm pistol a few inches from the woman’s chest.
Jill placed the cold steel against the woman’s neck. “If you want to live, you’ll shut up and get out of the car. Do it now!”
The woman got out as Jill backed up a bit. Jill was ready for the woman to attack and sidestepped the roundhouse kick. Before Jill could react, the dog flew through the air and knocked the woman back against the SUV. Jill kicked the woman in the back of her knee, and she crumbled to the ground, smashing her head against the SUV. She was out cold. Jill zip tied the woman’s feet and started dragging her.
Jill patted the dog on the head. “Good dog. I think we’ll take you with us.”
Bo wagged his tail and licked Jill’s face. Jill turned her attention to the unconscious woman. “Damn, I wanted the bitch to walk to the ditch. Now, I have to drag her sorry butt.”
The woman only weighed about one hundred and twenty pounds but was all dead weight. Jill was out of breath when the body was at the bottom of the ditch. Jill stuffed a sock in the woman’s mouth, and duct taped it closed. Several dead bushes were stacked on top of her unconscious body, and Jill was sure no one would find her. She knew she should kill the woman but decided to let fate handle her. If she got out of the zip ties, she probably deserved to live. If not, the coyotes and buzzards would have a feast.
