Into the Fire

by Mark Tufo

  BT and I made sure the rifles were fully loaded. I opened up the window and was now in standby mode, waiting for the flying devil of death to catch up. Its progress would slow down as it fired upon everything and anything it came upon. Once in a while, it would have to circle back and finish what it had started.

  “How fast you think those things go?” I asked out loud to no one in particular.

  “They generally travel around fifty miles an hour when they’re patrolling, but they can reach speeds in excess of three hundred when they want to,” Tracy said.

  “Well, at least they won’t catch you then,” BT said.

  I looked over to the speedometer just to see if that was potentially possible. She had the meter pegged at a hundred twenty, which made my innards seize up just thinking about it. Was it feasible to think the drone would be traveling at full speed? And for what reason? That was easy enough to answer. Vengeance, destroy everything it could, innocent, guilty…its job was not to distinguish between the two.

  “Probably have one of those things on every road leading out of Nevada,” I whispered.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Tracy said.

  “Like an actual thought out plan?” I asked her.

  “I’m not you, of course it’s thought out. We need to ditch the truck.”

  We could never outrun the drone—that went without saying—but we sure wouldn’t be able to do it on foot either. I had to trust in my wife. Shit, she’d done it enough for me. The drone was getting closer. Due to the distances involved, and the fact that Tracy was doing close to half its speed, it seemed to be happening in slow motion. Yet that demise-dealing device was steadily getting closer. The only chances we had at escape came at the ultimate expense of others as the drone stopped to snuff out another’s life. I wanted to thank them, but ultimately I don’t think they’d take kindly to my gesture. They weren’t dying because they wanted to save us, in reality, they were dying because of us. I hadn’t really thought of that angle until right now. It was surprising to me how much that reality hurt.

  “Finally,” Tracy muttered.

  I had no clue what she was talking about. The truck began to creep down to speeds that were only terrifying and then we really started to slow.

  “We’re not going to have much time, when we get under the overpass, grab everything you can and get out.”

  I didn’t think hiding under the roadway was going to work, but neither was the path we were on. I could not help but keep an eye on the drone; as we slowed, it seemed to pick up speed like it had finally honed in on us.

  “Out!”

  We grabbed what we could and did as she said. Tracy put the truck in neutral.

  “Give it a push.”

  BT and I got behind it as she straightened the wheel out. There was a slight decline to the road that, in theory, would take the truck out from underneath the overpass and keep the Progs from investigating any further. Seemed relatively far-fetched that they’d be fooled. When your options are limited, you can only take the best chance, and that was what we were doing.

  BT and I watched as the truck began to roll away.

  “It’ll be fine, come on you two.” We followed Tracy as she headed up the concrete embankment that led to where the road overhead met the ground. We passed six people, four men and two women, who looked like they’d made this place their home. They watched us intently, but none approached or said anything. It wasn’t wise in this day and age—really any day and age—to approach three heavily armed people.

  “Whatcha doing with that truck?” one of them asked.

  “Getting as far away from it as possible,” I told him as I watched Tracy jump up and pull herself onto a girder. She began to inch her way further on so that there would be room for BT and me. The man that asked about the truck smacked the shoulder of the one closest to him and, without any further conversation, they made for the truck that was doing a whopping two or three miles an hour as gravity began to assert itself.

  “Don’t!” I shouted back. One turned, holding what looked like a .38 special revolver aimed at me. He was far enough away that anything that wasn’t guided by the hand of God was not going to hit me; although, in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t tempt him. God, I mean. I threw my hands up. “All yours, man, enjoy. She pulls a little to the right, and the radio doesn’t work for shit.”

  He grinned. The rest of the group followed their leader. By the time BT and I got onto the beam, they had all jumped in the truck and were speeding off. The sound of the truck engine revving was quickly drowned out by the high whine of the drone drive. In this manmade echo chamber that we found ourselves in, the noise was especially grating. The concussion from the explosion was wholly unexpected, at least as far as I was concerned. I nearly rolled off the side of the foot-wide girder; if not for BT grabbing my leg, I most likely would have made the fifteen-foot free-fall face first. My head rang as the noise vibrated the steel we were on, my vision blurring as my brain was tossed about. I had a duality of images. For a split second Tracy was in front of me, then there was a shaggy haired man who looked like he belonged at a Grateful Dead concert.

  My vision straightened back out as I shook my head. Below me, I saw a Prog drone coming inside the opening. Then my vision doubled back out to a hideous monster impossibly astride a motorcycle.

  “What is happening to me?” I moaned.

  “Mike, quiet,” the shaggy man and Tracy both admonished me. For a firing of a neuron they were blended and then, just as quickly and thankfully, shaggy man disappeared. I was looking upon Tracy’s face as she peered back. She held her index finger to her lips and then pointed to where the VW-sized drone was now directly underneath us, slowly scanning, I would imagine, for any life forms to snuff out. The thing was so close beneath me, had I desired to do so, I could have dragged my fingers across the top of it. I had no such desire.

