Pavement Ends: The Exodus

by Kurt Gepner

  "Well, it ended up in an auction and some guy, who my dad knew, won the bid for eighty-four hundred dollars," Hank said as he handed the pistol to Dale. "I don’t remember his name, but he was one of those lottery winners who went bankrupt. Anyway, right before he lost everything, he just gave it to my dad."

  "No way." Dale’s tone was incredulous as he fondled the firearm. "Just gave it?"

  Hank held up his hand. "Swear to God!"

  Dale ogled at Hank for a moment then snapped his mouth shut and asked, "What’s it do?"

  Grinning, Hank said, "With this ten-and-a-half inch barrel and twelve power scope, It fires thirty-ought-six rounds… really well."

  "But it’s single shot?" asked Dale.

  With a tilt of his head, Hank said, "Yup. But you can bulls-eye at three-hundred yards." With a half-grin he added, "And then you’ll be wearing a wrist brace for a week. It kicks worse than three mules."

  Dale nodded respectfully and asked, "Does this one have a name?"

  "Nope," Hank replied. "But this one does." He picked up a scuffed and worn, lever action rifle. "It’s a Model ninety-four, Winchester. This belonged to my grandfather and he supposedly inherited it from his grandfather. It’s called Donkers."

  "Donkers?" Dale’s head lurched back and his brow knitted. "What sort of name is that?"

  "I have no idea, but I do remember Grandpa asking for it, when I was a little kid." Hank chuckled and shook his head. "Why you’d use a thirty-thirty to kill gophers, I have no idea. But he’d sit, rocking on the porch for hours, just watching the garden grow. He’d watch the neighbors and the cow and everything else, but he had a thing for that garden." Hank gazed off through the window, into another time. "If he’d spot a gopher, he’d call to Grandma, Darlene, bring me Donkers! Then you’d here the shot and next thing you’d see him coming back with a dead gopher. Guess he won’t be eatin’ no more of my carrots, he’d say."

  Looking at his neighbor and seeing that his reminiscence was merely being tolerated, Hank offered a wan smile. "So, here’s my plan," he said, quickly. Dale nodded attentively. "Salvador will be wearing his fireman’s get-up. Then people won’t be as likely to question him." He picked up the long holster and strapped the belt around his waist as he spoke. "I’ll carry Whisper, and, if you’re not opposed, Jeremy’ll carry Donkers. You carry…"

  "I’m opposed!" Dale’s face was the visage of abhorrence. "Your son-in-law was telling me some of your plan. In principle, I agree. But I don’t want my son involved."

  Hank’s mouth formed a thin line behind his bristling whiskers and he nodded. "All right. I was hoping to…." He clamped his mouth shut, again. After a moment he took a different route. "Anyway, you take Donkers and Salvador will take the pistol."

  Dale acted as if the new plan were as natural as breathing. "Sounds fine. Then what?"

  "We just walk down to Walgreen’s and I’ll use the torch to cut open the backdoor. It will take about two or three minutes and then we’re in." Hank finished tying a small strap around his left thigh and shoved Whisper into the holster, with the grip facing forward. "You and I go in and fill the suitcases and backpacks with all the things we need. Salvador stands outside to give the operation a look of legitimacy. We’re in there for no more than ten minutes and then we leave."

  Dale’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead. "You make it sound so simple. What do you do for a living, again?"

  Hank checked a smirk. "If we’re really lucky, it will be that simple. I’m counting on the fact that people are headed home to their families. I’m figuring that all of the stores are locked up and nobody has swooped in to loot, yet. If I’m right, this is way too soon for anybody to try something like this and police will be so busy trying to keep order that nobody will react, until it’s too late."

  "So if you’re wrong?" Dale asked, earnestly.

  "If I’m wrong, we don’t jeopardize ourselves. We have families and other people counting on us." Hank shook his head. "The last thing we need is to leave any of our children without a daddy."

  "Okay," Dale assented, "I’m game."

  Hank handed him a box of thirty-thirty shells and said, "We’ll leave in five minutes. Don’t bother bringing extra rounds. If we need more than one load, we’re in over our heads and it’s time to run away. Besides, they’re just for show. I don’t want us shooting people. It should be more than easy to scare off anybody who’s curious, or trying to be a good citizen."

