The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist's Guide to Utah's Deserts

by Dustin Steinacker

  Emmie looked out onto this terrain, which now that they were away from the road looked for all the world like some alien landscape. People once traversed this place on a daily basis, she knew, pursuing vocations and leisure she couldn’t even fathom now. When survival was a guarantee, you cut lines through the dry and barren and inhospitable and drove, knowing that you had water, food, and fuel enough to take you to the next oasis. People had lived openly and showed their jugular because they had nothing to fear from one another. It wasn’t something she could understand now.

  Forty years later, a similar sight. An automobile with children, making their way across the desert. But this was no pleasure ride; this was a lifeboat, and the rationing and the plans and the hope of some bright destination were just veils over the truth Emmie knew, with increasing clarity: They were all going out here to die.

  She slept, and woke parched. The sun had moved and her lips cracked and tore when she opened them.

  “Giving Alva a cap or two and then Delcena the rest of the water,” she told Thursday, who nodded with closed eyes. She stood and took the canteen from the string where it hung from the passenger’s seat.

  She froze, stared past the dash to the rear windshield.

  There had been a break in the glass before, from the attack, but now she could barely see it. The eggshell cracks around it were gone, and where it had been uneven the hole was smooth, perfectly round. The break could now barely fit her thumb.

  She paced around to the back, leaned in, closed one eye.

  There was new glass here. Running through it, almost too faint to see, was that same alien substance, more subtle.

  She circled the car, until she came back up on the passenger’s side window. Where the tide of that periwinkle covering reached the door, a thin layer of smooth glass was rising, just beginning to replace that which had been broken.

  A new window was growing.

  Her jaw went slack. She forgot the pain of her lips, of her dry throat.

  The hole in the front windshield was untouched. Alva’s discharge had not yet met the front of the car. She was beginning to see what connected those two thoughts.

  She’d thought this new substance an infection, or a plague, since first seeing it. Only in this moment did she begin to question that.

  “What are you doing?” Thursday asked, depleted.

  She stopped at the tank. The same strands were woven into the metal around the fuelcap, snaking out from the window where Alva sat, too subtle to see unless she’d been looking for it. Where the two met, xenotech and human workings, the former remade the latter, making it something new, but at the same time preserving its original form. She hadn’t seen it because she hadn’t been looking for it. This rebuilt window was a window, and not. This a tire, and not. Some uncanny replica, some mimicry which had started clumsy but gained sophistication, accelerated its work.

  She turned to Thursday. “You asked what kind of car this is. Truth is, I don’t know. But I can venture a guess as to what it’s becoming.”

  “September, we’ve been living in everloving dread of what this car is becoming.”

