The Great Wreck

by Stewart, Jack

  I stayed there on the roof in the early morning light in the shade of a swamp cooler until my heart rate slowed down, the panic slowly subsided, and the shaking in my arms and legs stopped. It wasn’t even nine in the morning and already the sun was burning the day up. I sat up and could see that the dead in the bathroom were giving up and heading out. I could also see the dead around the motel were breaking up as well.

  With the dead moving out and James gone, I felt strangely free. What was I going to do now? I thought I’d be terrified. I was alone and on my own. No one to watch my back or help me fend off the dead. No one to talk to. But I had just managed to escape a near certain death with no one’s help at all and talking was overrated.

  So I thought about it. I’d wait for another hour or so and then continue to head east. I would got to Sandia and see if anybody was really there. It seemed like as good a plan as any. Then I remembered I had the radio. James was gone so I could use it to see if anyone was out there, to see if I could maybe pick up Sandia, and maybe talk to Kailee!

  I pulled the radio out of my pack and turned it on. I listened to the crackle and hiss as I waited for the dead to leave. After a few minutes of nothing, I pressed the send button, “Hello? Anyone out there?” then let off the transmitter.

  I listened carefully heard a few breaks in the static. Someone responding? Maybe too far away for my radio to pick up the signal? “Hello?” I said again when the static returned. The static stopped completely and I thought I could hear distant voices. I put the radio close to my ear to listen and heard a girl say, “…Blythe…” followed by “…tower at night…” and nothing more.

  Blythe. The town we had passed through after we had made it out of Los Angeles. Was Kailee and her family there? Was that her on the other end of the radio? I didn’t know or care. I was just excited that there might be other people out there. People other than James, that is.

  Then I heard the static break again, I listened hoping to hear that distant voice again. This time an old man spoke, his voice gray and dusty but coming in clearly as though he was nearby, “Listen up boy! I am King Ahg. You’re in my desert now,” he said and laughed a high pitched giggled that started high and got higher, “The dead are mine sonny, son, son. The desert is mine, The wrecks are mine. And,” he said with great emphasis, “The women are mine! Don’t let me catch you poachen’ or you and I will have words,” he said. The radio filled with static as King Ahg fell silent. It reminded me that yes, there were other people in the world and some of them would be like James.

  I looked at the radio and reached to turn it off when I heard one last person come across the desert air, “I’m on the moon! Good luck, suckers!” followed by silence. That was enough insanity for me in one day and I turned the radio off and geared up.

  The dead had moved off in search of something less difficult to catch so I made my way to the edge of the roof, found a drain pipe, and shimmed down to the ground floor. I turned north and caught the freeway where James and I had walked off it the day before and started walking.

  After a few hours, the sun was high overhead and the heat was laying waste to everything around me. The asphalt of the highway shimmered, the desert around me shimmered, and the small town I was in shimmered in the unrelenting heat. I had sweated through my already filthy and oily cloths, I had used up nearly half of my water, and had only made a handful of miles. And I was exhausted having used up much of my energy escaping the motel room.

  I had reached the eastern edge of the Phoenix suburbs and was standing in a town called Chandler. Behind me, the Wreck still burned from the fire I had set off and I could smell the greasy smoke from the burning fuel. In front of me was the vast, blameless desert that lay between Phoenix and Tucson and beyond Tucson, even more dessert.

  I didn’t think I could walk across that, at least during the day. Somewhere out there, I’d run out of water and that would be it for me. Dead from lack of water. I’ve read that’s a very painful way to go. Maybe a better way to go compared to being eaten but it’d still be painful and I’d still dead. I needed a new plan.

  I couldn’t drive a car. My dad was just beginning to teach me when the infection broke out. And with all the dead cars jamming most of the freeways it wouldn’t be practical. I couldn’t ride a motorcycle. No one had ever taught me how and I didn’t feel like breaking my neck learning how to ride. Then there was the gas issues. How would I get gas to keep it running? And then there was the sound issue. Motorcycles were loud and basically screamed to the dead, “COOOOOOME! EEAAAT! MEEEEEEEE!” continuously. So motorcycles were out. I did however know how to ride a bicycle. Bikes were quiet. Bikes didn’t need fuel. I could do most of the maintenance on a bike myself or just replace the whole thing if something broke that I couldn’t fix. And bicycle shops were everywhere.

  So I stumbled down the onramp after scanning the area for dead and entered Chandler proper. Apparently the dead didn’t like the heat either and had sought shelter within the buildings of the town. I walked up and down the streets until I found a phone booth that still had an honest to god phonebook hanging in it. Do you know how rare those fucking things are? Well I just found out after walking across most of Chandler looking for one. I couldn’t find a single one in any public area and had to start looking in stores, fast food joints, post offices, and finally bars. I’d poke my head in and check out the interior, count the dead, and get right back out. If there were only a few, I’d take them out and look around for a payphone. If there weren’t any payphones, I’d just look in the offices to see if there was a phone book handy. I did this for three hours. Three solid hours of roasting my ass off walking into building where I could count on there being at least a few dead and, usually, no phonebook.

