Five Roads To Texas: A Phalanx Press Collaboration

by Lundy, W. J.

  Leonard looked around. There was a similar structure on the other side of the off-ramp, and another set of soldiers led a group from a minivan into it. He scurried after the rest of his group, not wanting to miss any instructions. Inside they found a bank of LED work lights focused on one area. A soldier stood by a table with a clipboard; another had a tray of devices on a big, folding plastic table, while a third was messing around with colored cards and stacks of paper at another table.

  “This is the entry team,” the lieutenant said. “They will inspect each of you, looking for bites and signs of infection. If we clear you, you pass to Inspection Point Two. If we don’t, you turn around and go back to where you’re from. Am I clear?”

  “Yes—” Sarah started to say.

  “Good. I’ll see you outside when you’re done.”

  The lieutenant left them with Sarah’s mouth hanging open. Another uniformed man walked over to her. “Name?” he asked.

  “Sarah Washburn.”

  A second man pressed a probe against her head in several places. “Hold still,” he directed. “I’m just getting your temperature.” A few seconds passed, and he said, “Temp normal.”

  The first man made notes on the paper on the clipboard.

  “Come over to the lights please,” Clipboard said, holding his arm out and directing her to the far side of the enclosure. “Strip,” he said.

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. “You don’t get past this exit unless you complete the inspection. Your choice.”

  “All the way?” she asked.

  “All the way.”

  She bristled at the violation but kicked her shoes off and started pulling her shirt over her head so the inspector could do his thing.

  Charlie turned his back to the scene. He jabbed Leonard in the ribs. “Turn around, Lenny.”

  Leonard blushed and turned to face the entrance with Charlie.

  “Hold your arms to the side and spread your legs just past shoulder width, please,” the inspector directed as he put on a pair of black latex gloves. He returned the electronic thermometer to the tray and grabbed a UV cob light. Clicking it on, he scanned her with it, running his hands over her skin, starting with her scalp and face, checking every inch of her body. Jack clenched his jaw, but the soldier was clinical in his approach, not lingering longer than was necessary at any spot. Sarah locked eyes with Jack, and he held them there, trying to tell her she wasn’t alone.

  “You can lower your arms,” the soldier said, transitioning to her back. She covered her breasts with her left arm and her pubic area with her right hand.

  The inspector finished at the base of her legs. “Feet together,” he ordered, grabbing her right ankle. “Lift your foot, please.” He scanned the sole of her foot and released it. He grabbed the left ankle, and she lifted it before he asked. He stood up. “Go ahead and get dressed.”

  He turned to Clipboard while Sarah hurriedly pulled her underwear on. “She’s clean. No bites. No photoreaction.”

  Clipboard made several notes on the paper and handed the clipboard off to the third soldier, who handed another one back to him with a clean sheet on it.

  “Who’s next?” he called out.

  “I am,” Charlie said.

  Clipboard turned around to find Charlie standing naked in front of him. Despite his serious demeanor, he broke out laughing. “Jesus, old man, buy me a drink first, all right? Why don’t you give me your name?”

  “Charles Washburn. But you can call me Charlie.” He wore an exaggerated grin.

  “Don’t make this weird, all right Charlie? I’ve seen enough old-man sack to last for the rest of my life.”

  The soldiers repeated the inspection procedure with Charlie while the one with Sarah’s clipboard pulled her aside and handed her the form and an orange card with C117 written on it.

  “This is your inspection report and ID number. Do not lose these or the next inspection station will make you come back here and go through this again. At the next station, they’ll inspect you the same way, to make sure we didn’t miss anything and to ensure you didn’t get into trouble between here and there. Just so you know, there are four more inspection points. At the final one, you’re going to have to decide between service or citizen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you choose service, you’ll be taken inside the base, billeted and given a work assignment. You’ll get food and water, but you’ll be put to work helping to secure the city. If you want to chill and ride this out, you’ll go to refugee camps. They have them all over, mostly in city parks, also at the UTEP campus. FEMA is overseeing those. Think about it. Service would be what I’d recommend. Those FEMA camps will be death zones when the infection breaks through.”

