by Black, D. S.
No. This road was a dead end, no pun intended. She backed the Hummer up and drove back out to Route Six. She'd just have to find another way around.
Route Six, or Dead Man's Trail as some of the kids liked to call it, was nothing more than a long stretch of two-lane blacktop. It was spared the car boneyard density as some of the more obscure back roads. Evidently, people ran into more trouble as they went deeper into the thicket, probably getting lost and allowing panic to lead them to their deaths.
Kids had called Route Six Dead Man's Trail because at least one carload of teens died there every year, mostly tourists. The road was a stretch of winding curves, bends that can sneak up on a person fast, and if said person is moving over a certain speed, especially when alcohol is involved, the car is bound to crash into the thick oaks and pines on either side of the road, or in some cases, cars smash into each other while flying around a blind curve.
Candy had seen these crashes first hand, as cops so often do. It's why so many cops had no problem telling drivers to buckle up. Driving isn't a right, it’s a privilege. It’s not that the police cared about people's safety that much, but after seeing a dozen or so sixteen-year-old kids peeled off the blacktop like meat stuck to a cast iron frying pan— it had a way of hardening you to the rants of a citizen shouting about civil liberties.
And there were always one or two crashes that stood out in a cop's mind. The ones that are so blood soaked and nasty that even the most seasoned veteran feels their stomach lurch, and finds sleep doesn't come easily for a week or so. Candy was no exception to this rule.
The incident occurred late one weekend night, around one in the morning. It was late spring, and Bike Week was in full swing. Bike Week at Myrtle Beach had a way of bringing both the best and the worst of humanity to Horry County. On one end of the spectrum, there were the weekend warrior types that wore a suit and tie, had a nice family and would never openly violate laws. Somewhere in the middle, you had good ole rednecks who wouldn't hurt a fly and would take their shirt off to give to a stranger. On the far end of the scale, biker gangs. Ruthless thugs with no compunction when it comes to driving wild and drunk down and around blinding curbs, or fighting in bars, or stabbing and shooting people that piss them off. On that fateful spring night, a bloody conglomeration of each of the three groups came to a bleeding end around one of the twisting curves.
The scene spoke for itself. A group of three bikers (later it was found out were members of some obscure northern bike gang called the Main Snow Lions) a family van filled to the brim with a granddaddy, grandmother and four grandkids all under ten years old, and a set of two lawyers riding very expensive Harley bikes.
It was the perfect storm. The Main Snow Lions had been chugging shots of whiskey all night, the grandparents were taking back roads down to the coast and had been driving for a solid eight hours straight, and the two lawyers had been drinking beers and decided a midnight bike ride down country hick roads seemed like a good idea at the time. The Snow Lions took the bend at a blazing suicidal speed of nearly seventy miles an hour while on the other side of the bend the family van cruised at the unsuspecting and safe speed of thirty-five miles per hour, followed by the easy riding lawyers directly behind them.
The first two Snow Lions crashed directly into the van, their bodies crashing into the windshield, killing them almost instantly. The third Snow Lion veered off quickly but then drove off the road, hit his brake too hard and propelled himself like an arrow into the unrelenting, harsh bark of a mighty oak tree, cracking his skull open. In the meantime, the granddaddy slammed his breaks; the two lawyers crashed into the back of the van, one of them going through the back windshield, while the other skidded underneath the van where he was stuck and dragged for a good ten yards before the van went hurtling off the road and wrapped itself around a thick pine tree.
The grandparents and the kids may have survived had they worn their seat belts, but eight hours is a long time to drive with nylon stuck against your body. So instead of a sore neck and chest, both grandparents exited the front windshield (already softened up by the dead Snow Lions) and came to the final resting place on the side of Route Six with glass protruding from their eyeballs.
The kids were thrown around like dice in a gambling cup. One broke his neck, killing him instantly. The other three died in the fire that came when the gas tank erupted. Their blackened bodies stayed with Candy for a long while after. They were charred beyond recognition; the stench hideously fresh, even as she pulled up to the scene some twenty minutes or so after it all went down. Candy didn't hear their screams, but none the less dreamed about their cries of pure agony for a long time after. The road was streaked in blood and guts, the trees painted with the brain matter of grandparents and bikers. Only after the Fever hit, did Candy ever think it possible for her to see anything more gruesome.