  I finally found one in the back of a strip club. Yep, a strip club. And not one of the nicer ones from the looks of it. I crept in checking the place out for dead strippers, found none, but did fins a pay phone far in the back. I nervously picked up the phonebook, standing there in the half gloom waiting for the dead to rush me and looked up a bike shop. In the back rooms, I could hear things beginning to move around as I quickly flipped through the wore out and tattered pages, dragging ripped and half eaten feet around as they sensed something tasty was nearby. I could imagine just exactly what was back there as I scribbled down a few addresses and boogied out of there as fast as I could and into the clean, hot light of the day.

  Fuck that. I vowed never again to go into a strip club for as long as I lived.

  Then I pulled out my map, located me, then located a few nearby shops.

  I walked to the closest shop about a mile off of the freeway, Tim’s Bicycles and Scooters. No luck. Apparently Tim had sealed his shop up tight before either retreating out of the city or being eaten and I didn’t want to waste time cutting through the thick steel chains that held the roll down gates in place. I’d come back if I had to but there was another shop just a few blocks over. I’d try that before trying to break into Tim’s.

  Avery’s Bicycling however, was wide open and fully stocked. So long, Tim! I will not be patronizing your store today! I walked into the front door and let the smell of clean, new bicycles wash over me. I looked around trying to decide which bike would be best for my purposes in the post-apocalyptic world of mine. And, of course King Ahg’s.

  I found a sleek tricycle made for adults. It was black with three off-road wheels, two in the back and one in the front. It was an incredible machine with gears and cables and joints going everywhere. I fell in love with it immediately but had to let it go. Too wide, too heavy, and too many moving parts. Plus it was too low to the ground. I wanted something where I sat up high and could see around me.

  The next bike was another tricycle, this one for beach cruising. Like a regular bike you’d sit upright on the seat. I threw my leg over the seat and tried it out. It was so comfortable and if I got tired, I could just stop and sit. It would be like carrying along my own chair. But the back was so wide that I’d have
trouble maneuvering around dead cars where traffic had piled up. Not a big deal once I was out into the dessert but a deal breaker here in a city.

  So I settled on a regular mountain bike. I found a black one that was the right size for me, then in a burst of inspiration, I found a narrow, two wheeled cart that I could attach to the back wheel of the bike and load up with extra water. Genius! I attached the trailer to my bike, picked up a deluxe repair kit, an industrial lock with a chain, and extra bike supplies, then headed out to the street to give her a try.

  The bike rode like a dream! Even with the trailer behind me, I was able to move around in the streets and between the wrecks of cars with no problem at all. I stopped at the first gas station and filled up my pack with bottled water, filled my camelback, and then the trailer with six gallon jugs of water. I was set.

  Riding the bike would allow me to move faster through the desert but the heat was still likely to kill me or I still might run out of water. The next part of my plan was more difficult and sent cold terror pouring into my chest. I needed to get out of the heat and to do that I had to travel at night, but nights were now pitch black with all the power grids failing across the southwest. And, much like I was planning to do, the dead seemed to move around at night more than the day.

  So to be able to see where the dead were, wrecks in the road, and other obstacles, I needed night vision goggles. I could probably find a pair in a sporting goods store but I wanted something that would take the beatings I was going to subject it to on the road, with a battery that would last longer than the commercial models, and give me the best view of the night time world.

  The only people who had something like that were the military or the police. And if there was one thing I had learned from my days in the Wreck, wherever the military and the police were, the dead would be there in force.

  I pulled my bike over into an empty trucking parking lot and pulled out my map. The Chandler Police Department was close by. I’d have to go into a place most likely filled with dead, find where they stored their equipment, get what I needed, and get back out. It was late afternoon and I’d still have to find a place to hole up not only for tonight but for all day tomorrow since tomorrow night I planned on trying out my new plan.

  I folded up my map, mounted my bike, and peddled over the police station. There I saw that one of the front doors were missing guaranteeing that the dead would be inside. And if I were really lucky, a sprinter or two. I set my bike alongside the station’s wall, set most of my gear down, and pulled out my silenced rifle. I then strapped on two silenced pistols and hoped it would be enough as I quickly and quietly trotted across the street and up to the station’s front entrance.

  I peered into the gloom and saw a small crowd of dead drifting back and forth. A few cops, a few civilians, and many others that were so far gone from decay that I couldn’t identify what they were when they were alive. So no going in the front door. I backed away from the door quietly and circled the perimeter of the station around to the back. Here was a large fenced in area topped with multiple rings of barbwire. One of the entry gates had been smashed outward so I made my way in through there.

  Inside there were a few police vehicles parked along the back of the station including two armored all-terrain personnel carriers. If only I knew how to drive, I could use one of those to plow my way down the highway.

  I crept past the police cruisers and personnel carrier to the rear entrance of the station. Even before I reached the doors I could tell what the inside held. The heavy, decayed stench hit me like a sledgehammer. I pushed forward through the reek until I could see what was inside.

  It was a mess. Between the dead who were crammed in there so tight they could barely move around, to the mass of decomposing bodies piled up on the floor, the odor was overwhelming. I did my best not to puke as I backed away covering my mouth with the sleeve of my shirt.

