by Dan Henk
I nearly topple over as I ram my knee into a fallen trunk. A slight breach in the cloud cover offers me a glimpse as I’m recovering my balance. Absolute blackness sweeps in. There’s no reflected city light for me to feed off of, and I keep bumping into trees.
The overhanging shelter thins out, the columns falling away as a road emerges. A worn river of asphalt weaves out of a far off huddle of trees, flowing through in a long arch and crossing my path as it rolls by. I cross, the stars eerie and silent in their isolation, and am swallowed up by the clutching darkness once again.
The cover doesn’t last long, giving way to a grassy pasture of hardy weeds and brackish water. Dusky pools glisten in the moonlight, small eddies and ripples casting strings of silver across the surface. I feel a slight pressure on my ankle and hear a brittle crunch. I’ve just been bitten by a snake! A dark form slithers off into the maze of stalks. I wonder what kind of snake that was? Not that it matters. It won’t make it very long without any teeth.
I keep walking, tramping through a prairie of high grass. The blades gently wave with the breeze, the tips a pale blue in the starlight. A distant forest dominates the horizon, the base hazy in the rolling fog. Frogs croak and marsh rats squirm through the underbrush, their furtive movements a baneful chorus. A gloomy presence emanates from the bog. It feels as if I’ve fallen into some lost sinkhole of time.
I realize that I’ve never felt so alone. A twinge of regret gnaws at me. Will I ever love a woman again? Have a home base or anything vaguely resembling a normal life? Probably not. How do you make friends and associates when you can’t even talk? I think of all those old monster movies, the kind they made before special effects trumped storytelling. The forlorn creatures always had a love interest, and it always ended badly, usually involving an endemic domicile that was ultimately invaded and exploited. Ancient stories are based off oral traditions, which more often than not have a grain of truth, and the tale is probably timeless. It’s the nature of man, who fears what he doesn’t understand and blindly lashes out, feeling only a hint of remorse as he sanctimoniously rewrites history. Unfortunately, it might be a fixed bout, but as Bill Jones said, “It’s the only game in town.”
I don’t miss my former self, but having no contact with humanity is a hard pill to swallow. I trudge on toward Mexico.
The sun has risen, casting a sharp, early morning light over the savanna. I plod on through a watery sludge. Far off to one side I can make out the shadows of what appear to be manmade structures, the stiff contours contrasting sharply with the willowy grass. I don’t know whether or not to investigate. If I could steal a vehicle, this whole trip would be much quicker. Fuck it. I pick up my pace.
The marsh underfoot sucks at my footfalls, conspiring to slow me down. The moor rolls up over a slight incline, and as I descend I spy a sunken queue in the weeds. A few more steps and the opening comes into view. It’s a badly maintained dirt road, essentially two tire tracks of sand, the bumpy ruts carving through a clearing of trampled grass. The right one trails off into the endless plains whereas the left heads toward a small town in the distance. A thick barrier of grass chokes off the opposite side, but beyond lies a larger road. Further scrutiny reveals it’s paved. I’ll stick to the service road. I break out of the swampland and head left, toward the distant village.
The twin tracks widen into a sandy trail, and the wall of grass dwindles into a slender hedge. The day takes shape, becoming clear and warm, the clouds having been burned out of the sky by the blaze of an imperious sun.
The landscape is bathed in a torrent of light. If I were human, I would need sunglasses to fend off the glare.
Materializing on the horizon are the gray-painted cubes of what looks like a small electric power plant. The dull metal drums spout beady antennas, the tops a sweeping bundle of wires trailing away toward distant wooden telephone poles. A chain link fence encloses the lot, the gates locked tight. A small paved road cuts in front, accompanying the poles on the left as they flow into a nest of trees. The trail continues on the right, stopping short at the highway and restarting on the opposite side.
There wouldn’t be a road here if it didn’t lead somewhere. To the left is where I saw those domestic forms. If there is no small town, there might at least be some monitoring station or small facility. If they have a vehicle, the more secluded they are, the better. Turning left, I trod down the dusty road. An ocean breeze carrying the aromas of salt and brine whips through the treetops.
