by Bobby Adair
What the hell?
I checked my watch. Three minutes to go.
Could I start the fire early?
I wanted to.
What if I did it too early. What if it attracted attention quickly? What if a horde of Shroomheads lived in the fertilizer warehouse across the way? Could a hundred of them come tearing across the street in the three minutes Amelia would be thinking she had while she was down in the packaging warehouse? Down there with no windows she’d never know. If I lit the fire early, it might mean her death.
Dammit!
I checked my watch again. I paced. I double-checked the magazine on my weapon, ensured that my backpack pockets were zipped shut, retied each boot, and tried to calm myself with several long, slow breaths.
Patience is hard when you’re in the dark.
I closed my eyes and listened.
Don’t light the fire early. Don’t do something stupid.
I heard the wind blowing gently through the open windows. Paper money rattled across the floor. Tiny rat feet scampered over the floorboards on the level above me. Somewhere, nine or ten blocks away, Shroomies were quarrelling, sounding like fighting dogs, with others yapping around them.
I opened my eyes and checked my watch.
Shit!
I was a minute late.
I picked up my metal fire tray, hurried over to the cash room, and took care to dump the embers at the base of a giant pile of cash. Loose bills caught immediately, and the flames climbed up the side of the pile, flickering in a breeze blowing in through the blasted-open doors.
Stepping out of the room, I watched the fire grow. I checked my watch. Another two minutes gone. I wanted to run, yet didn’t. I couldn’t go until I knew for sure the fire wasn’t going to snuff itself.
Flames rose off the first pile and started to lick the ceiling. The fire spread to the next pile over, and smoke poured out of the open doors. Another stack of cash ignited, and I made my call. It was time to run.
January 17th, third entry
I bounded down the stairs and came out into the loading bays, retracing my path from the day before. As I ran through the jumble of debris, brass casings jingled under my feet. I scanned left and right, looking for anything moving in the shadows that might need a bullet or two of discouragement. I saw nothing.
Through one of the shredded metal doors, I burst into the late afternoon light and stopped for a quick breather on the loading dock. Nothing stood in the parking lot battle zone except the rusting cars and trucks that were there the last time I’d passed. There was no Amelia either, not running through the maze of vehicles, and not standing on the pier by the canoe.
Nearby, relatively speaking, maybe a few blocks away, a handful of Shroomies were making a racket.
Stepping to the edge of the loading dock where I could see past the overhanging awning, I looked up to see the result of my pyromania. Smoke was flowing through the windows on the third floor, and was starting to dribble out a few on the fourth. All those hundred-year-old wooden floors and the supporting structures boxed inside the ten-story brick façade were as dry as matchsticks.
More Shroomheads were responding to the calls of others nearby. It sounded like the monkey house at the zoo waking up for the dinner feeding. Things were going to get crazy in a big hurry.
I stayed on the loading dock, with a view of most of the back parking lot. Still, I didn’t see Amelia.
I cursed myself for not going with her. Separating had been a terrible idea.
On the chance she was over by the canoe already or hiding behind an overturned Humvee, I jumped off the loading dock, winced at the pain that shot through my knees, and I ran. Rifle up, trigger ready, I hurried through the maze of junked cars. All of Houston seemed to be coming alive around Punchy Bryan’s burning factory.
I stopped at the water’s edge. The canoe drifted there, tethered to a cleat by a yellow nylon rope, empty of anything but the paddles lying inside.
“Dammit!”
I spun around with my rifle up and scanned the area as I moved to position myself behind the nearest bombed car. I needed to see and not be seen. Windows on three floors of the tower were belching smoke. Flames billowed from the third floor, glowing brighter and brighter against the dimming sky.
Amelia, where are you?
I left my position and ran back toward the loading dock.
January 17th, fourth entry
I stepped through the loading dock doors as air sucked past me, flowing through the warehouse, toward the open stairwell doors. The fire upstairs was hungry, and it was growing.
