by R. M. Smith
We walked up to the unburied side of the hotel. Inside there were no lights on. There were no bodies either. The place was deserted.
“There must have been an evacuation,” I guessed.
“I hope so. I don’t want this side to be dead, too.”
“Me either.”
Back outside we looked up at the mountain of destruction. The mountain was resting against the hotel about 4 stories up. Trees and debris stuck out oddly here and there in the trash. I saw part of a destroyed yacht crashed through some of the building’s windows. A splintered telephone pole with lines still attached stuck up oddly at the sky.
“Do you feel sick?” she asked.
“No” I said, still holding her hand. “Why? Do you?”
“No, but…don’t you think there’d be radiation from the nuke?”
I said “I think if there was, we’d be dead already.”
“Maybe the nuke was radiation-less…” she asked. “If that’s even a word.”
“It’s hard to say what any of this is, Mindy,” I said. “I mean, I haven’t felt sick at all, and Washburn said we had some MCON virus or something.”
“Yea I haven’t felt sick,” she nodded.
“Who knows what’s really going on? I’m just glad we’re out of that ring of destruction. I’m also glad there’s no more deads around.”
“Do you think the nukes got rid of the deads?”
I looked at her. “I hope so, Mindy, because I really don’t want to lose you.”
“I don’t want to lose you either.”
I held her.
In the lobby, we found leftovers from a continental breakfast. All of the fruit had gone bad. We both ate three small boxes of dry cereal. Mindy found some sealed bottles of Starbucks cappuccino that we drank. After we ate she said “I could really use a shower.”
I laughed. “Yea, me too, but I don’t think there’s any running water around here.”
“Let’s look around for something.”
We explored the bottom floor of the hotel. Signs led us to an indoor swimming pool. Light was spilling in from some side windows. Mindy stripped naked in front of me, smiled, and dove into the pool.
“Oh God its cold!” she screamed.
I took off my clothes and hit the water, too. It was freezing. I swam over to her. She turned to me. She smiled as she wrapped her legs around me.
She whispered, “Let’s warm up.”
There were a bunch of clean towels set around the pool on benches. We threw a bunch of them into a big pile. We made love on top of them. The whole room was quiet except for the sounds of our love making.
Our love was real and not quick. We were actually into one another making deep, passionate love. Her body shuddered as we came together. Her voice echoed loudly in the room.
Afterwards, she lay on my chest, my arms around her.
“Why did it take the end of the world for us to meet, Dan” she asked quietly.
I didn’t have an answer for her. I didn’t know.
Finally I said, “I don’t know, Mindy. But, if I had to go through all of this just so I could meet you, I would do it all again.”
She cried. “I would, too, Dan! I would!”
I held her as she wept, as her cries echoed through the room. After a while, we went back over by our clothes to get dressed. When we were done, we headed back outside hand in hand.
We went through a lot of the cars in the parking lot again, but none of them started. I wondered if some kind of electronic pulse from the nukes going off had killed all of the power. I was thinking of asking Mindy if she wanted to get into a yacht and just float out into the middle of the lake when we both heard the engines of approaching motorcycles.
We heard the revving of the bikes as they got closer. Two motorcycles came around a bend in the road near the lake. Both of the riders didn’t have helmets. The bike in front was being driven by a real thin bald man with a short graying beard. He didn’t have a shirt on. Behind him was a thin woman who was wearing driving goggles. She had long dark gray hair. She was wearing a ragged looking biker jacket with a large Harley emblem on the back.
They didn’t see us standing in the parking lot. They were too busy looking up at the mountain of destruction, awed at the way it had come to rest against the tall hotel.
“Holy!” he said as he shut off his bike. “That’s one mountain of shit!”
The woman nodded as she lit a cigarette. “Might be some good stuff in there, though.”
We walked up behind them. They still didn’t notice us.
I said, “Unbelievable, isn’t it?”
The man turned around so fast on the seat of the bike that I thought he was going to knock it over. As he turned, he pulled a pistol from his side.
I held my hands up. “Whoa! Take it easy.”
The woman had pulled a shotgun out, too. She was pointing it at Mindy.
The man asked, “Where’d you two come from?”
“We were over by those cars,” I said, nodding toward the ones we had just checked.
“Did you drive here?” he asked.
“No we came over that,” I said, looking up at the mountain of trash.
“Horse shit!” he said. “No one could have survived that!”
The woman was still looking at Mindy, her left eye squinting as cigarette smoked rolled up her face. She asked Mindy “You come over there, too?”
Mindy nodded.
“You’re both a bunch of liars. Ain’t no one come over that mountain alive!”
I asked “Can we be civilized here, please. We aren’t looking for any trouble.”
The two of them looked at one another. The man holstered his pistol. He got off his motorcycle. He asked the woman “What should we do with these two?”
She said “Kill em or let em leave. I don’t give a darn either way.”
“Don’t kill us! We didn’t do anything to you!” Mindy said.
“What do you got to keep us from killing you,” the man asked, walking toward Mindy.
I broke his concentration by saying “There’s a bunch of food inside. Why don’t we go inside and talk it over.”
