by Jack Quaid
It turned out Knox knew Vegas well. He once won two hundred thousand dollars in an arm wrestling competition and blew it all in a weekend on a showgirl named Bridgett. Shelby followed him out of the casino and climbed on the back of his bike.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
The handful of domestic droids that roamed the strip had regressed back to their programming and done a job to be proud of in cleaning up the streets of Vegas post-uprising. Everything was clean and polished and brand new. A sanitation droid reached out to them as they passed, but the droid moved so slow that it posed little threat.
A couple of blocks off the strip Knox pulled the hog to a stop and shut the engine down. Shelby climbed off the back and stood disappointed in front of the biggest Harley Davidson store she’d ever seen. It was warehouse sized with bikes on display in the front windows and going by the sign on the door, apparently eighteen months interest free on all purchases.
Shelby turned to face Knox. “You’re not as funny as you think you are,” she said. “Take me back to Prada.”
“You don’t want Prada in an apocalypse, you want leather.” He motioned to the door. “And in there, they have leather.”
Shelby stepped up and rattled the locked doors. “Oh, darn. Look at that, they’re closed.”
Knox picked up a rock and bounced it in his hand a couple of times before throwing it through the main display window. The glass split in two massive pieces and they both crashed to the ground.
“I think they just opened.”
Knox stepped through the display window first and Shelby followed like a disgruntled teenager. A quick lap of the showroom floor was all it took to establish there were no droids inside, and if one or two showed up, it wouldn’t be anything they couldn’t handle.
“Ladies section is over there,” Knox said as he pointed down a row of motorcycles to the other side of the store.
Shelby walked off. “This is the worst shopping trip ever.”
Five cigarettes later, Knox was still waiting. He climbed off the bike that he was using as a seat, paced left to right and when he couldn’t contain it anymore, he called out: “Bloody hell, what’s taking you so long?”
Shelby called out from the dressing room. “Don’t rush me.”
Knox leaned back onto the bike and lit another cigarette. Ten minutes later the door to the dressing room swung open and there Shelby stood in a black leather jumpsuit.
Knox nodded. “Now you look like you’re ready for the end of the world.”
“I look like Joan Jett.”
“I rolled with Joan Jett once,” Knox said and smiled at the memory. “Nice lady.”
Shelby’s face scrunched up. “Let’s never talk about that again,” she said. “There’s one other thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“I want my own bike.”
Knox motioned around at the fifty on display. “Take your pick.”
Eighteen
Hurricane, Nevada
Learning to ride was another challenge altogether. It took the rest of the afternoon for Shelby to get the swing of it, and even then it was only the basics. They rode out of Vegas at first light and headed up 15 toward St. George on their way to Salt Lake City. It was John Wayne country. A place for outlaws, damsels in distress and lawmen who liked to do things their way. Desert spanned out in every direction and looked as if it went on forever. Shelby was a Californian child. Apart from Los Angeles and Manhattan, she had seen very little of the United States. The west looked just like it did in the movies, wild.
The hot wind cut through the air and blew Shelby’s hair out like some sort of blond-ribboned flag that trailed behind her at seventy miles per hour. She brought the bike up alongside Knox’s. She was about to call out and see if he wanted to take a break, stretch their legs. And Shelby badly wanted to brush her hair. But before she could call out she saw a speck of school bus yellow in the horizon. Knox saw it too and before either one of them could say anything, Knox yanked the throttle back on his hog and his bike shot forward.
Shelby gave chase and rode so fast that all sound faded into an indistinguishable thunder. Since she’d first sat on a bike a few days earlier, she’d been playing it safe and never went far out of her comfort zone. She quickly dropped her eyes from the road to the speedometer and back up again. The needle was passing one hundred miles and hour and continuing to climb. It was definitely out of her comfort zone.
The yellow dot flickered on the horizon. For brief moments it would disappear for just long enough for Shelby to think they had lost it, and then it would reappear again. It went on like this for miles until the yellow flicker on the horizon disappeared altogether and didn’t return.
Knox shot forward. She gave the bike more throttle and changed gears, trying to keep up, but the extra speed and power scared the hell out of her. She was covered in sweat. Her heart pounded in her chest and she felt as if she were on the verge of a panic attack. She eased off the gas. The bike dropped in speed and her heart rate dropped to something that wasn’t going to give her a cardiac arrest. Knox disappeared into the desert, but ten minutes later when she caught up with him, he was standing at a complete stop on the side of the road.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Out of fuel,” he snapped. “Give me your bike.”
Shelby squinted as far down the road as she could see.
“The bus is gone, Knox.”
He leaned in closer. His massive fists clenched into balls. “I said, give-me-your-bike!”
It wasn’t so much a request as much as it was a demand. She climbed off and before she could say any more, Knox had hammered off down the road. She watched him until he was out of sight, and then like the yellow bus, he too was gone.
The sun beat down on her as the sweat began to form on the back of her neck. She looked to the ground and would’ve spat on it if she had any spit in her mouth. Shelby cursed Knox, grabbed the handlebars of his bike and pushed.
