The Plan

by Shawn Chesser

  “We’re fucked, that’s what.”

  Riker didn’t say anything. As the Shelby ate up another mile, he watched a half-dozen helicopters in the sky over what looked to be a base of some sort. Though he couldn’t tell what model the ships were, based on their methodical flight pattern—a slow back and forth that took them across the base and then back again—he was certain they were mounting some sort of search.

  After enduring nearly a minute of silence, intruded upon now and again by light snoring from the backseat, Tara said, “I’ve been reading the front pages of foreign newspapers.”

  “And?”

  “The leading stories all paint the same picture. Romero has a firm foothold in the U.K. and Germany. Same in Russia. The English version of Russia’s Tass newspaper says it’s all our fault. Their president is quoted as saying that we wanted it to happen. Even intimated we orchestrated it.”

  “How about Asia?”

  Tara shook her head. “Couldn’t find any papers translated to English. There were some pictures of what looked like hospitals. Couldn’t tell much from the captions. Just a bunch of squiggles and sticks, if you ask me. But if it’s true what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words, these ones were worth a million. They’re fighting the dead, too. And just like it’s hitting ours hard here in the States, their medical facilities are becoming flashpoints of infection. Thing that really amazes me … they aren’t even censoring what’s being put out. Neither are we. There’s so much content on social media and YouTube that they’ve stopped scrubbing it. It’s almost as if they’re giving up.”

  Checking his mirrors for trailing vehicles sporting anything resembling a light bar, Riker said, “When we left Jersey, my gut feeling was that it was going to take a miracle for them to get a handle on Romero. Come Philadelphia, where things seemed normal, I changed my tune a bit. Figured they’d have it all contained before we got to Miami.”

  “What’s your gut telling you now?”

  “As of this morning, I was thinking one of two things is likely to come of this. Either our armed forces would rally and get it contained.”

  “Or?”

  “Or we’d finally get paid back for sparing the rest of the world a lifetime of speaking German. If I’m being honest here, I imagined our staunchest allies would already be charging to our aid.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid after what you just said, none of that is going to happen.”

  Chapter 45

  Crossing into Louisiana nearly six hours prior, Dolly’s trip computer had indicated the full load of fuel in her tank would see them all the way to Shreveport.

  In reality, thanks to all the stop and go driving leading up to the border crossing, with fifty miles yet to go to Shreveport, the Ford’s high-performance V8 had nearly sucked the thirty-six-gallon tank dry.

  Steve-O and Tara had been asleep for a majority of the trip north, missing out on Louisiana’s pines and rivers and lush green landscape, and leaving Riker alone with his thoughts.

  Which was a lot of time to second-guess the decisions that had led up to where they were now, sitting in the cab, hoping to see a gas station with an OPEN sign ablaze, and cartoons suddenly their topic of conversation.

  Steve-O was back to hanging off the front seats and polluting the entire cab with energy-drink breath. To say he was wired after slamming two large cans of the stuff in the ten minutes he’d been awake would be a massive understatement.

  Regarding Riker, Steve-O said, “What’s your favorite cartoon of all time?”

  After spending a moment reeling in the years, Riker said, “Donkey Kong and Dragon’s Lair. Dad was too cheap to give me quarters for the arcade, so I watched the cartoons and pretended I was playing the game.”

  Steve-O laughed and clapped his hands.

  “I even resorted to using one of Mom’s wooden spoons as a make-believe joystick.”

  “I don’t remember any of that,” admitted Tara.

  Squinting to see a cluster of buildings a ways off the Shelby’s right-front fender, Riker said, “You were like four years old and big time into your dolls.”

  Subjecting Tara to a face full of bad breath, Steve-O said, “What’s yours, Pretty Lady?”

  “Garfield and Friends.”

  Bouncing on the edge of his seat, Steve-O said, “Garfield loves lasagna.” Then, all of a sudden, he settled down and declared, “I’m starving.”

  Consulting the navigation screen, Tara said, “There’s a couple of options up ahead. Whichever one of them has the cheapest gas and hot food gets my vote.”

