The Great Wreck

by Stewart, Jack

  “God, that’s scary,” Greer said, “What if they hadn’t let us through?”

  “I guess we’d be headed back to Nicky’s house,” I said.

  I heard Dreysi snort and whisper, “Like hell.”

  “Did he say the city wasn’t going to last?” Nicky asked as we sped down the nearly empty highway, “What did he mean by that?”

  I knew what he meant by that but wasn’t going to share my opinion with everyone and scare the shit out of them so I just shrugged and replied, “Nothing. Just nerves, that’s all.” We drove for nearly two hours without seeing another car heading east or west. We did see a few abandoned vehicles on the side of the road but no one was in them so we moved on.

  Soon I spotted a sign that said Grants, five miles. It was almost noon. It would take us two more hours to reach the trailhead, then another two or three to reach the cabin. We’d get there well before dark. I breathed a sigh of relief. We’d be moved in and locked up tight in Tony’s cabin before the sun went down. I didn’t care if we were out in the boonies on the side of an isolated mountain, I didn’t want to be hiking around in the forest in the dark with fucking crazy people just wandering around trying to infect me.

  “I need to pee,” Dreysi said from the back. I glanced back in the rear view mirror and could see Dreysi scowling back at me as if to say ‘fuck you, you mother fucking mother fucker. Fucker.’ Yep, all that. In one look.

  “Me too,” Greer chimed in.

  “OK, we’ll stop at the next station. We’ve got plenty of time to get to the cabin,” I said and pulled over at the next gas station.

  As I pulled up to the gas pump, I looked around: there was not a single car in the parking spaces and no one other than us at the pump. I began to wonder if anyone was here when a tall, lanky man in a pair of biballs came around the corner and waved to us, “You open?” I asked as we all watched nervously to see what he would do.

  “Yep, I’m open. Come on in an get what you need,” he said and unlocked the front door to the station.

  Nicky got out and hollered after him, “Can we use your restrooms?”

  The old guy nodded and jerked his thumb back towards the way he’d came.

  Tony had also gotten out of the Bronco and asked, “Everything OK here?”

  The old guy looked back at Tony as he stepped inside and said, “If you’re asking if there are any of those crazy infected around, then no. Haven’t seen any since the government put up all those checkpoints.”

  Nicky, Greer, and Dreysi locked arms and went around the corner to the rest rooms while Tony and I walked into the gas station. I was surprised to see there was still water, toilet paper, and food stuffs still on the shelves and said so.

  The old guy had moved behind the counter and was looking at something underneath, “When things first started getting out of hand, there were lots of people heading east or west, or north, or south. Most of them had already filled up their rigs with whatever they could carry from wherever they were coming from. They only thing they needed from me was gas. What about you? Where you headed?”

  “We’re heading up into the mountains. My friend over there has a cabin,” I replied, “Do you still have gas? Most stations were running out in Albuquerque.”

  He looked again beneath the counter and replied, “Mountains? Good choice, although my brother, he’s a Ranger up there. He says that all sorts of folks have been moving up into the mountains, too. You might want to be careful up there. Seems like most everyone has the same idea as you,” he said looking at the gauges underneath the register, “Yep. Looks like I got a few hundred gallons of gas still. Let me just turn on the pump.”

  “How much?” I asked as I pulled out my wad of bills, “I have cash.”

  The old guy looked at me, then out at the girls who were getting back into the Bronco, “I don’t think cash is going to be worth anything for very much longer, do you?” I looked over my shoulder at Tony and was about to reply when he continued, “Nope not much longer. It’s on the house, son. And take anything else you can carry too.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked and stuck out my hand.

  He took it and pumped it twice. I could see his eyes filling up with tears. I don’t know why, but that scared me more than anything else I seen had.

  “I’m sure, friend. Get as much gas as you can and take anything you need.”

