Alone, Book 3: The Journey

by Darrell Maloney

  He was still dressed, minus his shoes and socks, but was ready to leap from the truck to confront the pair of men at the first sign they were interested in his vehicle or what was in it.

  But he needn’t have worried. They continued to walk south, past the end of the trailer and past the Explorer, without even giving it a second glance.

  Dave relaxed for a moment and lay back, staring at the drab grey ceiling of the sleeper cab.

  He noticed for the first time a centerfold model, taken from the middle of a men’s magazine, taped to the ceiling directly above the driver’s pillows.

  Miss March, 2009.

  Someone to fantasize about, he supposed, as the driver tried to sleep.

  Or perhaps looking at a beautiful woman first thing in the morning helped the driver start his day on the right track.

  Dave studied the woman. Leggy and blond, with all the features Dave had always found attractive. She was a looker. But she, in Dave’s opinion, had nothing on Sarah.

  By now Dave was wide awake. The adrenaline that pumped through his veins when he awoke to voices took care of that.

  He looked outside again.

  The two men were merely a couple of spots on the horizon now, and were no longer a concern.

  Dave wondered why they’d passed by his SUV, and several other vehicles, without breaking into any of them.

  He wondered if there were now bands of nomads inhabiting the nation’s interstates, who lived not off the land, but off of the cargo from the countless trucks now abandoned every few hundred yards.

  That would make sense. Why hunt game when one could break into the back of a fully loaded Sam’s Club truck, and rifle through fifty three feet of canned and dry goods, bottled water, and a variety of other merchandize?

  Like matching backpacks, perhaps.

  On the face of it, it sure was a better option than breaking into peoples’ houses and risk getting shot.

  And it explained why they passed by his SUV, and the other abandoned cars. They didn’t need to break into somebody’s Chevy in hopes of finding a bottle of water when that Coca-Cola truck half a mile ahead had thousands of them.

  This revelation, as Dave saw it, was a good thing. In a way.

  It meant that his Explorer, parked in the daytime along with all the other abandoned vehicles, was less likely to be broken into. He was less likely to lose the food and water he was planning to drop every fifty miles for his survival caches.

  But it was also bad news.

  It meant that there were likely a lot of others out there who lived on the highway.

  Others who might be camping or walking along close enough to hear the engine of his Explorer. Who might even see Dave park it just before sunrise one morning, and who might decide they wanted it enough to take it by force.

  It was a worrisome prospect.

  And Dave would have to be more careful.

  Such nomads, if they existed in large numbers, had to sleep somewhere. Logic would dictate they’d choose the same accommodations that Dave did: the sleeper cabs of abandoned trucks.

  That meant that Dave might climb into the cab of a truck some morning to find someone already inside.

  And that almost certainly wouldn’t end well.

  Chapter 13

  Dave peeked through his peephole once again to check the angle of the sun’s shadows. The Explorer cast a very long shadow now, but it was thinning. Dave guessed late afternoon, perhaps 5:30 or so.

  He picked up his wristwatch, one of the three identical watches he’d stored in a dresser drawer. He’d chosen the old fashioned windup kind. The ones that didn’t need batteries.

  The watch’s face said 5:21.

  Dave had prided himself on his ability to tell time by looking at the position of the sun, and the angles of the shadows, since his Boy Scout days. He’d taught himself how to do it on scout outings and camporees. Then he’d taught others.

  When he was a Marine rifleman, he’d taught others while in the field. He used to bet with the men in his platoon. Their sergeant would gather their watches after morning chow, and at some point in the day would challenge each of them to guess the correct time.

  It cost twenty dollars for each man to buy into the bet. Winner take all.

  After awhile, the others lost interest. Dave almost always won. He was simply better at the game. He’d had many more years of practice.

  It was as good a thing as any to bet on for bored Marines looking for some way to pass the time.

  But that was then. This was now. The long shadows the sun cast meant that Dave only had another hour or so of light. He looked up at the top of the sleeper and the two opaque windows above.

  He’d forgotten to bring a flashlight from the Explorer, relying the night before strictly on his night vision goggles.

  The dim sleeper wasn’t designed to get a lot of natural light. That would have defeated the purpose for drivers who sometimes needed to sleep during the day.

  He moved from the sleeper compartment to the driver’s seat. There was much more light there, and as long as he remembered to use the tractor’s mirrors, he could see anyone coming with plenty of time to hide again.

  He put his backpack in his lap and rifled through it. He removed two granola bars and a foil pack containing two strawberry Pop-Tarts, and placed them on the driver’s console.

  Next came two cans of Ravioli.

  When they bought the Ravioli a year before, they opted for the cans with factory sealed tops. The ones with the pull tabs had a shorter shelf-life.

  And they were more expensive. For every ten cans they could buy of the pull-tops, they could buy twelve of the regular cans.

  And in the turmoil of the world they eventually expected to live in, a few extra cans of food could quite literally mean the difference between life and death.