She pushed and cursed for an entire mile before she began to tire. She pushed through that and only stopped until she was covered in sweat and her muscles burned and ached. She leaned on the bike and pulled the zipper on her jumpsuit down to her cleavage. She was starting to think that leather maybe wasn’t the best choice for the end of the world. Cotton would probably have been a better choice, or linen even. Something that would breathe.
Shelby pulled in a lungful of hot air as she prepared her mind for the best thing she’d seen all week. On the side of the road was a faded sign for Danny’s All Star Truck Stop. It boasted gas, hot coffee and the best damn fine apple pie in Nevada, and damn fine apple pie sounded damn fine to Shelby.
Walking that last mile was as tough as walking ten but as soon as Danny’s All Star Truck Stop was in sight, she pushed the bike as fast as she could. The building itself was a worn-down relic of the 1950s with its sock hop design and neon lights that still flashed even though it was the middle of the day.
Shelby flicked the kickstand on the bike and ran inside. She probably should have cleared the building of any droids but she was too thirsty, so all she did was give it a quick scan before she ran over to the sink behind the counter, turned the tap on and drank. The water was hot at first and after a minute of drinking as much as possible, she ran it over her hair and felt instantly cooler.
There was no pie. Under the circumstances, Shelby didn’t hold it against Danny of Danny’s All Star Truck Stop. She stocked up on bottles of water, filled up the hog with fuel and strapped an extra tank’s worth of gas to the back and hit the road.
She knew Knox couldn’t have gotten far. Her bike didn’t have much more gas in it than his and after fifteen minutes of hammering down the highway she found him on the side of the road, coolly leaning against the bike with the yellow bus nowhere in sight. Shelby slowed to a stop and shut off the engine. She had rehearsed all the things she was going to say in her mind. Then she rewrote them, rehearsed the
m again and by the time she climbed off the bike she was ready to unleash both barrels. But after she took one look at Knox, she knew she didn’t need to say anything. For the first time in eight weeks she saw behind the armor. The man who stood in front of her wasn’t the heroic image of an action star on the cover of a DVD, but of a heartbroken man. Something very important to him had disappeared in one of those buses on New Year’s Eve, and like Shelby, he was just trying to get by.
“You’re late,” he said.
“I stopped off for some damn fine pie.”
“How was it?”
“They didn’t have any.”
“Well,” Knox said. “Lets see if we can find you something to eat.”
It was as close to an apology as Shelby was going to get and she was okay with that.
They set up camp out in the middle of the desert. Knox said they’d see anything coming at them from miles away. Shelby looked out into the darkness and although she could see that he was right, she still wasn’t used to being so exposed.
It was cold in the desert. They built a fire and Knox cooked a chicken that they’d captured from a farmhouse they passed a couple of hours ago.
She looked over at him and thought about the man who rode hell for leather after that yellow school bus and she thought about the look on his face once it had slipped away from him. “What did Tera Mach take from you?”
Knox shook his head. “Are you going to ask me that every single night?”
“If you tell me, I won’t have to keep asking.”
“Then you’ll think of something else.”
“I swear, I’ll stop after this. Scout’s honor.”
Knox ignored her.
“It was a girl, wasn’t it?
He said nothing. Just gave her a dirty look.
“You’re not exactly a conversationalist,” Shelby said.
“I always thought I was quiet charming.”
Shelby leaned forward. “You left me in the middle of the desert for something you lost. Why?”
“I could have left you back in L.A.”
“And I could have left you on the side of the highway today.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “If I tell you, will you let me eat in peace?”
Shelby leaned back. “I make no promises, but I’ll try.”
Knox sighed and lit a cigarette. He took his time working up to his first words and when he opened his mouth his tone was somber. “Her name is Sasha Charles. She was the roses to my guns. The Womack to my Womack. I knew her for thirty-eight days, that was it. They were the best thirty-eight days of my life. On New Year’s Eve, we had a fight, our first fight.”
“What was it about?”
“Who remembers, but it was my fault, probably,” Knox said. “She ran out of the house and went to the mansion.”
“Mansion?”
“Playboy Mansion. They were having a party. She was Miss July in 1998. A couple of hours later, I wised up. Climbed onto my hog and headed over.”
“But you didn’t get there?”
Knox shook his head. “No, no, I got there, and I found her. Then the clock stuck midnight and all hell broke loose. I fought and retired many of those metal bastards, but one droid got her. I’ll never forget his face.” Knox looked over at Shelby. “He was a Pom. Why do they make androids nationality specific?”
“I don’t know. It makes them more human like, I guess.”
“They took her away in one of those yellow buses.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small black jewellery box. He flipped open the top to reveal a diamond engagement ring.
Shelby drew a breath. “Wow.”
“They took her away before I could give it to her.”
“I’m sure she would have said yes,” Shelby said.
“Well, who knows now.”
