—Always been more a monster for some than others. Even in the old world.
—That’s a fact. But we’re talking about you. You’re guarded. And I understand where it comes from. What I’m sayin’ is guard you heart, partner.
He nods.
—Thing is . . . part of the way you do it is to open it up. Get what I’m sayin’? One way you guard your heart is by being less guarded.
He nods again.
—Listen, neighbor, Augustus says. I can tell you know what I mean. So that’s the end of my little reminder.
—Sorry if I seem harsh, but I’ve lost so much time already. I just feel like I . . . If I don’t find them . . . Anyway, haven’t quite gotten my legs under me yet. Still getting acclimated. Figured I’d figure it out once I finish what I have to do, but you’re right. Been enough lost humanity already.
Augustus nods.
—I’m just trying to get home, Michael says.
He thinks of what spiritual teacher Ram Dass said—that we’re all just walking each other home.
He’s trying so hard to get home, feels such overwhelming pressure to do so, but if he can walk others to where they’re going along the way, he should. It’s the least he can do.
—Hate to say it, brother, Augustus says, but you have no home to walk home to. None of us do.
—My wife is my home. So are my kids. I have to find them. Nothing—
He starts to say nothing else matters, but that’s not true. That’s Augustus’s point. Other things matter too—just not as much. Not nearly as much.
If I lose my self and my humanity, then I won’t be able to be their home, the home they need me to be.
Everything matters or nothing does.
—What were you going to say? Augustus asks.
—Something that wasn’t true. Thanks for the reminder. I needed to hear it. Appreciate you saying it. You able to walk some more now?
—I’m good to go. Thanks for the rest.
8
Four miles from Marianna.
Field.
Farm.
Frangible brown and gold grass dusted with gray.
Across the road from where they are awkwardly walking on the edge of the woods, the forest opens to reveal two empty, partially fenced pastures on either side of a long dirt driveway leading up to an old wooden farmhouse.
About halfway up the drive, a small, old, hunter-green Toyota pickup sits at an angle, its driver’s side door open.
Augustus stops and looks over at it.
—Want to ride the rest of the way? he asks.
There are two reasons why Michael’s used very few vehicles on his long journey. The first is he’s useless when it comes to automobile mechanics. The second is using a vehicle attracts attention.
When the end began, when he realized what was happening and what it meant he’d have to do to find his family and save them if he could, bury and memorialize them if he couldn’t, he had gone directly to the nearest Army Navy and Outdoor stores and gathered the supplies he would need—including a couple of books on survival.
While others watched and denied, he had acted.
After he was injured and while he was recuperating, he had read and reread the survival guides over and over, gathered more gear, and prepared himself as much as he possibly could.
What he had not done, what he had failed to do, was apply himself to learning anything at all about auto mechanics.
And though most vehicles he had encountered on his travels were out of gas or had dead batteries, there was nothing he could do if it was something else, even something minor.
Dawn could. Dawn would be better at all of this than him. They have different skill sets and hers are far more suited to survival. Not only had she been raised by a military dad in a rough and tumble way, but she had been both mom and dad to her only son, raising him in a similar manner. She had a bit of the brawler in her, wouldn’t back down under any circumstances—from bar fights to bad boyfriends to the big bad world itself.
She often says being with him, having him love and care for and pamper her the way he does, has made her soft, but he knows it’s not true, that the former fighter is still in her and would have come back out the moment the end began.
She has to be alive. She has to.
—Even if it has a little gas left, Michael says, I couldn’t get it going.
—I can.
—You can?
—Old vehicle like that, piece of cake. Nothing to it.
He thinks about it, weighing whether it’s worth attempting. Even if Augustus can get it running, the risks involved in actually driving it into town, of being so visible and vulnerable, are enormous. And if Augustus can’t get it running, the diversion will not only waste valuable time but have had them unnecessarily exposed.
—I don’t know . . .
—I can get it running.
—I don’t doubt that.
—Then what?
He explains his hesitation.
—What if you continue on while I go get the truck. I’ll pick you up down the road.
—And if it’s out of gas or you can’t get it running?
—I won’t have slowed you down any more and I’ll catch up with you later or I won’t. Hell, may even head in the other direction.
Michael thinks about it.
—We go over and see if it’s even feasible, he says. If you can get it going quickly, we do it, if not, we walk away fast, continue toward town, go even farther tonight to make up for the time we lose in the attempt.
9
Seen from a distance.
Through a Bushnell Drop Zone scope.
Two figures crossing the road.
Some four hundred yards away.
A man with a backpack carrying duffel bags. An old man spurred on by a lurching Lab and Catahoula mix at the end of the leash in his right hand.
The small four dots beneath the intersection of the crosshairs move from figure to figure. Slowly. Lingering almost lovingly.
10
After carefully searching up and down the road, the two men and their mutt cross quickly, continuing to scan the area around them as they do.
Jogging down the dirt driveway, day fading fast, gray and white dust rising with every footfall.
The old man is looking at the truck. The younger man is looking everywhere else.