  She shook her head. “We were wrong.”

  ~~~

  It was Alva all along, of course. Blessing their journey, the Patron Saint of Extraterrestrial Magicks. He’d kept them alive.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, holding him.

  But how exhausting, how draining to give so much energy. To repair the constant damage done to an engine by improper fuel, to stretch it so far. To heal broken windows and force air back into punctured tires, to do who-knew-what-else. Until he was too weak to speak, barely there, practically inert. Too weak to eat the usual way, only able to take in energy direct and then send it right back out in the same form. Transforming this car indirectly, laboriously, in the same way that he himself was changed by contact with the artifact.

  Her thesis was impossible, but she wasn’t surprised when it bore results. Moments after Alva’s disc was wedged into the fuelcap of their vehicle it started without even needing a push. Those alien energy-imbuing lines spread and covered the vehicle’s chassis to an inch.

  They made their way now, openly, faster than they’d ever done before, outrunning the change of their car. Marauders were a blip on the horizon, shouts and shots ringing by in the already-empty air. At times the vehicle even veered on its own, keeping with the rhythm of the road.

  Until it stopped, skidded to a dead halt.

  Their ambushers were built for speed. They came up, on all four sides until Emmie and hers were boxed in.

  The cars to the front and to each side were sleek but simple jeeps, pre-Apocalyptic but refitted to thwart the swarms, not unlike her vehicle. A rarity beyond imagining in this place, yes, but not a miracle.

  The rear vehicle, however, was huge and treaded. It hardly bore signs of any use at all. Sticking out of a column at the top was a goggled woman aiming a weapon of some sort at their vehicle, a gun with a puckered mouth. Emmie could only think of it as a tank, a word she’d heard but never visualized.

  Through a near-black viewing window, an official-looking man motioned for them to get out of the car. Emmie and Thursday stepped out, arms in sight, and waited.

  When the man spoke, even behind glass, his voice carried itself strong.

  “Clever of you not to use the artifact,” he said. “The ornament. We got only the faintest sniffs down the Interstate. You used it to change something, though. I’m guessing a person?” He peered into the car. “Anyway, no matter. Once you put it to your ride it was only a matter of time.”

  Emmie eyed the woman with the turret. She grinned but was silent.

  “Anyway, get out, the rest of you. Don’t worry, we won’t be lining you up. You can die just fine from the usual causes. Where is he, though? We might have a choice burst of something painful for him.”

  Emmie thought she knew who he was. “He... he couldn’t make it. Gave me the car.” She beckoned out Emmie, had her hold Alva, behind her and Thursday.

  “Too bad. Honestly I was leaning toward taking him back. He knows his stuff.” He nodded toward Alva. “That’s the son, I assume?”

  “No. Just somebody else I found on the way.”

  The man rolled his eyes. “Okay, look. We’ll make it simple for you. Where is the artifact? Bring it out. If we see a weapon you’re finito.”

  Why only artifact? Not plural? Emmie’s gears turned.

  She reached into the space beneath Thursday’s seat and carefully brought out the empty bag she’d found the disc in. And, carefully, she palmed the globe with the crawling foam in it, and the talker.

  Gently she held out the empty bag, unscrewed the car’s fuelcap, and let the disc fall into it, the one the man had called the ornament.

  “All right. Now put it on the ground.”

  She did.

  He opened his door, and a half-dozen soldiers followed. Most held simple pistols but two brandished weapons more ornate.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Emmie said.

  “Oh?” The man smiled slightly, and she could see he was tired.

  “You let us keep the car, give us a little fuel, and we’ll give you something else as well.”

  “Wow. A priceless alien artifact we traveled for days to get and something else too? How could I refuse?” He snapped his fingers and one of his group grabbed the sack with the disc, and handed it to him. He peered into the bag and then gave it back for storage.

  “I think you’ll be more excited when you find out what it is.”

  “So? What is it?”

  “Eywhut?” came a shout from her hand. “Wutizit? Eywhut? Whut?”

  The man raised his eyebrows. “If that’s what I think it is, it’s worth the car and supplies at least. Was that Mr. Hill’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Eywhut?” the talker chirped. “Yes, yes-yes-yes. Wutizit?”

  “I thought the bastard was keeping a find or two from us. Turned up his room again and ag
ain, nothing. Wonder how he kept it quiet...”

  “The car. Water. Fuel.”

  “Immediately, yes.” He whispered into the ear of one of the grunts, who set to work in the bed of the tank, gathering supplies. They handed wrapped bundles and foil-pouches to Thursday, who with apprehension stacked them in the back of the SUV.

  “Clear out,” Emmie said. “Give us a path.”

  “Hand it over.”

  She tossed him the talker, and he took it in his bare hands without apparent concern and then threw it up to the woman in the turret. “One more for the stores, Sonia. All right, run parallel. Give them a line.”

  The driver of the jeep to the front cleared the way, circling around behind.