With all the noise outside, and the fire roaring overhead, I figured I had nothing to lose. I hollered Amelia’s name into the shadows.
She didn’t respond, so I ran further in.
Past the stairs we’d taken up to the third floor, I entered a dark hallway. I called for her again.
Twenty yards on, I came to several sets of doors cocked open, exposing a vast, dark space beyond. I shouted through, and got the worst result. Shroomies howled back.
Shit!
I ran on, poking my head in doorways and calling. I passed through a breezeway between two buildings and got lost in the sprawling manufacturing facility as it came alive with wartheads around me.
Entering another building through the open doors, I spied a mob of the infected coming in at the other end, and that’s when I realized I couldn’t search anymore. If the Shroomheads didn’t get me, the fire would. I needed to get back to the canoe, and hope Amelia was already there.
Sprinting through the breezeway, I burst into the building I'd passed through a moment before. In the hall ahead of me, seven or eight of them were running in my direction, thirty meters down. With no time to consider what to do, I leveled my rifle and popped off a fast dozen shots, sending them tumbling.
Unfortunately, more were farther down the hall, amped up on gunshot noise and screaming for the hunt.
Cursing myself for what I’d just done, I turned and ran back out the door I’d just entered through.
Once outside, between the buildings, the noise around me grew to a frenzy because my gunshots had been heard over the roar of the fire above. My chances to escape were going to collapse down to nothing in a nasty hurry.
I sprinted down to the far end of the building. Panting, I threw my back against the wall when I reached the corner. I peeked out to make sure the way was clear before I took off on my next run.
Fifty yards across a lawn overgrown with waist-high weeds, at a gap in a twelve-foot fence, I saw a handful of wart-covered nudies, standing still and looking in the other direction.
I pulled back around the corner and took a few deep breaths to steady my hands as I decided whether to shoot them in the back or to run past and around the corner. The battle zone parking lot lay a few hundred yards away. With a big enough head start, I could stay ahead of them if they gave chase.
I could make it to the canoe.
I had to.
With my rifle at my shoulder, ready to fire, I rounded the corner and kept my gun pointed at the group.
My luck instantly disappeared. They turned as one, and looked at me, surprise evident on their crude faces.
That’s when I spotted Amelia, right there near them, by the fence, raising her hands and yelling at me. I was already pulling the trigger, blasting out a rapid series of shots so fast that I couldn’t bring myself to stop until my magazine ran empty.
With my ears ringing I changed out my mag, and Amelia’s shout clarified through all the other noise. She was yelling the word, “No!”
Not understanding, I waved her to follow, and I jogged slowly enough for her to catch up with me. I scanned for targets, glancing back at her to make sure she wasn’t being chased.
The Shroomies I’d shot by the fence were dying noisily as they squirmed on the ground, their fungus-addled brains incapable of understanding the injuries quickly bleeding them out.
The infected were howling in every
direction.
The flames in the tower were billowing out of several floors, and most of the windows were spewing smoke.
As soon as I reached the burned-out cars, I took up a defensive position to cover Amelia’s escape. None of the monsters running through the grass was close enough to catch her. That’s when I knew we were going to make it.
I spun and ran as hard as I could, wanting to make it to the canoe in enough time to loose it from the cleat so I could push off as soon as Amelia boarded.
Feeling my heart bursting from my chest from the exertion, I reached the wharf. I turned again, scanning with my rifle for targets, and saw none worth wasting a shot on. I dropped to a knee, keeping one hand on my AR-15 with a finger on the trigger, and used my other hand to unwrap the nylon rope.
The sounds of running steps came up behind me. I knew it had to be Amelia, but still, I looked, and saw the bottom of her boot coming at me.
With no time to dodge out of the way, Amelia’s kick caught me square on the shoulder and sent me tumbling into the murky water.
All I could think of were giant, hungry alligators as I splashed, dropping my AR-15 as I flailed to grab anything to save myself.