  From his keychain, he took off a P-38 can opener. It was one of several he’d saved from his days in the Corps.

  The P-38 folded in half and wasn’t much bigger than a postage stamp. But it would open cans of Ravioli just as well as the electric can opener he once used on his kitchen counter.

  It just took a bit longer.

  Lastly, he took out the Rand McNally road atlas and his bottle of water.

  He ate and drank as he went through the atlas and found the page for central Texas.

  With his pen, he made a small check mark on I-35, mile marker 200.

  On the journey home it would be a reminder that he did indeed place a food cache at that site.

  If he didn’t make it, and his journal got lost along the way, perhaps the atlas would somehow survive. And if Sarah and the girls made it, and were working their way back home, Sarah would know what the checkmark meant.

  It meant that two hundred paces due east of the Mile Marker 200 sign, across the service road and over a barbed wire fence, lay life sustaining nutrition and water.

  He took a bite from a granola bar, picked up his journal, and started to write.

  Chapter 14

  Hi, Baby.

  As I start my new journal I sit in the cab of a Kenworth once driven by a man named Charles. I know that was his name because there are two name patches clipped to the visor of his truck. Looks like they’re brand new. Obviously he hadn’t had time to have them sewn on his uniforms yet.

  I’m going to go out on a limb and guess he probably never will.

  I’m south of Austin, and getting ready to start my second night on the road.

  It was a bit hairy getting out of San Antonio, but I managed to get out without getting carjacked or even shot at. I’m hoping the open road will be safer than the cities, but only time will tell.

  Sorry, I had to chuckle.

  “Open road…”

  The truth is, the highway is anything but open. It’s littered with all manner of vehicles, from highway patrol cars to passenger cars to big rigs. Hundreds and hundreds of big rigs.

  It’s like skiing down a slalom course. Only a little more dangerous.
If you’re skiing and hit a flag, it doesn’t hurt much. Hitting the back of a parked semi at twenty five miles an hour might.

  I’m just guessing. But I’m pretty confident in my assessment and would rather not find out.

  I could have gotten farther last night except the rain slowed me down.

  If I get the chance, and I stumble across a place to get it, I may stop and get a couple cans of that stuff that you spray on a dry windshield to repel water. I’ve never used it before, and really don’t even remember what it’s called. I just remember it comes in a yellow spray can.

  Hey, it’s worth a shot, right?

  I saw something this morning that puzzled me. A couple of men just strolling down the highway, like they had no care in the world. I only saw them from behind, but they didn’t even appear to be armed. I mean, they definitely had no rifles or shotguns. And I don’t think they were carrying handguns either, unless they carried them in their pockets. I mean, one of them was wearing woodland camouflage pants and no belt.

  I had to wonder what kind of world these guys lived in, where they felt comfortable walking around without weapons. And that made me think… maybe there’s a whole new subculture of society that lives on the isolated highways. Like the long stretches of roads far from the nearest cities. Maybe there’s plenty of food and water on the abandoned big rigs to sustain them, and enough distance from the cities not to fear any aggression.

  Maybe these people have stumbled across their own nirvana.

  It would also explain why FEMA and the National Guard wants city people to stay in the cities. Government officials don’t do anything unless it benefits them or their cronies. I’m wondering if they know how much stuff is stranded on the highways. Maybe they want to confiscate it all before the city people take to the highways and use it all up.

  I’ll shut up now. That’s the conspiracy theory side of me coming out.

  But hey, I can’t help it. I read “The Allegiance Device” a few days ago for about the fourteenth time, and it got me thinking.

  Enough about that. More about us.

  I haven’t seen any FEMA people or troops yet. Maybe they’re afraid of bad weather. Maybe they melt when they get wet. Maybe I’ve just been lucky. Or, I’m hoping, maybe Frank just heard rumors that aren’t true.

  In any event, I’m not going to let my guard down. I’ll continue to move only as fast as the darkness and conditions will let me.

  And, God willing, I’ll be there in three or four days.

  I have to go now, babe. I’m losing my light. I’ll relax for now and see if I can get a bit more sleep, and will set out again around midnight. All the highway nomads should be safely tucked away by then.

  I love you. Kiss my girls for me and tell them I love them too.

  Chapter 15

  “Please, God…”

  Dave crossed himself, held his breath, and turned the key.

  The starter hesitated for just a second before turning over.

  That single second was all it took, though, to let Dave know the battery was a bit weaker than when he’d started it the night before.

  He now knew that the alternator was shot. It wasn’t using the engine’s power to recharge the battery when the vehicle was running.

  It had been ruined by the EMPs almost a full year before.

  Before he’d climbed into the vehicle he’d taken two of the five gallon Jerry cans out of the back and topped off the gas tank.

  Although the gas gauge, like all the other things that went through the electrical system, was no longer working, he knew instinctively that a full tank would get him through another night.

  He’d be driving a little faster tonight, of course, since he was out of the city and the rain wouldn’t slow him down.

  But he’d used only a third of his tank the night before. Even at slightly higher speeds, he’d have plenty.

