The Great Wreck

by Stewart, Jack

  “What’s happening, Casey?” she whispered as the tears slid down her face.

  “I don’t know, Nick,” I said, “I think the infection has gotten out of control.”

  “But the soldiers, why would they do that? What could scare them so much to make them run? The infected? The panicked crowds?”

  I didn’t have an answer so just shook my head and took Nicky’s hand, “We’re OK now. We’ll get to the cabin and let this blow over. It will be all right.”

  I could see that Nicky didn’t believe me. I didn’t even believe me. We sat there for maybe twenty minutes looking over the steep canyons covered with pine trees that stretched out below us and into the desert plains to the south. Thankfully the ridge of mountains to our right blocked the view of Grants, but I could see drifts of smoke high up in the sky and knew Grants was burning. After a while, we all silently piled back into the truck and headed deeper into the mountains.

  A few miles later we came to the first line of cars parked on each side of the road, “What’s this?” I said to no one in particular as I slowed down and looked for anyone who might step out in the middle of the road. Every type of car, truck, SUV, camper, and trailer was parked front to back along both sides of the road. We rolled by them looking in the windows for anyone who might be inside but saw no one. Five miles later we came to the first major trailhead in the park.

  “What did the guy at the gas station say?” Tony said, “Folks were heading into the hills, right? This must be them.” I guessed he was right. We passed the parking area of the trailhead a few minutes later and it too was crammed to overflowing but not a soul was in sight. We moved on.

  A few miles later we came across another line of cars, then another, and another as we moved up the mountain. I began to wonder if we, too would have to park a few miles away from our trailhead and hike that much further to get to Tony’s cabin. We also started seeing cars on the side of the road with their hoods up. I worried that if there were any big wrecks up ahead we might have trouble getting past them.

  Twenty minutes later, I was proven right when we came upon a large mobile home type trailer jackknifed in the middle of the road.

  “What a cluster fuck,” Nicky said beside me, “Who drags behind them a fucking train sized camper up into the mountains?”

  “Apparently these people did,” I said as I put the truck in park and got out. The trailer had completely tipped over on its side so we were not going to be able to roll it out of the way.

  Tony had walked up beside me, “What do you think? Can we squeeze around it?”

  I looked at the wreck and shook my head. The back end of the trailer was firmly wedged against the steep side of the mountain and the front end stretched across the road leaving about five feet between it and the guard rail, “I don’t think so. We can’t make it up the bank and there’s not enough room between it and the guard rail.”

  Tony nodded then began walking towards the overturned camper, “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Checking inside,” he said as he climbed up on the side of the trailer and opened the door. He immediately dropped the door back shut and staggered back away from it nearly falling off of the trailer, “Oh, god,” he said and puked all over the side of the trailer.

  I ran to the side and yelled up at him, “What the fuck, Tony! You nearly fell off. Get the fuck down, man!”

  Tony wiped his mouth off and quickly climbed down the side and walked quickly away from the trailer, went over the guardrail and promptly puked again. I jogged over to his side and put my hand on his shoulder, “You OK?”

  Tony just shook his head and leaned against the rail. I sat next to him trying to figure out a way around the wreck when he finally spoke up, “Lot of dead people in there man.”

  “Dead?” I said looking back over at the tipped trailer, “It doesn’t look that bad. I mean, yeah it tipped over, but they couldn’t have been going that fast.”

  “I don’t know but there’s like five or six people in there and at least one of them had their head shot off.”

  “What?!”

  “Yeah, I could see what was left of the front half of their skull had three neat, round holes in it. The others looked like they had been torn apart. It was a fucking slaughterhouse in there, And the smell. I think they’ve been there awhile.”

  I looked back over at the trailer then got to my feet, “Don’t go in there man,” Tony said as I walked towards the rig.

