by J. B. Craig
As they grabbed their bikes, Maria looked at Pete. “I agree with him, Pete. I think we need to get off the main highway, or we’ll never get there. It looks like it’s miles of parking lot and accidents, and way too many people.”
“You’re the boss,” Pete agreed. “Let’s pull off at the next exit, and we can stop to rest a bit and re-route there.”
The closest exit to them was another few miles up the road. After consulting the map, Maria concluded that they’d actually had a stroke of good fortune - the road they were on was well-paved and appeared to essentially run parallel to the route they’d planned to take. It would be more lightly traveled, which would hopefully mean fewer accidents, and they could stop at some small towns along the way for food, re-supply and shelter.
After a rest and several more hours of biking, night came, and the two decided to stop for the night. According to the map, they appeared to be just outside the University of Delaware, where Gordon had planned to go. They found a hotel just off of the road and pulled into the parking lot.
As they walked up, a woman was sitting on a bench out front, smoking a cigarette. “If you need a room, it’s cash only,” she said, taking a drag and blowing out a long breath. “One hundred dollars a night. No electricity or running water, sorry.”
Before Maria could offer, Pete pulled out his wallet. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, waving her away as he dug out a few bills. “I always keep petty cash on me for emergencies. Never know when it will come in handy.” She thanked him, and they followed the woman inside. As she walked behind the desk, Pete asked, “If we’re able to borrow a bucket, is there nearby water we can grab so we can flush a toilet?”
She nodded. “Yes to both. There’s a drainage pond behind here, so you can flush no problem. And I have a mop bucket you can borrow. I don’t know what’s going on out there, but none of my maids have shown up, and only a handful of customers.”
Maria and Pete exchanged a glance. “Ma’am, it’s pretty bad out there,” Pete said. “The interstate is a parking lot. Tons of accidents. I’m a firefighter, and I can tell you that none of our trucks are running.”
“Guess that explains it,” she said. “I’ll just have to figure out how to stay open as long as I can.” She handed them a key. “I’m trusting you two not to lose this - we have a master key to override the electronic locks, so you can get into your room. Once you’re in, though, you’d better prop the door open, because I’m not waking up at 2AM to let you back in if you’re locked out! Just flip the security lock open, and you can come and go.”
“Understood,” Maria agreed. Pete placed the cash on the counter, and asked “Can we get a balcony room? I’d like to be able to open the windows, if we can.”
“No problem.” She looked between the two of them. “Are you both looking for one bed, or two?”
“Two, please,” they both said quickly. She nodded, and they smiled at each other.
“The forecast this morning said it was going to get down to 45 tonight, so you should be okay. You two make it here on your bikes?” the proprietor asked, nodding outside. They agreed, and she added “You can bring them into the room with you, if you brush the worst of the grit off of the tires. I hear about a lot of bike thefts from some of the people passing through.”
They both thanked her and went to go retrieve their bikes.
As they wheeled them into the lobby, they realized that without an elevator, they would need to carry the bikes up the stairs. Maria looked at the stairs and sighed - she was absolutely wiped. She liked recreational bike riding, but as the adrenaline was starting to wear off, the exhaustion and bike soreness was beginning to kick in.
“Good thing it’s only the second floor,” Pete said. She nodded, and together they hoisted their bikes upstairs. The owner was waiting for them in front of their assigned room. Maria wondered at the way she was acting so normal in the middle of an apocalypse. She had the security latch opened for them, and she waved them towards the door. “Enjoy, kids. No smoking in the room.”
They pushed their bikes into the room and parked them between the two beds. Maria smiled at Pete and said, “I’m glad she let us bring the bikes inside. Trust but verify. My dad always says that; I think it must be a movie quote or something.”
Pete said, “I think that’s a Ronald Reagan quote. My dad was a big fan.”
