Wandering Highway

by Ike Warren

  As they crossed under the bridge they came upon a man who called out to them from inside a car that appeared to have wrecked against one of the bridge support pillars.

  “Can you help me with my seatbelt? It appears to be stuck.” The man said in a sleepy voice.

  Allan and Jennifer walked over and saw a deflated airbag sticking out of the car’s steering wheel. They looked down at the man and saw that he had a large swollen knot on the top of his head, apparently from when his face bounced off the airbag and his momentum flung his head against the roof support column of the car. Allan looked at the seatbelt to see what might be causing it to be stuck and he did not see anything obvious that was wrong with it. He reached across the man’s lap and pressed the release button on the latch. The fastener clicked open and the seatbelt quickly retracted back into its holster.

  “Thank you so much. I don’t know why I couldn’t get it to work for me.” The man said as he worked at the handle on his door. Allan noticed the man fumbling to open the door and so he reached down and opened the door from the outside for the man. The man swung his feet around and stood up but he immediately sat back down.

  “Whoa.” He said. “I stood up a little too fast. World’s spinning on me.”

  “Sir I think you have a concussion.” Jennifer said.

  “Naw, I’m fine. Thanks for helping me with my seatbelt.” The man said smiling at the two of them.

  Jennifer looked at him with concern. She knew the man needed to seek medical attention but what was she to do? There was no way to call for help and even if she could she doubted that there were any ambulances available, or even working for that matter, that could take him to the hospital. She knew in her heart that there was nothing else that she could do but to leave him there and press on.

  “Are you sure you’re ok?” She asked the man hoping that his answer would be “Yes” to reassure herself that she was making the right decision to leave him there. Instead the man looked down at the ground for a moment and then he looked back up at her with a confused look on his face.

  “Who are you?” He asked.

  “Stay in your car mister. Try not to fall asleep.” Allan interrupted. He felt cold hearted but he also knew that there was nothing that they could do to help the man. Allan took Jennifer’s hand and tried to lead her away.

  “We can’t just leave him.” Jennifer refused.

  “There is no other choice.”

  Jennifer looked around helpless. There was no one to call for help and no place to take the man to get help. Despite her nursing school training she knew that she could not help the man. Allan tugged at her hand, urging her to disengage from the situation, and this time she allowed herself to be pulled away.

  They continued walking up the slow incline to the bridge that crossed over highway 121 that connected them with highway 635. At the top of the bridge they stopped and surveyed the landscape. More fires could be seen to the south towards the Dallas International Airport and it caused the highway to appear to end in the horizon in a blanket of black smoke. Below them was the beginning of a long line of people who were walking northward, apparently trying to get out of the DFW airport. Hours ago they were all businessmen and businesswomen, travelers from other states and from abroad, but now they looked like refugees of war spread out across the highway. A large portion of the mass of people streaming from the airport had taken the exit to get on highway 635 south and Allan and Jennifer walked ahead and merged with the migrating horde where the two highway on-ramps met.

  A tall man carrying a briefcase approached them. "You guys came from the north. What's it like up there?" He spoke in an almost manic tone.

  "We just came from the Grapevine Mills Mall. It’s the same there as it is…"

  "I didn't ask you where you came from. I asked you what it was like up there." The man interrupted and Allan realized that the man, dressed in business attire, was probably some corporate boss, maybe even a CEO, who was used to getting the exact information that he asked for precisely when he wanted it.

  Allan wanted to engage the man in a verbal fight. You moron. Allan thought. Don't you see that we're walking too? Do you expect me to say that everything is just fine where we came from? I've got my 8 month pregnant wife out in the middle of this highway because we felt like an afternoon stroll?

  "It's the same everywhere." Allan replied and the man gave him an angry look as if the whole thing was Allan’s fault.

  They walked past a little girl walking beside a woman who had her arm around her. The little girl had shiny streams of tears running down her face and she looked frightened. The woman was talking to the little girl, “It’s alright sweetie. Daddy wasn’t in any of those airplanes.” But the woman had a terrible look of worry on her face.

  Another man who was dragging a set of golf clubs behind him had overheard Allan’s response to the corporate boss and approached him. "You guys said you came from the mall?"

  The man stopped and sat the golf bag upright and unclipped a bag towel to wipe the sweat off his face. "They got a great golf course right behind the mall. Hit my first hole-in-one over there back in ‘08." He looked north of the bridge interchange toward the direction of the golf course with an excited gaze.

  "Did you come from the airport?" Allan asked.

  "No, I live just a little north of the airport. There's a lot of pandemonium over that way. I caught up with this group as they were just heading out of the north airport toll booths. They said a plane crashed right into Terminal B. Huge inferno. I was headed to check on my employees at my office in Farmers Branch but now I’m thinking about walking over behind the mall and playing a few rounds of golf. What better to watch the world fall apart around you while playing golf, huh?" With that he grabbed his golf clubs and walked away in the opposite direction toward the golf course.