  “I’m not. I just need to look at what’s on the other side,” I said as I walked past the trailer. I could smell just a hint of what Tony must have smelled when he opened the door to the trailer. A sweat, sickly smell of rot drifted around the trailer. I walked past it and saw that the truck that had been pulling it had driven directly into the side of the rock bank that the road had been cut from. The smell coming from the cab let me know there were likely rotting bodies in there as well. I pulled my shirt up over my nose as I looked inside. I could see that the driver’s head had smashed into the windshield but he must have survived since there was no body. I looked in the back of the cab and saw that there was blood, chucks of flesh, and scrapes of tissue everywhere. What the fuck?

  I walked along the side of the truck back to the bed. It was packed full of gear: camping gear, rifles, ammunition, tents, water, food, everything. These folks were heading into the hills for the long haul it seemed. I walked back to the tailgate and saw that the truck was still hitched to the trailer. If I could start the truck, I might be able to drag the trailer, even on its side, far enough away from the guardrail to let us through. I grabbed a tarp from the bed and walked back to the driver’s side of the cab. I opened up the tarp and laid it down over the pools of dried blood and viscera scattered across the front seat, then gently sat in the driver’s seat. The battery would probably be dead and we’d have to try to push the trailer out of the way with the Bronco or try to pull it out of the road with the Bronco’s winch.

  Talking as shallow a breath as I could, I turned the key and heard the engine turn over once, twice, three times, then catch and roar to live. Yes! I carefully put the truck in reverse and slowly pressed down on the gas until I began to back away from the mountain side of the road. The trailer screeched and scrapped along the asphalt. Once I thought I had enough room, I turned the wheel as far to the left as I could, put the truck in drive, and slowly pulled forward lining the truck up with the right lane of the road. I felt the truck jerk as it took up the weight of the trailer and the trailer began to squeal as the metal siding dragged across the asphalt, but still the trailer slowly slid along behind the truck. I kept up steady pressure on the gas unit I could see in the rear view that we had enough room to get the Bronco by.

  Thank you, God, I thought as I turned off the truck’s engine and got out of the cab. Tony had recovered and jumped in the Bronco driving it around the tail end of the wreck and stopping next to me. Getting out he looked over the equipment in the bed of the truck.

  “What do you think? Anything we can use?” I asked.

  “The rifles. We can wrap those in tarps and strap them to the roof. The ammunition, of course. But the water and food? I don’t think we have enough room in the back for it. The cabin has a ton of food and water anyways, so let’s just get the weapons and get out of here.”

  “Agreed,” I said as we wrapped the four rifles up in tarps and tied them to the roof.

  Inside I could hear Dreysi say, “Oh, goody. The men now have their surrogate penises. I feel so much safer now.”

  We finished tying down the rifles and packing every nook and cranny in the back with all the ammunition we could carry, then we were on our way again.

  The wreck had one side benefit: we didn’t see any more long lines of cars parked on the sides of the road and the trailheads from that point on were sparsely populated with only a few cars each of the parking areas. Apparently most people saw the wreck and just turned around instead of trying to move the trailer out of the way.

&n
bsp; We made our way up the winding road and found Forrest Road 453. I slowed down and pulled onto the dirt road leaving the pavement behind. We were lucky. The road was in good shape with no washouts. It looked like the county had just repaired it before…well…things got out of hand. We cruised along the empty road until finally at around four o’clock, made it to our trailhead. The parking area had about five cars, a few trucks and a single, lone camper parked in it. We all climbed out of the Bronco and stretched and spotted a pair of old folks sitting in front of a double tent in the camping ground right off the trailhead.

  “Howdy, folks!” the old man said puffing contentedly on a pipe.

  I went over to them as the others stretched and walked around the Bronco, “Hi, how you folks doing?”

  “We’re doing just fine,” the old woman said.

  “Everything OK up here?”

  “Yep. It’s been calm and quiet for the past few weeks. A few folks coming and going for a while but then things slowed down mightily.”

  I thought I might know the reason why but instead asked, “Any police or military up here? Rangers maybe?”