Duffels and backpack heavy. Shoulders, neck, and back sore, strained, aching. Hurting worse as he looks over his shoulder, searches the road, scans the low, gray horizon.
Some twenty feet beyond the vehicle, the black liquid stain of a once living being. Remnants of a rotting corpse.
The truck is tiny, its cab and bed filled with clutter.
Inside, food containers, junk mail, cups, shoes, random tools, papers, trash, farm equipment catalogs.
On the back, electric fence wire, galvanized and PVC pipe, shovel, rake, flower pot, sewer snake, chains, bungees, random strands of dried-out hay, aluminum cans.
—Be dark soon, Michael says. Don’t have much time to make it work.
Augustus climbs in and gives it a try.
The little vehicle sounds for a second like it’s going to start, but doesn’t.
Popping the hood, the old man begins to fiddle around with the engine as Michael removes binoculars from his bag and begins to glass the flatlands surrounding them.
Ashen landscape, bits of it drifting around like large dirty dust motes.
The pastures are bordered on three sides by woods, the fourth, the front, by what’s left of the missing, leaning, and fallen fence, and the highway beyond.
Nothing stirs along the road.
On the far horizon, trees sway and twitch, but he can’t tell if someone or something is in them or if it’s just the work of the wind.
He quickly scans either side of the stand and comes back to it, straining to see beyond the burned-out tree line, but the distance is too great, the late afternoon light too gray for him to see anything muc
h more than movement.
—We need to go, he says, still scanning the area.
—Think I almost got it. Give me another second.
This time on his sweep of the area, he sees a curtain move in the little farmhouse farther up the drive.
—Time’s up, he says.
—Climb in and give it a try, Augustus says.
He does.
—Moment of truth, Michael says as he pushes in the clutch and turns the key.
The ignition turns over, then ticks but doesn’t start.
He pats the accelerator a few times and tries again.
The little engine gives a series of gurgling growls, coughs, sputters, and then it starts.
—Hurry. Get in. Let’s go.
Leaving the truck cranked, Michael jumps out, removes his backpack and grabs the duffels and slings them in the back, withdraws a weapon, and climbs back into the small cab to find both Jackson and Augustus waiting for him.
Putting the truck in gear, he pulls forward to turn around, the entire vehicle shimmying as he attempts to figure out the best gas-to-clutch ratio.
He heads in the wrong direction for a while before finding an area big enough to turn around. When he finally does, his turn is slow and awkward and the little truck jerks and spits and sputters.
Jackson readjusts often to find his footing.
Augustus sits in silence, worn out from the earlier exertion.
The spot in the drive big enough to turn around is only twenty feet or so from the farmhouse, and Jackson begins to bark at it, then whine and whimper.
What the hell is in there?
As they begin to race away, back down the dirt drive toward the road that will take them into town, he glances in the rearview mirror, placing a hand on the cowering animal as he does. There in the grimy, soot-speckled reflection, he sees what he believes to be a frightening figure in the upstairs window.
Tapping his brakes for a better look, he sees in the faintest of flashes the misshapen form before it vanishes back behind the curtain. There bathed in the blood-red brake light, something that may once have been human hunches its dramatically uneven shoulders and bends its malformed head to peer after them with a single nearly completely hooded eye.
Inhuman, yet terribly too human, it was as horrific a face as he’d yet encountered in this new nightmare the world had awakened into.
11
—I was some help after all, Augustus says.
—A big help, Michael responds.
They are driving the last few miles of Highway 73 in the gray gloaming, lights off, moving slowly, attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible.
If only the tiny truck were gray instead of green.
Jackson has stopped whimpering but lies deathly still in the seat, looking up at the two men with shy, anxious eyes.
—Beats hell outta walkin’, Augustus adds.
As if a commercial airliner crash site, the road is a long, dense debris field that only increases and intensifies as they near the city.
Vehicles litter the road of course, but bicycles and wagons and strollers too.
Cast off clothes. Trunks. Suitcases.
Plastic storage containers. Plastic bags. Plastic dishes. Plastic pots and pans.
Overturned shopping carts.
Books. Magazines. All manner of media—records, CDs, DVDs, tapes.
Electronics. TVs. Computers. Laptops. Monitors. Radios. Boom boxes. Tablets.
Things that used to have value that have value no more.
He weaves the small Toyota in and out and around the abandoned cars and fallen trees, and avoids all the other items as much as possible, but there’s so much of it, much of it crunching beneath the small tires.
—Where’re we headed first? Augustus asks.
—My daughter, Meleah, was at Marianna High School for training when all the clocks stopped. Headed there now, but first gonna make a quick stop by my good friend Lynn’s house. It’s on the way. Want to check on him and his family. He’s not only one of the very best friends I’ve ever had, but his daughter is my son’s girlfriend.
The old man nods.
—He’s very, very smart and capable. Has lived all over the world. Was in the military. College professor with a wealth of knowledge. If he survived the initial fallout, he’ll still be alive.