  They began to see people pushing and pulling various types of wheeled carts. At first it was people with baby strollers that they had pulled out of the trunks of their cars to help them push their children or belongings down the road. Allan saw that many of the strollers had women’s handbags tucked underneath them just like they had always done when they went shopping with Samantha in her stroller so that Jennifer wouldn’t have to hold her purse the entire time. There were people in wheelchairs and kids being pulled along by their parents in little red wagons. Later people began to pass them on bikes of all shapes and sizes. He even saw a teenage boy riding a children’s bike with training wheels still attached to it and the boy’s legs stuck out from the sides of the small bike like the long legs of a praying mantis. One man was even pushing a two wheeled hand dolly used for moving heavy furniture around, except instead of a piece of furniture he had a little boy strapped on it, pushing the child down the highway.

  Allan couldn’t imagine anyone leaving their house with all that stuff in the middle of the disaster unfolding around them and he began to wonder where all the wheeled items were coming from. As they traveled along Highway 635 they began to see people pushing shopping carts with various store logos affixed to them. Blue carts from Wal-Mart, red carts from Target, orange carts from Home Depot. Inside the carts were bizarre combinations of items. Allan saw entire cases of green beans stacked on top of one another with huge piles of multi-vitamins stacked on top. Another cart had a mountain of children’s clothes piled so high that the driver of the cart could barely see in front of it. Everywhere now there was someone pushing a shopping cart down the road and he saw all of them filled disproportionality with items as if the person had thrown everything inside the basket in extreme haste. He realized that people were already looting the stores and he began to feel a sudden sense of urgency to find a store to get some supplies of their own.

  They walked for about an hour when they saw the iconic blue and white logo of a Wal-Mart sign about a half mile ahead. "We need to find some food and supplies." Said Allan.

  They walked across the highway median and then they crossed another grassy section to get to the s
ervice road on the other side of the highway. When they reached the Wal-Mart parking lot they were greeted with a similar scene to that of the mall that they had witnessed earlier. Cars and trucks lined the parking lot, many with their hoods popped up. A few people were still hanging around their cars, unsure of whether to leave them and start walking or stay put as Walter had done back at the mall. Allan’s thoughts turned to the big sweaty man and he wondered what Walter was doing now. He imagined Walter still sitting in his car, sweating and probably fidgeting with the buttons on the radio that no longer worked, wishfully expecting one of the buttons to turn the radio on and magically fix everything.

  A few people could be seen coming in and out of the Wal-Mart store in front of them. As they walked closer to the front entrance they could see that the inside of the store was pitch black. They walked through the double doors of the store entrance and they both took deep breaths in anticipation of what they might find within the darkness.

  Chapter 5: The First Night

  The lighter lit up the aisles of the empty sporting goods center and a haze of smoke hung in the air from fires that had burned in the store earlier. Jennifer raised the shoulder of her shirt to her mouth and coughed into it and then kept the fabric pressed against her face to help filter the air. They walked quietly as Allan held up the lighter that he had found when they first entered the store and they walked and listened to the racket of the people around them as they tried to fill their shopping carts with any last remnants of loot that they could find. When the power went out a few hours earlier the store turned pitch black and anxious Wal-Mart shoppers stood frozen in the aisles waiting for the emergency lights to kick on, yet there was to be no emergency lighting to light the store for them. Those with little flashlights connected to their key chains reached into their pockets and pulled them out but those did not work either. All the little LEDs and incandescent filaments inside had not been spared by whatever had caused the power failure.

  In a corporate bid to reduce expenses on lighting the buildings, Wal-Mart had begun outfitting all their stores with modern skylights to allow natural daylight in to help light the stores and, as some researchers suggested, because it also made for a better shopping experience. Unfortunately the Wal-Mart that Allan and Jennifer were in hadn't received its skylight upgrades and the inside of the store was as black as night. The most resourceful shoppers were the ones who smoked. They reached into their pockets and flicked the little flint striker of their lighters and lit up their direct vicinity. Other shoppers quickly caught on and began ripping into the packages of lighters found alongside the front checkout lanes and passed them out to other terrified shoppers. Soon the terrified mass of people were ripping into the packages of candles in the isle next to where the picture frames were displayed and it wasn't long before the scent of a thousand candle fragrances and the odor of burning butane choked the air. Someone in the sporting goods section tore into a propane lantern and connected a one pound bottle of gas to it. When they turned the gas knob too far open to light it, flames erupted from the lantern and they immediately dropped it on the ground which created a small inferno around all of the camping gear. Some of the other shoppers tried putting out the flames with whatever was available to them, the shirts off their backs, pieces of cloth from the nearby fabric department, one lady even beat at the flames with her purse. Someone called out for a fire extinguisher but in the darkness none could be found. Despite their struggle the flames became too much for them and the shoppers resorted to removing as much camping fuel and other combustible materials from the camping isle and simply allowed the fire burn itself out. It was surprising how much smoke such a small fire could create and how quickly it wafted throughout the entire store. Allan walked past the charred ruins of the blaze and found that by bending down as he walked he was able to escape most of the smoke and he was able breathe a little easier. Jennifer noticed this too and she leaned down with him as they walked in the dim light produced by the lighter.