  “You sound like it’s a foregone conclusion that it will,” she said.

  “This shit never stays contained. How do you think we wound up with Ebola in the US a few years ago?” The soldier turned back to the table with the forms and cards on them, placing a blank sheet on the clipboard from which he’d just taken Sarah’s form.

  Jack walked over to Sarah. “You okay?” he asked. “I hate that every time we turn around, someone’s prodding you.”

  “Step away from the Cleared Citizen!” a soldier shouted, raising his weapon up to his shoulder as he advanced rapidly from the edge of the tent. The barrel was only inches from Jack’s temple.

  He held up his hands and stepped back. “I’m fine,” Sarah replied, giving the soldier a stare that would melt ice. “I get it. It should make us feel better, right? That they're thorough?” The soldier lowered the rifle and edged backward, maintaining eye contact with Jack.

  Sarah lowered her voice to a whisper that only Jack could hear. “Let’s just get you through this, okay?”

  He nodded, then looked over her shoulder. Charlie’s inspection was complete, and he was walking their way in his shirt and boxers shorts, his pants in one hand and his inspection form and an orange card in the other.

  “Easy peasy,” he said.

  “Don’t you think you should put on your pants?” Jack asked.

  “I’m just gonna have to take them off a couple miles up the road. It’s a time saver.”

  The trio waited, backs turned, for Leonard to get through the process, and then it was Jack’s turn.

  Clipboard waited while the inspector took Jack’s temperature. “One hundred,” he stated.

  Clipboard raised his eyes and made a note on the paper. The inspector directed Jack over to the lights, where he stripped, putting his clothes on the nearby table.

  The inspector clicked on the UV light and began his scan. “Hit!” he called out as he ran the light over Jack’s eyes. The soldiers in the room all jumped. A pair of armed men outside the entrance rushed in to join the ones already inside.

  “Whoa!” Jack put his arms in front of him. “Whoa! I have an infected cut! That’s all!”

  Clipboard looked around for a moment. “Stand down,” he said. The armed soldiers lowered their rifles, but did not leave the enclosure. Clipboard nodded at the soldier filling the clipboards with blank forms. “Go get the LT,” he said. He turned to the inspector. “Finish up.”

  The inspection was complete, and Jack was tying his shoes when the lieutenant returned to the tent. “What’s the situation?” he asked.

  “Positive UV test, sir,” Clipboard said. “Eyes and mouth. He has an infected wound on his arm that lights up.”

  “Impossible,” the lieutenant protested. “He barely looks sick.”

  “Temp is only one hundred, too.”

  The lieutenant tilted his head a few degrees. “One-oh-two?” he asked.

  “His temperature is only one hundred,” the inspector clarified.

  “Odd,” the lieutenant said. “They’re normally boiling alive.” He turned to Jack. “When were you exposed?”

  Jack did some mental math. “Seven days ago. On the twenty-seventh.”

  The inspector looked at the
lieutenant. “Do you think he’s immune? There’s no way he would take this long to turn. His temperature is nowhere near the limit. He’s got no other signs, aside from the UV hits.”

  The lieutenant turned to the man at the table. “Yellow card. Take him to staging. They’ll decide if he should go on to Beaumont.” He turned and walked out.

  “What does that mean?” Sarah asked.

  “Yeah, what does that mean?” Jack seconded.

  “Here’s the deal,” Clipboard said. “You’re infected. I think you knew that already. Since you’re not pulling your hair out, I can forgive you for thinking it was just an infected cut. But it’s not, and you can’t go on.”

  “So, we’ll go back,” Sarah said. “We’ll take our chances back in the, whatever, where we came from.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Clipboard said. “Well, you three can. Your companion here might have an immunity to this thing. That makes him a valuable medical asset, and as of now, he’s the property of the US Government.”