The trail dips momentarily into the shadow of a small cluster of trees before emerging again into the bright Texas sunlight. Small dust devils rise up and then slowly die out in the dusty ruts. The sides fall away into a crumbled maze of root and sand. The wilderness I just came from stretches out on the left, but the right—that looks a little more cultivated. Neatly trimmed trees in a small grove, with the silvery glimpse of a pond beyond.
The thicket falls away as I walk, the meadow of grass stretching out to a cluster of bushes, the unmistakable forms of houses beyond.
A half-hour later, and the road has followed a semi-circular path around the settlement. Another utility outpost pops up on my left. To my right is a two-level house of dark wood. The white form of a silo, or possibly a water tower, rises beyond. A late model SUV is parked in front.
The car is a Chevy Suburban, the sunlight bouncing off its black frame. The house looks empty, its drawn curtains divulging a vacant interior. I approach the truck.
As I near the driver’s side window something pelts me right between the eyes and with enough force to stop me in mid step. I glance up. The slender barrel of a rifle gleams from a second- storey window. I can make out the shadowed form of a person behind the scope, but no details. The gun looks small, probably a .223, but high impact. That was actually really good shooting. Another slug hits me directly in the eye. I’m blinded for a minute, staggering back as I’m enveloped by a momentary sensation of panic. I hear the bolt sliding back and duck forward just as another round ricochets off the top of my head. Fuck this!
I start running at the silo, another bullet striking my shoulder. A quick turn to the right, and I’m around the corner of the house and headed out toward an open field. Just beyond it are scattered trees, a red brick house in the distance. This might have been a bad decision. I’m out in the open, and at least one person has noticed my presence. If he notifies the right people, it’s going to be difficult to hide. Where should I go?
I look around. There are walls of trees, but I have no idea how deep the woods are. A shallow grove would just make my entrapment all the easier. I saw some ponds on the way in. They might be deep enough. I could wade into them and hide. Unless they’re onto that, in which case they’ll prove a restraining watery mess. I stumble through the trees and out into another open field, the brick three-storey house not far away. I just hope the last guy didn’t call this villager and warn him to be on the lookout. He shot first, no questions asked, and it was a kill shot. These people are in such an agitated state that I wouldn’t put anything past them. I bet they’re all Jesus freaks around here. Holders of a world view in which there is no room for monsters that walk the Earth. Especially during what they might see as the end times.
As I burst through a second row of trees, I see a slender white guy dressed in well pressed jeans, red flannel, and a white baseball cap. He looks young, probably barely in his twenties. He’s opening the driver’s side door to a gold Toyota Tacoma pickup, his back to me. I charge.
When I’m almost upon him, he turns his head, and I smack him in the temple with my open hand. Consciousness leaves almost immediately, and he crumbles in a loose sprawl at my feet. The whole knocking a guy out happens all the time in movies and on TV, but I’ve heard it’s actually way more dangerous. But the alternative is worse—letting him run off to notify someone before I have a chance to get a head start. Or I’d have to kill him. I really don’t want to kill anyone. The soldiers had been an unfortunate necessity.
The
keys aren’t in the ignition. I lean over the kid and roll him. His hat falls off and his head swings listlessly to the side, a tuft of sandy blond hair tumbling out. I fumble in his pocket and pull out a ring of keys, one with a large plastic grip clearly marked “Toyota.” Gently shoving him aside, I climb in.
The truck looks new. I know the Tacoma is a fairly recent model to begin with, and the odometer reads thirty-thousand. I feel bad taking the vehicle. I don’t know why; maybe because it’s from a young kid and not some redneck shooting at me. It’s probably insured, but that might not mean a lot in this political climate. I shouldn’t even think about this now. I’m not out of the fire yet. I turn the key and the engine roars to life. Sounds like he even has a performance exhaust on this thing. As a further bonus, the gas gauge reads almost a full tank! It’s an automatic, but beggars can’t be choosers. I shift into reverse, squeal back quickly, and punch it forward. Spinning the wheel furiously, I circle around the edge of the house, barely missing a wall of pine bushes. I skid past the residence, nearly sideswiping a red Chevy truck parked in the driveway. I cut across the lawn toward the main road, the wheels tearing up sod in trails of mangled white roots and black soil. Over the roar of the muffler I hear the front door open. I chance a quick look back and glimpse a brown-haired woman in her forties, mouth half-open and her face registering a mixed look of puzzlement and anger. Bouncing forward, I buck the dirt curb and slam down on the asphalt road, the shocks complaining with a grating jolt. That was way stiffer than usual. He must have upgraded the suspension as well. Spinning the wheel left, I straighten out and shoot forward.