  The thing lingered longer than it should have, like it had an idea something was there but just couldn’t figure out where. Inside, I was screaming for it to leave. I needed time to calm down from whatever had just happened to me. I’d been plenty scared a lot of times, especially in this new life, but never have I felt like I was going insane. To be split between a shrouded world and this one was not something I ever wanted to experience again.

  I was slowly moving my rifle into position. Tracy was shaking her head back and forth with a look that said, “don’t even think it.” Kind of like that time I wanted to tell her mother exactly what I thought of her liver-and-onions dinner. It was funny; her little dog Ben-Ben had even left the dining room. He knew enough about that particular meal that everyone would try to empty their plates into his stomach and even he didn’t want it. This from a dog I had personally witnessed eating shit nuggets out in the backyard.

  She could shake her head all she wanted—I wasn’t going to die like a bird on a wire. I had the rifle down and aimed, the problem was, I couldn’t remember if I had pulled the charging handle back or not to get a round chambered. I should have used the Stryver weapon, and then I wouldn’t have had to worry about that. While I was pondering, the machine kicked into high gear and screeched out from under us like it was a cop and had just got a call about a murder.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?!” BT smacked my calf. “Whoa, shit! Dude, are you alright?”

  “What?” I asked him, clearly confused. I was peering back at him and he intently up at me.

  He swallowed. “Um, sorry, for a second one of your eyes looked stark white. Weird. Must have been a trick of the light.” He didn’t say anything as he shuffled his body backward and towards the end of the overhang. He helped me down, took one more long look at my eyes and then shrugged. I turned to help Tracy down, she promptly punched me in the arm.

  “You trying to get us killed?”

  “Sort of trying to prevent it, actually.”

  “Now what?” BT asked. There were miles and miles of highway backwards and forwards; we now had no wheels, and a non-disc
riminatory drone was patrolling the skies.

  “Well, we should at least get out of here.” Smoke from the burning truck was filling in the space we found ourselves in.

  We got out and, before we made any kind of move, did a quick inventory. With modest rationing, we had food and water for two days at the most. We had ammunition for a relatively sustained firefight but not so much as a bandage for first aid supplies. We were kind of screwed. I knew enough about Nevada to know it was pretty desolate unless you were a lizard or sand.

  “What about the drone?” BT asked as we started walking.

  “Just remember to give it the finger right before it starts to fire,” I told him.

  “Are you ever not an asshole?”

  “No, he isn’t.” Tracy hung her head down.

  The situation was dire, there was no doubt about that, but we at least started our journey with relatively high morale considering all we’d just been through. I couldn’t help but stare at the burned out husks of the people who had borrowed our truck for perhaps the shortest joy ride known to man. The one who had pointed the gun at me had been driving and now had smoke pouring from his mouth which was permanently frozen in the open scream position.

  “Karma’s a bitch,” I told him and moved on.

  We got a good mile off the highway as the night began to close in on us. We hoped that would be far enough that, if a drone scout were around, we would be off the beaten path and not discovered. Stealth was really our only defense at this point. A fire would have been great, I actually lobbied for one. To the drone, our body heat would show up like a flare. What difference did a little flame make?

  “Plenty, Mike. The drone isn’t the only thing out here that’s dangerous,” Tracy said.

  “All the more reason to start a fire, keep the big cats away.”

  “Big cats?” BT was looking around.

  “There are no big cats in the desert,” Tracy said.

  “There are coyotes,” I shot back.

  “Coyotes?” BT asked again, concerned.

  “Packs of them,” I said, trying to swing him over to my side so we’d have the majority. Although, when did I ever think this was a democracy? Even if I tried to pull rank and order her, she would pull out the wife card, which trumped everything else.

  We sat huddled together most of the night as the temperature dropped. BT drifted off first. This I knew because his head had dropped over to the side and directly on top of mine. If he started to drool, it would run straight down my forehead and onto my face. It was for this reason alone that I shook him awake. Well, that and his upper body, which was leaning on me, had to weigh in excess of two hundred pounds.

  “Sorry…sorry, man,” he said before lying on to the ground.

  “Mike, you should get some sleep. I’ll keep first watch,” Tracy told me.

  “I would, but for some reason I’m wired. You might as well get some sleep. I’ll wake you when I’m ready.”

  Tracy leaned over and kissed me, then lay on the ground, scooting close to BT’s back to share his warmth. I wish I’d had a blanket I could have thrown over her.

  “Stop looking at me and keep a look out,” she said without opening her eyes.

  “How do you do that?”

  She smiled. The night was dark, but thankfully not pitch. A half-moon and a full complement of stars had the ground fairly lit up. I’m sure it was like Times Square used to be for most of the animals out here. For us humans, it was just enough to feel a modicum of safety. BT at one point sat bolt upright as a couple of coyotes yipped in the far distance. I told him everything was okay, and he lay back down. Sometime during the night, I thought I could hear the drone engines, but it was so faint and indistinct that it just as easily could have been wind passing over the sharp needles of a cactus.

  “Mike, what the hell? Why did you let me sleep?” Tracy sat up and stretched. The sun was just beginning to peek over the edge of the world. “Where’s BT?”