  "I agree," Dale said. "I mean, we’re doing this to get drugs that will save a life. Right? So why would we want to kill some stranger to save the life of another stranger?"

  Hank nodded his agreement. "We wouldn’t. But don’t think that these drugs are just for a stranger. If I’m right, sanitation is going to be a huge issue in a matter of days. Any one of us might pick up an infection." Without warning, he leapt into another subject. "By the way, did you see any cars on the road when you went and got Patty?"

  Dale shook his head. "Not one that was working. There were a couple still on fire," he said. "Every one of the cars I saw in the street was abandoned."

  Hank took a deep breath, as if the news had confirmed his worst fears. "If I guessed right, an E.M. Pulse has knocked out all the computers and electrical systems. Cars aren’t going to run and no refrigeration either. No shipments and everything’s burned up."

  For a moment Hank was silent as he watched Dale process the information. As Dale’s eyes grew until his pupils were encircled by white, he began to visibly tremble. "There won’t be any food. People will riot. I mean really. I mean, like, mobs tearing through the streets."

  "Probably," Hank confirmed. "It won’t be pretty, but it will be pretty bad. That’s why we need to secure whatever resources we can, before things get that bad."

  Dale started loading the rifle. "I’m with you."

  Hank clapped his neighbor on the shoulder and went to find Salvador. He carried the pistol in its holster and a box of thirty-ought-six shells. On the front porch, he found his son-in-law sitting on the steps. "Get your stuff on, we’re about to leave."

  "What stuff you need me to get?" Salvador jumped off the steps, ready for action.

  "Your firefighting gear," Hank told him. "I want people to think you’re official." Salvador didn’t question anything. He headed straight to his pile of protective gear.

  Hank stopped him and pressed the holstered pistol into his sternum. Salvador grabbed it and gave Hank a questioning look. Hank pulled the pistol free and demonstrated how to open and load it. Then he shoved it back in its holster. "Don’t shoot this thing at anyone, if you can help it. If you have to threaten somebody, fine. If you fire it, be ready for a helluva recoil." Salvador nodded and belted the pistol to his hip.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  By the time the three men stepped into the street the rains and wind had receded to a blustery drizzle. Hank had taken a few minutes to change clothes. His blue jeans were tucked into a pair of black logger boots that came within three inches of his knee. Rain beaded off a full-length, black oilskin Drover’s Coat that fell to the middle of his calf. His head was crowned with a black-leather bush hat. With the edge of the Drover’s Coat tucked around the grip of his holstered shotgun, he looked like a highwayman. The effect was intimidating.

  Hank often wore these clothes when he gathered wood in the colder seasons, or hiked in the Gifford Pinchot Forest. It was all very practical. Even so, his ensemble, coupled with his size and bearded face, had startled and downright terrified more than a few people over the years. Hank was completely aware of the effect and for the first time he intended to exploit it.

  Dale chased Jeremy back into the house, twice. The boy was ambitious to help the men. But after his father’s voice had rattled the windows, he stayed put. Then, without ceremony, they started walking straight down Jasmine Street. Every house along the street had been gutted by fire. Once the fires had burned through the roofs, heavy rain conducted a noble job of battling them into submission. Rancid smoke belched
in great black billows from the ruins, but very few structures still supported open flames.

  There were small clusters of people clumped together under trees and other shelters, near to their respective homes. They didn’t know what else to do. Help had not come. Those who had been home at the time of the disaster did the most sensible thing; they escaped from the fire. Some of the frightened survivors recognized Hank and Dale, but the guns, and fierce looking dogs, and the grim determination in their step deterred anyone from approaching. Even so, Hank called out to people, telling them about the empty house that Lexi had spotted. With no other direction or guidance they followed him, although not closely.

  A few blocks down, an older light-haired woman and five children were huddled against a retaining wall, under a leaning cedar. The woman ran a daycare out of her house and the frightened children at her feet were her charges. One small boy cried incessantly, but the rest, ranging from three to five years old, were dry-eyed. Hank told the woman to take her children up to his house and ask for Evie. She thanked him in a rich German accent and immediately ushered her flock toward the safety Hank had offered.

