by J N Wood
THE ROAD TRIP AT THE END
BOOK ONE: VIEW
J N WOOD
Copyright © 2019 J N Wood
All Rights Reserved
Thank you to my wife and my parents.
Contents
DAY ONE
DAY TWO
DAY THREE
DAY FOUR
DAY FIVE
DAY SIX
DAY SEVEN
DAY EIGHT
DAY NINE
DAY TEN
DAY ELEVEN
DAY TWELVE
DAY THIRTEEN
DAY ONE
She’s saying sorry, again.
The handle of her suitcase was still resting against the back of my legs. I turned to look at the woman behind me in the queue.
‘That’s alright,’ I murmured, as she leaned forwards to stand her case back upright.
‘Gosh, I’m so sorry, it keeps doing that doesn’t it?’
‘It’s okay, don’t worry about it,’ I said, before turning back around to face forward.
Fuck’s sake. It keeps doing that. What was that, the fourth…maybe the fifth time?
And why was she wearing a surgical face mask?
Fuck! Forty five minutes. That’s how long I’ve been in this queue. How many automated passport kiosks are there anyway?
I counted fifty.
There are fifty of the fuckers! Surely it’s a maximum time of sixty seconds per person? Why was it taking so long?
‘Sorry sir, you need to join the back of the line.’ A Denver airport employee was speaking to another queue jumper.
There had been an endless supply of people walking straight past me to the front.
What do they think all the people behind me are doing?
The queue jumping arsehole was also wearing a surgical mask.
Turning around I accidentally caught the eye of the irritating bag lady behind me. I gave her a very brief smile, before looking down the corridor. It was packed full of people, lots of them wearing those surgical masks.
Finally! It was my turn to use one of the machines. If it takes me longer than sixty seconds, I’ll shove my passport up my arse.
Answer a few yes or no questions. Slide my passport into a slot. Quick scan of my finger prints. Look miserable and tired for a photo. Type in my flight number and take the offered print out. Simple.
Maybe it was a little bit over sixty seconds, close enough to avoid shoving anything up my arse.
I joined the back of another queue, really hoping it led to the exit.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Some of the people in front had parted, just for a second, allowing me to glimpse what was going on at the front. This was just the queue for the old passport control.
Fuck’s sake.
I pull out my phone to read Jack’s text again. Was it okay to get my phone out here? Fuck it. I couldn’t see any of the border cops with guns.
Shite, he’s been waiting for an hour already. He’s not gonna be a happy bunny.
Thank fuck for that.
Half an hour later and I was finished with the queuing, finally through. All I needed to do was find Jack. I took my phone out of my pocket and called him. He answered after the first ring.
‘Hi, where are you?’ he asked, sounding annoyed.
‘I’m finally out. Fucking passport control here is absolute shite. Where are you?’
‘I’m stood by the exit,’ he responded.
‘I’m by the exit as well,’ I said, spinning around to see if I could spot him. ‘Which gate are you in? I’m in A.’
‘Yep I’m in A as well. Have been for the last hour and a half.’
I eventually found him, stood by one of the many other exits.
Fuck me, what was he wearing? He looked like he’d stepped straight off a British council estate, or an American trailer park. He was wearing a baseball hat, a grey hoodie and grey tracksuit bottoms.
He probably calls them sweat pants now.
I put my phone away and approached him. Was he gonna go for a hug, a handshake or a fist bump? I felt like I’d better apologise again.
‘Sorry, it took ages to get through.’
He just smiled, reached his hand out towards me and we bumped fists. A sensible choice.
I pointed at his outfit. ‘What the fuck are you wearing Jack? Are those your pyjamas?’
‘Well fuck you too Chris. These are my travel clothes. It’s all about being comfortable now.’
‘Fair enough, if you want to look like a chav that’s up to you. Have you found the car hire desk?’
‘Nope, I've been waiting for you,’ he replied.
Great, might as well join another queue.
‘Nice car,’ Jack said, with a smirk. The woman standing behind the Auto Europe desk gave him a sardonic look.
‘It’ll do us fine,’ I replied, more for the car rental employee’s sake than Jack’s.
It wasn’t too far to Boulder, so I offered to do the first stint of driving. The Toyota Corolla was actually a nice car, and I was sure it would do us fine.
As long as it doesn’t break down, a car is just a car in my eyes.
Jack connected his phone up to the car. Twenty seconds later, I’m Goin’ Down by Springsteen started playing through the speakers.
‘I know you emailed me all the details but I didn’t really look at it,’ Jack said. ‘What’s the first place we're staying in like?’
‘I think it’ll be alright, one slight issue though. It’s a basement flat and the owner lives upstairs, Marcus I think, so unfortunately we might have to see him.’
‘I’m sure we can just try to avoid him. Anyway, I’ve sorted us out a pub crawl. There’s a quiz on at one of the brewery pubs, but because of you fucking about in the airport we’ll probably miss that. Might catch the end of it.’
Forty five minutes later and we were in Boulder. The flat was actually alright. It was annoying that we had to go through the house above, but the owner wasn’t there when we arrived so that was a bonus. It meant we could avoid all the awkwardness that goes with meeting someone who doesn’t really want you in their home.
