“Dude, we need to get out of town like last week,” Anthony, my long time skiing partner and best friend replied.
“Where, man? Your folks house?”
“Yeah right. There not even in town. They headed north to my uncle’s farm outside of Taos.
“Well, there then?”
“Fuck no! You know how my parents feel about Greer,” he said.
“You mean your seriously underage girlfriend, Jailbait?”
“Dude, not cool. Her name is Núria and we’ve been together for like, what? Two years now. It’s a real relationship and you and all the other Avatars of Conservative Morals need to get over it.”
“Yeah, man, she’s like fifteen now, right? Which means you’ve been raping her, statutorily or course, since she was thirteen. Yikes! I can see why your folks don’t approve.”
“Come on, man! I was just eighteen when we met! I am not some kind of sick pervert!”
“Tell it to the Judge, man,” I said laughing, “And then your cell mate and non-homosexual, potential life partner Hubba the Hulk.”
“Do you think any of that matters now?” Tony said, “We need to get out of town and let this thing pass. What about your folks?”
“Up in Santa Fe? Man it’s worse up there. And my parents hate me. Can you imagine us all cooped up in there with them for months on end? I’ll take my chances with the epidemic.”
“We could always go up to my other uncle’s cabin. He’s out in Los Angeles and I still have the keys.”
“Oh, dude. He will be so pissed if he finds out. You know what happened the last time we crashed in his cabin without him knowing it.”
“Well, I can’t get a hold of him. I can’t get a hold of anyone outside the state so how will he ever find out?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I replied reluctantly. They didn’t have many options, “Meet at my place?”
“Yeah. You going to bring Nicky?”
Nicolette, his girlfriend of the last two years would probably be at his apartment now waiting for him, “Of course, but you know she’ll have to bring her sister, too right?”
“Oh, god. Ms. Frigamortis?”
“Yep. In town for the summer.”
“What about their parents?”
“Back east somewhere with their little sister,” I replied.
“God, the east coast is worse than here. What were they doing back there?”
“Summering at the Hamptons,” I said in my best English snob, Thurston Howell voice.
“I bet they wish they were here. Why can’t we stay at their place?”
“Better to get out town, I think.”
“Agreed. Meet you at your place in an hour?”
“Yep. See you then.”
I drove through the side streets of Albuquerque avoiding the main highways passing gas station after gas station that had “no fuel” signs posted in front of them until I found one that was open. I pulled in and saw that gas prices were up to twenty bucks a gallon. I sighed knowing there was no arguing with the guy who owned the gas station and filled up my tank. Four hundred dollars. Rent for a month? Poof! Gone.
I put it on my charge card surprised at first that the guy took it and second, that it went through. Looking around me at the smoke rising from the city center, listening to the sounds of sirens and watching people fly out of the city, I began to think I might not have to pay for it later. In fact, I thought I might want to hit every ATM I saw on the way over to Nicky’s place and get out every last dollar I had.
I bought a bunch of water as well as filling up the two gas cans mounted to the back of my old Ford Bronco, then drove slowly through the empty streets stopping at four separate ATMs on the way until I reached my apartment on the southwest side of the city. I sat in the Bronco and looked at my entire net worth: $700. It would have to do.
Nicolette Aisha Sherman, Nicky to her friends, had moved in with me a few weeks before the outbreak. She was waiting for me as I walked up the stairs and opened the front door.
She was stretched across the couch wearing a white tank top and cut off shots. She had a pair of hiking boots on the floor beside her and her pack stuffed to over flowing leaning against the wall. She looked up at me with her pale gray eyes and smiled, “When are we leaving?”
“As soon as I can pack my gear,” I said and gave her a quick kiss. Tony and Greer will be over in an hour,” I said as I moved around the cramped apartment grabbing a few things I thought we’d need.
“Anthony the Pervert is bringing Greer?” she said with a grimace, “Doesn’t that make you an accessory to, what? Kidnapping? Child abduction? Transporting minors across state borders?”