  Nodding agreeably, Riker addressed Steve-O. “What’s your favorite cartoon, big guy … Steamboat Willy?”

  Tara broke out in laughter. Finally composing herself, she looked to her brother, saying, “He’s old, but not that old.”

  Without missing a beat, Steve-O said, “Age is only a number.”

  Wiping a stray tear, Tara urged him to answer the question.

  As if he’d crossed this bridge before and expected ridicule for what he was about to say, Steve-O adopted a real serious expression and said, “South Park is my favorite cartoon of all time.”

  The inside of the truck got real quiet.

  After a few seconds, Tara said, “Next exit. There’s a couple of minimart, slash, gas stations to choose from.”

  “Terrance and Phillip are my favorite characters,” Steve-O said. He laughed again, adding, “Marcy at the home says that they’re fart machines, just like me.”

  Chuckling, Riker said, “She got that right.” He threw on his signal and started the process of getting over a lane.

  Vehicles around them here were moving a few miles over the limit. A nice older lady in a Volvo wagon let them over.

  Riker had noticed, as he drove and contemplated things, the farther west they got from the border, the less frantic people seemed to be with their driving.

  Was out of sight, out of mind at play here? Or was he just witnessing blissful ignorance on the part of the residents of Northwest Louisiana?

  Throwing the blinker on again and gliding up the ramp, Riker said, “Sooo funny how the tops of the Canadians’ heads move up and down when they talk.”

  “Don’t forget Token Black,” Tara said. “Blew me away when they introduced him. Also stunned me when it was revealed he’s the richest kid in South Park. Kind of like us, huh?”

  Ignoring the last part, Riker said, “Remember Jimmy and Timmy, the disabled kids? Timmmmy, Timmmmy, Timmmmy.” He started to laugh but quickly checked it, stealing a side-eyed glance at Steve-O. If the older man was pissed, or even slightly offended, he wasn’t letting on.

  Acutely aware of the awkward silence, Tara said, “Yeah, the guys who made that show sure are equal opportunity ballbusters.”

  “At least they included Timmy and Jimmy,” Steve-O said. “Most special needs people are never even mentioned on television shows. Dad said they just use us as background props.”

  Riker looked to Steve-O. “I am truly sorry for mimicking Timmy the way I did.”

  “So funny I forgot to laugh.”

  “I noticed,” admitted Riker.

  Turning away from her window, Tara said, “Looks like the Chevron is out of the running. Keep driving.”

  Riker saw that the main sign was dark, and every pump was fronted by an orange traffic cone.

  All out of gas.

  Better luck next time.

  The mom and pop establishment a quarter-mile down the road paralleling Highway 71 showed some promise. And Gas Fast’s price per gallon was nowhere near the arm and a leg Enrique back in Fort Myers was charging.

  An arm, yes. But well worth it, considering only three of the five-gallon-cans in back still contained fuel.

  Fifteen gallons, to be exact.

  Parking partway on the curb cut, behind three other vehicles waiting to fill up, Riker set the brake, stilled the engine, and gave his food order to Tara as she and Steve-O piled out of the Shelby.

  Then Riker stepped ou
t and stretched. To kill the time while waiting for the line to advance, he popped the tonneau cover and came out with a couple of boxes. One was cube-shaped and the size of a volleyball, the other a yard long and roughly the width and thickness of a wordy hardcover novel.

  Steiner was printed on the former, Allen on the latter.

  He placed the Steiner box on Tara’s seat and went to work opening the box containing the items produced at the Allen factory.

  Riker had the adjustable gun rack placed in the back window in less than five minutes. The Allen Company was true to their word. No tools were required and the newly installed dual-rifle rack barely budged when Riker jiggled it.

  He threw the packaging in the trash and hopped back in to move the truck ahead two spots. With another few minutes to burn, he fished a Benchmade single-tang blade from one of the Pelican cases in the bed and proceeded to cut away the temporary dealer plates installed at Bell Ford in New Jersey.

