by Riley Flynn
Timmy was running between the cars. He wasn’t bothering to hide any more. None of the guards were watching anyway. Most of them had run down to the riverbank, while the others were scrambling back to investigate the closing bridge. Ducking and weaving between the cars, Timmy arrived back to the bikes.
There was no time for conversation. Both men mounted up, started their engines. The timing would be everything. Positioning themselves with a direct route to the bridge, they stared at the closing sections. They were eating up the degrees, starting from seventy, to sixty, to fifty. When it seemed just over halfway, Alex twisted his wrist and launched.
The bike rattled, struggling to drive all the raw power to the wheels. Alex held tight and ducked down low. He could see the run up to the bridge. He could see the path opening up before him. Leaning only slightly, dipping through the cars, he could see the bridge was almost closed.
Shouting came from the river banks. Alex was travelling too fast to understand. But he could see the bridge closing; he was almost there. Timmy was just behind. The curling smoke was gripping the iron sides of the bridge, the underside of the metal colored a chimney orange shade. The barge was burning, wholly. It was now or never.
Realization struck. The bridge was not going to close. Not completely. The lips would still be a few feet apart when the front wheel would hit the incline. There was no other option. Ducking even lower, Alex opened the throttle and dragged every last drop of power out of the engine.
The first wheel hit the bridge. The guards were screaming. Loud bangs went off all around. Driving up the incline, the bike was lost in a world of thick, black chemical smoke. Alex wished he’d fitted the mask. But it was too late. He held his breath instead.
Almost at the lip of the bridge, Alex was looking up into the sky. Something hit him in the back, hard. It had to be ignored. The bike pushed on, up and through the smoke, up and over the bridge.
And then time slowed down. The tires turned with nothing to slow them. Alex eased his grip. Closed his eyes. Flew through the air for half a second, which felt like a century.
The fuel tank of the bike hit Alex hard in the chest, jarring him back to reality. Eyes open, his hands fought desperately to keep the bike straight. The same loud cracks and bangs were now behind him. He heard Timmy’s bike land. But there was no time to stop.
Together, they rode down West Jefferson. The streets were empty, the parked cars and armed guards all behind them, back within the city limits. With Virginia now more than just a dream, Alex allowed himself a smile. These were cursed days in many ways.
With a check over his shoulder, Alex could see the wind catching the pillars of smoke he’d set atop the barge. The checkpoint had stopped the people. Had left them sitting, sleeping, or whatever else inside their cars.
But a change in the wind and the air was different. The guards were not there to stop the contagion escaping. Only the people.
The smile slipped away.
19
Riding with the river on one side and the outskirts on the other, there was not much to see. Homes on the roadsides showed no signs of life. Evacuated, perhaps, or victims of the blackouts. People possibly cowering inside. Aside from the occasional white cross painted across doors, the homes belonged to no one but the ghosts.
They rode in parallel with Route 75. West Jefferson was empty; it seemed unnecessary to switch on to a wider road. With the shoreline so close, they could easily switch down on to the mud or the dirt and continue on their bikes if trouble presented itself. But it did not.
Eventually, after half an hour of riding, arriving toward Hennepin Point, Alex held out an arm and motioned for his friend to stop. There was a fast food restaurant overlooking a small harbor. Spotting the golden arches from far away, it seemed like a safe zone. A neutral place. Somewhere to stop.
No cars in the parking lot. No people seen through the windows. One panel of glass had been smashed, the pieces now scattered across the black and white tiles of the floor. Both men brought their bikes as close as possible to the restaurant and killed the engines.
“Fine a place as any to stop,” Timmy said. “Good choice.”
Plucking his fingers from the leather gloves, Alex tried to adjust his back. It was still sore. Something had hit him, hard, while they’d been crossing the bridge. At the time, he’d had no choice but to ignore it. Now, he could take a look.
“Hey, would you help me get this jacket off? Something’s not right.”
Walking round behind, Timmy let out a long, lingering whistle.
“They sure did a number on you, buddy.”
He leaned in, scratching at something with his fingernail.
“Here, take that off.” Timmy motioned to remove the jacket. “Let me show you.”
When it was off, Timmy held it up to the late afternoon light, gripping a jacket shoulder in each hand. Standing between Alex and the sun, it was like a leather eclipse. One small hole, roughly the size of a bottle cap. The light was shining through on to Alex’s chest.
“They must have got you square in the back, man. God, that’s so badass. Let me take a look at the armor, I want to see if it worked.”
In a daze, Alex obeyed, swiveling around on the motorcycle seat. Timmy picked at something.
“Yep, right here. Boy, it’s got some real weight. Here.”
A hand appeared over Alex’s shoulder. As the fingers opened up, something fell out and begged to be caught. It was dense, there was no mistaking that. Bringing it up to eye level, looking as closely as possible, Alex could see where the slug had run up against the Kevlar, collapsing in on itself.
The armor was hardly half an inch thick. Alex felt for his chest. Any lasting exhilaration, any pride or amazement drained out of him there and then. Half an inch. And he’d almost not worn the armor at all. Only Timmy’s insistence had broken him down.
