Wandering Highway

by Ike Warren

  It seemed to get dark extremely fast and Allan realized that it was the smoke in the air that had blocked the final rays of sunlight in the sky. He continued pedaling in the dim light produced by the fires that raged along the side of the road and as the light flickered off the reflectors between the spokes in the bike wheels Allan felt a strange sensation that they were being watched. Suddenly the firelight around them felt more like a spotlight and he was on a stage with a thousand eyes watching his every move. He found his body tensing up every time he passed by anyone walking on the highway and he could sense them looking at his bicycle with jealous envy. He began to pedal faster around people and cars and he anticipated the moment when he would hear the words, “Stop the bike” like the man who had shot the driver of the old Bel Air car.

  “You feel it too?” Jennifer asked from her trailer behind him as she noticed the bike begin to pick up speed.

  “Feel what?” Allan replied trying to conceal his fears.

  “Feel like we’re being watched.” Jennifer said. Her words validated his own feeling of being watched. He pedaled faster around the stalled cars in the road. The bike trailer listed heavily to its sides like a boat tossed around in rough seas. Jennifer held on to the metal frame of the trailer for support and she was both afraid that Allan would crash into something and afraid to tell him to slow down out of fear of what danger was out there staring at them in the shadows.

  As they sped toward the interchange of the George Bush Turnpike Allan began to see orange barrels along the side of the road and orange and black highway signs that marked the site of a construction area. The westbound lane that they were on had been diverted around a new bridge that the highway construction crews were building to connect the turnpike to Interstate 20 further to the south and as they followed the long diversion curve in the road Allan noticed that the area was filled with a multitude of abandoned construction equipment. Backhoes and road graders, skid loaders and front loaders, dump trucks and bulldozers, all disabled by the blast. There were the familiar white 4x4 trucks that the construction supervisors drove around with the yellow flashing lights mounted on top, except the lights weren’t flashing anymore and none of the supervisors were around either. Allan realized that it would probably be a very long time before any of the construction was ever finished, not just in that place but all over. Allan thought of the millions, perhaps billions of dollars wasted on projects that would not only never be finished but would never cleaned up. All the orange construction barrels and portions of half completed roadways and all the machinery that indicated a progressive forward moving society would lay in ruins forever if the blast was really as bad as it appeared to be.

  He was out of breath and was panting heavily as steered the bike around a cluster of stalled cars stuck under the Bass Pro Drive underpass. On the hill above them to their right were the smoldering remains of the Garland Bass Pro Shop. He was stunned to see that the entire building and the surrounding structures had been completely decimated by fire. He thought back and remembered the Bass Pro Shop that they had walked past in Grapevine immediately after leaving the mall parking lot just after the blast. Did the Grapevine Bass Pro Shop suffer the same fate as the Garland Bass Pro Shop? If we had detoured off the highway back there after leaving the mall would we have been caught in a similar inferno?

  He thought back to their previous visits to the Garland store just a few months earlier. For the past couple of Christmas Holidays Jennifer and Allan had taken Samantha to the Santa’s workshop at the Bass Pro Shop to let her see Santa and to play with all the toys that the store had out on display. The place was always a mad-house with hordes of excited children and their parents all packed into the lower level of the building like a can of sardines. The one thing that irritated Allan the most was that none of the toys that were out on display actually worked. There was a model railroad train setup but one year the controls were broken and the next year the train had come off the tracks inside the little tunnel and on both occasions none of the employees of the store seemed to notice or even care. The remote control cars were always out of batteries or the controls were missing completely. The game where the kids shoot darts at little ducks that moved around in a circle was always out of ducks or darts. Allan had watched as dozens and dozens of kids would approach each toy that was on display with excitement until they realized that it was broken and then they always walked away with their shoulders slumped with disappointment on their faces. The last year they went Allan he vowed to never take Samantha there for another picture with Santa ever again but he knew, without a doubt, that Jennifer would find a way to drag him back again next Christmas and there all the broken toys would be waiting to disappoint the throngs of little children once again. Except now there was no store to drag him back to anymore.

  “I guess we won’t be going there again this Christmas.” Allan said grinning a little inside.

  “Awe, that’s so sad. Samantha loved that place.” Jennifer said with a frown.

  “Yeah, it is sad.” He said with faked disappointment.

  Whatever had put Allan into such a panic earlier was now a few miles behind them and the feeling of being watched was gone. In the flickering light from the fires of the smoldering store beside them Allan could see the boats that were out on display outside the building had survived the looting.

  “Now that’s really sad.” Allan said as looked at the boats that sat on their trailers with their newly painted bows and pristine white covers wrapped over them to protect their interiors from the weather. “All those new boats, useless.” Allan figured that everyone had realized that the motors on the boats were all toast and so the boats themselves were ruined.

  “What’s the difference between a stupid boat and all those useless brand new cars at those dealerships that we passed?”