  The man saluted ironically. “You understand, we’re letting you off easy on account of you’ve got nothing to do with this theft. No love lost for anybody doing what they can to survive in the wastes. But if we see you anywhere near one of our facilities, or with any other of our properties, pew.” He cocked and fired his fingers like a gun. “All right, Sonia, let them go.”

  There was a click from the turret and the hum Emmie only now realized she’d been hearing ceased. Their car started on its own, which hardly surprised Emmie after all she’d seen. Stepping into the driver’s seat, Thursday drove it clear of their blockade.

  “All right, Delcena, get Alva back inside. We’ve going to have to hurry.”

  Their plan would have to change, now. With two artifacts down, it would only be Alva’s safety they were buying. Maybe, maybe she could convince them to take on a second child too, get Delcena some safety, but if not they’d have to find some other—

  “Wait. Hold on.” Their commander stepped forward, pulling Delcena aside to her shrill protest and kneeling, taking Alva by the shoulders. “This boy. He’s had skin contact with the ornament, hasn’t he?”

  Somehow the question resounded forebodingly. “He’s just sick, like half the people out here.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” The man inspected Alva’s eyes, held two fingers to the lymph nodes on his chin. “How long ago was it?”

  Emmie took a deep breath, met his gaze. “Couple weeks, and change.”

  “Almighty,” the man muttered. “How did he stay alive so long? Without, well, you know. Or maybe you don’t...”

  “We used it to keep him alive.”

  “No, that’s not enough. You must have—” he spied the car. “Of course! Flushing out the old energy, like waste!” He took Alva’s palm roughly, felt the grooves in his hand. “And then taking in a fresh flow from the ornament...” He stood. “All right. We’ll be taking the boy too. And your car.”

  “No. We’ve made our deal. It’s over.”

  “Just somebody you’ve met along the way, didn’t you say? One less mouth to feed.” He took Alva in his arms, and his people held Emmie and Thursday back as they pushed for him. “Anyway, you don’t think we’ll be leaving you rudderless, do you? We’re nothing if not fair. Hell, with a goldmine like this we’d almost give you the fucking tank—”

  “No!” Emmie shouted, and she stepped back, raised up the globe in her hand.

  Before her next breath, every weapon was trained in her direction.

  “I’ll break it!” Emmie shouted. “A piece of your precious xeno-tech! If you take Alva I’ll throw it down and I’ll—and I’ll—”

  When the commander saw what she was holding he tensed with a bark, nearly dropping Alva. He stepped carefully backward.

  Something was wrong. There was something she was missing.

  His shoulders relaxed, and he smiled. “Hmm, a third artifact? Can’t say you don’t catch our interest, but—”

  “Bullshit!” She made as if to throw the globe in their direction, and their reaction clinched it. “There’s a little more to this one, isn’t there?”

  “You don’t,” he said, “have any idea what you’re holding, do you? Put it down, then we talk.”

  “First, the kid, and those supplies. Now!”

  Without even waiting the grunts of ACNUS set to work.

  Their crestfallen commander lowered Alva to the ground. “Go on then,” he sat flatly. “Take him.”

  “Thursday, go ahead.”

  “You hold onto that globe,” Thursday intoned as he passed. “I don’t think we walk away from this, otherwise.”

  “I’ll work it out.”

  Thursday took the boy in his arms, and carried him carefully back to the SUV. Delcena watched through the passenger window, eyes fierce and terrified at once.

  “I suppose the tank is too much to ask for, now?” Emmie said.

  “Just keep your damn distance. You take it slow back to that car, and we never want to see you again. Understand?”

  She nodded, arm still cocked. “I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure, but—”

  The rifleman moved so quickly it was as if she’d triggered him by her words. She threw without thinking, just as the commander screamed and threw himself against the barrel of the man’s gun.

  Even diverted the blast of something pierced her shoulder, and even as she collapsed to the earth she dimly wondered why she’d felt no impact, only the pain. There was an impossible adrenaline in the air, and most of it wasn’t hers.

  She scrambled backward on pained limbs but couldn’t turn her eyes away, as ACNUS panicked, as the globe broke into pieces at their feet.

  In that moment, the air above it became a pillar of flesh. Two fewer men stood there.

  “Cover their eyes!” Emmie shouted behind her, even as she watched in paralysis.

  It was oddly silent, a scavenging storm which grasped and where it found man took epidermis, then muscle and organ, and finally bone and melded it into some new creation. Lightning-quick it shattered windows, took the men and women inside, and made them its own. Those who ran or those who stayed or those who only quivered on their hands and knees watching this happen were taken all the same, made part of this biological terror, this apex consumer. A shoot of bile and marrow reached tentatively in her direction, then took hold of some closer bit of brush instead, taking on branch and half-flowered bud.

  When it ended it lost all cohesion. Nearly burned out it slumped tiredly, now a dozen men or more and who knew how many passing insects and tufts of flora. It burst like a raindrop in a puddle, blackening all four ACNUS vehicles with a deafening explosion.

  She blinked, and now she felt her wound, the wetness across her upper body, the dimming of her vision at the edges.

  Emmie reached weakly for the tank as trembling arms took her. Get the ornament, the relics, she wanted to tell Thursday, but her lips weren’t making the right words.

