by Jake Marley
Calmly, Peligra fell to her knees and retrieved the leather satchel she had carried to this place from the end of the world. She returned the alien object to the satchel, closed the flap, and hung the strap across her chest until it rested on her hip.
Then she raised her gore-streaked hands to her face and screamed into her palms.
~~~
They slept in the mission that night, huddled together in a back room with every item of furniture pushed against the door. It was as dark in that back room as it had been in the tunnels beneath Union Station, and neither spoke a word. Thursday had wrapped his good arm around Peligra and she had cried herself to sleep. Exhaustion overcame him, but he stayed awake, taking slow, shallow breaths and feeling the full weight of the day’s horror heavy in his heart.
They were on their guard when they left, wary of the unfamiliar place and the Saint’s soldiers that might’ve remained. They found hard, crumbling tortillas in a kitchen near the back of the building, ate their fill, and left that place of the dead as soon as they were able.
The sun rose and fell as the walked north, deeper into the San Fernando Valley and the looming hills. Both of them were slow and silent. Neither looked back, even once. If they were being watched by the remainder of the Saint’s angels, the cyclists kept their distance and did not make a sound.
It took fourteen hours to make the climb, and when the first watch came upon them in the night with flickering torches and sharpened spears, Peligra and Thursday raised their hands in surrender.
The Castaic Gateway was a fortress of wrecked cars and tents built across the roadway in the scrub brown hills north of Los Angeles. Thursday was given a tent for the night and he slept hard, waking twice due to violent nightmares. When he finally rose and walked out to the lake he was told it had been three entire days and that his body was fighting a violent infection.
“We can’t cure you here,” an old man said. He had the same shriveled apple face of his sister, but was free of her disease. His eyes were kind, and he wore a faded blue baseball cap perched on his head. He called himself the Five, and was the guardian of the Golden State Freeway.
“I’ve spent decades rebuilding this road by hand. Me and many, many others. This is the strongest artery west of the Rockies, straighter and more stable than the tides and raiders along the coast. We’ve only made it this far south, but our road is flat and true all the way north into Canada.”
“Can you get me to Seattle?”
The Five grinned. “Oh yes. I can’t promise it will be entirely safe, but my Peligra has told me about what you need, and we can get you there.”
Thursday was on the edge of tears. Admitting weakness, failure, made him hurt even worse than his broken arm or the crippling aches in his limbs and joints. “I can’t walk that far.”
Peligra nodded. “I told him.”
“We have a stagecoach, salvaged from a berry farm, and we have fresh horses all along the route. You can ride north the entire way.” The Five looked over to Peligra, and she nodded. “I’m told there’s a cost for you though, Mr. Thursday Forrester.”
Thursday shook his head. “I have nothing.”
Peligra gave him his pack and stared into his eyes. He couldn’t help seeing the memory of that alien light, and she scared him a little.
“Live through this,’’ she said, “and finish your book.”
END
To find out what happens next, check out Episode 6:
The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide to Seattle by Philip Kramer.
About the Author
Jake Marley has spent the past twenty years driving the night roads of Southern California dreaming up worlds of horror and dark fantasy. He’s the 2017 Golden Pen Award winner of the international Writers of the Future contest, and is featured in Volume 33 of their annual anthology.
Jake lives in Orange County, California with his wife and his daughter.
Connect with Me
Follow me on Twitter: @JakeofEarth2
Subscribe to my blog: jakemarley.wordpress.com
Every day there are opportunities to make the world a better, more interesting place.
Take them, and do good things.
And thank you for reading.