  “I think a desert cat dragged him away while I fell asleep on guard duty.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “He’s back there somewhere. Needed to pull up a private tree. And I slept, just got up myself. BT woke up and relieved me.”

  “Anything happen last night?”

  “You didn’t hear it? I saved your life like twice, once from ogres, the other time from this huge dragon.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked as she stood.

  I shrugged. “Better than you have tried to figure that one out.”

  “We ready to go?” she asked after BT returned. The chill from the night before was leaving as fast as it could as the desert oven began to pre-heat.

  “Gonna be a scorcher today.” BT held his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun.

  “All the more reason to get moving.” Tracy was out in front, we pretty much fell in step behind her.

  We hadn’t gone more than a couple of miles before I wished I’d actually gotten some sleep and not made up the whole story about BT relieving me. Oh well, it was going to be a long day. We slowly angled our way back to the roadway, careful to keep watch above. We debated about trekking completely in the desert but that changed when we came across our fifth ravine. Walking was hard enough; trying not to fall, sliding down one side and trying not to fall back while climbing up the other side in temperatures approaching a hundred, was enough to convince us otherwise. Plus, as slim as it was, the chance we would receive some help would come from the roadway. Looking at the ever-expanding landscape and two days’ worth of water were the determining factors.

  “You two think you would have ever met if not for the Progerians?” BT asked.

  We were now walking on the side of the road. He had his shirt wrapped around his head. The man looked like a walking mountain. In his own way, he was more intimidating than the Genos and Mutes. You knew what you were dealing with there. They were huge scary monsters from another world. But BT, I think he was mostly human with potentially some Grizzly bear mixed in his bloodline somewhere. He was just so freakishly huge.

  “No.” Tracy’s answer came swiftly and without hesitation. She looked back to see the hurt on my face. “I’m not saying that because I don’t love you. I’m saying that because I had a career in the Marines, and you had a desire to smoke pot and watch wrestling. I’m not sure when our circles of influence would have ever converged.”

  BT was laughing.

  “What if there was a riot after a wrestling championship match and they had to call in the military?”

  “Mike, no one is attractive with tear gas making their face leak.”

  “Yeah, all mucousy and stuff,” BT said.

  “I think you’re wrong. When we first met and I’d realized you might not kill me outright after all…I don’t know. I just knew there was something different. Like I’d found the one I was supposed to be with. It clicked. I know that sounds kind of corny when I try to put it into words, but it was meant to be, wouldn’t have mattered if you were a pilot in San Francisco and I was a spelunker in Boston, we would have found common ground.”

  “There are no caves in Massachusetts, Mike,” BT said.

  “You know what I meant.”

  “Yeah, you two were destined to be together no matter the circumstances or maybe due to the circumstances. Maybe you two are only brought together under the worst-case scenarios.”

  “That’s sad,” Tracy said, and then elaborated. “I mean, if we could only meet when all seems lost, it’s poignant, but depressing at the same time.”

  “Think about it.” BT was taking the ball and not only running with it but also tossing it as far away as he could. “Mike wouldn’t be the same person if not for the constraint and pressure of the events swirling around him. You said it yourself, he was a stoner watching wrestling, what about that would have ever attracted you?”

  “Hey, man, I’m right here.”

  “Nothing personal.”

  “It’s all personal, you’re talking about me.”r />
  “I’m just talking because there’s nothing else to do.”

  “Yes there is. We could be quiet.”

  “I hated Mike when we first met. Maybe not the man specifically, but more what he represented. I was losing good men to save one. I had a hard time justifying the differential. Then I started to see the bigger picture, what he represented, while I also saw the man underneath the façade—both worthy of everything it had taken to secure him. Then maybe, just like Mike, I felt something as well. When he saw his home city destroyed it hurt me just as much. I knew then if I had that much empathy for him, then there was something more going on than maybe I understood.”

  “I don’t care who you are, man, she’s got beauty, brains, and she’s strong. You lucked out,” BT said to me.

  “I know that. I’m not stupid just because I liked my occasional green leafy substance. What about us, big guy? You seemed to think that maybe we had known each beforehand. Are we somehow linked through apocalyptic events?”

  “The only way we would have met is if I had made it through the police academy and arrested your ass.”

  Tracy snorted.

  “Hey, that’s not funny,” I admonished her.

  “It is a little bit, because it rings so true.”

  “I don’t like this game anymore.”

  I was tireder…or is it more tired? I don’t friggin’ know. I was exhausted from my ordeal of the last couple of days, coupled with pulling an all-nighter. Even with all that, I so enjoyed the company I was with. These were people I cared for and unless I was completely off mark, ones that I could trust without reservation. After my best friend’s about-face in terms of our relationship, I’d had that little bit of me shaken to the core.

  Tracy raised her fisted hand about shoulder height, then quickly flattened her palm and let her hand drop. The military signals for “stop” and “drop”, which we all did quickly. I didn’t hear anything, but BT’s head turned to where the noise was apparently coming from. It was a full fifteen seconds before I heard it. Truck engine if I wasn’t mistaken, and a big one by the sounds of it. We were in a small depression by the side of the road and wearing camouflage gear, but unless the driver was blind we were going to be spotted. I stood up.