  ~~~

  They reached Tempe broken, but they reached it.

  The people they met had no formal name, and none of the airs and sleekness of ACNUS. They were a group of ragtag survivors, competent and curious, wary.

  They recognized the boy’s malady immediately and took him away, and then took Emmie, delirious from blood loss and infection from the blast of that unknown weapon. But he was right—there was nothing they could do for Thursday’s condition. He’d have to find his salvation in Seattle.

  “You’ve no idea how much you’ve done for the human race,” the doctor who’d introduced herself as Deb said on Thursday’s third day with them, the morning he was to be set off. “These artifacts you brought us, somewhere they hold the key to the Swarms. Or maybe to a way to live with them. A way to be what we used to be.”

  “How’s September?” He’d given her a goodbye, but he doubted she’d heard him through the fever. Delcena’s teary thank-you had had to do.

  “The wound in her shoulder, we can deal with that. But we had to take the flesh off that heel, and the infection’s already hit the bone. We’ll try to save her foot, but we’re not magicians.”

  He knew better than to ask about Alva. They weren’t magicians, after all. But he was hopeful.

  “Thank you,” he only said, “for helping them. For
taking the kid.”

  “We’re not in the business of charity, believe that. The stuff our Alva is emitting, that’s as valuable as any artifact. You should see what it can do.”

  “I’m leaving all of that behind, and I won’t miss it.” He took the pack they’d given him, full of ACNUS’s provisions, and set off in search of transport.

  The SUV had disappeared from their perimeter during the night, they had told him. He didn’t blame them for taking it for themselves for study, though he resented the lie. This detour had taken him days off of his journey.

  But it wasn’t more than two miles before he saw the car he’d driven, peering he could only think from the horizon. Over the miles its driver was clearly keeping their distance, but matching Thursday’s walking pace.

  Eventually it approached, and it had no driver at all. It was driverless. He sensed some sort of amity, some friendly but wary concern.

  This was not the vehicle they’d taken through the desert. The car was, well, changed.

  No foreign substance covered the rear windows or the interior as it had, only because it was all foreign. This looked more like the car he’d seen that first day meeting Emmie, Delcena, and Alva, and also couldn’t have been more different. But whatever had taken over every inch of metal, glass, plastic and even solar silicon, it had learned to mimic the form of the original.

  He walked side-by-side with it for a time. It kept alongside him, then lowered its windows slightly as if peering at him from inside. Finally, it opened its passenger’s-side door in a way Thursday could only think of as an invitation.

  “You want to go with me? To Seattle?”

  No motion from the car, aside from a quarter-turn forward of the tires.

  “All right,” Thursday said, and he climbed in.

  The door closed without a sound, and Thursday looked about at these familiar surroundings, renewed. He gave the steering wheel a gentle pat. “Thanks.”

  They set off with the rising sun to their right, a travel party of two.

  END