“The blood’s run all out of you,” Timmy laughed. “Gone all paleface on me.”
Taking a moment, leaving the bikes in full view of the shattered window, the two men ventured inside the restaurant. Inside, the power was out and the freezers had thawed, spilling water over the floor. An enterprising person had hopped over the counter and raided the tills for anything of value. Even the charity donation boxes, sunk into the counter itself, had been smashed and ransacked.
“Man, it’s only been a couple of days. If that.”
“Time moves fast.”
“Yeah, but this fast? Nah. This is too big. Too much, man. Something’s happening here. Where is everyone? All at home? I don’t buy it.”
“Saw a lot of crosses on those doors back there.”
“I wasn’t even looking. High on life, you know what I mean? That fire–how’d you get that thing going so good? Looked so cool with the flames and the bikes. Those guys didn’t know what hit ‘em.”
“There was some old chemical drum down on the barge. Got lucky I guess. How was the bridge? Seemed like they didn’t know what to do.”
“That?” Timmy laughed. “I had an idea when I was there. Really old controls, see, so I just snapped off the lever. Threw it in the river. Guess that’s why they started shooting. They’re not getting that bridge back up any time soon.”
The restaurant had been emptied. The thin layer of water on the floor was a sign that there wasn’t any food to be found inside. Timmy pointed to one of the milkshake machines.
“Always wanted one of these for my home, you know? That strawberry flavor? Man, that’s the stuff.”
Even as he said the words, their heaviness weighed hard on both men. A strawberry milkshake. A drive thru. One dollar. Two dollars. Whatever it was they charged these days. Those days. It might be a long, long time before they were drinking shakes again. A simple slice of the everyday life, ripped away with no return date set.
“Man, we’re really out here, huh?” Timmy had sat down in one of the booths. “Going all the way.”
“We’re hardly there yet. We’re barely out of Detroit.”
“I don’t mean Detroit, man. I mean…like…yeah. Whatever. That thing with the bridge was cool, though.”
There was a smell on the air. Stale. Sour. It was catching on the breeze, which was blowing in off the dock and in through the window. It was familiar. It preyed on Alex’s memories. The smell reminded him of something, but he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. From the farm, maybe? Back in Virginia, definitely.
“You smell that?” he asked his friend. “Something…rotten, I don’t know.”
“Could be. Could be. Probably something in the freezers. Reckon those patties won’t last too long out in the open. Maybe there’s something to eat though? Bread? They used to do apple pies here, those’d keep.”
Leaving Timmy at the table, Alex explored the store. All of these places were basically the same. Flat pack franchises. Get a plot of land, the company sends you a store to assemble. Same bricks, same menus, same quality, coast to coast. Even though it was empty, crossing over the counter seemed like breaking a small social taboo.
The restaurant looked different from back here. The smell was stronger, though. Alex searched the shelves and the drawers. There was some salt and sugar. Ketchup and various sauces. They went into the pocket. Might help with the readymade meals. But the smell was beginning to dominate, beginning to curdle in the back of this throat.
A storeroom sat in the back of the building. Usually, it’d be sealed up with a heavy door. But the door was open. The pale wood pulp with the fake grain. The same kind of doors you always get in these places. It had two portholes, one on top of the other. The top one was vacant, only home to a few jagged glass edges. Alex moved closer.
The smell was stronger. The memory was denser, some unformed shadow passing across the consciousness. Alex struggled to pick out the edges, to give it shape and meaning. Little pieces began to come together, assembling into a picture within his mind. But it was a slow process. The store room was just ahead.
“You hear from anyone in Virginia, Alex?”
The voice came calling out from the restaurant. Timmy hadn’t moved from the table. Instead, he’d sat there, considering.
“No one. Phone was down the whole time. Don’t even have it any more. Not that anyone would call me. Why?”
“Just wondering, is all. You sure Sammy didn’t even try and get through?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“I’ve just… Well, I’ve heard you talk about her before, man. When we’re in the bar. Just wanted to make sure we weren’t off on some crazy rescue mission. That’s all. We’re heading to your folks’ old place, right?”
“Right.”
“Because it’s a well-positioned, easily defendable farm house with good natural resources?”
“Right.”
“And because it’s yours and we won’t need to break in or anything.”
“Right.”
“Not because your ex lives nearby?”
Alex didn’t answer. The farm house. The shadow crawled across his mind, fueled by the stench filling up inside his sinuses. It was beginning to form. It was looking just like the farm house. It was all there. The way the weeds clustered up around the side with the septic tank. The stone wall up to about a foot and then wooden slats after that. The way the dirt slid slightly when he walked.
The basement window where that possum got in one year and then died behind the boiler and Dad had to scrape it off with a shovel while Mom was screaming the whole time. That was the image that was in his mind, insisting on recognition. As he walked toward the storeroom, Alex wondered why this–of all his childhood memories–should arrive in this moment.
Then he knew. Staring through the broken porthole, into a storeroom lined with plastic cups and paper towels, Alex knew why the smell was so familiar. It was that dead possum stench. But worse. Much worse.
There was a man, perched up against the furthest wall. Tattered clothes, he seemed like the homeless who came up to Michigan in the summer and left before the weather turned. It didn’t matter anymore.