“No,” I replied with a laugh, “It makes us accessories to kidnapping, child abduction, and transporting minors across state borders.” In the bedroom, Nicky had already laid out all my cloths in neatly folded piles, my toiletries, and my shaving kit. I quickly stuffed them in my pack, grabbed a few more essentials then piled our stuff next to the door. I also grabbed my bat and while Nicky was looking out the window, a 9 mm pistol I kept in a locked box from the top of my closet. Nicky would freak if she knew I had a gun in the house, but I figured with fucking crazy people running around like mad all over the city, we might need it. I slipped a bunch of ammunition in the outer pockets of my pack, then slipped the gun into my waistband behind my back. I then sat next to Nicky on the couch and watched out the window for Tony and Greer.
“We’re picking up my sister and taking her with us, right?”
“Oh yes, but it will cost you,” I said smiling.
“The usual?”
“Oh, no. Way more than the usual. If I have to put up with Frigadoris for the whole time we’re at the cabin, you have to be my sex slave for two weeks.”
“Two weeks! Hell, no. One day.”
“Two days,” I replied.
“One day and I do laundry for a week.”
“Deal,” I replied and gave her a quick kiss.
“What the hell does ‘Frigadoris’ mean anyways?”
“Well, I think it’s Latin for ‘Cold Caustic Bitch,’” I said and deftly dodged her hand, “’Friga’ comes from the root phrase ‘cold as ice’ while ‘rigadoris’ means ‘stiff like a dead body.’ So linguistically speaking, it means cold, corpse like bitch.’ Linguistically speaking, of course,” I said as I saw Tony and Greer pull up in Tony’s beat up VW.
“Ha, ha. You are so funny,” Nicky replied, “She is not that bad.”
I just looked over at Nicky with a cocked eyebrow.
“It just takes a while for her to warm up to you,” she replied, “And look, Tony and Jailbait have arrived.”
“Tony says Greer is very mature for her age,” I said getting up and opening the door, “Welcome refuges from the End of the World.”
“Not funny, dude. Are you guys ready?” he said looking around hopefully, “No Frigadoris?”
“No such luck dude,” I said fist bumping him, “We’re picking her up on the way out of town. Hi, Greer. Come on in,” I said looking at the terribly young, frightened, and pretty teenager standing nervously at my front door. She was short, maybe five foot at the most, had dyed, platinum blond hair in a pixie cut, bright green eyes that darted from side to side looking everywhere at once, and probably weighed a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet.
“Are you sure it’s OK?” she said.
“Yeah, we’re cool,” I said thinking she was asking if it was OK for her to come with us, “We’ll let your parents know you’re with us as soon as we can get a hold of them. I’m sure they’ll be happy to know your with us instead of on your own.”
“No, I mean, is it OK in this area? Are the dead here yet?” she said as she came into the apartment and I closed the door.
“What the fuck?” I said. Nicky and I both looked back and forth between Tony and Greer. Tony held up his hand palms out and shrugged while shaking his head.
“Don’t mind her, man. She’s just freaked out. She thinks the peo
ple who have been infected are dead, as in ‘walking dead.’”
“Man, keep that theory to yourself,” I said, “You will absolutely freak Dreysi out if you say something like that.”
“We’d better get going,” Nicky chimed in, “I’ve be glued to the tube all day and it looks like the government might impose a travel ban in the state on top of a curfew. So if we’re going to get out of town, now is the time to do it.”
We all agreed and carried our stuff down to the Bronco and quickly loaded up our gear plus Tony’s and Greer’s and were soon on our way. Again I stayed off of the main roads slowly making our way past police and military checkpoints. Each time the cops would stop us, ask us for IDs and if any of us were potentially infected, then wave us through. I wondered what they’d do if they found someone who was infected.
“Take them into custody,” Nicky said when I asked aloud, “They have turned the college stadium into a vast holding pen for the sick.”
“Bullshit,” Tony said.
“It’s true. I saw it on the television earlier today. The hospitals are all crammed full so they’re taking stadiums, gyms, even hangers at the airport and turning them into hospitals.”
