Wandering Highway: A Desperate Journey Home

by Ike Warren

  “What do you plan to do with that wrench?” Jennifer snorted.

  Allan looked down at the tool in his hand and realized how ridiculous he looked. “I guess I was going to get the bad guys with it.” He replied.

  “I saw this vending machine when we came in and I was hungry so I took the liberty to open it for us.”

  He walked toward the machine and looked inside. It had a few bags of chips and some candy bars but most of the spirals were empty as if the machine had been neglected by whoever was responsible for keeping it supplied. Still Allan was pleased to finally have something to eat.

  “Good thinking.” He said and he bent down and gave her a kiss on her cheek. He reached inside the machine and grabbed a bag of chips off one of the top spirals and ripped it open and he placed a single potato chip in his mouth and bit down. The chip crunched into tiny pieces and began to dissolve in his mouth and as he swallowed his body rejoiced for the newfound nourishment. He grabbed a candy bar out of the vending machine and he could barely contain his excitement as he worked to pull the wrapper away from the wonderful chocolate goodness that was contained inside. As he bit down on the chocolaty nougat he closed his eyes and inhaled as euphoria rushed over his body.

  “I don’t think a candy bar has ever tasted so good.” He said with smears of chocolate covering his teeth.

  When he was finished gorging himself on the junk food he looked over the remains of the vending machine and licked his fingers and noticed that his body was craving water.

  “Is there a soda machine too?” He inquired.

  “Nope. No soda machine. Sucks I know.” Jennifer replied disappointed.

  Allan looked around the lobby and saw a side door near the back of the room that opened up into a dark bathroom. He snapped his fingers with excitement and darted off toward the door. Inside the bathroom was a single toilet and a white porcelain sink beside it. He turned the handles of the sink faucet but nothing came out. He worked the faucet off and back on again but the procedure did not produce water. He looked around the back of the sink to check the cut-off valve and verified that it was open.

  “No water pressure.” He said aloud and then he turned and repeated the words loud enough for Jennifer to hear.

  “How could the blast affect the water pressure?” Jennifer asked.

  “All the pumps that deliver water to the water towers work off electricity. I guess there were enough runny toilets and dripping faucets in the city to drain the water towers over the last few days.”

  “That, or people hoarded the water for themselves by filling up their sinks and bathtubs. That’s what I would have done.” Jennifer said.

  “I guess we better take it easy on the candy and salted chips until we find some water for ourselves or else the snacks will just make us even more dehydrated.”

  Jennifer leaned in and looked down at the toilet and she saw that it had dark brown rings around the inside as if the toilet had not been cleaned in ages.

  “Well there’s some water in the toilet bowl.” She suggested.

  Allan wrinkled his face in disgust. “I’m thirsty, but I’m not quite that desperate yet.”

  Allan went back to work on the bike while Jennifer packed the remaining contents of the vending machine into the sides of the bike trailer. When Allan finished assembling the bike he hooked the trailer onto the rear wheel and they opened one of the big roll up doors at the back of the warehouse and pushed the bike assembly outside. Jennifer squeezed herself into the tiny compartment of the bike trailer and tried to adjust herself into a good seating position.

  "It's not very comfortable in here." She complained.

  "It's just going to have to do." He replied.

  “Don’t you need a bicycle helmet?” She asked.

  “I rode bikes during my entire childhood without ever wearing a helmet. I think I can manage without one.” Allan replied and Jennifer shrugged her shoulders and gave him a suit-yourself look.

  He gripped the handlebars and slung his leg over the seat except he had positioned the seat too high when he put the bike together and the big towel that was still wrapped around the wound in his leg caught against the seat causing him to lose his balance and he fell. Jennifer’s trailer heaved into the air as the bike toppled over with Allan coming down with it and then the whole assembly came down with a crash. The bike pedal dug into Allan's shin and he fumbled atop of the bike, embarrassed and in pain while trying to get up. His leg injury from the night before screamed at him. He shook it off, trying to conceal the pain. He looked back and saw the bike trailer leaning on its side with just one wheel touching the ground with Jennifer still sitting inside with another what-the-hell look on her face.

  "Sorry. I tripped over the seat." He explained as if she didn't see what had just happened from her front row point of view.

  "So how about that bicycle helmet?" Jennifer suggested once more.

  “I’m fine.” Allan huffed as he adjusted the bike seat down to a lower position. Jennifer shrugged her shoulders again and then zipped up the plastic cover on the trailer.