Coughing out a mouthful of muck, I surfaced.
Amelia was standing on the edge of the wharf, glaring down at me.
Swimming a few strokes to the canoe, I shouted, “What the hell?”
“You asshole. You goddamn fucking asshole! I told you to meet me here.”
"What?" I threw a leg into the canoe, and it turned over, dunking me again.
Keeping my grip on the boat, I swam around to the iron ladder handles mounted in the concrete of the wharf. I pulled myself partially out of the water, as I found a submerged rung with my foot.
Amelia was still cursing at me when I looked up to see her standing at the top of the ladder, with her pistol aimed at my face.
"What are you doing?" I shouted, angry, not caring what Shroomies heard me.
“They were my friends, you shithead. You killed ‘em for no reason at all.”
“They were monsters. I saved you.”
“People like you don’t understand anything.” Amelia shot a round into the water. “If I ever see you again, I’m going to kill you. Take your canoe and go!”
The fire was raging through the tower above. Thousands of Shroomheads were yelling and whooping as they emptied out of the surrounding buildings and houses, all coming to see what the commotion was about.
I tried to turn the canoe over with one hand as I held the iron rung with the other. “I lost my rifle.”
“I don’t care.” She looked to her right as the screams of Shroomheads from nearby told me all I needed to know about how fast everything was going to shit. Amelia flipped her hoodie back to expose the warts on her head, then spat at me and stomped out of view.
I sank into the water, pulled my knife, cut the rope, and slipped into the air pocket beneath the upturned canoe. I kicked my feet to push the canoe out into the channel as I prayed there’d be no reptilian predators on the prowl in the dark water.
January 26th
It’s been a week since I last saw Amelia, since I last saw the barrel of her Colt pointed down at me.
I doubt I’ll ever see her again. I don’t know, because I don’t understand what happened. All I have are my guesses and deductions. Well, that and what she said. That’s the part I don’t get. I don’t understand how she could be friends with the brain-fried monsters.
No matter how I wrestle the thoughts around, they don’t gel into a consistent whole.
Unless Amelia was a whacked-out monster, too. She was a hard-edged sharp-tongued pain in my ass, but she wasn’t that.
It took me five solid days to get from downtown Houston back to Katy. Having lost my Glock and my AR-15, I had to make my way unarmed, which meant I had to be extra careful. Care takes time.
Now I’m back in Bunker Stink. Alone again, feeling like a new kid in school, not knowing whether my acquaintances like me. Except the only person I know pulled a gun on me and threatened to kill me.
Well, both of them, I guess. Amelia and Aunt Millie.
It sucks.
Like I’ve done a lot lately when the weight of loneliness has gotten me down, I move my feet, I get out. I’ve been taking chances. Not pointless chances, but risk with a purpose. I decided I’m not going to wait on Amelia to remember where her allegiances should lie—with the normal people left on the planet. I’m not going to wait for her to come around and apologize. I’m just going to make and execute my plans.
I have a list of all the things I need to do to sail my landlubber ass across the Gulf of Mexico, and I’m working them through and checking them off. It might take me a year. Hell, it might take me two before I feel the warm white sand of my forever island home between my toes, but what else am I going to do? Trap rats, kill Shroomies, and beat off to a deck of pornographic playing cards until I die of boredom?
No.
Just no.
Little Lyndon Johnson is not ready for the rest home. The Caribbean calls.
As you know already, my first venture out of the ‘hood didn’t go as expected. I ran into four normal humans, not counting Amelia. A lesser man might think one foul-mouthed hag and three dead bandits was an adverse outcome. All I’m taking out of that is optimism. Four uninfected humans on my first trip? That implies I’m not the only fully human man left on the planet, and surly little Amelia is certainly not the only female. There has to be at least one out there who’s close to my age, who needs a man to treat her right.
My post-apoc porn queen is out there, and I’m gonna find her.
So, big item number one on the list, get something to drive.