12
It was nearing midday. Route Six was clear of cars, and Jack only saw a few zombies moving here and there like confused old people. Candy was driving silently, lost in thought. She found another way to Marlboro County. A few roads that she was almost certain only a few locals would know about. She was betting that it would be clear enough to travel on. She was driving to them now while Jack sat contemplating the situation. He was a little high on the drugs and he had to admit, he liked it. He was becoming an addict. He never thought he'd see the day when a drug haze would prove preferable to straight laced reality, but the end of the world has a way of changing a man's philosophy and general outlook on life. It seemed a million years ago that he was an upbeat college student nearing his senior year. A degree in philosophy and then off to graduate school. A lifetime spent studying human thought, human possibility.
He looked at his reflection in the side view mirror. Was he even human? He thought he looked like a mutant. His mind felt changed. He wanted to feel something from the Old World. He wanted to feel joy. The joy of being alive. The joy of reading and learning.
Ohhhh... Jack. Jack my boy. What a foolish lad you are. Well, the Old World is gone, and the New World is teaching you a cruel lesson. There is no philosophy anymore. There is no science; the only constant is death. Good ole fashioned death, and death will find you. You can run. You can hide, but it will catch you. Then it will rip you apart. All dreams and thoughts disappear in one maddening howl of pain as dead men feast on your flesh. It’s coming, Jack my boy; count on it, sonny! It’s comin, and the eatin is good! I guess I'm going insane. Might as well. Maybe that's the only way to deal with whatever time is left. Just let my consciousness rush down insanity's rabbit hole, down the dark stairs of mental collapse. Turn right onto the highway of madness and put the pedal to the fucking metal, baby. That's right, let the good days roar with the sound of mental cavities echoing the strange tune of psychopathic lunacy. Dark days ahead, Jack! Dark days and dead days.
As his mind reeled its depressive wheel of self-pity, the sun gleamed in as the air conditioner roared cool air. Up ahead a clearing approached. Then he saw—
13
Candy slammed on the breaks. The Humvee sneered a long rubber mark as it came to a screeching halt. In front of them, just beyond where the tree line ended, a tank roared out of a huge field blocking Route Six. Soldier’s came from the trees on either side of the Humvee. Their faces drooled with drug induced excitement. Their eyes gleamed with dirty sexual pleasure at the site of the redhead behind the wheel. They had automatic weapons and side arms, drawn and ready.
Candy slammed into reverse, leaving more rubber on the black top. The bullets came almost immediately, ripping the Humvee's tires to shreds. Candy's heart pounded against her chest. She looked at Jack. He was laughing hysterically, lost in a sea of madness. Now her eyes bulged, seeking, searching for a way out. The soldiers were behind the Humvee now, in front of the Humvee, on both sides, moving in, their guns trained on her and Jack. Candy looked in the back seat. Her girls were disappearing, softly going away like a fade out in a movie.
Then they were go
ne.
The window shattered. The door ripped open. Her hair was pulled, and she was jerked out. Jack now screamed an insane laughter as he was pulled from the car. Tears ran down his face as he cackled.
Someone up ahead shouted, “Bring her up here! Bring her on up!”
Candy's revolver was ripped from her holster, then she was shoved hard by the end of a rifle. “Move it, bitch! Cap wants to have a talk with ya! Cap always gets first dibs!” This brought a round of heavy and insane laughter from the other soldiers. Then she heard a loud crack and saw Jack fall to the black top.
“You fuck! FUCKERS!” She tried to run at them, but it was pointless. Three heavily drugged and heavily muscled men grabbed her and dragged her away. She looked back in a frenzied turn of the head, red hair flipping here and there; and saw Jack laying face down on the asphalt, blood pooling around his head.