  Tara and Steve-O had been inside the Gas Fast for close to fifteen minutes when it was Riker’s turn at the pump.

  When Riker squared up to the pump and went for the nozzle, he saw the price listed on the pump’s digital display didn’t jive with the price on the reader board out front. It was nearly two dollars more. Which didn’t make a blip on his give-a-shit radar. He happily ran his card into the machine, selected Premium, and started gassing up the Shelby.

  Finished filling the pickup’s tank, and the spare can in the load bed, Riker tore off his receipt.

  Locking the Shelby, he adjusted his Braves cap and went to look for Tara and Steve-O.

  Chapter 46

  Pushing through Gas Fast’s grimy glass door, Riker passed Tara just as she was coming out. She was lugging four very full bags, two to a hand, and had used her backside to open the door opposite him.

  “Steve-O’s in the john.” Showing off her full hands, she asked Riker to unlock the truck.

  Holding the remote at eye-level, Riker hit the Unlock button. Without checking for success, he entered the store and went straight for the short checkout line.

  The store was busy, which explained Tara’s fifteen-minute disappearing act.

  Travelers were stocking up on chips and sodas and candy. A couple of men in their fifties, wearing jeans and tee shirts and trucker’s hats, stood before a small television at the end of the counter. On the screen was President Tillman. His head filled up the screen and his mouth was moving. Due to the volume being rolled most of the way down, Riker couldn’t hear what was being said over the steady beeps coming from the cash register.

  The clerk behind the register was a tall Asian man with a ruddy face and ready smile. Displaying nearly every tooth in his head while speaking rapid-fire, the clerk asked Riker what he needed. “Smokes? Snuff? Rolling papers?”

  “A new hat,” said Riker, pointing at the display behind the clerk.

  “All football. Saints or Saints?” shot the clerk, smile unwavering.

  “Texans or Cowboys?” said Riker. “Who had the best record before the season got suspended?”

  The clerk shook his head. “Only follow Saints.”

  A voice from behind said, “Since you’re sporting a Braves hat already, why don’t you be consistent and go with the Falcons hat? I hear they’re in the running for a Super Bowl berth this year.”

  Regarding the forty-something Caucasian offering advice, Riker shook his head. “No chance in hell the Birds are going to go that far. I’m looking for either Texans or Cowboys?”

  A younger man directly in line behind Riker said, “I’m pretty sure the Cowboys had a game, maybe two up on the Texans before the shutdown.”

  “Then give me the Texans hat.”

  The clerk took the hat down and rang it up. “Anything else?”

  “That’s it,” said Riker. Paying for the cap, he thanked both of the men for their input.

  Shooting Riker a thoughtful look, the older man urged him to not count out the Falcons this season, adding, “Their offense is real close to firing on all cylinders.”

  Riker said nothing. My ass, was what he was thinking as he stalked off to find Steve-O

  The bathrooms were down a brightly lit hall angling away from two rows of beer coolers. The doors were on the left. Nothing fancy. No cute play on words. They were labeled accordingly with peel-to-stick letters spelling out HIS on the left door and HERS on the right, which was next to a tiny office, its door cracked open just enough to let Riker see a wooden desk and pair of matching chairs.

  Stacked on the right side of the hall opposite the bathroom doors was a chest-high row of split firewood, each bundle individually wrapped in clear plastic film. Beyond the firewood, standing on end and lined up against the wall near the office door, was a trio of commercial Co2 tanks.

  Standing before the HIS door was a twenty-something man. He was thin and tall, but not nearly tall enough to be able to look Riker eye-to-eye. His face wore several days’ growth of red facial hair. On his feet were muddy work boots. And tucked into Levi’s nearly worn through in the knees was a short-sleeved black tee shirt bearing a massive white sweat ring on the chest and two smaller ones under the arms.

  Sour look on his face, the man regarded Riker. “You might want to use the ladies’ room.”

  Riker prickled, then shot the man a questioning look.

  “Fucking retard cowboy wannabe has been in there for ten whole minutes.”