—Doesn’t mean he’ll still be here. Think most survivors are long gone.
—Hope they all are—including Meleah, but I have to check.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, something hits the back right quarter panel hard.
Michael speeds up, the little truck lurching forward.
—The hell was that? Augustus asks, stiffly turning to see.
Muffled moans erupt from the area.
In the rearview mirror, Michael sees a tall man on a small bicycle in only dingy white underwear, boots, and an antique leather bird beak gas mask with built-in goggles.
Peddling fast, he’s attempting to catch up to them, yelling something from within the beak of his mask as he does.
—There a psyche ward around here I don’t know about? Augustus asks. Or you think his crazy ass came over from Chattahoochee?
Jackson had begun to whimper again.
Michael attempts to pat him while driving.
Lights on now. Going too fast not to have them, though the illumination they provide is scant at best.
—He’s gaining on us, Augustus says. Can’t you go any faster?
—Not without hitting something.
Augustus turns and studies the man some more.
—Doesn’t look like he’s armed.
—Doesn’t have to be, Michael says. Probably has crazy retarded strength.
Peddling like a maniac, the man comes up beside them and lunges—leaping into the back of the bed with Michael’s supplies and weapons. Not to mention all the other things that can be used as weapons.
Michael stomps on the brakes and the bird man falls forward fast, slamming into the back of the cab hard.
Jamming the truck into neutral and jerking up the emergency brake, he jumps out and brings his short shotgun up to level it at the disturbing creature trying to climb to his feet.
The man raises the mask to the top of his head to reveal a soft, pale early twenties man with a sparse blond beard and wild blue eyes.
—Fuck hell you do that for, dude? You some sort of for real fucktard?
—Why’d you jump in the back of our truck?
—’Cause you wouldn’t stop and I had to warn you.
—Warn us about what?
—The crater. You’d’a run right into it and died. You’d be dead right now instead of interrogating me with a rifle.
—It’s a shotgun.
—Whatever, man. Who the fuck cares what it is?
—Two people. The one doing the shooting and the one being shot at. What crater?
—Why don’t you have any pants on? Augustus asks. You’re frightening our dog.
—Your dog. Your truck. Looks like the Thompson’s little farm truck and that fat fuck son of a bitch Frank Fuckin’ Friedman’s dog to me.
—What crater?
—The one you were about to drive off into. Right there in the middle of the motherfuckin’ road.
—Weren’t even driving fast until your crazy bird ass started chasing us, Augustus says.
Michael looks at Augustus.
—You were just here earlier today, right? You’d know if there was a big ass crater in the road.
—We cut through the woods.
—That was retarded, the bird man says. Only thing more dangerous than the road is the woods.
—Came out further down along the road. Didn’t see this section.
—Get down out of the truck, Michael says to the bird man, using the shotgun to indicate the way. Slowly.
—I ain’t about getting my ass shot. Just be cool, bro.
He climbs down.
—Show us this crater.
—Will y
ou thank me and suck my dick if I do?
—If you truly kept us from falling to our fiery deaths, Augustus says, we’ll thank you, sure enough, but that’s the best deal you’re gonna get from any of us. Including the dog.
He leads them to a place about fifteen feet away where the highway comes to an abrupt end, falling away so fast and so far down that the bottom is not visible.
Fifty feet across and at least that wide, the gulf bisects the highway with a big black hole.
—You’re welcome, the bird man says.
—Thank you, Michael says.
—Even closer than I thought. Y’all were goners for sure.
He may have been able to stop in time, but it’s dark enough and difficult enough to see that he would have most likely driven off into it—especially at the speed he was going to try to get away from the bird man.
—What made you warn us? Michael asks.
He looks confused.
—Because it was there, dude. I don’t know. Whatta you mean?
—Never did say why you don’t have any pants on, Augustus says.
—Wasn’t expecting company, man. I don’t know. I don’t dig pants. Whatta you want me to say?
—And what’s up with that bird mask?
—It’s the only mask I could find. And I find it groovy dude. Don’t you? Beak is stuffed with cotton and cloth. Filters my air before I breathe it. You ain’t seen all that shit floating around? Can’t be good for us.
—Ain’t much left that’s good for us, Augustus says.
—I was gonna offer you a ride back to your bike, Michael says.
—Yeah?
—But you can just take the truck. It’s no good to us anymore.
—Wow. Really man? You’re gonna give me someone else’s truck that’s no use to you anymore? You’re like the most generous motherfucker ever.
—You need some food and water?
—Wouldn’t say no to it. You have some?
—Where do you live? How are you surviving here?
—There’s nothin’ here. Now that I have a truck, I’ll throw my bike in the back and drive as far north as it will take me. Y’all should turn around too. Hell, y’all can even ride in the back of my truck with my bike if you like. I’m kidding. The three of us can fit in the front if the dog is in the back.
CATACLYSMOS Book 1 Part 1: This is the Way the World Ends: A Post-Apocolyptic Serial Thriller Page 4