  Allan wanted to reply that since they were near to the water, boats were more resourceful than cars. Boats could take them around the lake to find a good fishing spot where, with a little luck, they might be able to catch something for dinner. It had been years since Allan had gone fishing, mostly because he never remembered to buy a fishing license and so when the opportunity to go fishing arrived he would never go because he didn't want to have to stop somewhere and buy a license. He didn’t figure anyone cared too much about fishing licenses now though. He wondered if there were any game wardens at all now. He closed his eyes and could still picture the motions that he use to use when he was younger to fillet a fish. Slice behind the gills and work down the spine leaving nothing but bones and guts on the fish. The fresh meat was good grilled or stir fried in a little bit of olive oil or we could batter them up in corn meal and pepper for a really special treat. He sighed as he realized that it was only a fantasy, all of the boats motors were inoperable and he had no bait and all the fishing gear that he might have used had all been destroyed in the Bass Pro inferno.

  “You’re right.” Allan finally replied. “They’re all just broken things now.” He remembered all the broken toys at the Christmas displays once again. Serves them right. He thought, and then he immediately regretted thinking that way. There were real people with real jobs who depended on that store. He reminded himself.

  Chapter 14: Midnight Delight

  They could see the dark waters of Lake Ray Hubbard ahead of them. They reached the edge of the peninsula where the three sides of land came to a point and the long bridge over Lake Ray Hubbard stuck out over the water and disappeared into the darkness. The moon was out now and there were fires on the eastern shores across from the lake in the city of Rockwall. For a moment the flickering firelight and the orange reflections off the water reminded Allan of how the buildings and streetlights of Rockwall use to look when they drove over the lake at night before the blast. The newly constructed Harbor area had always been a popular lakeside attraction with its nightlights reflecting off the lake waters, reminding Allan of something out of a movie scene. He looked on with hope, wishing that maybe there was electricity
on the other side of the lake and everything was fine and normal over there. He knew better. He knew the blast, powerful enough to knock planes out of the sky and take out every car that they had walked past throughout Dallas would not be contained by the boundaries of the lake. Still he looked on at its picturesque beauty of the scenery for he knew that it was fleeting. Sooner or later the fires would ravage everything in their path and all the fires would run out of fuel to burn and then there would be no more light on the other side of the lake for a very long time.

  “Are you tired?” He asked turning towards the trailer behind him.

  “I’m exhausted.” Jennifer replied. “Do you think we’ll make it to Rockwall tonight?”

  “I could try to get us there.” Allan said and he paused to let the thought soak in of crossing the long dark expanse of the bridge. “Or we could stop here on the edge of the water and bathe and have ourselves a little campout. Plus, if these fires get really out of control it would be good to be close to the water.”

  “That sounds fabulous.” Jennifer said. “Stop and let me out and I’ll help you get the bike off the road.”

  They stopped and Jennifer helped Allan lift the bike and trailer up and over the guardrail and down the steep overgrown slope to the water’s edge below. They hid the bike beside one of the bridge piers that was buried in the last bit of dry ground before the bridge crossed out over the water.

  “Stay here and I’ll take a look around.” Allan said. He walked carefully across the rocky beach for a couple hundred feet and he was thankful to see that nobody else had taken their camping spot for the night.

  “Come on over.” He called out and Jennifer carefully crossed over the rocky beach to join him. When she reached him he extended his arm and they held hands as they walked down an eroded part of the beach to where the soil became partly sandy.

  “This area looks as good as any. There are not too many rocks down here either.” Allan said.

  Jennifer walked down to the water’s edge and put her hand in the water. It was cold and she cupped her hand to pull a small handful of water from the lake. “I’m so thirsty. Do you think it’s safe to drink?”

  Allan looked at her hand but he did not respond. He considered that the water could be contaminated or it could have pathogens in it that could make them both ill in the coming days. On the other hand if they didn’t drink enough water they weren’t going anywhere due to dehydration. It had been two and a half days since the blast and despite the gulps of orange punch that they had drank under the bridge on the first night and the half bottle of water that Allan found after the death-fight and the little bit of water obtained from the church on the side of the highway they were both very thirsty and they desperately needed more fluids. Jennifer stared at him, waiting for an answer. He had no way to try to sanitize the water. There were no containers to boil the water in and even if there were he had nothing to try to start a fire with. If we get sick, we will just have to deal with that when the time comes. He decided, figuring that the risks of dehydration were greater than the risks of contracting a waterborne illness. He cupped his hand into the water and together they began lapping the precious liquid into their mouths. The water was cool and it felt amazing as it ran down their throats and filled their stomachs. Allan felt that he was splashing his hand in the water more than he was actually drinking and he finally settled on dipping his chin under the surface of the water and he drank from the lake like a wild animal.

  When they were finished gorging themselves on water Jennifer sat up and wiped her mouth. “Ok, you pitch the tent and I’ll get the sleeping bags ready.” She joked.

  “And I’ll make the fire and then you get the marshmallows roasting.” Allan smiled. “Ok seriously now, I don’t know about you but I’m taking a bath.” He said as he bent down and began untying his shoes. The first shoe that he removed felt like it peeled off half of the skin on his blistered heel along with it. He buried his foot in the cool sand which gave it instant relief.