She screamed as they strong armed her towards a man standing on top of the tank. His arms were crossed. He had a beret on his head, shirtless with camo pants. He smiled as they brought her to the front of the tank. One of the men grabbed the back of her hair and forced her to stare up at him as the other two held her arms. She grimaced and locked her eyes on the man standing above her.
He looked down at her and said: “Welcome to hell, Red. You can call me Cap.”
Pinky Satterfield
1
At about the same time as Candy and Jack were waking up from their night at the Forthright house, Pinky Satterfield sat at a huge blonde oak desk. A pink handkerchief wrapped around his neck, the pointed flap hanging down against his chest. Short stubbed hair darkened his face. A leather brown cowboy hat rested on his head. His skin was a light tan, his eyes blue diamonds of thought. He wore tartan pants and a blue v neck white shirt. A .45 Colt hung from his hip. He blew out a plume of smoke, then snubbed a hand-rolled cigarette on a glass ashtray. The ashtray had belonged to his daddy, just like the desk, the farm and the surrounding one hundred acres. Though he guessed it all belonged to him now, if such a thing as private property meant anything these days. Certainly not if The Militia’s boys had anything to say about it.
Yep, this here sure is a goddamn shit fest if there ever was one.
Pinky Satterfield grew up here in Marlboro county. His daddy had been a tobacco farmer; his granddaddy a tobacco farmer before him, but Pinky sure as shit never wanted to be a farmer and ever since the Fever, circumstances required the farm to grow a lot more than tobacco. In fact, the only tobacco they grew these days was a small section for personal use.
Pinky was a solitary man without a lot of material wants. He'd grown up around hard work and enjoyed sweating. He also loved guns. Before the shit flew, guns were his only hobby outside of his writing and reading. Now they were what kept him and his gang alive. A gang, Pinky enjoyed this idea. The Pinky Satterfield Gang like some old western novel, but they weren’t robbing banks, no sir. To his knowledge, they were the only thing standing between the Militia and the takeover of his beloved Palmetto State.
Pinky propped his feet on his desk and lit another cigarette. The sun was coming up, and the first bars of light glittered through the bay window behind him. A line of solar panels controlled the sprinklers that would turn on any moment. The farm wasn't a loss. Pinky made sure of that when it all started.
He couldn't save everyone. He couldn't save downtown Marlboro, but he saved his farm. He saved a lot of people too. People that he now called his gang.
Solar panels also powered his large farmhouse. Large two hundred and fifty-watt panels lined the blue metal roof. More panels were mounted on poles around the property. The Militia wanted his farm, wanted the resources. Pinky knew that they wouldn't stop till they had them.
The Militia had tried and failed. Pinky's gang was a stout group of about one hundred men, women and even some kids. Armed to the bone, and always on the lookout. Oh yeah, Pinky knew the Militia would try again, and wasn't planning on waiting around for it. The time to take the offensive was close.
Pinky had no idea just how close, and that a ragtag group of survivors from the coast was making their way to join him at that very moment.
2
The day the Militia attacked was the day his daddy died. The day had been overcast and clouds gathered high above, threatening rain. The madness of the early days and weeks of the Fever were nearly six months in the past. By then, they'd guarded off the farm's perimeter with barbwire and ten-foot fencing. That kept the dead at bay, but that day it wasn't the dead they needed to worry about. It was The Militia’s squad of drugged up killers. Pinky's father, Tom Satterfield knew about The Militia. He'd had a near run in with them some weeks before that day's attack.
“Maybe they'll just leave us alone, daddy.”
Tom looked at his son. “Pinky, you know better. You're a sharp boy. They are coming. Men like that can't settle in one spot. They want it all and they'll bleed anybody standin in their way.”
“Let em come then. We got people and we got guns,” Pinky said.
“Let's hope they wait till after wint—”
That first bullet tore through Tom Satterfield’s head.
Pinky fell to the ground and grabbed the hilt of his Colt, pulling it out. Then the gunshots rang out like the fourth of July. At first, he had no idea where the shots were coming from, or who was doing the shooting. Bullets whizzed over his head, so he pushed his chin down in the dirt. His cowboy hat flew off when a bullet zipped by. He didn't know how long he laid there, but soon the bullets stopped flying in his direction. It sounded like they were getting pushed away because the shots still fired, but they now came from another direction leading away from the farm.