“Guess that explains it.” Maria stretched, sitting down on one of the two beds. “Pete, I’m dog-tired and filthy. I have some food in that pack, but I don’t know what a lot of the stuff is, so I don’t know if we can heat it or not. There are some weird things in that front pocket that might be helpful, if you want to look.”
While sitting on the bed resting, Pete went back through the front pocket, and called out things he found in there. “You have a decent SOG lock-blade knife. You should tuck it into your boot if you can ride the bike with it. If you get disarmed and searched, it might come in handy. Ah, and some of those expanding towels - you know, the ones you pour water on?” Maria looked over, as he dribbled a few drops of water on one of the small towels, and it expanded. He unfolded it, and voila, there was a small hand-towel to go with the super thin, one-use soap sheets from a little plastic pack. So, they each took a moment to wash their hands with a little water and the soap flakes, then wiped off with the hand towel, which Pete rinsed out and left to hang dry on a towel rack.
“Here’s a combination compass/whistle…waterproof matches...And I think this other thing here is a snare?” He put his hand in the wire loop and tightened it. It cinched around his wrist nicely. He tried to loosen it with one hand, but it didn’t work. After trying for a while, his hand started to swell up, and started turning deep purple. “Houston, we have a problem. Little help, Maria!”
Maria walked over to him and examined the locking mechanism. She used two hands to twist it out and pulled the noose loose. Pete sighed, and rubbed his fingers. “Damn, don’t know how I didn’t see that coming. Your dad’s got you rigged up with a genuine Bug-out-bag!”
“Yeah,” Maria said quietly, watching as Pete rubbed color back into his fingers. She wondered how long it would take them to get to him.
Pete, at least, seemed to be taking it as one big adventure. After his fingers were mostly the right color, he held up what looked like a small spool of paracord with a carabiner. “I don’t know what this is,” Pete said. “But it was clipped to the inside of the pocket, so it’s gotta be useful. Right?”
“That’s a fishing kit my mom got him. It’s hooks and stuff all wrapped up inside that paracord. He’s a little crazy about this prepping thing,” Maria said, by way of explanation. Pete nodded and continued to go through the front pocket.
Finally, Pete called out “Jackpot!” He held up what looked like a piece of folded metal. “This little beauty is a folding stove, with six fuel tablets! Would you rather cook, or get water for the toilet?”
Maria looked at the stove and sighed. “I don’t know how to use it, so I’ll get the water,” she said. She grabbed the bucket that was in the corner, presumably left by the proprietor, and started walking out.
“Wait, Maria!” Pete called. “I’ll set it up and get it going. All you have to do is stir the food, I promise. You look like death warmed over; no offense!”
“Some taken, Pete,” Maria joked.
“Uh-oh, I’m in trouble again,” he said, grinning. “Another minute and my mom will come in here calling me ‘Peter’.” Changing the subject, he added, “These legs fold out, and this tablet sits here, see? Which of these meals do you want?”
Maria looked at the freeze-dried meals and pointed to the chicken dish. “I don’t usually eat red meat, except my dad’s tacos,” she said. “Since it’s most of what we have, I guess I’ll eventually have to get used to it.”
“If you don’t like red meat, why do you have all of this stuff?” Pete asked, laughing.
“Well, none of this stuff was my idea,” Maria said, thumbing through the packets.
“Dad never turns down an excuse to eat red meat, so most of these are from his buckets of beef-flavored stuff. I’m glad he put some chicken in there. Looks like there’s also at least one vegetarian meal, thank goodness.”
Pete took the canteen and silver cup from Maria’s backpack, measured out a few cups of water into the cup, then added the appropriate amount of freeze-dried food to make three servings. He stirred it with the spork he found in the bag’s front pocket, and then lit the fuel tablet under the canteen. “Just to warn you, I’m not an expert on these things,” Pete said, as he handed Maria the spork. “The directions say to add boiling water to the packets, but I’m not sure if the fuel will boil this much water. I guess just stir it until it looks ready to eat, and I’ll run outside and get the water for flushing the toilet.”