  “Are you going in with your clothes on or off?” Jennifer asked.

  “Off, of course.”

  “But what if somebody comes here while we’re in the water and steals our clothes? That would be awful. Plus, wouldn’t it be good to wash our clothes in the water with us?”

  “As far as washing our clothes, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Then you’d have to spend the night in wet clothes. They probably wouldn’t dry out by morning and then you’d have to walk around for half the day sopping wet.” Allan paused and thought for a moment. “But you make a good point about someone coming over here while we’re in the water. How about you go in first and I’ll keep watch? When I bathe then you can keep watch for me.”

  “You go first. There may be alligators in there.”

  “There’s no alligators silly.” He replied but then he remembered all the local news stories about people who had illegally bought baby alligators as pets but when they became too big to take care of they dumped them off the side of a road where they ended up in area waterways. “But I’ll go first just to make sure.”

  As he took off his clothes he noticed that Jennifer was watching him but he didn’t tell her to look away. The water was chilly and he shivered as he knelt down and submerged his body. He stayed in the shallow water close to the shoreline, afraid to stray too far from Jennifer and fearful of cutting his foot on a broken bottle on the lake bottom or even worse, encountering a dreaded alligator. He dipped his head under the water and scrubbed his face with the palms of his hands and then he splashed to clean under his armpits. Without soap or anything to scrub with his skin still felt grimy as if the dirt refused to release its grip upon his flesh. After a few minutes he stood up in the water and the parts of his body that were exposed to the air instantly became covered in goose bumps. He raised his arm above his head and sniffed. The lake bath had done him no good. In fact he seemed to smell worse than he did before going into the lake thanks to the algae and fish smelling water. He stepped out onto the beach where Jennifer was sitting and she looked up at him.

  “Well, how was it?” she asked.

  “Cold, and the water stinks.”

  “I’m sure it stinks worse now after you swam in it.” She teased. Allan placed his pants flat on the ground to keep his rear end from getting dirty and he sat down beside her. Jennifer got up and lifted her shoes to within reach of her arms and untied each one as a pregnant woman who couldn’t bend down to touch her feet would do. She reached to her waist and pulled up her shirt to remove it but she stopped before pulling it over hear head when she noticed that Allan was staring at her.

  “Don’t look.” She said shyly.

  “Hey, you were staring at me when I took my clothes off.”

  “Was not.”

  “Were too.”

  Jennifer sighed because she knew that she had been caught and she continued taking off her clothes with Allan looking on. She finished removing her shirt and unbuttoned her pants and let them slide to the sand at her feet along with her underwear. She used her toes to grab her garments and then dusted them off before carefully folding them into a neat pile and then she sat them atop her shoes to keep them out of the dirt. She stood over him looking out toward the water while gathering the courage to go in. Allan could just barely make out the outlines of her body in the dim night light, her face and shoulders, the curves of her swollen breasts and stomach, the arch of her lower back that swept down and around the contour of her butt. The fires on the distant horizon looked like candle lights behind her and her silhouette in front of the glowing fires looked magnificent. As he looked on at her he realized that he had never seen her appear as lovely as she did standing before him there on the beach. What has changed about her that I see her so beautiful right now? He wondered and then he realized that the change was partly due to a change within himself. The blast had taken away all his distractions. The television and the Internet that had so occupied him before were gone. There were no concerns of what to
eat for dinner as they only had a couple of candy bars and bags of chips left that were stolen from the bike warehouse. He realized that without all of those distractions that he was finally able to appreciate her true beauty and he smiled with pride as he watched her tip-toe down into the water.

  “It’s so cold.” She turned to him and giggled and he smiled back in awe of her.

  She went out into the water about as far as he had gone and then dove under the surface. After a moment when she hadn’t returned for air Allan sat up to see where she was. A few seconds later she returned to the top with a handful of mud in her hand which she began smearing on her face and around her neck.

  “You didn’t think of this did you?” She said back to him.

  “Think of what?”

  “Using the mud to scrub your skin.”

  “I hope you know that the mud stinks.”

  “It’ll wash it off.” She said still proud of her idea. “You’re just mad 'cause you didn’t think of it yourself. I saw you scrubbing your nasty armpits with your bare hands. You should have used the mud. It’s great for exfoliating the skin.” She added teasingly.

  She bathed in the water longer than he did which had always been normal for her back when life was normal. She gently scrubbed her arms and legs with the mud and made little splashes in the water to wash it off which reminded Allan of how Samantha use to splash her toys in the bath tub when she was a little baby. After a while Jennifer slowly rose from the water and walked towards Allan. The moon was higher in the sky now and it was emitting more light against her body. She folded her arms across her chest because she was cold and because she knew that Allan was still watching her. When she got close enough Allan could see tiny goose bumps on her skin just like his own and he saw that she was shivering as she reached to pick up her shirt from the neat little pile of clothes that she had made on the beach.