  The battery was more worrisome.

  How many starts did he have left, before he drained all the battery’s power and it went dead? One? Two? Five?

  He’d never used a battery without the aid of a generator or alternator before. There were a couple of times in his life when the charging system on one of his vehicles went bad, sure. But he’d always gotten it fixed right away.

  The jump starter he brought along as a backup was capable of starting the vehicle at least twice, maybe three times. So it wasn’t a major crisis. He didn’t have to worry about being stranded anytime soon.

  But if he couldn’t find a new alternator, one that was undamaged, the SUV he was driving would eventually die for good, and would be as worthless as the thousands of other relics blocking his way to Kansas City.

  He’d been able to solve all of the problems that popped up to this point. But this, this was one he had no idea how to fix.

  It would worry him through the night.

  He was roughly thirty five miles from the center of Austin. He didn’t drive through Austin often, and in fact hadn’t done so in several years.

  But from what he remembered, the interstate cut through the west side of the city and missed the congested downtown area.

  Or was it the east side?

  He couldn’t remember.

  Not that it mattered much. I-35 would take him almost to his final destination. It was, in essence, his ticket to reuniting with his loved ones

  It was the little things that Dave had missed the most since the blackout. The things he always took for granted, and never gave a second thought to.

  Those things that turned into big things when he no longer had them.

  Like, for example, the ability to just open up his freezer and get a few ice cubes when he wanted to get a cold drink of water.

  Or, just jumping into the car and driving down the street for a hamburger.

  Or, being able to listen to music when he drove.

  In the absence of music, he sang the songs he knew the words to, and whistled some of the ones he didn’t.

  It was as good a way as any to keep from dying of boredom.

  This part of Texas, although flatter than the hill country a couple of hundred miles to the west, did have an occasional rise and fall of the terrain.

  About five miles south of Austin, Dave happened over a hill and was greeted by an unobstructed view of the roadway ahead. His view went on for at least two miles, and he was startled by what he saw.

  There, in the distance, at least a mile and a half away, was a brilliant white light.

  Dave’s eyes, accustomed to the greenish-gray glow of the night vision goggles, weren’t used to the harsh light. It was almost painful to look at.

  He coasted to a dead stop and wondered.

  “What in heck is that?”

  He looked around, and saw no signs of life in any direction.

  Then he took off the goggles and propped them atop his head.

  Night vision goggles amplify available light, and made the light appear brighter than it actually was.

  But even without the goggles, it appeared brilliant.

  It could have been someone in another vehicle approaching him with their headlights on high beams.

  At least, in another time, before the blackout, it could have been.

  But he sincerely doubted that was the case.

  He had no other explanation, though.

  So he placed the goggles back over his eyes and pressed on.

  Slower this time, and more cautiously.

  He tried not to focus directly on the light, even after his pupils adjusted to it. An occasional glance, just to see if it had changed in any way. He spent much of his time scanning his peripherals, for he was worried now.

  Dave was not a man who liked being presented with a problem, or a threat, he knew nothing about.

  He had to know what he was dealing with before he could conquer something.

  It wasn’t until he was half a mile away that Dave could finally make out what lay ahead of him.

  It was two dozen flaming torches, stuck in
to the ground at regular intervals a few feet apart.

  Behind the torches were three wide, squat vehicles that looked suspiciously like the Humvees he drove in the Corps.

  Again, he stopped dead in his tracks.

  It was a roadblock.

  Chapter 16

  Dave’s mind raced as he sat in the darkened vehicle, studying the scene before him and considering his options.

  Oddly enough, although his present situation was far from similar, his mind went back to his Marine Corps days. When he and his platoon patrolled the burning sands north of Fallujah, scanning the horizon for insurgents with fast moving Range Rovers and RPGs.

  The common link between the two, of course, was his knowing he had to keep a clear head. His survival, or at least his chance to keep his vehicle and all the treasures it contained, depended on it.

  He weighed his options.

  They obviously were able to get the Hummers running after the blackout. They weren’t sitting there, lined up nice and pretty in a neat little row, when the EMPs bombarded the earth a year before.

  Dave had long wondered if the government knew ahead of time what the Mayans knew, and took the time and effort to protect its own resources. Perhaps that’s what was really in Area 51, or all those other secret bases, all along.

  Maybe it wasn’t UFOs or top secret aircraft under development.

  Maybe it was massive equipment stockpiles. Tanks, choppers and Hummers by the thousands, stored in massive Faraday cages made to look like hangars and warehouses.

  In any event, he’d driven into a trap. And he had to figure out how to extricate himself.

  He suspected they hadn’t seen him. If they had, then surely they would have noticed he’d stopped and wasn’t coming any closer.

  And surely they’d have either shot him by now or given chase.

  Instead, they just sat there on the horizon, going about their normal business.

  He could make out the figures of men, walking around, talking and doing a dozen other things soldiers do while awaiting orders from their superiors. The flames from the torches gave the men and their machines an eerie orange glow.