“Pinky! Pinky! That you?” Someone ran up beside Pinky and kneeled down. “Damn! They got, Tom! Damn them to hell! But we puttin em on the run!” It was Terry Waddell, Pinky's best friend since high school. “Rainmaker’s leading a group around the north fence line. They gonna flank em! Damn! What the hell's done happened to this fucked up world!”
Pinky could only look at his father's shredded face.
They beat back the Militia that day. And Pinky swore on his daddy’s grave (they buried him under his favorite maple tree) that the Militia would pay for this, pay with blood.
3
Pinky still set with his feet on the desk, thinking about that blood soaked day when Terry knocked on the door.
“It’s open.”
The door swung open and Terry came in, freshly shaved and showered. They had three wells and solar showers. The Satterfield gang was rough and tough, but that didn't mean they didn't enjoy the finer things in life, even during the apocalypse.
“How you doin this fine morning?”
Pinky stood up, turned and looked out of the large bay windows. “Just fine, Terry. Just fine.”
“Thinkin about goin for a run. You comin?”
“No. You go on. I'm gonna work patrol today. Take Dale and Teddy with you, maybe Bonny too. She's been bitching to me. Says she never gets enough 'city time'. Like there’s a goddamn city to go to see.”
“Yep. She's itchin to fight those Militia boys. If it were up to her, we'd head to Columbia today.”
“Yawl didn't see any sign of them, yesterday?”
“Nope. Haven't seen em close to the farm in at least three months. Must have found someone else to play with.”
“Yeah. I'm sure they did. Some women. Well... probably some little girls.”
“Sickos. Sick motherfuckers,” Terry said shaking his head.
Pinky turned to Terry. “You tell Bonny she'll get her revenge, just not today. Those boys have that stadium locked and loaded.”
“She still says her girl's alive.”
“Might be, but you know she's in pain. What was she? Ten?”
“Eleven.”
“Jesus! We're living in the end of it all, Terry. Living at the end of all things. That's what ole Sam Wise Gamgee would say.”
“Then we'll just have to blow that place up just like F
rodo blew up the evil eye.”
Pinky lit a cigarette, walked over to his friend and patted him on the shoulder. “You can believe it, Terry. Let’s get some breakfast.”
4
As he walked down his dark wood hallway, memories flooded his mind. The image of his father waving for him to hurry up. They'd gone to the big pond that day and fished. His dad taught him how to row the two-person canoe and how to hook a night crawler worm without the hook sticking his fingers.
He remembered being a teenager, just turned sixteen. He'd saved up his wages from working on the farm after school and on weekends and purchased a 1991 Ford F-150 four-wheel drive. He loved that truck. Got his first kiss in that truck. It was red with white stripes. Martha Burdett was his first kiss. He'd driven off the black top down some old dirt road, and parked. They'd climbed into the back and kissed. She didn't let him go all the way that night, but god was it magical. The summer sky was a landscape of shining stars, the moon a full beacon of glorious light. The trees rustled with the push of the warm summer wind. Martha wore her pink and black summer dress that night and her pink cotton panties underneath. He only got to touch her down there for a moment, but it was one hell of an electrifying warm and damp moment.
He remembered senior year. He remembered all the faces that were now dead (except for a lucky few). He remembered Mr. Cole, the gay English teacher. He liked that guy and didn't care for the jokes the other kids said behind Mr. Cole's back. Pinky could talk to Mr. Cole, mostly about books. It was hard to find friends who enjoyed reading the works of Hemingway and Tolstoy. Pinky wanted to be a teacher, just like Mr. Cole. He wanted to teach English and maybe write a book one day. Who knows, maybe even become a famous author. Him and Mr. Cole would joke about Pinky becoming the next Mark Twain and writing a modern day version of Huckleberry Finn; just this time the little boy would help a gay man escape the ravages of a runaway theocratic government.