  “You can’t do this,” Jack said. “We’re leaving.”

  The two armed soldiers stepped forward, menacing the group.

  “Look, folks, here’s the deal. There’s a hospital a klick to the east that we’re using as a staging hospital. We’re sending other people there—people who need medical attention we can’t provide here. They have different tests they’ll run, and if it’s some kind of false positive, they’ll send you back here. If you’re really infected, you’ll be sent on to Beaumont Medical Center, where one of the scientists working to develop a cure will meet you for treatment.”

  “What can they do?” Jack asked. “Is there a cure?”

  “Not that I know of, but maybe you’re it, sir. That’s why you’re not leaving. We have a truck about to go to the staging hospital, so you all say your goodbyes. You have five minutes.”

  44

  Joshua W. Soto Physical Fitness Center, Fort Bliss, Texas.

  April 5th

  The Washburns made it south and east with little trouble. After passing Cuchillo, New Mexico, they got onto I-25 toward El Paso. With around one hundred miles to go, using the interstates was unavoidable. They had to weave through several wrecks, sometimes using the push-bar bumper on the Mercedes to move cars out of the way. Bodies were lying on the road and in the median. Some looked like they’d been hit by cars, others had been shot. Everyone avoided looking at them, but it wasn’t always possible.

  While Jack was clearing the cars at one spot, Charlie grabbed a hose and a couple of gas cans from the trailer and siphoned ten gallons of fuel from the wrecks, stepping over bodies as he went. He topped off the tanks on both vehicles and refilled the five-gallon jugs before they got moving again.

  “Did you see all the brass lying around?” Leonard asked. “Lots of fighting to get south.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie replied. “Makes me glad we went around Albuquerque. I bet it was a lot worse there.”

  Sarah and Leonard nodded, silently wondering if they were going to have to fight their way through something soon. The youth checked his rifle to make sure it was ready to go.

  Soon, they passed an orange electronic construction sign near the exit to the oddly-named New Mexico town of Truth or Consequences. The sign read:

  MOVE CARS FROM ROAD

  OR ELSE!

  Charlie pointed to the antenna that stuck up from the back of the sign. “Remote access. Good sign someone up the road is alive!”

  “Or else what, I wonder?” Sarah asked.

  Leonard pointed to a car on its side just off the road. It looked like a bulldozer had shoved it violently from the roadway. “Or else it will get moved for you,” he said.

  As they headed south, they saw more of the cars tossed casually aside. With the road clear, they sped up to seventy miles per hour. North of Radium Springs, they saw what was clearing the highway of stalled or abandoned cars. A snow plow led a convoy, with a line of military supply trucks following it. They heard a massive crash, and the plow sent an old Chevy Chevette flying off to the side of the road. The large plow barely shuddered and kept rolling down the road. They slowed their speed to fifty miles an hour to match the other vehicles and stayed in line behind the procession. A few minutes later they saw another programmable hazard sign.

  This one read:

  MILITARY CHECKPOINT

  50 miles

  It then cycled to say:

  BE

  PREPARED

  TO STOP

  “Well, I guess it’s going to get fun soon,” Charlie said.

  They rode in silence for a while, each person lost in their thoughts. As they passed through Las Cruces, New Mexico, the snow plow pulled off at an exit and turned to head back north. The military trucks peeled off and went right, toward a Walmart Supercenter. Several other, similar vehicles were already lined up at the dock, loading supplies into the cargo compartments. The military presence was getting more pronounced the farther south they drove.

  They passed the rest of the way through Las Cruces, following directions to stay to the left to merge with I-10 East to go to El Paso. They were getting close. Two miles over the Texas border the traffic slowed down to thirty, then twenty.