Covering his mouth and nose, Alex couldn’t look away. The man was dead. His eyes, not just red but bloody, stared up at the ceiling. The skin was cinderblock grey, with the same texture, at all the joints and under the neck. The face had sagged, had sunk from the skull.
The man could not have been dead for more than a day, must have crawled in here when feeling sick. But the body, as it was, could have been decaying for a week. Alex pulled the door closed, though it did nothing to stop the smell pouring through the broken window. It gave the man some privacy, some peace, at least.
Backing into the restaurant, Alex was quiet. Timmy noticed.
“Hey man, that stuff about Sammy, I know you don’t like to-”
“We got to go. Like, now.”
“What’s up? You look like you seen a ghost. Didn’t think they could drain any more blood out of you, but here we are.”
Already, Alex had begun walking back to the bikes. He left a confused Timmy behind him, who went to check the storeroom for himself.
Alex barely had the key in the ignition before his friend was running out of the restaurant and onto the bike.
“Let’s just go, man. Just ride for a bit.”
It was late afternoon and they rode onto Route 75 and into the night. The bikes were fitted with headlamps and they cut through the dusk, growing stronger with every hour. There was no need to talk any more. Only the need to put some road beneath them. With the sunset behind them, they let the highway do the work.
20
For two days, the sun rising and falling, they rode along Route 75. They were not alone but they looked back over their shoulders. There were cars, some heading in the other direction, some pulled onto the side. But there were no words shared with anyone else.
The journey should have taken ten hours but congested roads, littered with abandoned and crashed cars, slowed them down. Every time they saw another vehicle, they dropped their speed to a crawl. Every sudden movement, every glimmer of light in the distance and they halted. Wary, paranoid progress.
As the miles rolled by beneath the wheels, Alex could see the license plates changing. State to state. He’d pick them off, marking them like baseball cards. Got Florida. Michigan. Iowa. Kansas. People were travelling far.
These were the stragglers. By now, they knew better than to look inside any of the vehicles. It was a lesson they had to learn the hard way.
On the first evening, Timmy had pulled up alongside a parked station wagon when an old woman had flagged him down. After she’d encouraged him to look inside the window, he’d come up face to face with a revolver.
The grandfather wielding the gun wanted everything he had. Only Alex pulling up alongside and unfurling one of the AR-15s had resolved the situation. They left the couple on the side of the road, ready to rob again.
It had been a similar story the next morning. They’d slept in a field, on a spit of land north of Toledo. When the sun rose, they unzipped the tent to find another car had drawn up alongside them. Looking in the window, the dawn sun above, the bodies were still as windless days. A couple, huddled together on the back seat. Nothing they could do.
The final time they’d stopped, Timmy had spotted something in one of the deserted vehicles. It had Maryland plates. A familiar sight in a sea of strange states. It had been abandoned. No sign of bodies. Leaning in through an open window, Timmy had tried to take an aftermarket GPS unit that was fastened to the dash.
“All’s fair in love and war,” he’d reasoned.
The unit had crapped out in five seconds. Already low on battery, running through the familiar reboot loops, Timmy cursed out the Chinese manufacturer and threw the unit into the dirt by the side of the highway. The gray plastic, the imported kind, cracked as it hit the ground. Nothing but empty cars and worries on the road to Toledo.
There should have been more people. That was all Alex could think. There should have been more. People were locked up in
the cities, Timmy had reasoned, probably in the towns, too. The last thing the government would want would be people travelling around. People like us, he’d said, smiling.
Then there should have been an army presence. The military. Something. Alex had spent years reading articles about the wondrous toys and gadgets the armed forces could deploy at a moment’s notice. They couldn’t use these things in their own back yard? There was something up with that. Something they weren’t being told.
Occasionally, when they found the right kind of abandoned car, they’d check the radio. Certain older vehicles were still fitted with analog aerials. The digital stations ruled the roost these days but they were done and dusted as things stood. Nothing on them for days. But they’d search through the static when they could.
One day, in a turn-of-the-century Cadillac they found by Luna Pier, the twist of the dial had almost uncovered something. It had sounded like voices. Almost. Like the way people could see all kinds of shapes in clouds. Crouching kings and sickly parrots. Whatever the mind wanted to see. It was gone in an instant, already a memory.
They never again found anything like it buried in the dead static.
It took time, at night, to find a place to camp. They needed somewhere hidden. Away from the road, but not too far. Somewhere the bikes could be arranged into an arc. Circling the wagons, Timmy called it, as he set up the tent. They didn’t need fires, the autumn air not biting enough to warrant such an extravagant display. Their extra sweaters, gloves, and hats did the hard work. There was enough smoke over the cities. They didn’t need more.
And it meant they saw the sky. Not that blue canvas, the clotted cream clouds tumbling over it every day. Not the day time, not the same old, same old. This was the sky at night. Darker than anything Alex had ever seen and so, so bright.
It wasn’t just the stars. But there were so many of them, Alex had lost every point of reference he had. Even on the farm, there had been some light sources around to dim the distant stars just enough. Out here, at midnight, everything was on show.