“You mean morgues,” Greer said.
“Jesus Christ, Greer,” Nicky said, “They’re not morgues!”
“No yet,” she replied.
“Bucket of sunshine, that one,” I whispered to Nicky as we pulled up in front of Nicky’s house, “Let’s go fetch the princess,” I said as I shut off the engine.
“Casey, maybe you should leave the engine running,” Tony said from the back seat.
“Not at twenty dollars a gallon,” I replied, “But I will leave the keys, just in case,” and got out of the car with Nicky.
We walked up to the doorway of her parents super huge McMansion and before Nicky could even get the keys out of her purse, Dreysi had whipped open the door and the next thing I knew was I was looking down the business end of a very large shotgun.
“Who the fuck are you!?” she screamed.
“Nicky, could you convince Dreysi to remove the potentially lethal instrument of death from the general vicinity of my face? Maybe?”
“It’s us, Dres! Jesus, put that thing down!”
“Oh my god, it’s you Nicolette!” she said crying and pulled her sister inside without bothering to give me a second look. Dreysi was in her late twenties, a bit older than Nicky and stood in the doorway looking like she was about to embark on a Slut Safari wearing a pair of two sizes too small khaki shorts, designer hiking boots, and a white tank top that look like it was painted on. Her jet black hair was pulled up in a tight ponytail and her bright green eyes shot daggers out as she looked at me and Nicky.
“And me, the unwanted boyfriend Casey,” I said to myself as I stepped inside and closed the door behind us.
“Crazy fucking people have been running around all over the neighborhood today, breaking into homes, screaming, lighting shit on fire, fucking biting each other for Christ’s sake!” Dreysi said as she dragged a colossal suitcase into the foyer.
“That’s big,” I said taking in the wheeled monstrosity, “But it should fit,” speaking mostly to myself when Dreysi pulled in three more suitcases and two handbags, “Are we moving? Shouldn’t we take the couch and refrigerator too?” I said out loud.
Thankfully, Nicky stepped in and said “Dres, we can only fit one and we’re only going for a few weeks at most.”
I thought Dreysi was going to have a fit right there but instead she said, “Why can’t we just stay here? That way if Mom and Dad come home…”
“Dres, they’re out on Long Island. Flights have been cancelled until the epidemic has been brought under control. They’re not coming home.”
“Well, then just you and I could stay here. We can lock the doors and I have this gun…” she said waving the shotgun dangerously around.
I noticed that I was not invited to share their refuge here but thought I’d be more than happy to leave her behind if she didn’t want to come as I stepped up and grabbed the gun before she accidently or purposely shot something vital off of me, “Let me hold that for you,” I said as I deftly snagged the gun and flipped the safety on.
“Well fuck us all,” Dreysi spat finally acknowledging that I was here, “The Man has come to save us. I’ll just wet my panties and give you a gratuitous blow job in thanks!”
“Oh, god. Nicky, we need to get moving. Is she coming or not?” I said looking at Nicky and choosing to ignore the venom being spewed at me.
“Dres, you need to decide if you want to go with us and pick one suitcase, then we need to go.”
“Oh, all right,” she said and grabbed the most humongous suitcase and pushed it towards me.
I sighed, grabbed it by the handle, and headed for the door. I’d tell Dreysi that we had a five mile hike to the cabin once we were on the road. I was thinking that I didn’t know where we’d get another pack when Nicky came out of one of the back bedrooms with a spare one.
“What the fuck is that for?” she said pointing to the pack.
Nicky just shrugged and replied, “Who knows, we might need it.”
I went outside rolling the gigantic suitcase behind me around to the back of the Bronco. I opened the back tailgate and none too gently stuffed the monstrosity in, then slammed the back gate while Dreysi squeezed in the back seat with Tony and Greer. Nicky and climbed in the front and I started up the engine.
“You brought Jailbait?” she said as she looked at Greer.
“Nice to see you too, Frigadoris,” Tony said.