  “Thank you,” I said and stuffed my money back into my pocket, “Tony, I’ll pump the gas, take a look in the back and see how much room we have, then fill it with anything we might need.” Tony nodded as I walked out into the hot, dry air and started pumping the gas. I looked around the empty gas station and out towards the highway. It was completely devoid of anyone or anything. I guess that was OK. It could have been crammed with people running to the city, running from the city, or just plain running. I topped off the tank while Tony loaded more water in the truck, then cans of food and toilet paper while I filled up the reserve tank and two more portable gas cans the old guy gave me. Tony crammed in the last cases of tuna and water and sealed the old girl up.

  I put the nozzle back on the pump and stood next to him, “We ready to go?”

  “Guess so. Creepy isn’t it?,” Tony replied, “It’s like the whole world just ended.”

  “Not yet, old friend,” I said.

  Inside I could hear Dreysi complaining, “Oh, god! It’s so fucking hot! Can we get this piece of shit rolling anytime soon?”

  I looked at Tony and smiled, “If the old guy wasn’t going to take our money, I was going to offer him Dreysi.”

  “Do you think he’d take her? We might have to pay him even more just to get her off our hands.”

  “Yeah,” I laughed, “Hop in. I just want to thank the guy before we get moving.” I went inside the store and told the old man we were done and would be heading on.

  “You all take care now,” he said, “And of you find yourself coming back this way, there’s a small tank of gas in the back with a gravity pump. You can take whatever is left over if you need to.”

  “Thank you sir. I really appreciate. Good luck to you and yours,” I said shaking his hand.

  “And to you, son. God speed.”

  And with that, I walked out of his gas station and got into the Bronco, started her up, and headed towards Grants.

  We drove until we reached the outskirts of Grants before coming up on another military checkpoint. This time, instead of a single nervous soldier coming out to greet us, a whole platoon rushed out from behind their blockade of tanks screaming, “Hands up! Hands up! Now, now, now!”

  “What the fuck is this?” Tony said poking his head over the back seat.

  Before I could answer the solders had surrounded us with their weapons drawn and pointed at our heads. Their commander started screaming again, “Let’s see those hands! Now! Right now!”

  “OK, OK,” I said putting my hands up as Nicky, Dreysi, Tony, and Greer did the same, “They’re up, ok? We’re cool.”

  “Sergeant, get the fuck over here and test these people right now!” he screamed.

  A female soldier with a red cross on her arm came running up and pulled her .45 and pointed it at my head, “Any infected in here? Don’t lie! I’ll be checking you for fevers!” she screamed as he handed out thermometers, “Put these in your fucking mouths! Now!”

  “Holy fuck,” Nicky whispered as she took the thermometer and put it in her mouth. The rest of us did the same and we waited ten nervous seconds for the electronic thermometers to beep.

  The medic walked around and carefully pulled the thermometer out of our mouths and checked it, her .45 never leaving our heads, “Clear Major,” she said and moved back to the blockade.

  The major walked quickly up to the side of the Bronco, “Anyone bit in here?”

  “What?” I replied totally confused.

  “Has anyone been fucking bit in here?” he screamed spraying my face with spittle.

  These guys were terrified and completely fucking c
razy I thought, so I replied, very calmly and coolly, “No sir. No one in here has been bit.”

  “Where are you heading?” he asked waving his gun around like he was trying to fan himself.

  “Mountains sir. Mount Taylor.”

  “Well if you are lying and thinking about getting into Arizona, let me save you some trouble and tell you that you won’t make it. Either the mobs in Gallup will get you or the Arizona National Guard will. And those fuckers over there will shoot you on sight. They will not bother to stop and screen you like we did.”

  “No sir. We are taking highway 547 all the way to the Mount Taylor Wilderness Area,” I said wishing this crazy mother fucker would put his gun away. Didn’t anyone practice firearms safety anymore?

  “The mountains,” he said more to himself than to me, “That might work,” to me he said, “All right son. I’m going to let you pass. Do not stop anywhere in Grants. Keep your windows rolled up and do not pick up or try to help anyone else you might see.”

  What the fuck? I thought when the Major’s radio came to life.