“Thanks, Pete.” Maria smiled at him. “I mean...really, thank you. You’re a good guy. Kind of makes me wish we’d been better friends at school.”
“We’re friends now, aren’t we?” Pete grinned at her. “Oh, and-” He rifled around in his own pack, and came up with a pack of baby wipes. “Took these from the fire station, too. Should get you clean enough to sleep without feeling funky. It’s probably the closest we’ll get to a shower for a while, so save me a few, okay?” When she nodded, Pete took the large mop bucket and headed out the motel room door.
Maria stirred the “chicken goop” and saw that it would take a while to heat up, so she ventured into the dark bathroom. She grabbed her flashlight, turned it on and set it on top of the vanity, giving her enough light. Then she stripped down, using the wipes to clean the worst of the road grime and grit off.
As she was finishing, she heard Pete return. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she called, at his knock. “No rush, just checking,” he called back.
She went to the bathroom and flushed the toilet - and then swore, realizing her mistake as it emptied, but didn’t refill. She called, “Sorry - I probably shouldn’t have flushed. Habit.”
“We had a cabin with a fragile septic system back home,” Pete said through the door. “My dad used to say, ‘Drain the pipe, let it get ripe; drop a load, flush the toad’. Sorta corny, but we might have to get used to that philosophy, if not that particular saying.”
Maria got dressed in her dirty clothes. She did pack one full change of clothes, from socks and panties to jeans, t-shirt and hoodie, but she suspected that things would get a lot nastier than day-old clothes, even after a thirty-plus mile bike ride. When she exited the bathroom, Pete was on the balcony, stirring the soupy mixture. To her surprise, it was actually starting to smell good.
“I had to use a second tablet,” Pete said. “The first one burned out before boiling this big bunch of goop. If you can keep an eye on it, I’ll get cleaned up and refill the toilet. The big bucket probably has two flushes in it. I’ll need to flush, then I’ll re-fill it for any midnight ablutions that we need to make.”
“Ablutions, Pete?” Maria teased.
“Hey, brainiac, some of us had to actually study for our SATs,” Pete said, grinning. He went into the bathroom to get cleaned up, and after a few minutes came out with the same pants and a clean t-shirt. As Maria continued to stir, he said, “Hey - by the way. I’m not sure I want to advertise the EMT thing.”
“Okay,” Maria agreed easily. “Though the cross that’s stitched into the bag means you’re kind of a walking advertisement. I won’t say anything, but you gotta stop giving me puppy eyes every time we walk past someone with minor injuries.”
“I guess that’s fair,” Pete laughed. He sat next to Maria with a tired sigh. “You know, that stuff is actually starting to smell pretty okay!”
“Yeah, my dad also packed a few of these in the backpack to wash it down,” Maria said as she held up a little glass bottle of hot sauce, about the size of her pinky. “Are you okay with spicy food? I taste-tested it, and I think it needs a little something.” Pete nodded, and she shook a few splashes into the canteen cup. “I’d hate to use all of it, but it’s probably not the last on the planet,” she said.
“If we end up needing more to cover the taste of the other dishes, we’ll just have to find some later,” Pete agreed.
After looking around the room, Maria spotted a glass for drinking water. She spooned a little over half into the glass and handed it to Pete, along with a plastic spoon from the coffee tray. He took both gratefully, took a bite - and winced. “Uh,” he said, coughing. “Wow. That’s salty.”
“I’d say you get used to the taste, but I’m not gonna lie to you.” Maria dug through the rest of the coffee supplies and handed him a sugar packet. “Here, try stirring a little bit of this in. Doesn’t fix the amount of sodium, but sweet cuts the salty a bit.”
“Thank you. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you gave me the lion’s share,” he said. He took two of the paper cups off of the tray, and filled them both with water. “Drink up. We need to stay hydrated.”