  “Oh, we saw a couple of Rangers heading out what, two weeks ago?” the old lady said, “After that, nothing much. Where you kids going?”

  “My friend has a cabin a few miles up the trail. We’re heading there. You folks want to come with us?”

  “Mighty kind of you, stranger, but we’re doing just fine right here.”

  “Well, you might want to move your camp back away from the road a bit at least, and if you folks need any help, you can hike on up to us at any time,” I said and made my way back the Bronco where, as anticipated, Dreysi was having what my Dad called a full on, raging horse, shit fit.

  “What the fuck do you mean I have carry all my shit to the cabin? We have to hike there!? Are you fucking kidding me?!”

  “Yes, Dreysi,” I said thoroughly enjoying her discomfort, “You’re going to have to pack what you can carry in this,” I said pulling out the pack Nicky had grabbed when we had left her house, “Fill it up with whatever you think is most important, and hike about five miles to Tony’s cabin. Or you can stay here with the old folks. I’m sure they won’t mind,” I said gleefully as I pulled my pack out and strapped it on. To Tony I said, “We’ll come back tomorrow to grab some of the supplies. Then maybe a trip a day? Check on the old folks while we’re here?”

  “Sounds good to me,” he replied, “I just want to get going and get to the cabin.

  “I hear you,” I said grabbing two of the rifles and strapping them to my pack, “You want these two?” I asked Tony. He nodded and took them handing them to Greer who strapped them on to his pack.

  I walked back to the old folks and said, “We’ll be coming by once a day or so getting supplies from our truck. There’s an extra key under the back bumper so if you need anything, water, canned food, first aid stuff, it’s there for you.”

  “That’s very kind of you but I think we have everything we need,” the old man said.

  “Well just in case,” I said as a group of hikers trudged in looking wet, dirty, and completely wore out. The group consisted of a young man and women in their thirties, a small girl of about five that the man carried in his arms, and a boy of about ten. They straggled over to a big Buick Tahoe without even looking at us or the old folks.

  “Hey! You guys OK?” I called out. The man set the girl down, then dropped his pack and looked at me nervously then at the two rifles I had strapped to my pack, “Can we help you?”

  “We’re fine,” he said and popped open the back door of the Tahoe and gently set his little girl in. As he did, I caught a brief glimpse of a bandage on her arm. Blood had soaked through in a pattern that closely resembled a bite mark. He closed the door and walked around to the back of the Tahoe and started throwing the family’s backpacks in. Behind me I could hear Dreysi bitching as she took her cloths out of her gigantic suitcase and stuffed it into the much smaller pack.

  “Are you heading back down the mountain?” I asked not getting any closer to the obviously frightened family.

  “Yes,” he said as he finished putting their packs in. He then opened the other door and motioned for his son to get in, then closed it when his boy had buckled up.

  “You might want to reconsider,” I said.

  The man stopped and looked at me, “Why’s that?”

  “Grants is gone,” I stated simple, “We got out of there just as everything fell apart.”

  The man looked at his wife, then at his two children, “What do you mean ‘fell apart?’”

  “The military was pulling out and the whole town was chaos. People trying to get out, smashing into everything. The whole town looked like it was on fire. You might want to consider staying.”

  “We’re not staying,” he said as his wife got in the giant SUV, then stuck her head out the window to look watch her husband and me, “My little girl is sick. Some fucking weirdo bit her a few days ago and we have to get her to a hospital.”

  Bit her? Oh, fuck, I thought.

  “Is she infected?” He didn’t even ask me what I meant. He knew she was. I watched as his wife drew in a sharp breath and roll up her window. The man looked at me for a moment, then walked towards the driver’s side of his vehicle.

  “Hey!” I yelled after him, “The man? What happened to him?”

  The man stopped with one foot in the SUV and looked at me, “I killed him. I clubbed his fucking head in,” and got inside and slammed the door shut.

