The Long Way To Reno

by Mix, Michelle

  There was no point getting to know people that had been killed.

  Harley said something I didn’t catch, as I was rubbing my wet hair with a towel and observing the candles lit on the floor, the heavy drapes that were drawn over floor to ceiling windows. It was extremely dark, still and discomforting to be in a place like this. Yet, at the same time, I was grateful for it – the hot shower was refreshing. I had spent time examining and marveling over all the ugly bruises that colored my skin. Plus, I’d found that teenagers had once lived here, and had left behind impressive name-brand wardrobes Emmy and I could use.

  “All finished,” I announced, tossing the towel aside.

  Emmy performed a double take while Harley glared at whatever he was he was doing. They were sitting behind one of the counters with some of the candles, eating. A dog that Emmy had found wandering outside wagged his tail as I approached, and nosed my thigh as I sat down.

  “You really look your age, now,” Emmy said helpfully, rising and brushing off her pants. “C’mon, Brandon!”

  “Find pants that fit, dear,” I said, ignoring her comment as I reached for an apple. The dog, Brandon, followed after her as she walked off.

  I munched on the apple as Harley continued to ignore me. Well, if he wanted to be all awkward, he was allowed to. Boundaries had to be established, and they were established very well.

  “The perimeters secure?” I asked, almost sarcastically.

  “If they really wanted to find us, they could follow our footprints,” he answered snidely.

  “True,” I said. “Is there coffee in this dump? I could do the first watch.”

  “I already told Emmy I’d do it.”

  “The gallant hero,” I said, with a roll of my eyes. I figured he’d be better at that sort of thing, anyway. That way, I could sleep and – then I decided that this line of thinking wasn’t acceptable. If Harley had to watch over the both of us, he’d be worn out pretty quick. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that I start contributing to these survival services as well.

  “I’ll do half, you do half. Let the kid sleep for awhile. If that dog’s staying with us, he’ll hear something before we do,” I said reluctantly, feeling weird to do something out of my character.

  Harley tossed a tube into the center of the lit area, and I recognized it as gun oil. He was cleaning the rifle, various brushes and rags laying around him in a disorganized mess. There was also a handgun he’d found sitting nearby – I didn’t know what sort, as it was nearly hidden underneath the jacket he’d taken off. I watched him put the gun back together, piece by careful piece.

  The shower came on, and Emmy cheered loudly enough to have the dog barking in response.

  “Are you ignoring me, now?” I asked, finishing the apple.

  “I’m not ignoring you…I just have nothing to say to you.”

  “Sure you do. Since when are you comfortable with guns?” I asked.

  He did some adjusting, reloaded it loudly, and then sighted it to make sure the scope was realigned. He then set the murder weapon aside. So much time had passed that I was going to ask again when he spoke.

  “Since my dad taught me what to do with them.”

  “I hate guns,” I contributed. “My dad has, like, ten of them at home. He’s a cop, for RPD? And he tried to get me and mom all CCW’d, but we were having none of it. Mom hates them, too.”

  He had dark shadows under his eyes that looked more pronounced with the candlelight. He gave me a shrug and a ‘So-What?’ look.

  I huffed. “Jesus, are you going to act like a child, now? We need an adult in this group, and it’s not going to be me.”

  “I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I have nothing to contribute to this – conversation.”

  “You were more than willing to talk to me before that. Now that we have time to somewhat relax and regroup, you’re acting like a brat.”

  He grabbed his rifle, rose from the floor. “Then I’ll take my attitude elsewhere. You two have the master bedroom. I’ll take the couch. Emmy and I already set up the rooms to make it look as if we’re in them. Decoys, if you will.”

  I wanted to continue ripping him apart for behaving like a rejected a-hole, but I thinned my lips and let him walk away. It was so stupid to be acting like this, at a time like this. I glared at the candles, heard Emmy sing a stanza of Adele’s latest. The dog howled along with her.

  : :

  “I think you would be the only person in, like, B movie history that ever bothered to be vain at a time like this,” Emmy stated, her wet hair dripping on the sheets as she watched me paint her nails a dark blue color. Mine were bright red. We couldn’t sleep so we raided the teenagers’ rooms for things to do. Brandon was lying off to our side, sighing every little while.

  He looked at us with sad eyes, like he was waiting to hear from his owners soon.

  “Because I am a person that openly admits what she is,” I murmured, blowing my bangs from my vision. “Why hide it?”

  Emmy blew on her nails once I was finished. She couldn’t find a hair dryer, so her scene hair was natural – blond and lying in layered clumps around her face. She hadn’t bothered putting on makeup – she looked her age. She’d told me she was sixteen.

  “Harley’s mad at you,” she then stated. “You broke his heart.”

  “I’ve known him for less then twelve hours when all chaos started. I don’t apologize for acting rationally,” I said, checking the state of my hair.