They both lit up. “Food? Where?”
“It’s in the lobby of the hotel. There was a continental breakfast.”
They looked at one another. The man said “Alright, let’s get something to eat, but you two are coming with us.”
“We already ate,” Mindy said.
“Girl, shut up! You’re coming with.”
We led them back into the hotel. The man and woman followed with their weapons trained on our backs.
They ate quite a bit including some of the fruit that had rotted. They told us to sit side by side on one of the couches nearest the food as they ate. They didn’t ask us any questions, just watched us as they fed themselves.
I figured the man to be about 50. The woman looked older. It may have been because of her long gray hair. The man had a wallet on a chain on his belt.
When they were finished, the man wiped his mouth with his forearm. He said, “So you two came over Shit Mountain, huh? How the hell did you survive?”
“We were inside a car…”
“Bullshit,” he said quickly, grabbing his shotgun again and pointing it at us. “I don’t believe it. We’ve been driving up from the south, trying to get around this thing. We’ve seen so many cars, trucks, semi-trailers along the edge of this thing. All of the vehicles have been crushed or mangled. No one could’ve survived in a car – nor could have anyone survived the pressures or crushing of that thing! If you would have been in a car, then something else would’ve crushed it, like a house, or a building or a flipping slab of concrete for that matter – or the windows in the car would’ve been stabbed by something flying, like a street sign post – or it would have shattered and cut you two into little pieces! There’s no way you two could have survived such a thing.”
“Everything didn’t get caught up in the wave of the blast,” I sai
d. “It was like a huge shove, and some stuff got pinched under the shove, I guess.”
“Oh so it was a blast,” he said, a sly smile on his face. “What blew up? What kind of force is there to cause such a catastrophe?”
“A nuke,” Mindy said.
He laughed. “So you survived a nuclear blast and a huge wave of shit?”
I thought about saying “and a jet plane crash” but thought the better of it. Instead I simply said “Yes.”
“Do you believe any of this, Vera?” he asked her.
Vera lit another cigarette as she leaned back in her chair. She shook her head. “Nope.”
I said “The nukes were launched to undo the flip of the poles. When the poles flipped, it caused a change in the cellular level of the brain stem. That’s what caused all of the deads to attack…”
“Excuse me,” he interrupted. “I ain’t no rocket scientist. You have to talk in plain English.”
“The magnetic poles of the earth flipped,” I said. “I don’t know how, but we were told by the military that the poles flipped. That caused the brain stems of anyone who died to flip as well. That’s what caused the deads to show up.”
Vera looked at me through her cigarette smoke. She asked “What are deads?”
“Zombies.” I hesitated. “You mean… there are no zombies here?”
She continued to stare at me. “There never were any zombies.”
“Then where are all the people?” Mindy asked.
“Most people are dead. When this all went down, people were told to evacuate,” the man said. “They ran from the push.”
“You mean the push from when the mountain crashed through?” I asked.
“No, before that,” he said. “There was a push in the air. It happened before the mountain came through.”
Vera said quietly “It looked like the horizon flipped over.”
“Hold on,” I said, sitting forward on the couch. “You’re saying the horizon flip happened before the mountain crashed through?”
“Yea,” the man said. “A week or so before the mountain. The flip destroyed everything.”
“Oh my fucking God,” I whispered. “There were two nukes launched that day, not just one.” I put my face in my hands.
“You two should hear yourselves talk,” Vera said. “You sound like blooming idiots.”
Folding my arms I shook my head at her. “You simply don’t understand – well, we don’t either. I don’t know if we ever will.” I thought for a second. “Ok, so, the nuke that caused the mountain here was supposed to reverse the brain stem – or at least that’s what the military told us.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” the man said, “but something happened to the horizon. It came from the southwest like a huge light. The light went up and up over our heads. The earth shuddered. The trees all shook. We were knocked off our feet.”
“It was a nuke,” I said. “Something like it happened to me in Seattle and to Mindy in Spokane. The military told us it was a nuke.”
“Well listen, we came from Worley, down south,” the man said. “Everything’s destroyed down that way. We were gonna go east on 90 after we stopped here. We been lookin for food. We got the bikes on the other side of the lake there. There were six or seven bikes. Don’t know what happened, but we ‘borrowed’ them since our car lost power.”
I looked at Mindy. “Washburn lied. He said there was going to be two nukes launched. One was – the one that caused the mountain here – but where was the second?”
“Salt Lake City,” she said. “Remember, he said there were reports of survivors there.”
“So they’re nuking anywhere there are survivors?”
“Sounds like it.”
“Jesus.”
The man and woman were sitting there, listening to us. I said, “Um. It’s interesting that car ignitions don’t start but motorcycle ignitions do.”
He chuckled, “No wonder you couldn’t get any of those cars out there to start. Look at them - they’re all newer models. If you find something made before 2018, it should start fine; remember, they did away with car batteries after that.”
“That’s right,” I said. That explains why the yachts wouldn’t start either, I thought. I looked at him sternly. “Do you still think we’re a threat to you?”
He appeared to be genuinely shocked by what I asked. He said “Why….no.”