  They passed another sign, this one larger and more foreboding:

  Slow Down And Prepare For Inspection

  VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT

  NO QUESTIONS ASKED

  All traffic was being diverted at Exit 3, by an outlet mall. They slowed to ten miles an hour; then it was stop-and-go, then it was a dead stop for a few minutes at a time. Off to the right, they saw a Discount Tire with a long line of cars waiting for service.

  “This is why I always told Jack to take care of his cars, to never let the tires get down to nothing. Get the brakes done before they need it. Fill the tank at half, never let it get down to empty,” Charlie said.

  “You always told him to keep good tires on his car in case a zombie apocalypse broke out?” Leonard asked.

  “No, smart ass, it was so he’d be ready for anything. An early snowstorm. A tornado. Whatever emergency might come along.”

  “He hates it when I let the tank go down to E,” Sarah said. “Every time I do it he says, ‘One day this is going to bite you in the ass.’”

  “Holy shit,” Charlie replied. “He actually listened to me. That’s exactly what I would say to him. I told him that if he ever ran out of gas that I’d…”

  “Not come running to the rescue,” Sarah said, completing the sentence for Charlie. “He says that to me all the time too.”

  “Will wonders never cease? It warms my heart to know he paid attention and carried it forward.”

  “Why did you guys become so distant?” Sarah asked.

  Charlie gave her a dirty look and stole a glance at the back seat. “Not in front of the kids.”

  “I’m serious, Charlie. Jack won’t tell me, and I’d like to know.”

  “I’m serious too. I won’t go into this stuff right now. Let’s just get through this checkpoint.”

  Sarah looked in the mirror and saw Leonard, who mouthed the word “Awkward” to her. At least, that’s what she thought he said. In any case, she smiled at the comic relief.

  While they waited for the vehicles ahead of them to move, four soldiers came walking down the line, two on each side of the cars. On each side, one soldier used a mirror on a pole to check the underside of the vehicles while the other one watched the occupants of each car, rifle at the ready.

  “What are they looking for?” Sarah asked.

  “Robert De Niro,” Charlie replied and chuckled. Leonard and Sarah just stared at him. “You know, Cape Fear? No? Never mind then.”

  “If you’re going to use Cape Fear you should use Robert Mitchum,” Sarah said. “Always go with the original.”

  “Who’s Robert Mitchum?” Leonard asked from the back seat.

  Charlie jerked a thumb toward Leonard. “You see?” he asked Sarah. “You have to know your audience. I figured Lenny here woul
d be clueless about ol’ Mitch.”

  Leonard persisted, “So, he’s an actor?”

  “Yeah, he’s famous for playing drunken tough guys in westerns in the sixties,” Sarah said.

  “I thought that was Dean Martin.”

  “Well, yeah, he did that, too. In fact, I think most of the guys back then were drunk for their movies.”

  Charlie scoffed. “That was back when being a functioning alcoholic didn’t make you a pariah. Now you have to beg everyone to forgive you for all the shit you can’t remember.”

  “It’s called atonement, Charlie. It’s one of the twelve steps,” Sarah said.

  “It’s bullshit,” he said, all the humor gone from his voice.

  Gunshots from behind them made them jump in their seats. All three craned their heads to see what was happening, but the trailer blocked their view. Sarah got a glimpse in the side view mirror as a woman ran away from one of the cars farther back in the line. She fired a pistol blindly behind her as she ran, just coming into view for the other two to see. A three-round burst from one of the soldiers’ guns put her onto the ground. She tried to crawl to the edge of the off-ramp, but the soldier walked over and knocked her from her knees to her belly with his boot. He stood over her and fired one round into her head. Her legs twitched, and she lay still.

  “Violators will be shot. No questions asked,” Charlie mumbled.

  “Shit,” Leonard said, dragging the word out to a few seconds in length.

  “You got that right,” Sarah replied.

  She considered getting out and checking on Jack in the Mercedes in front of them but thought better of it as she saw the woman’s body in the mirror, lying in a pool of blood on the off-ramp. She didn’t want anyone getting a twitchy trigger finger.