  “Yeah, but – “

  “Let me tell you something about the real world, Em,” I said.

  “Emmy, not Em. I hate Em.”

  “There’s no such thing as love at first sight. There’s lust. Lust turns into something else later on. And since I didn’t feel lust for this guy when I first saw him – which was in late November, I might add – I don’t feel much for him. And why should I?” I asked.

  “But – this is a time when people live and die real quick. Shouldn’t, like, love be this major factor of it all?”

  I snorted, pulling a pillow to me so I could rest upon it. “I want an Ellis, not an Edward. I want Chris’ brutal intensity for survival, not Tom’s baby love for seasonally named girls.”

  Emmy scrunched her face. Then pulled the dog to her so she could sleep next to it. It groaned, as if it was reluctant to be her pillow, but laid there obediently. “I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

  “I want a bad-ass manly man, not a…” I sighed and gave up because, obviously, Emmy didn’t care about that sort of thing. I stared at the drapes hanging over the windows and wondered if Harley could hear us. The door was open. I’d heard him rustling around in the living room earlier. “Never mind.”

  I was starting to think that getting to Reno was going to be impossible. It was so close, yet so far. I started thinking that perhaps the reason why there weren’t so many people around was that they were being gathered – those soldiers had tried to kill us. And the obvious, based on what Harley was told, was that we were possibly infected with a virus the aliens unleashed on us months earlier. A virus activated by their whims and needs.

  I was possibly over thinking things, but based on all these games I’d played and the movies I watched, it made perfect sense. What if the evacuation centers in Sparks, Reno, weren’t evacuation centers but killing grounds to those that weren’t vaccinated?

  Emmy fell asleep some time later, but my mind was way too busy to allow myself to do the same. I figured I’d go and bug our Point Man for that. I chuckled to myself as I left the bedroom, dragging my feet on the floor. I knew Harley was still awake the closer to I got to the living room because I heard books fluttering. Even with the noise I was making, I still managed to startle him into dropping the book he’d been looking at to the floor.

  “I can’t sleep,” I said, picking it up and handing it over, taking a seat at the end of the couch so that my voice wouldn’t wake Emmy.

  After I settled in, pulling a pillow atop of my
lap, I waited for his sullen expression to fade and watched as he flipped through a women’s health magazine. I shared with him the theories I’d thought of earlier. The battery operated clock hanging above a fireplace that still had ashes in it told me it was nearly one in the morning. I was physically tired, but mentally awake.

  “It sounds…possible,” he finally said. “They were planning on dropping us off there and moving on.”

  “Do you think the government knew about it months before, that this virus was alien, but didn’t say anything so they didn’t startle the public? Instead, they constructed a vaccine for their more ‘valuable’– “

  “First off, we don’t even know the entire truth. For all I know, that guy could’ve lied to me that entire time!” Harley exclaimed, then lowered his voice.

  “True…that’s true,” I said slowly, furrowing my brow. “But it was said during a moment in battle when he thought he was going to die, right?”

  “Well…yeah…I mean, the vehicle were hiding under was being pummeled by those things,” he said uncomfortably. “For a guy that’s been overseas several times in over a decade, he was pretty sure he was going to die.”

  “So, it was basically a dying declaration.”

  “But we didn’t die.”

  “It’s close enough, Harley,” I said with a sigh. I stared up at the ceiling while he continued to flip through the magazine with a slight huff. I played with my hair, twirling the ends for a few moments before saying low, “I’ve got to get home. I think that in an event like this, dad would get in touch with his buddies. He’s very protective of mom and I, y’know.”

  I straightened in my seat, saying, “I may have failed at what I was supposed to do in life, but those two stood behind me. Well, aside from the fact that dad was ready to haul me off to some sort of adult boot camp and mom was going to set me up with her coworker’s dykey daughter – “

  “I get that you were a warm and fuzzy family – “

  “ARE a warm and fuzzy family,” I corrected, and continued on. “But the point of my mission is to get home. No matter what it takes. If I have to climb Horse Mountain on my hands and knees and swim through Spark’s sewage plant to get there, I’m going to do it. Either my parents are waiting for me, or I have to find them.”

  He exhaled again. “Okay.”

  I examined my newly painted nails. “Whatever it takes,” I murmured, mainly to myself. I felt that tremendous surge of need and want in me, in needing to be with my parents again. I wanted to hear the aggressive warmth of my dad’s voice, and feel the cool palms of my mom’s hands on my shoulders. I wanted the reassurance that, despite it all, we were going to face this new world together.

  For several long minutes, he focused on ignoring me, and I contemplated what may be ahead of us. It was so still and silent in the house that it made me jump when I heard the sound of mice running atop of the kitchen counters, squeaking their communication to each other like they were completely alone.