  “Major Conrad, this is Checkpoint Sierra. We have reports from Check Point Whisky of mobs head east along I-40. Also, we have spotted mobs coming up Route 53 as well.”

  “Well, that’s it then,” he said again to himself, “Roger that Sierra. Pull back here to Checkpoint Echo and prepare to move out of Grants to the Laguna Rendezvous. Over.”

  “Roger that, Major. Checkpoint Sierra signing off. See you in Laguna, sir and good luck.”

  The major stood their silently for a moment, then waved us on while screaming at his troops, “Mobs moving in from the south and west! We’re pulling out to Laguna!” to me he yelled, “You have maybe ten minutes to reach route 547. If you don’t get there before then, well, lord help you.”

  I moved forward as the two tanks pulled aside then rolled across the median and started heading west.

  “What did he mean by that?” Dreysi yelled from the back seat, “What the fuck did he mean by ‘lord help you?’ What the fuck did he mean?!”

  Nicky and I exchanged glances knowing that what the Major meant was the hordes coming from the south and west were infected and if we didn’t get out of Grants within the next few minutes, we would be overwhelmed by them. I didn’t want share that with Dreysi who would most likely freak out. Maybe even start screaming and I needed to focus on the road which now had more abandoned cars on it. I carefully swerved in and out of the stalled wrecks while Greer apparently had decided this was the appropriate time to share her theory of what the mobs might be.

  “What he means is that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of the dead moving towards Grants from the west and from the south and if we don’t clear out of here, we’ll be dead too.”

  “What?!” Dreysi nearly screamed, “What the fuck is she talking about!?”

  ‘I’m saying that…” but then Greer shut up. We all shut up as we entered Grants and looked out the Bronco windows.

  It was chaos. It was a disaster. It was the worst thing I had ever seen in all of my twenty three years. People were running in all directions. Cars were racing in all directions smashing into other cars, smashing into other people. Fire trucks, buildings, and police cruisers were all on fire. People screaming, people smashing windows and taking TV sets and electronics gear and throwing them into their cars. People pushing shopping carts full of food east along the highway. I slowed down to avoid the burning car wrecks in the road, to avoid the people running across the highway, and to avoid the immense amount of junk that people had seemed to just drop anywhere and everywhere.

  I watched as a military convoy blasted through town heading east and heard Tony behind me ask, “Do you think those were the guys on the radio?”

  I saw a big ‘S’ painted on the sides of their vehicles, “I think so.”

  “Oh, god. That means whatever they saw is close,” Nicky said.

  “What’s close!? What’s fucking close!?” Dreysi screamed.

  “The dead,” Greer said simply.

  I watched as a guy standing next to his broken down car try to wave the convoy down. He waved his arms frantically back and forth, and seeing that the lead vehicle was not slowing down stepped out in front of it to try to get them to stop. They never slowed down or even tried to swerve and smashed into him. The force of the impacted sent pieces of him flying across the highway in a red spray. Nicky, Dreysi and Greer finally agreed on one thing and started screaming. Even Tony lost it as the guy’s body parts showered down onto the highway.

  Up ahead of the convoy I could see a nasty traffic jam on a small bridge that cross a large arroyo. There was no way the convoy was getting across that. I saw the lead jeeps stop as the soldiers contemplated what to do. I figured they might get out and push the stalled vehicles out of the way and pick up the stranded people who were jumping up and down and waving at the soldiers. But no, whatever was behind the soldiers had terrified them to their core and they were getting out of here and damn anyone who got in their way. I could see the soldiers talking on their radio, then watched as three massive tanks pulled around the jeeps. I hit the brakes of the Bronco and we all got out of the truck and began screaming at the soldiers, “No! NO! NOOOO!”