  The men continued on their way and when they came upon the empty house, it was standing vacant, just as Lexi had described. It sat up high from the street with steep landscaping and a set of eight concrete steps leading to a narrow strip of yard that lay like an emerald moat before the front porch. It was a bungalow, built in the fifties. The detached garage was equally undamaged, sitting in the back of the lot, at the end of a long, steep drive that was too narrow for practical use, but common throughout the older neighborhoods.

  The house was nearly invisible, because it sat back so far from the road and so near to the houses on each side. To further shelter it from the eye, it was painted the color of a ripe avocado with dusky red trim. It’s no wonder this place hasn’t sold, Hank thought.

  After rummaging through the cart for his crowbar and four-pound sledgehammer, he walked up the steps and surveyed the area. About a dozen people had followed his group to the house. Perhaps from fear of being implicated in a crime, or of the guns, or just because they hadn’t been told to do anything better, they cheerlessly stood clustered in the drizzle.

  From the slight vantage that his position offered, he could see a two-hundred foot strip of Fourth Plain Boulevard. There were nine abandoned cars in his view. One person was walking west, along the sidewalk. A few small groups were migrating east. Hank thought, They’re probably heading for the VA hospital.

  He shot a glance at his audience and then turned to the massive, carved oak door. Hank set the hook of the crowbar on the realtor’s lock, underneath the knob. Then he smashed the sledge down on the crook of the bar. The lock withstood the attack, but the door knob sheared off, exposing a bent and broken mechanism inside. Hank cursed and used the crowbar and sledge to pop the remains of the knob into the house. There was still a deadbolt holding the door closed.

  Not wanting to break any windows and having no other options, he just backed up and threw his two-hundred-sixty-odd pounds against the door. It smashed open and his momentum sent him sprawling on the refinished hardwood floor.

  "Hank." Salvador hollered up from the street. "You okay?"

  Grunting a bit, Hank picked himself up and gave his son-in-law a thumbs-up. Then he turned and limped to the back of the house where he privately groaned away his pain.

  The house was spacious, with a fireplace near the center of the main floor. Behind the fireplace a stairway wound up to the second floor. He passed it by and found the kitchen. In there, he opened a narrow door and looked down into the basement. Some light from the low windows illuminated a patch of cracked cement floor that was in view. A stale odor wafted up the steep, worn staircase.

  He closed the door and crossed to the opposite side of the kitchen. Sometime in its history, a utility room had been built on to the back of the dwelling. It spanned the full width of the house and about twelve feet out. The entire thing was paneled glass, making it about a four-hundred square-foot sun room. A single key was hanging from a nail by the door.

  Letting himself out the back door, Hank crossed the small yard to the garage. A narrow flagstone path meandered to a small, covered patio attached to the garage. In a wood-crib beside a bright red door there was about a half-cord of wood stacked against the wall. He tried the key in the lock and it turned without resistance. He left it in the door. Inside he found a well-maintained shop space, with a storage loft.

  Heading down the steep driveway, Hank discovered that the crowd had grown during his brief exploration. Fifteen or sixteen people were now standing sheep-like in the rain. Hank recognized one couple in the group. They were a husband and wife with whom he was neighborly on occasion. The man, Leonard, ran a Christian computer repair business from his abused little car. Leonard was annoying to talk to for more than ten minutes, but he was good-natured.

  Leonard had a protective arm around his wife, Carla, who was, in turn, protectively cuddling her bloated dog, Roger. Carla looked a lot like her dog. The couple was a little older than he and Evie, but their two boys hadn’t made them grandparents yet.

  "Hey, Len," Hank said, looking the man straight in the eyes. "You’re a fair man. This house has three floors, counting the basement. The garage is real nice, too," he said, nodding over his shoulder. "Will you see that everybody gets set up in there?"

  Looking astounded for the briefest second, Len nodded confidently and said, "Sure, Hank. Makes sense, doesn’t it?"