  I glanced at Harley, to see his brown hair curling on his brow. I realized I was talking way too much about myself. He knew what I was about, but all he’d given me was that he lived in Cold Springs with two gay roommates, and that his dad taught him how to handle guns.

  “So…your dad taught you stuff about guns?” I questioned.

  He set the magazine aside. Sighed as if my very presence annoyed the hell out of him. Which, considering the situation, it probably did.

  “Yes,” he answered reluctantly.

  “Where are you originally from?” I asked.

  Another deep exhale. A flip of a magazine, which he promptly gave up and set aside.

  “Montana,” he said. He looked at everything but me, and I struggled to look interested so he could continue. It didn’t matter, because he wasn’t looking at me anyway. So I stared at the hideous wallpaper and wondered why it was allowed to survive for so many decades. “Originally from Montana.”

  “So why move to Nevada?” I asked. “There’s nothing here.”

  “Well…my parents…” He looked really reluctant to continue, actually glanced at me to see if I were paying attention – and I was, because I wanted to know why - and continued with, “my parents divorced when I was sophomore. My…dad moved down here. My mom was…my mom was really furious about it. Bad mouthed him constantly – but I kept in contact with him. Y’know? He’s my dad. Even if he didn’t…y’know, have feelings for mom, he still loved me. Being in the middle of all that was just…exhausting.”

  “Only child?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then we have something in common. Bet you were hella spoiled, too,” I said.

  He gave a slight nod, a ghost of a smile, then remembered he was mad at me. “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “So where does your dad live?” I asked curiously.

  He looked extremely uncomfortable, and I assumed the worst. I did apologize quickly, sure that his father had passed away from something like a heart attack, a stroke, whatever it was that killed parents at that age.

  “Oh, there’s – there’s nothing to apologize for,” he said slowly. Picked at something on his wrist, and when he shifted, I saw that he was still wearing my Halo shirt. I wondered if I could somehow get that shirt back.

  “There’s some extra clothes, maybe in your size back there,” I said, trying for a helpful tone. “Well, there’s those ugly Wranglers in there, but it doesn’t look like you wear that type, but here’s some shirts and stuff if you want to, y’know, change?”

  “I could just take a shower, later,” he said, eyeing my outfit with a skeptical expression. It might have been a little impractical, but I went through a lot, I deserve to look pretty! “I like the stuff I have on. It’s not that bad, and it’s pretty pointless to change clothes during a time like this.”

  “Okay,” I said, figuring that the Halo shirt was a goner. “Just…I’m really kinda embarrassed. I hadn’t washed that shirt since the shift started. It was probably really stinky when I gave it to you the other night.”

  He shrugged. “I smell like a lot of things. “

  “Anyway, so…your father’s not dead, then?” I asked, combing through my hair with my fingers.

  “Oh…oh, no, he’s not. He…he uh…my roommates…” He exhaled heavily. “I lied about the roommate thing. My dad, he, uh…realized he…he was gay. He’s been with the guy he met in Montana, and…and that’s…”

  “Ooohh,” I said, blinking. I stared at the coffee table and wondered why the ugly rodeo bookends. “Why are you ashamed?”

  “People are…funny about that sort of thing.”

  “Not in Cold Springs,” I exclaimed sarcastically.

  Harley snorted.

  “So your dad taught you about guns,” I continued. “How utterly convenient, especially now.”

  Conversation trailed off after that, and I tried to think of other things to say. I twiddled my thumbs.

  “So, how are we getting to Reno?” I then asked, failing to come up with anything that wasn’t about myself.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You think those guys will put a ton of effort in looking for us?” I asked. “Like, make it their mission to get rid of us? Hell, not only are we hiding away from Rabid, aliens, we’re hiding from our own? Oh, let’s not forget people like Jeff.”

  “There’s a lot of stuff stacked against us. We have to consider Emmy, too. She has nobody. Her entire family lived in Fernley, and she had to kill them all when they turned on her.”

  “Oh yeah…so we consider her.” I looked up at the heavy drapes. “Let’s work out the custody issues now. I take her for one week, you the next.”

  “You’re a personality that hates kids.”

  He was wrong – I liked babies and small children – mainly because I was able to give them back afterward.

  “You can have full custody,” I agreed. “I’ll pay child support.”

  That ghost of a smile was back, but he hid it as he shifted in his sea
t. Clearing his throat, he said, “Once you get home…I’m headed to Cold Springs. We live northside, y’know, past all the trailers? Big house. Emmy would be safe there.”

  “Do you think your dad and his partner will be there?”

  He nodded with confidence. “My dad has an arsenal the military would be jealous of. Diego hates it – “

  He stumbled over his stepdad’s name, and I wondered why, figuring he still had issues to work out regarding his father’s homosexuality.

  “- but he agreed to it. Both of them…they know how to fend for themselves.”

  I studied Harley for a few moments. “There’s not that big of an age gap between you two. Maybe you can fall in love when she’s of age?”