  As he drove by me, I asked him one last question, “Were there others? Hey, were there others? Other infected out there?”

  He stopped next to me and rolled down his black tinted window, “I didn’t see any. Just him. I wouldn’t count on him being the only one though,” he said, rolled up his window, and rolled out onto the road.

  “Casey, we’re ready!” Nicky called out behind me. I turned away from the road and towards the trail. I locked up the Bronco, hitched up my pack, and headed into the forest following after Nicky and Tony with Greer and Dreysi bringing up the rear.

  For the first quarter mile, Dreysi bitched and gripped about anything and everything: her boots were too tight, her pack was too heavy, she was thirsty, she was tired but after we hit the first mile marker, she wore down and we hiked along in silence. The woods were quiet and felt empty of anyone but us. We moved along the neatly kept trail moving through the closely packed pine trees until we came to a branch in the trial. There someone had put up a sign that said Garrard Cabin, Three miles. Underneath it an arrow pointed to the right. Below that was another sign that said Old Man Johnston’s Cabin, Six miles and pointed up to the left. I was glad we were getting close.

  We pushed on taking more and more frequent breaks as the trial became stepper. About a mile from Tony’s cabin we broke out from the trees and the trail brought us out the edge of Water Canyon. We stopped for another break at an overlook. I could see the canyons stretch for miles all the way into the foothills and plains to the southeast. It felt like we were a million miles from nowhere without a soul other than ourselves nearby. For the first time since I locked up the tramway, I felt safe.

  “What do you think Tony? Another mile or two?”

  “Two, tops,” he said picking up his pack, “We should be there in an hour or so.

  “That’s good. We’re going to lose the light soon,” I said. With the peak of the mountain to our west, the sun had already dipped behind it putting the trail deep in the shadows of the trees. We all picked up our packs and got back to it.

  It took us a little over two hours to finish our day long trek from Albuquerque but we knew we had made it when the path widened up to a large dirt road and we came up on a seven foot high, chain-link fence topped with barbwire with a heavy metal gate set in concrete barring our way.

  “Was your uncle preparing for a dear invasion?” Greer asked as Tony pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the stout, metal gate.

  “Nah,
he just had a thing about marking his territory,” Tony replied, “He also wanted to make it as difficult as possible for someone to break into his cabin. Not many people would come up this far to steal something, but after a few break ins, he wanted to ensure anyone trying to get to this cabin would lose a lot of skin and blood while doing it. He’d tell me that after he put the fence in with some other security measures, he never had another break-in.”

  “Other security measures?” Nicky asked, “There aren’t landmines or anything we need to worry about, is there?”

  “Just stay on the marked path and you’ll be fine,” Tony said with a laugh. Nicky looked at me and I silently shook my head indicating to her that there were, in fact, no landmines to worry about.

  We hiked the last few hundred yards feeling our spirits lift with the thought of a hot shower and a bed safely tucked away from the madness playing out far below us. We trudged down the road until we came to the cabin itself where we all stopped to take in the huge home, “That,” I said, “Is some cabin.”

  I had seen it a few times before but it never failed to impress me. The “cabin” was a two story, four thousand square foot monstrosity that Tony’s uncle had paid a fortune to have built and then another fortune to have power and water routed all the way from Grants to the south. It also had a small solar farm built over the same road he had had cut for the construction crews that could run the major appliances if we lost power, a diesel generator for short power outages, a garage with two ATVs equipped with trailers, and somewhere near the peak of Mount Taylor, a satellite dish that ran cable to all the super-rich folks who owned cabins in this pristine wilderness area.

  The bottom floor acted as a basement and had only a few narrow, thick, horizontal widows to let some of the natural light in while keeping anyone who was brave enough to make it over the barbwire fence from getting into the ground floor. The front door was a monstrous piece of metal that had another metal gate covering it so no one could pick the locks or tear it off its hinges. I didn’t think anyone was getting in through the ground floor.