And so you laugh. Why not? It sounds stupid as hell. Where am I going to find a running vehicle two years after God flushed the commode? That kinda shit only happens on TV, right?
I say, no, my friend. Well, yes, sort of, but mostly no.
I was watching this show one night a few years back, one of those shows where some pseudo-expert guy goes spelunking through the tunnels and rooms buried beneath centuries of development under some old European cities. I know, interesting shit, right?
So the guy is in Germany and comes across an old WWII era generator, something left down there by Nazis trying to hide from the Allied bombs raining down every night.
One thing leads to another, ‘cause that’s the way those shows used to work, and they decide they want to fire up this old generator they found. Long story short, yeah, it eventually sparked. It took some persistence and running some fresh diesel through the system to get all the sixty-year-old jellied petroleum out, but once the engine sputtered for a little while, it smoothed out and ran like it was new.
Note to self: A good diesel can be your friend after the world ends.
So, I need a vehicle with a diesel engine. Off the top of my head, that means maybe a Humvee, any one of several brands of big pickups, some Mercedes, and a few Volkswagens. This being Texas, pickups are my best bet.
With a pickup—one with a trailer hitch—I can haul all my supplies down to the coast, so I won't have to start with nothing when I begin my quest to find a boat and learn to sail. Of course, driving in this world presents a whole set of dangers, but that’s something I’ll have to risk.
January 29th
It’s official. I’m staying on the night shift until further notice.
I don’t know if that makes me smart, or the biggest pussy on earth, too afraid to go out during the day and fight for man’s rightful place at the pinnacle of everything.
I want to go with smart, but I’m in a self-doubt mood today and thinking about how easy it is to lose your sense of self when you don’t have a social structure to anchor to. You know, being you, according the expectations everyone else has, living up to a reputation you’ve spent your life building, whether you ever gave it half a thought or not.
I need to be around people.
I spend to
o much time inside my head, and it’s not healthy for me.
Maybe that’s why prisoners left in solitary for years on end go crazy. We’re all interdependent social monkeys. It was such the macho-chic thing back in the day for dudes like me to claim we were solitary creatures who interacted with the world because the world needed us, not because we needed it. Like a drunk sitting in a bar telling his friends he doesn't need the booze. That was me.
I didn’t need the ex.
I didn’t need my customers.
Not anybody.
Except for my girls. I almost ruined those relationships by being such a hard-ass when they were growing up. Maybe I was pushing them away for some Freudian motive I never knew was there. Now I have a past just like everybody else, a card castle built of memories and regrets, waiting for Alzheimer’s to one day kick it down.
But maybe, from the carcass of the modern age, humanity can rise to seize a second chance, and perhaps, I can, too. Do people learn from their mistakes? I mean, really? Do we? Or do we just learn to make better excuses for the assholes we grew up to be?
I’m hoping for better. I’m praying for a second chance. Most importantly, I’m marching toward my goal, one step at a time.
Move the feet, and breathe.
I found a siphon pump last night.
I know that sounds like a victory so minor it could go without mention, yet it’s a big deal. I used to have one in the bunker. It’s one of the things I stocked early on. Unfortunately, to save money, I bought a cheap one. It fell apart long ago.
If my plan for a diesel truck is going to work out, I need fuel to run it. The odds of me finding a running truck with a full tank are zero. I might as well wait for it to rain frogs that turn into lusty princesses after a delicate kiss. I think I’ll be able to use my siphon pump to maybe find the last quart or two of diesel in tanks that were missed in a hurried theft attempt. And if a truck was siphoned, rather than run dry, chances are the fuel lines still hold some liquid gold.
It’ll be a tedious process, but everybody has to start with baby steps.
I’ll need batteries—car batteries that is. I’ve humped six of them back to Bunker Stink already, and I finally found one that would hold a charge. That makes me think I need to keep searching. A backup battery with a charge will be a good thing to bring on my trip, just in case. So, that’s been added to the list.