Shelby smiled. “That’s more words than I’ve heard you say in one hit, ever.”
“Don’t count on many more.”
Shelby took a bite out of the chicken. Knox had seasoned it with some spices and she would have sworn that it was the best thing she’d tasted since the uprising.
“This chicken is amazing.”
“It’s not.”
“Not what?”
“Not chicken.”
“What is it?
“Cat.”
Shelby held out the cat at arm’s length. “I thought it was chicken?”
“What kind of chicken has four legs?
Shelby shrugged. “A special one?”
Knox leaned forward and picked up a cat collar from the dirt and read the tag. “His name was Fletch.”
Shelby put what was left of Fletch down by the fire. Her appetite was gone.
Nineteen
“When am I ever going to need to jump a motorcycle from one building to another?”
Knox shook his head. “You still think this is about the jump?”
They’d arrived in Salt Lake City two days ago, and for the last two days Knox had watched as Shelby failed to jump from one apartment building rooftop to another on her motorcycle. She’d tried to make the jump thirty-three times but every time she revved the throttle, aimed the bike and sped toward the edge, she panicked, bailed out and dumped the motorcycle on its side. It was only a four-foot gap but it might as well have been a hundred with the way she was looking at it.
“If it’s not about the jump, then what’s it about?”
Knox lit a cigarette. “Five days ago, when we were at Costco, a few toasters attacked you. You ran and got me. Two days ago some of them came at you just after we got into town, and you came and got me. When I’m standing alongside you, you’re a badass. When I’m not there, you’re just a scared little girl.”
“Jumping off a building is your way to help me build confidence?”
“This is a new world—a tough world—and you’re not ready. It’s only going to get a whole lot tougher the closer we get to New York. I’m not going to give you a hug and tell you everything is going to be alright, because it’s not. If you’re not ready for that, just give up now, because you won’t make it and at best you’ll slow me down and at worst you’ll get me killed.”
Shelby swung her leg over the bike and sat down. “I don’t want your hugs.” She cranked it up. The beast roared to life. She revved it a few times and then let it idle as she repositioned the nose toward the end of the building.
She had about a thirty-foot run up and from that distance, the gap from one rooftop to the other looked non-existent.
Shelby opened the clutch. The bike shifted into gear and shot forward.
Cool air brushed past her face as she picked up speed.
She thought about the gap.
She thought about the drop.
She thought about not being good enough and that thought repeated over and over in her mind.
The jump came up. She held her breath and then the one thought that had been dogging her for the past two days overwhelmed her. She wasn’t good enough.
Shelby dropped the bike on its side and slid with it as it scrapped along the rooftop and stopped just short of the edge.
It was the thirty-forth time she’d failed to make the jump. She lay flat on her back and stared up at the sky.
Knox stepped over her and blocked out the light. “Do you want a hug?”
Twenty
Shelby was half asleep when she heard the sound and jumped to her feet. They had camped out on the rooftop of the Walker Center. It was a warm night and the sky was red and a God-awful, wretched thump echoed through the empty city.
Shelby ran to the edge of the roof. Knox was already there with his shotgun in his hand and a don’t-fuck-around attitude on his face.
“Someone should really tell the neighbors to be quiet,” Shelby said as she leaned over the edge of the building to clock the street.
“See anything?”
“Not a thing,” she said. “The street’s empty.”
The thump slammed again
and the building shook. Shelby’s stomach tensed.
Knox stood and scanned the city. Nothing but an empty skyline filled with buildings without lights.
Another thump shook the building. “What the hell is that?”
“I think it’s getting closer,” she whispered.
More thumps came. They were evenly paced, almost keeping in time to some silent rhythm.
“Is that?” Shelby said. “Are they footsteps?”
Then they saw it. A flash of something metallic in between two small buildings.
“What is that?” Knox muttered under his breath.
Then it stepped out from behind a building and into the street. It was monstrous. The biggest machine either one of them had ever laid eyes on. The beast stood close to ten stories tall with eight long legs that looked like they were able enough to navigate any terrain. The legs moved independently of each other but worked as a team. As impressive as they were, they didn’t even compare to the body of the thing. Rectangular in shape with rounded edges, each side was lined with five .50 caliber machine guns to tackle anything close at ground level while the cannon that sat on top was really its crowning jewel. It must have been thirty feet long and probably had enough firepower to take out a building or a small town. It was the ultimate war machine.
Shelby was lost for words. “It’s a . . . It’s a . . . What is it?”
“It’s a battle spider,” Knox said.
“Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
“Do you have a better name for it?”
Shelby looked and racked her brain. “No.”
“Then it’s a battle spider.”
The battle spider thumped down the street toward them and with every heavy step, the building shook more. Shelby crouched down low, so not to be seen. She closed her eyes and sat on her hands to stop them from shaking.
She felt a couple of earth shattering thumps and then . . . nothing. They just stopped. Shelby waited for the next thump but the next didn’t come.
She slowly opened her eyes and looked at Knox.