  The first items to go, besides the packages of lighters and candles, were the aisles of beer and wine. It wasn't everyone's first choice to fill their carts with liquor but for one store patron it was, and in seeing the man frantically fill his cart with booze, others joined in on the liquor theft mob. Next to go were the stacks of water in the grocery section. Once the water had been plundered the five gallon jugs of water that were located at the water dispenser by the front registers were stolen and then the soft drinks, and pretty soon people were running through the entire grocery section throwing piles of canned goods off the shelves with giant sweeping motions of their arms. Whole kernel corn and green beans, $1.69 a can before the disaster, free by the cart load post-disaster. Allan was right as he remembered the Black Friday shopper videos on YouTube. The majority of the store was cleaned out in a matter of moments.

  The mass theft was a chain reaction, and it was not contained within the walls of the Wal-Mart store. As soon as people saw the planes fall out of the sky a little bit of panic swelled. When they looked around and saw that the lights were out their panic intensified. When they took out their phones to call for help or to update their Facebook statuses, only to find that their phones were no longer working, their panic overflowed into a sea of theft and looting that swept across the entire city. Once one person was seen fleeing a store with a cartload of goods everyone else felt entitled to do the same.

  Allan and Jennifer walked on past the ransacked electronics department with its entire display of television sets having been completely torn off the shelves. Allan wondered what was going through the people's minds as they were stealing the TVs. Did they realize that most likely the televisions, or any electronics for that matter, no longer worked? He wondered. Jennifer coughed into her shirt again and this time she swung her purse in front of her and dug out her asthma inhaler. She put her lips around the mouthpiece and squeezed and the little device made a squirting sound and Jennifer stretched her throat as the medicine poured into her lungs. They walked into the jewelry section and for a moment Allan hoped that the department had survived unscathed, but as they drew closer he saw the shattered remains of the glass countertops where the raging mob had torn into them as one of their first priorities to loot. Lying on the floor below the shattered counters was a body of a man. They walked closer and Allan bent down and carefully lifted the man’s shoulder off the ground to help turn him over. The body had stiffness to it as rigor mortis had already begun to set in and Allan jerked back in horror.

  "Is he dead?" Jennifer asked as she leaned around Allan's shoulder to get a better look. Allan shined the lighter closer to the body and saw that it was the body of a young man, perhaps in his mid-20's, who had died right there in the jewelry department when he fell down and became trapped under the stampeding feet of the raging horde of shoppers in their mad quest for stolen goods. A middle aged man with a shopping cart full of shoes sped by Allan and Jennifer. He slowed his pace briefly to get a glancing inspection of the carcass and then sped off into the darkness.

  "Let's go." Allan said.

  "We're just going to leave the body here?" Jennifer questioned.

  "I don't think we have a choice." Allan replied. How much has changed in so little time. A few hours ago a dead body inside a Wal-Mart store would have attracted hundreds of bystanders, an army of police and paramedics, and probably a few news reporters too. Now it was seemingly inconsequential to everyone around. He thought.

  Beside them, next to the wreckage that was once the jewelry department was the remnants of an aisle of ladies handbags and backpacks. Like the rest of the store, the section had been picked over as well, but lying on the floor, partially concealed by one of the legs of the wrought iron display rack, lay a small pile of dusty black backpacks. They looked as if they had been lying there for ages, likely knocked off the shelves months or even years ago, hidden under the display rack where they sat to gather dust until this tragic day. Allan reached down and struggled to untangle the nylon straps fro
m behind the metal display rack, partially tearing one of them as he pulled two bags free. "They are good backpacks." He said as he dusted them off.

  Jennifer coughed through the shirt fabric still held firm against her face. "Good find." She said and she watched Allan slip one on his back and adjust the straps. Allan helped Jennifer into hers and then she had him put her purse inside it so that she wouldn’t have to carry it on her shoulder anymore. Her large handbag filled all the empty space inside the backpack. As he was zipping it up he stopped and reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet and keys and placed them inside her purse.

  “So I don’t have to carry them in my pockets.” Allan explained.

  “Oh, so now I have to carry them for you?”

  “They’re not heavy at all.”

  “Then why don’t you carry them?”

  “Because they pull my pants down and I’m sick of always having to pull them up.”

  “Fine.”

  “Let's check out the grocery section and see what we can find over there to put in my pack." Allan said. They walked across the store and Allan led the way by the flicker of the lighter which was becoming hot in his hand.

  They found two lone cans of chili tucked away in the corner of the canned goods section and put them in Allan’s backpack. On the juice isle they found a gallon bottle of orange Hawaiian Punch partially hidden by an emergency telephone that was attached to a building support column. As they struggled to fit the large juice bottle into the backpack Allan's finger slipped off the plastic nozzle of the lighter. The flame went out and the darkness of the building enveloped them again. He tried flicking the striker but it was far too hot to reignite and the only results of his attempt to lite it again was a burnt finger. He placed the overheated lighter on an empty shelf and they made their way by the light emitting from the glass doors of the front entrance near the grocery section. When they reached the area where the shopping carts were stored Jennifer instinctively parked their cart and they exited the building. When they stepped out of the Wal-Mart they found that the sky had darkened and it was raining hard again.