“Then would you mind lowering your weapons on me and my girl.”
“I apologize,” he said, “but we weren’t sure about you two. You I chuckled a little. “Ok, I’ll call them zombies. I got the term ‘deads’ from someone I met on the road. Basically, I’m trying to understand why there are no zombies here. This place has been hit by the push. Shit is destroyed. But where are all the zombies?”
“Just be thankful there aren’t any,” Mindy said. “In a way, this place seems pretty safe compared to what we’ve been through.”
“I can agree with that,” I said. “But you haven’t seen any zombies at all?”
“No. Not one,” Vera said. “We’ve seen a lot of dead people, but none up and walking around.”
“Maybe the switch hasn’t happened yet,” I said almost to myself. “Maybe it’s a slower turnover.”
“What do you mean?” Mindy asked, touching my arm.
“Well, if everyone is dead…and there are no zombies…maybe zombies are still to come. Like an awakening.”
“Or maybe they won’t rise at all. Maybe everyone will just stay dead,” Mindy said.
Mason asked, irritated at our zombie talk, “Where are you people headed?”
“Somewhere safe,” I said. “And this, so far, is pretty safe.”
“We’re headed to Cheyenne. My brother lives there,” Mason said. “Last time we spoke, my brother’s wife had a heart attack. This was days before the ‘flip’ as you call it. I wanted to get out there before she died and be there for my brother.”
Vera added “We can’t raise them on our phones any longer. Signals are all dead.”
“You don’t want to use your phones,” I said. “Not a good idea.”
Mason asked “Why not?”
“Just trust me,” I said. “Throw your phone away.”
Mason reached into his pants pocket. He pulled out his cell phone. He flipped it on and put it to his ear. “Yep,” he said. “No dial tone.” He threw the phone over his shoulder. It landed on some tile behind us. It shattered into several pieces.
Vera pulled hers out of her jacket. She, too, flipped it on and put it to her ear. She said “I got a dial tone.”
“Hang it up,” I said quickly.
She looked at me, he head cocked a little bit to the side.
“Vera, hang up the phone,” Mason said, a little louder.
“I hear something,” she said, her eyes staring straight ahead. “There are voices.”
“Hang up the god-damn phone, Vera!” Mason said, standing up.
She still listened. “They’re saying something about a place called Moses Lake. It’s a recording. They say it’s safe there.”
I grabbed the phone from her and smashed it on the ground at our feet.
“Why the hell did you do that?” she hollered at me.
“Because we’ve been there,” I said nearly shouted. “We’ve been to Moses Lake. It’s not safe. It’s a prison camp. They gas people to death there.”
“Wouldn’t it have been destroyed by the nuke?” Mindy asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, I have no idea. This is all so confusing. The nukes. Jesus. Let’s just hope that Vera’s phone call isn’t being traced right now.”
“But I didn’t call anyone,” she said. “It was a recording on my phone. The dial tone stopped. There wasn’t any ringing on the other end. Then some voice started repeating over and over that this place Moses Lake was a safe harbor for anyone trying to escape the MCON something-or-another.”
“MCON virus,” Mindy said.
Mason
was still standing up. “MCON virus?” he asked.
I sighed. “It’s a long story and it’s something I don’t want to deal with any more. I hope it all was destroyed with the nuke or nukes. Now, you were saying something about going to Cheyenne.”
“Just hold on,” Mason said as he approached me. “Tell us about this virus.”
I told them about it. I told them everything that had happened to me from the beginning of this nightmare. I told them about the plane crash, Norm and Tara, the yacht, meeting Ski, Mindy and Cindy, Marge. I told them about Moses Lake, Washburn, our escape, the virus and the mountain.
When I finished, Mason said “Well son, you’re either a damn good liar, or you’ve been through some shit. I’ll pick the latter; and since we’re all infected with this virus, I’ll stick with you to the end of it.”
I shook his hand. “Thank you, Mason.”
Mindy stood up and gave him a hug. Vera stood to the side of us, smoking another cigarette, her arms folded, looking slowly back and forth between Mindy and I. Neither one of us gave Vera a hug or a handshake. She didn’t look like she believed us or trusted us; and now her husband was on my side, believing everything I told him.
I guessed she would have to find out for herself.
We agreed to stay another night in the hotel before we started out for Cheyenne. Mindy and I stayed in a room a few floors above theirs. We made love again that night in our own room on a soft bed. It was so much better than on the towels on the side of the pool.
During our love making, Mindy looked deeply into my eyes. She softly said “Dan, I love you.”
This time, it was my time to cry when I said “I love you, too.”
CHEYENNE
We rode motorcycles.
They were easier to maneuver through the mountain passes. There were a lot of wrecks as well as more large boulders that had tumbled into the roads during the shift. The mountain air was chilly. Mindy sat behind me on our bike, her hands wrapped around my chest. Her touch was soft to me. Occasionally she would whisper “I love you” to me or sing soft songs that I didn’t recognize. They were sweet to my ears.
Mason and Vera were ahead of us. Mason still didn’t have a shirt on. I bet he was getting cold from the wind blowing on his bare skin.