  I was not getting into the station so I scavenged the shotguns shells out of the cruisers and picked them over for anything that might be useful. When I was done I figured I’d find a safe spot and try to locate a National Guard or Army depot to get what I needed when I spotted a large warehouse built like a small fortress across the enclosed police parking lot.

  You don’t build something like that, I thought, unless you have something very valuable, very deadly, or both inside and you really want to keep people out. I trotted over to the huge concrete doors of the warehouse keeping alert for any walker that might be braving the heat. They were sealed shut but I was not discouraged. I walked around the edge. Along the top of the walls were tiny, thick windows that appeared to be sealed shut. I wondered if any survivors had been able to barricade themselves in?

  When I rounded that back corner, the answer became clear: one of the huge concrete doors had been knocked off its recessed metal tracks by one of the armored personnel carriers from the inside leaving nearly a ten foot gap between the two doors. If anyone had been inside, they must have been in a huge hurry to get out.

  I peered into the half light of the warehouse and could see one or two dead drifting around. I slung my rifle over my back and pulled out my pistols. I could handle a few dead but if there were more than five or so, I’d have to back out in a hurry.

  I crawled over the hood of the personnel carried onto the roof and scanned the interior of the warehouse as I let my eyes adjust to the semidarkness. The warehouse was crammed full of gear on shelves, in locked cages, and small metal sheds. It looked like the world’s largest arms bazaar. Automatic shotguns, sleek looking sniper rifles, M50 machine guns, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, you name it.

  Up to the right was another interior building with a large sign that said “Evidence Archives.” I didn’t know what might be in there, but I’d take a look after I cleaned out the dead.

  From what I could see, there were only three walkers moving about. I carefully sighted on the first one and slowly squeezed the trigger.

  Pfft! The walker’s forehead blew apart and the thing collapsed after taking a few more steps. The other two wandered on. I sighted on the second one and put the bullet right behind its ear.

  Pfft! A second rotted volcano erupted and the thing dropped. The third seemed to sense something was afoot and cocked its head and stopped moving about. Pop! And down it went. I crouched on top of the roof of the vehicle and waited to see if any other walkers would drift into sight, then looked behind me and verified that the yard was still clear. I climbed off the vehicle still holding my pistol in front of me. I scouted the perimeter, looked in the dark corners, and checked between all the shelves before I was satisfied that I was alone. I’d seen too many movies where the dead popped out of some hidden corner, closet, or cranny to assume the place was empty, so I’d stay on high alert until I was ready to leave.

  This place had everything you might want to outfit a small army. Or a large army for that matter. The first row I came to had every type of explosive I had ever heard of. I grabbed a few grenades from shelves that were overflowing with metal boxes of them. I grabbed three claymores as well. James might have laughed at me when I picked them up outside of Blyth, but they seemed to come in handy. They had a huge selection of plastic explosives, wire explosive, and other types that I couldn’t identify.

  The first three rows I looked at were dedicated to explosive. What in the world did the police need all of this stuff for? The next few rows were dedicated to exotic weapons that I had never seen used on the streets. Each section of shelves had a picture of the gun or rifle on it. I assumed each of the boxes in that section had the gun pictured. Most of them I couldn’t even figure out how to use. I saw a picture of an automatic shotgun and pulled a box from the shelf and onto the floor. I flipped the latches and pulled the monster out. It was huge. I picked it up and tried to aim it but it was too heavy. I put it back in its box and sealed it up. Somebody with stronger arms than me might be able to use it later.

  I found a lightweight submachine gun but couldn’t find a s
ilencer for it. I found another fully automatic machine gun that the silencer I had picked up in Blyth fit and swapped it out with my own. The new machine gun was much lighter but used the same type of ammunition that the heavy AR-17 I had been using The last few sections were dedicated to handguns, machine pistols, and other hand held weapons. I moved on after taking another look around the warehouse for intruders. All was quiet.

  The next shelves had what looked like rocket launchers. Rocket launchers? What would the police use that for? Same with grenade launchers. None of that was even remotely useful to me. I quickly passed more shelves until I found one dedicated to ammunition. I stocked up on shotgun shells and bullets for my pistols and rifle. There was so much here I had to limit myself to what I could take or I’d overload myself. I stacked up the boxes of ammunition neatly at the end of the row with my new rifle and explosives. I would find a pack to carry them out with later.

  Finally, as I neared the evidence room, I came to an area with shelves of body armor, police uniforms, helmets, and other specialized equipment. I scanned the rows and the shelves until I found what I was looking for. The night goggles were all stacked neatly between tactical gloves, and cargo pants. I slid out a box, set it on the floor and opened it up. Inside the box were the goggles, spare batteries, a charging station, and a user’s manual. The goggles were sleek and black with four sets of lenses, an adjustable head harness, and a set of dials on the top that looked like you could choose what level of brightness you wanted, whether the moon was out, if you were in an urban environment or a wilderness one, and an array of other functions that I couldn’t identify from the little pictograms marked on the dials. I packed it all back neatly into the box. I’d find a place to stay tonight and experiment with them until I was ready to use them for real.