‘Right, who’s getting the bedroom, and who gets the sofa bed?’ Jack asked.
‘Flip a coin?’ I suggested.
Jack pulled a twenty dollar note out of his pocket and looked at both sides in turn. ‘Do you want Andrew Jackson or the White House?’ he asked.
‘Okay, not sure how you’re going to flip that, but I’ll take the White House.’
He lifted the twenty above his head and let it go. We both watched the paper bill flutter down to rest on the floor at his feet.
I leaned forward to see who had won. ‘Get in there White House, thank fuck for that!’ I said, picking up my bags and entering my new bedroom.
‘Twat!’ Jack shouted to my back.
After a change of clothes and a quick call to my wife, I left my bedroom, glad to see Jack had changed out of his travel clothes.
We started the pub crawl in the Fate Brewing Company, and had indeed missed the start of the quiz, much to Jack’s annoyance.
‘No point in joining in half way through,’ he said, with mock disgust. ‘I’m surprised they’re even doing the quiz when it’s this empty.’
We had only seen five other people in there. ‘Yeah it is a bit quiet,’ I said. ‘Probably just because it’s Wednesday night.’
Jack soon cheered up after we’d ordered a flight of beers each. A flight consisted of five locally brewed beers served in schooners. After a quick scan of the menu we realised the beers were pretty strong, so when we’d finished the first round we ordered another flight each.
The beers had done their job, and I was feeling quite merry when we left for the next pub. The weather threatened to ruin my merriment. It was p
ouring down with rain, so we decided the best option was an Uber. Five minutes later, and we were in the Mountain Sun Pub and Brewery
‘Hey, you got accents, where y’all from?’
We were sat on stools at the bar, and it was the extremely drunk guy next to me who had asked the question. I’d been trying to avoid making eye contact with him from the moment we sat down. I really hoped he was talking to somebody else.
Maybe if I ignored him he’d give up. I couldn’t stop myself. I had a quick glance in the mirror to see if he had moved on to another victim.
Shitty bollocks, he saw me looking.
I reluctantly swivelled around on my stool to face him. ‘We’re English,’ I replied.
‘I know that, you got English accents, I mean where y’all from in England? Y’all from London?’
The whole time we had been sat here, I’d been leaning as far away from the inebriated guy as much as possible, he smelt like he hadn’t showered for a week. He looked too young to be drinking, maybe eighteen at the very most.
I was just about to answer, but Jack leaned forwards to rest his elbows on the bar.
‘No we’re not from London. I am from the south east of England, but I live in California now.’ He pointed at me. ‘He’s from the north east of England.’
The smelly guy’s eyes seemed to glaze over, like he hadn’t listened to a single word Jack had said.
He thrust out his hand towards me. ‘My name is Carl.’
I took the proffered hand in mine.
‘Hi Carl, I’m Chris, this is Jack.’ I said, pointing in Jack’s direction with my free hand.
Carl let go of me and shook with Jack. I surreptitiously wiped my wet hand on the leg of my jeans.
Hopefully that was just from his spilt drink, and he hadn’t just been to the toilet.
‘I think it’s the North Koreans,’ Carl slurred.
Jack and I looked at each other and we both smiled. ‘What is?’ I asked, turning my attention back to Carl.
He screwed up his face, looking annoyed that I’d questioned him.
‘The virus in Florida,’ he spat. ‘Lot’s of people are getting sick. I lived in Florida for a while.’
‘What virus?’ Jack asked.
Carl took a big gulp of his beer and then placed it back down on the bar. ‘I been to every State, did it all by train, never paid for it once though. Tied myself to the side of the train with my rope.’
What the fuck was this guy talking about?
‘Really? You tied yourself to a train with some rope?’ I asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re only young though, how have you had the time to get to every State?’ I asked, and then smiled at Jack.
‘Started when I was fifteen, I ran away from home.’ He took another sip of his drink. ‘Only stopped travelling this year, I’m still young but thinking of settling down now. Could be aliens, what do y’all think? How old are y’all?’
His slurring was getting worse with every word.
‘Thirty six,’ I replied, and pointed at Jack. ‘He’s thirty four.’
I glanced in the mirror behind the bar and saw Jack’s reflection. He was leaning back on his seat so Carl couldn’t see him, but staring straight at me. He pointed at himself, then at me, and then at the exit.
I didn’t need much persuading, so I happily nodded in agreement. We quickly finished our beers and made our excuses to Carl, who just diverted his attention to the woman sat next to him, instantly losing interest in us. As we walked away I could hear him rambling on about trains to the unfortunate woman.
The rain had stopped, so we decided to take a stroll up Pearl Street. Jack had mentioned to me earlier that we should try the Pearl Street Pub & Cellar.
‘Is your internet working?’ Jack asked.
‘Nope, but I can’t use my data in America. Why, what’s up?’
‘Probably nothing, I was just trying to message Beth but texting isn’t working and neither is WhatsApp,’ Jack replied.
‘Wait until we get to the next place, you can try it on their Wi-Fi,’ I suggested. ‘How is Beth doing? Still enjoying being a lady of leisure?’