  With the seat adjusted properly Allan once again gripped the handle bars and flung his leg around the bicycle seat. This time he was successful in clearing the hurdle. He placed his foot on the bike pedal and pushed down to begin pedaling but the bike barley moved. They were on an incline coming out of the warehouse parking lot. It shouldn't be so difficult to move with so many gears on the bike. Allan thought. He looked down and saw that the bike was still in low gear where he had set it during assembly. As he knew from riding bikes as a kid, in order to change the gears on the bike it either had to be moving forward or the rider had to lift the rear wheel off the ground and spin the bike pedals by hand, neither of which were happening with Jennifer acting as an anchor inside the bike trailer. He hopped off the bike and Jennifer immediately huffed from behind him, "What is it now?"

  "The bike's in low gear. I'll have to push it to get us going in order to change the gears." He could feel her staring at him like he was a buffoon but he didn't turn back to verify his suspicions and instead he gripped the handlebars and began walking beside the bike. He turned the gear knob on the handle over to high gear but as he pushed the bike forward he saw that the pedals weren't moving so the gears weren't going to change automatically for him.

  Of course.

  He reached down and clumsily began manually pumping the bike pedals with his right hand while trying to walk and seer the bike down the road with his left hand.

  Jennifer laughed from inside the trailer, "You're an idjit."

  Idjit was a playful little word that she had made up a long time ago when she wanted to call him an idiot without actually hurting his feelings. Anytime he would do something silly, out would come the little zinger and by saying he was an idjit she was able to insult him and not feel bad about it. The one time that he did get mad about her use of her little idjit buzz word she replied, "What are you getting mad about? Gosh, I was just playing, you idjit."

  After several uncomfortable moments of manually pumping the bike pedal with his hand and thinking that the gears were never going to change, they finally engaged and switched into high gear. He jumped back on the bike, this time with enthusiasm over his little accomplishment on the gear problem and he began to work the pedals with his feet.

  God this is heavy.

  Even in high gear it took all that he had just to get the bike to lurch forward. The added weight of the bike trailer was really dragging the bike down. He stood on the pedals and pumped as much as his weary injured legs would allow but the big towel that was wrapped around his injury prevented him from using his leg effectively.

  "I think I’m going to take this towel off."

  “You don’t need the towel to cover the wound on your leg?”

  “I’m not bleeding anymore. The towel is just getting in the way.”

  Allan stopped and removed the towel and inspected the wound. It was very tender but at least it wasn’t bleeding. H
e stood back on the pedals and pumped his legs as hard as he could.

  "Go baby go!" Jennifer encouraged from behind him. Finally they made it up to the street level where the road grade was more flat. Just as they made the turn onto Maylee Boulevard his right foot slipped off the pedal and his shoe began to slide along the pavement. The bike's momentum caused the foot pedal to spin around full circle and it slammed against his calf muscle.

  "Dammit!" He yelled out in frustration. It took everything he had not to jump off the bike and heave it into the ditch.

  "Calm down. Get back on and try again." Her loving encouragement brought him back from the brink.

  He looked back at her. "Do you think you could cut a hole in the floor of your trailer and help push like in the Flintstones?" He grinned.

  She gave him a cheesy smile and he turned and focused intently on the road ahead.

  Chapter 13: Fires

  Cycling through the maze of broken down and busted up cars was not as easy as Allan had anticipated. Often he had to dismount off the bike and carefully navigate through tangled heaps of wreckage and debris strewn across the roadway. The going was slow and precarious, especially once they entered what had been heavy traffic on I-30 near Garland. Their speedy arrival home on the bike was quickly becoming a fantasy.

  The wreckage was too thick to navigate through so he drove the bike along the left hand median where he found that there were fewer cars in the way. As he picked up some speed along the little three foot wide lane a strong vibration began to rattle throughout the bike and he looked down and realized that he was driving on top of the rumble strip. The grooves had been cut into the highway by road crews to alert sleepy drivers that they were out of their lane and now the grooves felt like they were tearing the bicycle apart.

  “The bike is vibrating too much!” Jennifer yelled from behind. It sounded like someone was slapping a hand against her back as she spoke causing her words to come out choppy.

  Allan stopped the bike and walked alongside while pushing it through the big parking lot of stalled cars that lay in the middle of the highway.

  Everywhere he looked there were new cars. In fact, other than the old Bel Air car from earlier in the day, he couldn’t remember seeing any cars that were any older than five or ten years old as he thought back on their journey out of Dallas. All the new cars surprised him, considering that the economy was supposed to have still been in the middle of a recession, yet there were new sports cars and new SUVs as far as the eye could see. There were new delivery vans and utility trucks all with fancy logos painted on the sides, even the big semi-trucks looked brand spanking new. He recognized Dodge Ram pickups like his own nearly everywhere with newer body styles that had come out just the year before. Allan hadn’t noticed the multitude of new cars on the highway before. He wondered how everyone could afford all the new vehicles and then he thought maybe the cars that he was noticing were just everyone’s good cars that they drove to maneuver around the busy highways of Dallas. Maybe they kept their less expensive and less reliable cars back home. He knew for certain that there always seemed to be more older model cars on the roads back home in Greenville compared to what he was seeing there on highway 635. The thought filled Allan with hope. Maybe there are more old cars out there like that Bel Air that survived the blast. Maybe just a little further ahead there are old cars like that being used as busses and we could hitch a ride all the way back to Greenville on one and we could be home before midnight.