  Pulling up his pant leg, Riker showed the man his prosthesis. “So what would this make me?”

  A tick started in the man’s left eye. Then his Adam’s apple shot up and down a couple of times. Finally, after having run some kind of cost benefit analysis where saving face or having it punched in was concerned, he said, “A crippled nigger?”

  Having already started as a dull throb behind his eyes, the man’s response ratcheted Riker’s growing headache into a Category-5 migraine.

  Just as Riker raised a fist, with every intention of making the man eat his words, and a few teeth, the door swung outward, its metal skin totally cutting off any kind of avenue for him to follow through on the impulse.

  Out came Steve-O, waving the wall of noxious air preceding him in all directions with his white Stetson.

  “Oh,” he exclaimed, sounding a little startled. “I didn’t think you were the one banging and cussing, Lee. Looks like you’re next. Better breathe through your mouth until the fan catches up.”

  Riker said nothing. Just held the door in place between him and the trapped racist asshole and watched Steve-O head for the front doors.

  The brief cooldown period, with the open door blocking his view of the racist, did absolutely nothing to tamp down the dormant rage the man’s caustic words had just resurrected.

  Out of sight, out of mind wasn’t at play here.

  Riker took a quick step back and slammed the door closed.

  The racist had backpedaled and was standing in front of the door marked HERS. In his hands was one of the Co2 bottles. Body squared in the narrow hall, a wicked scowl on his face, the man said, “Best get to stepping, peg leg.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll bash your coon teeth in. That’s what.”

  Close to hurling from inhaling Steve-O’s gas, Riker said, “How are you going to get that over your head and swing it at me in this narrow-ass hall before I lay hands on you?”

  As the man shrugged, the bottle jerked up and down in his partially bent arms.

  The ease with which he had hefted the bottle told Riker that it was empty. Which meant he had less of an advantage than he had initially thought.

  He looked down the hall behind him.

  Clear.

  With the reach of an NBA power forward, and hands the size of dinner plates, Riker figured disarming the racist in such close quarters wouldn’t be much of a chore.

  A simple head fake got the man starting the process of bringing the cylindrical item on an upward trajectory.

  Acting against his every impulse, Riker wil
led himself to not immediately react. He waited until the cylinder had cleared the man’s nose and was blocking his field of vision. No longer able to see the whites of the racist’s eyes, Riker took one step forward, slapped both palms atop the cylinder, then left his feet, adding all of his two hundred and forty pounds to the equation.

  If the cylinder weighed twenty pounds empty, Riker guessed his action upped that twenty-fold.

  The sudden realization that he was in big trouble erased the scowl from the man’s face. In the next beat his eyes had flicked up and acquired the smooth metal cylinder now poised a half-foot over his head and coming down fast and hard.

  While a person’s first instinct to ward off injury is to raise one’s arms in defense, Racist didn’t have the option. Face fully exposed, the tank hit him squarely on the nose and forehead, instantly breaking the former and leaving a peculiar indentation on the latter.

  The man fell to the tiled floor as if his power had just been cut.

  Only thing Riker detected as the man turned ragdoll was his eyes rolling back into his head.

  Suddenly gone numb, the man’s fingers let go of the bottle a millisecond after his eyes closed.

  Bad for him. Because gravity was pulling the cylinder to the exact spot on the floor his crotch would soon be occupying.

  The man and cylinder hit the floor one after the other. Nearly so close together that any kind of lapse between the two was lost to the human eye.

  Drawing a deep breath, Riker bent down, grabbed a handful of the man’s shirt, and slid him into the tiny bathroom feet first and back against the floor.

  As the man’s body settled next to the toilet, arms and legs all akimbo, Riker noticed his chest rising and falling.

  In one fluid motion, Riker hinged up, reached around and flicked the lock on the inside of the door handle, then pulled the door closed.

  Exhaling, he said, “Enjoy your stay.”

  Seeing only a couple of guys with well-earned beer bellies perusing the offerings in the distant beer cooler, Riker replaced the Co2 cylinder, yanked open the door labeled HERS, and stepped inside.