As they ate, on the balcony, they had a front row seat to the apocalypse theater. There was a steady stream of walkers up and down the street outside. The two refugees sat amicably on the deck, looking out at the occasional student or faculty member walking away from campus with bulging backpacks, duffle bags and suitcases. Some were alone, others in pairs or small groups. Once, what looked to be an entire sorority passed by, many of the girls in Greek-lettered shirts or sweats. “Hey, Maria, look,” Pete called, and pointed to the leader of the girls, who was holding a flaming torch as she tried to coax and encourage all of them to keep walking. “That’s pretty cool. Wonder how they made torches?”
Maria looked over the deck. “Couple of thick branches and old t-shirts, looks like.” She shrugged, picking at a nail. “Not like they’d be short on flammable stuff. Hairspray, nail polish. Communal grill kerosene. Who knows.”
“I think she sorta looks like you,” Pete said, pointing to the girl in front. “You can tell she’s trying to get them all to keep up.”
Maria squinted. The girl had long brown hair, from what she could see in their firelight, but she looked taller and leaner, with maybe the figure of a basketball player or track athlete. “Well, thanks for the compliment. I don’t see it, but if you say so,” she said, dubious. “At least she’s getting all of them off campus.”
“Part of me is surprised more people aren’t staying put,” Pete said. “We’ve seen a steady stream of walkers, bikers. Normally when stuff like this happens, everybody kind of hunkers down.”
“People need to get home to their families,” Maria said quietly. “You saw the parking lot the highway became. If it’s serious enough to knock cars out in that wide of a radius….even if it’s only a few days’ cleanup, or a week’s worth, people will want to get home, if home is anywhere close by.”
“Suppose that’s true,” Pete agreed. Looking at Maria, he added, “The paramedic in me hates to think about this, but...if it’s worse than that.” His face was drawn, the weight of their situation seeming to sink in for him. “I mean, it’s bad enough where we are. And we’ve gotten pretty far away. We had nearly a full day’s ride, and it’s the same story. If people start to get panicky, if they aren’t well-supplied to last them through a longer emergency…”
Maria nodded, blowing out a long breath. “Yeah. My dad...I was always so irritated with him, you know?” She patted her hip holster. “Dragging this stuff to school with me. I could’ve lost my scholarship, been expelled! He didn’t seem like he cared about any of that. He was so convinced that some kind of crisis would happen where I would need to protect myself and my supplies.”
“At least he prepared you,” Pete said.
Maria laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, at least. What are the chances, you know? ‘Daughter loses spot in Ivy League due to gun-nut father’s interference’ seemed like a much more likely headline than ‘Will complete collapse of local power grid lead to Chernobyl 2.0?’” She sighed, looking out at the treeline. “I hope he’s okay. We were supposed to go to lunch this week, and now
I have no way to get in touch with him.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Pete reassured. “Probably just worried about you.”
Maria nodded. “I wish we could find a working phone,” she said. “My mom and my brother should be fine; they’re all the way out in Atlanta, so. No reason not to be. But Dad’s a lot closer.”
Pete leaned back against the balcony. “Probably closer than my folks,” he said. “How close is close, for you?”
“Virginia. We’ve got a place out there - it was my great-grandma and grandpa’s, and it’s always been our family meet-up spot,” Maria said. “Technically it’s Dad’s now, since my grandma bought out her siblings then gave it to dad, but - most of our family is along the East Coast, so it’s always been a place to stay for the family who comes in from out of town.”
“I thought you’d said we were headed to Maryland,” Pete said, confused. “That just a temporary stop?”
“Maybe,” Maria agreed. “Could be longer, if they got hit too, but - my Uncle Timmy, my mom’s brother - he’s out there, and they’re the nearest family members. I’m hoping that we’ll hit civilization long before we get there so we can find a place to shower, use a phone, watch the news - but in case we don’t, they’ll put us up, whatever’s going on down there.”