  They reached the long arching Interstate 30 exit that crossed over highway 635 just as the sun was setting. The bridge that would take them east toward Greenville was the highest bridge on the mixmaster, reaching heights of a 10 story building with a half-mile expanse up and across the freeway. Allan knew that in order to have any chance of getting up and over it he would have to pick up a considerable amount of speed. He began pumping the bike pedals as fast as he could but the stalled cars were blocking a direct route to the bridge which prevented him from gaining as much speed as he would have liked.

  “What are you doing?” Jennifer called out from the bike trailer behind him.

  “I’m trying to pick up some speed but there are too many damn cars in the way.”

  “Speed for what?”

  “To get across the bridge up ahead. Don’t you see it?”

  “Yeah, I see it. But why are you wanting to go over it?”

  “Because that’s the bridge that will take us home.” Allan was shouting now in frustration.

  “Look. The on-ramp on the other side of the road is at ground level.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “There’s no reason to pedal us up and over that huge bridge when we can just lift the bike over the concrete barrier wall and take the on-ramp on the other side of the highway which is flat on the ground.”

  Allan stopped the bike and looked to his left. The on-ramp on the opposite side of the highway for the traffic that entered 635 north from I-30 was indeed at ground level. He turned to Jennifer. “You’re a genius.”

  “I like to call it common sense.” Jennifer grinned.

  “I keep thinking we’re in our truck and I have to follow all the normal traffic rules.”

  Allan dismounted from the bike and helped Jennifer out of the trailer and together they hoisted their bike rig over the four foot tall barrier wall. Allan hopped over to the other side and waited for Jennifer to join him when he realized that she was struggling to get over the concrete wall. He reached out and put his hands under her arms to help lift her and she immediately began giggling.

  “You’re tickling me.” She laughed.

  “I’m trying to help you.” Allan insisted. She tried to lift herself but the tickling caused her body to shut down. “Good grief, just get over here.” He said frustrated.

  “You have to stop tickling me.” Jennifer continued giggling. He removed his hands from her arms and placed them on his hips, fully irritated at her. “I’ll do it myself.” She said and she hopped up and plopped her rear end on the top of the wall and pivoted her legs up and over to the other side. “See, I didn’t even need your help.” She said while slapping her hands to remove the concrete dust from them. To Allan it looked like she was clapping her hands in celebration of her wall scaling achievement and he glared at her.

  She got seated back in the bike trailer and Allan mounted the bike and began pedaling through the cars that had stalled out on the northbound on-ramp to 635. Driving the bike in the opposite direction of traffic felt weird. Once they made it onto Interstate 30 Allan decided to continue pedaling in the wrong direction in order to not have to dismount the bike and deal with the whole fiasco of getting Jennifer back over the barrier wall again.

  They saw the first of the fires when they reached the crest of the hill of the bridge over Northwest Highway and I-30. From the hilltop vantage point they could see for several miles ahead and everywhere they looked, fires lit up the landscape like a sea of candles spread out across the land. The air was thick with a heavy haze of smoke and the dimming afternoon sky looked apocalyptic. People had set aflame to many of the structures along the side of the road, not in anger or as part of a riot, but for the sole reason to light up the roadway during the terribly dark night. On the first two nights the highway walkers had clung to their sense of normalcy and had held on to the hope that soon society would be restored and so they suffered through the first two nights but too many refused to endure the terrible darkness again. Even though the fires meant tragedy for the people who owned the businesses and apartment buildings and houses that had been set ablaze, and despite the smoke which Allan and Jennifer tried to filter out by breathing through their shirts, they were grateful for the light from the fires that lit up the roadway. There would be no more invisible jagged fenders protruding out in the darkness to cut his leg and there would be no little kids to fall off invisible bridges with their mothers calling out for them during the night.

  Allan thought of the people who had set all
the fires. What motivated them to take such drastic actions? What terrors had they experienced during the past two nights to bring about such devastation to the city? Then he wondered how many of the fires had actually been set and how many had simply spread on their own. Due to the extreme heat and lack of rain and the lack of firemen to put out the flames, the fires would have had no trouble spreading on their own. Maybe this place is not as chaotic as it seems. He thought with hope.