“Has she even hit puberty yet?” Dreysi continued looking at Nicky and ignoring Greer and Tony all together.
“Have you finished menopause yet?” Tony replied.
“Ah, nothing like a family road trip,” I said to Nicky and put the Bronco into gear but Nicky was looking out ahead of the Ford up the street, “What’s up?”
“Look at those people,” she said pointing down the road.
I looked to where she was pointing and saw a group of people about a quarter mile away coming around the corner.
Behind me, Tony pulled himself up to take a look, “What is that? Some type of protest maybe?”
I watched as they slowly walked around the street and towards us spilling over the road onto the sidewalks and lawns, “I don’t think that’s a protest,” I said watching the way they shuffled along, almost as if they were drugged or something. Suddenly, they all stopped en masse and turned to our right looking at something off to the east.
“Whoa, that’s wired,” I said then nearly jumped out of my skin as a few of them began screaming at the top of their lungs and racing off down the street away from us. The others followed and soon the whole crowd of people went running away leaving the street empty again.
“Do you think they were infected?” Tony said.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Why would they act like that?”
“I don’t know, Casey, but it’s time to go,” Tony said. I nodded, put the Bronco in gear, and headed west.
We followed Unser boulevard south along the western outskirts of the city avoiding the highway as long as we could. We drove slowly along turning right and left making our way west until we hit 98th street and had no choice but to get on I-40 to get out of the city. I drove up the onramp and onto the freeway right into a large military checkpoint. Fuck. I had been hoping to avoid any of these until we were out of the city but it looked like the military had other ideas.
“Just stay cool everybody,” I heard Tony say form the back seat, “It’s not like they’re looking for drugs, right?”
Given the nervous tone in his voice, I wondered how many bags of dope Tony had stashed in his back pack as I rolled down my window to talk to a kid only a few years out of his teens holding a very large, fully automatic weapon, and looking very nervous. I spotted the officer insignia on his lapels and said, “Hi Officer, how can I help you?”
“You can get me the fuck ou
t of here, mister,” he said with a jittery laugh and twitched his gun up and down. He must be hopped up on something, I thought and hoped the safety of his rifle was on.
“I’d ask you to join us, but we are crammed full,” I said knowing everyone in the car was glaring at me.
“I appreciate it mister, but deserters are being shot on site and without question. See that gentleman sitting on top of the tank, behind that big old .50 caliber machine gun?” he said pointing back behind him, “He sees me get in this here care and he puts one, two, maybe ten big old bullets into me and probably into a few of your friends too, so I’ll take my chances here. Where you folks headed?” he said looking in the windows of the Bronco.
“Heading for the hills. Mount Taylor to be exact.”
“The hills, huh? Good choice, the city won’t last much longer. Mount Taylor in state? They’re not letting anyone cross state boarders until the epidemic is contained.”
“Yep. Just two hours from here, just outside of Grants,” I said and pulled out a map showing him where Grants was.
“Grants, yeah, OK,” he said looking over my map. It was then I realized he wasn’t hopped up on anything, he was just scared shitless, literally shaking in his boots, “Any of you infected in there?” he said swinging his gun around to indicate my passengers. Jesus Christ, first Dreysi, now this guy.
“No, sir. No infection, no fevers,” I replied thinking the kid was going to ventilate someone and I wanted to be far, far away when he did.
“Good deal, friend,” he said and to my great relief, stepped away from the door and waved us on. Another set of military guards waved back and rolled their huge tanks out of the road and let us through.
We passed through and watched the nervous soldiers who wanted to be home with their families or just about anywhere but the edge of the fucking desert watch us roll by. I wanted to take them with us, have them jump in their jeeps and just roll along behind us but I knew they couldn’t come. They had their jobs to do and I had mine.
“What the fuck was that?” Tony said form the backseat.
“That was a military blockade manned by a bunch of scared kids with large caliber, fully automatic weapons,” I said as we sped up and left the checkpoint far behind.
The Great Wreck Page 4