  "Makes better sense than standing in the rain." Looking around, Hank saw that the group contained mostly women of varying ages and retired men. Among them, however, was a pair of young men. Hank pointed at the two and asked them, "Could you guys help us out? We’re going to get some food and other supplies."

  They both appeared to be in their twenties, sporting tattoos and piercings. One was shaved bald and had piercings on the left side of his face and an intricate tribal tattoo on the right side of his face and scalp. The other had his thick black hair pulled into a Samurai bun on the back of his head. His earlobes held rings large enough to accommodate an index finger and a silver chain was festooned from each one to a loop that protruded from each of his nostrils.

  The two men looked at each other and shrugged. "Sure," they said in unison.

  "Okay, folks," Hank projected. "Go on in. There’s a fireplace and some wood in the back. Get yourselves dried out, at least." A few hesitated, but they all made the climb into the shelter of the bungalow.

  Signaling the dogs to walk, Hank started back on the road. The other men in his group followed. Looking over his shoulder, Hank asked his new companions their names. The bald one said that he was called Eddy and the long-haired one identified himself as Chance.

  The group turned right, onto twenty-sixth. As they ambled toward their destination, they told other clusters of people about the shelter that they’d just left behind. Salvador asked, with wonder. "Why aren’t there more people?"

  Hank answered nonchalantly. "Work."

  "What do you mean, work?" Salvador asked while mopping water from his brow with a red shop rag that he had appropriated from the garage.

  "I was setting the time on the video player when everything went to hell." Hank spoke conversationally. "It was two-thirty-four."

  "Yeah?" Salvador’s tone encouraged Hank to continue.

  "Most people were at work when it happened," he said.

  "Okay…?" Salvador intoned the word as if to say, "And that means what?"

  Smiling crookedly, Hank looked over his shoulder and said, "About seventy percent of the working Vancouver residents cross the bridge into Oregon to get to their jobs. Most of ‘em commute over twenty miles." As they got on the sidewalk along Fourth Plain, Hank stopped to scan the road from east to west. To the east, several people, walking alone or in small groups, were making their way from Interstate Five to the V.A. Hospital. A shroud of diffused black smoke hung across the horizon, despite the continui
ng drizzle.

  A man dressed in the brown shirt and shorts of a UPS driver was walking toward them. When he spotted the group of men, with their guns and dogs, he veered across the road. Dale handed his rifle to Hank and said, "I know him." Then he trotted over to talk to the man. While Dale and the man talked, Salvador prompted Hank to continue his explanation.

  "There’s not much to it," Hank said with a shake of his head. Beads of murky water spun from the brim of his hat. "For most people, five miles is a long walk. Ten miles is just do-able, even in the rain. But twenty miles or more is too far to trudge. In the rain and with uncomfortable shoes, a physically fit person could walk it in six or eight hours. Anyone else won’t get here ‘till morning. And that’s if they decided to leave the shelters."

  "What shelters?" Salvador asked, perplexed.

  Hank shrugged. "There’s always shelters." He pointed in the direction they had come. "In a disaster, people will always group together and seek shelter. And when you’re fifteen, twenty, thirty miles from home, it would take a lot of guts to walk away from that kind of safety." Salvador nodded sagely.

  "What are you guys gonna do?" The question was posed by Chance.

  Hank answered without looking at him. "Were going to loot some medicine and other supplies."

  "Cool," Chance said and burrowed his hands into his pants pockets.

  Dale walked back to the group and the UPS driver continued on his journey. "What’d he say?" Salvador anxiously asked.

  "Said he was delivering to Lowe’s in Delta Park." Dale jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, in a Southerly direction. "When it happened, those big lights all popped and peppered the shoppers with a hail of molten glass. But it’s like you thought. They ran everybody out of the stores. And when no fire engines came, they locked the doors and wouldn’t let anybody in. That one empty store, across from Levitz, didn’t catch fire. That’s where everybody went. He said they just smashed in the doors and now about a thousand people are hanging out in there. He lives over in the Jefferson neighborhood, so he decided to hoof it on home. I know him from bowling. His name’s Ed," Dale added, as an afterthought.