There’s a white house on my left, the screen door starting to ease open. I must have agitated the whole neighborhood! A stop sign pops up, the little road intersecting a slightly larger street. I slow down just enough to look past the trees on my left, the dust roiling up behind me in a billowing smog. No traffic. A wide expanse of road shoots off to the left. That’s more or less the way I came, and it probably dead-ends. I think the right is what I need. It burrows through a cluster of trees, probably leading to that thoroughfare I saw earlier.
A brief tunnel of leaves, and the trees open up into a grassy plain, populated in the distance by squat houses. The road angles sharply left, and I make a squealing turn. I see a figure running out of a small green paneled house, his face twisted in rage. He looks to be in his forties, salty hair and a beer belly jutting out below a stained wife beater. What does he think he’s going to do? People are amazing. The road twists, and I screech around the bend, my rear end drifting out so far I’m almost sideways. I stomp on the gas, flying by some sort of truck warehouse, the packed dirt lot harboring a cluster of eighteen-wheelers. What are they doing out here? This is a small island in the marshes. The road T-bones, and I swerve to the right. Wide, shining lawns harboring houses crowd in on both sides. They’re all decidedly rural, with open stretches of grass and trees and flaunting way more space than the suburbs. Still far too many people for my liking. I assume the woman from the house I stole this truck from has gotten word of it to her neighbors. A couple of the houses seem to be churning with commotion, the residents bursting out to stop me as I fly past. I don’t slow down long enough to see how many people are on my trail, but blazing through what is apparently the center of town might not have been the best move.
Amidst the gaps in the trees I see the sun-drenched asphalt of what looks like an interstate. The last house falls away, and all that separates me from the highway is a wide, grassy field. I must be on the edge of town. Unfortunately, about thirty yards ahead of me is a roadblock of police cars. Angled so the cruisers face each other, the makeshift barrier seals off the road. It looks like three officers, sporting tan cowboy hats and olive uniforms, are crouched behind the wall of vehicles. Their rifles are pointing straight at me. I train in my vision. A shotgun, maybe a Remington, and, wow, that looks like an AR-15. Since when do cops carry that kind of firepower? Ramming that barricade probably wouldn’t be in my best interest. I want to hold on to this truck. If the bullets don’t hit something vital to the engine, the holes will attract way too much attention once I make it out of here. I slow down. Turning the wheel to the left, I punch the four-wheel-drive button and bound into the open field. A slug shatters the passenger window, burying itself in my seat. A line of trees sprouts up, obscuring the police from sight. Glancing left, I see the field stretching out in a rolling meadow, breaking in the distance into a shaded cove harboring a house. Things might not be perfect, but I feel like the threat of industrialized society has diminished. An angry throng of homesteaders pursues me, not some militarist corps with advanced weaponry. Incensed villagers I can deal with. It’s a far cry from smart bombs and night vision goggles.
A row of hedges crops up between me and the interstate, a metal guardrail beyond barring my access. I slow down and turn right on a small embankment. Edging the vehicle along slowly, I carefully navigate between a sunken canal on one side and a wall of trees on the other. A broad oak tree comes into view, blocking my path. I dip further into the depression, laboriously toiling around the massive trunk. The Toyota threatens to tip over, the steep angle rolling me against the door. A few tense moments, and the truck flops back onto level ground. The woods fall away as the field widens. With a crunch the front tires catch gravel and I spin out onto the interstate.
The civilization quickly passes, and I’m surrounded by the watery marshes again. The mien of a river passes beneath the road, the tops of the currents catching the rays of the floats off to the right, the cracking paint and utter silence attesting to their abandonment. Glancing in the rear view mirror, the small town now appears a tiny isle of man, pitted against the encroaching wasteland. It reminds me how small we are in this vast ecosystem. Not to mention, we’re just one planet in a universe of billions.