  But the big tanks speed on heedlessly. People jumped out of the way of the huge metal monsters or they got crushed. It took only a second of seeing the tanks ruthlessly run down bystanders to let the people in the cars stuck on the bridge know they needed to get out. Everyone tried to get out at once but the cars were packed so tightly that many were trapped. I watched as the tank hit the first, empty car and smash it flat. People trapped in cars a little further down the road started screaming and howling. It was the worst sound I had ever heard. The tanks never slowed even for a second but just plowed over the traffic jam. I watched them crush dozens of people trapped in their cars, watched as their bodies ruptured and blew sprays of blood out of the collapsing cars, watched as limbs and torsos from people half out of their cars get severed by the tremendous weight of the tanks. And then they were through, a string of a dozen or more cars crushed flat behind them. Once they had made it over, another tank, this one with a huge bulldozer like blade came through and pushed the flattened carts out of the way followed by the jeeps. And then they were gone.

  We stood there, crying and speechless listening to the cries of pain, horror, and grief form those who were injured and those who had just seen their families ruthlessly crushed then pushed aside like so much trash.

  “We have to help them,” Nicky said as she began walking towards the carnage on the highway across form us, “We need to help them.”

  “Nicky! We can’t help them!” I said grabbing her by the arm, “Whatever scared those soldiers so bad that made them do that,” I said pointing towards the blood and gore covered road, “Is moving towards us now! We have to go or we will not make it out of here alive!” I noticed Dreysi had already gotten in the truck, “Tony, Greer, get in the car!”

  They scrambled to get in the car as I pushed Nicky in through the driver’s side. As we closed the doors, I looked west again and saw another military convoy. On this one the vehicles had a great big “W” painted on their sides, “Whisky,” I whispered as I put the Bronco in gear and we surged forward. I drove as fast as I could through the wreckage and chaos of Grants looking frantically for a sign that would tell me where route 547 was, “Keep your eyes open everyone and yell out if you see out exit!”

  I dodged left and right trying to look everywhere at once and not go off into the ditch. Somewhere off to the west, I heard people screaming. Hundreds, thousands? I didn’t know but it was like a wall of sound that filled the world and soon I saw that everyone who could walk, crawl, run, bike, ride, or drive heading west in a great panicking mob. I could also see further ahead that the mass of people were spilling into the west bound lanes and would soon envelope us and cut us off.

  “There!” Nicky cried pointing to an off ramp that had Route 547 on it. I gunned the truck
and we made it just as the panicked crowds rushed by us. We flew down the ramp and onto 547 north jetting past a few more wrecks and burning buildings until the road quickly emptied out again.

  “Everyone OK?” I said looking back in the rearview mirror. Nicky nodded but was weeping silently as was Greer and Dreysi. I spotted Tony with his hands covering his face, then looked back in the mirror again and saw something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  On the overpass that we had just gotten off of, I could see the people running west. Then I saw someone jump on one of the people fleeing, then another, then another. Then I saw a huge mass of people, bleeding, torn, torsos open, faces half gone, arms gone, eating the people who fell under the mass of those behind them. I shook my head. I wiped my eyes and when I looked back again the scenes of carnage had been blocked by the curve of the road. I couldn’t have seen that, right? I must be hallucinating from seeing the army crush those people back on the highway, right? Right?

  It didn’t matter, I needed to focus on the road and get us up into the mountains and to safety. So I kept my eyes on the road ahead of me and would not look back until Grants was far behind us.

  The road was completely empty of cars and people so I sped up to fifty and held it there. I didn’t want to put the Bronco in the ditch or fly off a curve. If we got stranded there was no one who was going to help us, so I kept the old girl steady, my hands on the wheel, and my eyes on the road ahead of us. We soon left all traces of Grants behind us as we entered the Taylor Wilderness and into the foothills of the mountains. I slowed down even further as the grade of the road became steeper taking the curves slowly and navigating the path as though our lives depended on it. We soon came up on an overlook and I decided we all needed a few minutes to get out of the Bronco. No one disagreed as I pulled off onto the gravel turnout and we all piled out from the truck.

  Tony and Greer walked arm in arm over to the highway rail and sat down heavily. Greer was crying openly in great heaving sobs as Tony tried to comfort her. Dreysi stayed in the car staring straight ahead saying nothing while Nicky and I walked away from everyone and sat on the edge of the road.