‘Yeah fine. She’s been volunteering at our local animal rescue place, so that keeps her busy.’
He stopped and pointed to his left. ‘Pearl Street Pub,’ he said.
The pub was almost empty, so we walked past the three or four patrons and headed straight up to the bar. The lights were down quite low so it was pretty dark, and the music was incredibly loud. We had to shout to be heard, but I liked it.
Jack got the Wi-Fi password, but neither of our phones could pick it up. We soon gave up trying, and got back to drinking. The beers were going down really easily.
The two barmen had very impressive hipster beards. One was a gingery blond colour. The other was black with a bit of grey. It wasn’t long before they were asking why we were in Boulder. I was expecting to have this same conversation a lot on this holiday.
After I told them we were visiting a few of the National Parks, Jack leaned forward and shouted to the bartenders. ‘A drunk guy in another bar was just telling us about a virus or something in Florida, do you know anything about it?’
He was leaning so far forwards to be heard his stool was balancing on two legs.
‘Yeah it was on the news today,’ Blond Beard shouted back. ‘Saying its bird flu, I think it’s pretty bad though. Fox News said the government has it contained. The army’s been called out so it must be serious. I got a friend based at Fort Carson and some of them got sent down to Louisiana—.’
‘Heading that way on vacation next month, so it better be gone by then,’ Bit of Grey interrupted.
‘It’ll be fine, these things don’t last long,’ Blond Beard reassured him.
The two barmen carried on the conversation amongst themselves, leaving us to talk about a lot of nothing, shit basically. We hadn’t seen each other for a year but we were always in contact. I asked him how his job was going, and he asked me how Joanne was, all the usual catch up stuff.
‘Did you hear anything about this virus thing before you set off from home?’ I asked.
‘No nothing, I doubt it’s anything to worry about, we’re a long way from Florida.’
‘Talking of viruses,’ I said. ‘Would you rather live in a killer virus apocalypse or a zombie apocalypse?’
I then immediately apologised after realising a bit of spittle had flown from my mouth and landed on his leg.
He wiped it away with his sleeve and then spent a good ten seconds thinking about his answer.
I sipped my beer and waited. Personally I would probably go with zombies. It’d be a real ball ache trying to avoid catching an invisible virus.
‘Are the zombies from Night of the Living Dead or 28 Days Later?’ Jack asked.
‘Do you mean are they fast or are they slow?’
‘Yeah.’
I very briefly thought about it. ‘They’d be fast, 28 Days Later fast.’
Jack took a sip of his beer and placed his pint back on the bar. ‘Obviously the killer virus apocalypse then, no question.’
DAY TWO
I actually felt pretty okay when I woke up. Not one hundred percent but I was just about feeling okay. This was surprising because we had drunk a lot the previous night, and I mean a lot. I couldn’t be sure, but I think we went to at least three more pubs after the Pearl Street place.
The best way to avoid jet lag is to get absolutely shitfaced on the first night. Works for me at least.
One thing I definitely regretted was not eating more. We only ate a few packets of crisps between us, so my stomach felt like it was threatening to eat itself.
I was getting very foggy flashbacks of us drinking margaritas. I could still taste the salt when I licked my dry lips.
We had taken a taxi ride back to the flat, and I was sure I could remember ambulances or police cars driving past. There were lots of sirens and flashing blue lights, I definitely reme
mbered that.
I checked my watch. Shite, half ten. We had talked about being in the Rockies by ten at the latest. No wonder I felt okay, I’d slept through most of my hangover. I thought I’d set an alarm but it wasn’t there, must have dreamt that.
My phone wasn’t showing any messages or calls since the time I’d spoken to Joanne the previous day, which was strange to be honest. I’d have thought she would have at least texted me. I went to the favourites in my contacts and pressed on the photo of Joanne’s face. All I got in response was one long dialling tone. I couldn’t remember what that meant, was that just an American tone?
Shite. Texting wasn’t working either, very strange. I’d spoken to her from the flat yesterday, so it can’t have been because I was underground.
I shouted through to the living room. ‘Jackie boy, are you awake? The Wi-Fi is fucked!’
A few moments later my door opened, and Jack’s head appeared. His ginger hair was bedhead messy. He looked like he hadn’t slept well. The skin around his eyes was red and puffy looking.
‘Yes I know but keep it down. We’re in someone else’s house.’ He turned to walk away but hesitated, ‘And get out of bed, we’ve overslept,’ before retreating back into the living room and closing the door behind him.
I’d just try calling Joanne the next time I found some Wi-Fi, hopefully it will have sorted itself out by then. During the drive to Manchester Airport we had talked about me being in places with no phone reception, so we might not be able to talk every day.
On the way to the bathroom I staggered through the living room. Jack had converted his bed back into the sofa and was sat on it, not looking happy at all.
‘There better be two fucking beds in the next place we stay, if there isn’t you’re getting the sofa bed. I hardly slept last night,’ he moaned.
‘Yeah don’t worry. We’re in that hotel in Deadwood. Two king sized beds.’
‘Good. Do you want to set off for the Rockies and just find somewhere on the way for breakfast?’ he asked.