We definitely aren’t alone, and anything that has made it to Earth is far more advanced than us. Billions of planets existed long before the Earth was even born. We aren’t even the first inhabitants on this world. The dinosaurs ruled for millions of years until they were wiped out. How advanced would we be with a few million more years under our belts? How many species are there like us, or even more barbaric but still sentient? It’s the same array of mysteries that has tied up generations of explorers and scientists. I’m starting to miss working for the government. It’s not working for them per se that I miss, but the exposure to cutting edge technology. The access to new discoveries and revelations. It’s an opportunity that’s gone forever. I’m not even out of the frying pan yet and the isolation of an uncivilized, backwoods existence is already starting to feel like a prison.
As I roll off the bridge, the marshes progress into firmer rooted pastures. The blurry forms of a village sprout up on the horizon, drawing into focus as I approach. Small houses spread out in a mix of spacious lawns and open fields. Short trees dot the terrain, their autumn-tinged leaves just starting to expire in a blaze of color. Local streets intersect the highway, scattered abodes and small businesses besieging the side of the road in pint-sized clusters. The street widens, splitting into separate double lanes. Houses and local businesses now crowd in.
I don’t see any signs of life, although I’m sure some of the houses are populated. It’s a clear afternoon, and I stick out like a sore thumb. I want to avoid flying through town at an excessive speed because it might draw attention. I can’t do anything about my appearance, and all it takes is for a local to get one good look at me for all hell to break loose.
I scrutinize the windows of every residence I pass. The curtains are mostly slack, sheltering a dark interior. The drawn ones are creepier, granting a brief glimpse into an abandoned chamber of bucolic Americana. The businesses are all closed, their doors shut tight, their lots empty.
The frequency increases, the stores shouldering the road in a husky sprawl of light brown brick and cheap plastic signs. Gas stations, second rate restaurants, and gift shops swarm in, the garish silver streamers of a used ca
r dealer waving across a meager lot of SUVs. It reminds me of those old proving grounds for atomic bombs, the deserted towns that were decorated in a masquerade of life, but destined for oblivion. A sign on my right announces the imminent arrival of Interstate 73. What luck! Finally I’ll be out of this backwards Twilight Zone of a landscape and on track to Mexico. The roadway turns into a mired nest of concrete. Descending ramps and on ramps twist in on both sides, a looming concrete archway rising to greet me. I roll into the manmade tunnel. There’s no traffic, no sign of life, only the gentle whistle of the wind. The asphalt curves, sweeping around in a wide circle and dumping me onto a huge, multi-lane interstate.
A few minutes later, and I’m rolling through wide stretches of savanna, the only sign of humanity the endless strip of roadway. The terrain grows more varied, clusters of trees cropping up, swelling into small forests. The interstate ascends in a slow arc, the dual lanes rising in a concrete passageway that flows serenely across a writhing mass of water.
In short order, the wilderness is overrun by the crass contours of humanity. Roadside motels and restaurants, their empty parking lots festooned with palm trees and power lines. I’m nearing Houston. A silver Lexus whips by in a rumble of noise and wind. Sidewalls rise up, segregating the road from the approaching city. Every few minutes I see a car, mostly sedans and the occasional SUV. Judging from the number of lanes, I would guess the traffic is way lighter than normal. It’s still more than I’ve seen in the past few cities. I slouch in the seat whenever a vehicle passes. Hopefully most people will be too wrapped up in their own problems to look closely.
A deep grumble resonates far behind me, the quaking bass growing steadily louder. I glance in the rear view mirror. A swarm of Harley-Davidsons is closing in. The bikes are decked out with a throng of hard-boiled-looking riders, the patches on their leather jackets testifying to gang affiliation. There must be at least thirty bikes. A raucous series of bellows and catcalls breaks out as they draw close. Suddenly, cycles swarm in around me, the sidewalls of the Toyota weathering a barrage of shattering bottles and other projectiles. A bike pulls up beside my window. The worn-looking woman in the backseat leers at me through oily strands of blond hair, her black roots complimenting her dangling earrings and gaudy red lipstick. I ignore her for a moment, the growl of the V-twin pulsating through the open window in a torrent of noise and wind as the bike keeps stride with my truck. Then I swivel my head and face her. Her eyes bug out and her jaw drops, revealing an assortment of yellowed teeth. The Harley pulls ahead, the mob surging onward in a fading squall of exhaust and chrome.
