by Ned Sahin
“Come on, baby. It’s not the time to act out!” I slam my fist on the steering wheel.
Val leans over the dashboard to see if there is anything that we need to do to turn this beast on. She finds a Swiss knife instead and uses it to cut off the plastic zip around her hands.
Someone opens my door and points a rifle on my face.
“Step out of the truck, now!” Leyton says.
If I move fast enough, I can push the rifle away and jump on Leyton. Another option is to close the door as fast as I can. Once it’s locked, no one can enter this tank-like truck.
I hear a shot fired.
Leyton goes down in pain.
“I guess I have to come with you now,” Toshi says, holding his rifle.
“Hop on, brother!” I say. Toshi has proven one more time that he is a friend I can rely on.
He gets in the truck on the passenger side and sits next to Val. I close my door and push the lock button. I glance at Leyton holding his bleeding leg.
“Move that switch forward,” Toshi says, pointing the control panel above my head. I look up. Near the sunroof controls, there is a switch with a safety lock label on it. I move it forward and turn the engine switch on again. The beast roars like a lion ready to go after his hunt.
I drive right into the half-open thin garage door. It cracks from the middle allowing the truck to pass through. The Saviors outside run to each side of the driveway. Some of them even salute. I am not sure if it’s because of their respect to this doomsday beast or they think the state leader is inside.
“Miguel, we are coming to the front gate in a truck!” I say on the radio. We hear the shooting pauses for a second.
“Come fast, Matt!” he yells.
We approach the front gate. Several Saviors behind the gate are shooting outside.
“Open the gate!” Toshi yells at the guard in the booth. The gate starts sliding to the right. We pass as soon as there is enough opening for the truck to fit.
It’s hard to see where Miguel and Diego are. Across the road is a dense tree line. They might be hiding behind trees.
I decide to turn right and speed up. I see a van parked about a half-mile away. Miguel must have hijacked it to get here. I pull over behind the van. Miguel and Diego running toward us while still shooting at the gate.
Diego gets hit from his shoulder and falls down.
“Toshi, help them!” I yell. Toshi and Val jump off the truck. They carry Diego to the van while Miguel starts the car. Saviors go through the gate and run toward us, randomly shooting.
Toshi runs back to the truck. Val looks at me for a second as she stands near the van. She smiles and waves her hand. Then she gets into the van. Miguel pushes the gas pedal, which makes the van spin. I do the same. We turn to the ramp and get on the highway while Saviors are still running toward us.
We are now on the eastbound of the highway. This road goes to the Atlantic Ocean which is the opposite direction of where I want to go.
“Miguel, do you copy?” I say on the radio while taking an exit to go to the westbound.
“Si, Matt,” he responds.
“I wish you and your family luck, sir. It was nice meeting you...” I say. The radio signal starts to make a static noise as we get farther away from each other.
“You too, son... Thank you for everything you did for us,” he says with an emotional wave in his voice.
We are on the westbound going over 90 mph now. I can’t believe a truck that is as heavy as the Centaur could go this fast.
“Are we going to the West Coast?” Toshi asks.
“Yes… So, we can find my family… and we can find a ship for you to sail to Japan,” I tell him. “But there is one more thing we need to do first.”
Chapter 15
We drive about an hour and pass a nearby city, Durham. I remember Exit 173 from the duty list at the Saviors cafeteria. Their logistic camp should be somewhere here.
Toshi didn't believe me at first when I told him about my plan. Going to a Saviors camp after what happened in the Raleigh base is highly risky even though this camp is only for logistics. They do things like growing plants and canning food there. There should be only one or two guards if there are any.
After I told him why I have to go there, he supported my plan.
I take the exit and slow down while turning the ramp. The Centaur is fast and strong like the creature it was named after from Greek mythology. Even if this truck was built to rule the chaos, its steering angle is worse than a semi-truck.
We see several greenhouses about a mile away from the end of the ramp. I continue to drive with caution and try to see how serious they are about security. As we get closer, I see only two Saviors at the gate.
I pull over the Centaur about half a mile away and turn off the engine. Toshi and I both grab binoculars from the truck’s command center. From here, it looks like Saviors at the gate are the only guards in the camp security. They have only sidearms and don’t appear to have rifles or shotguns around them.
Compared to the Raleigh base, this camp’s security is next to nothing. Even the gate itself is worse than what they had at Asheville camp. There is only an iron pole separating the camp from the road.
They say that kindness unlocks every door. We decide to see if it will open the gate at this Savior camp.
I start the truck’s engine and drive to the gate at 20 mph. Toshi gets into the command center.
I stop the truck a few yards from the gate. Both Saviors stare at the Centaur with their mouths dropped and eyes wide open. This post-apocalyptic beast’s success is off the charts, especially about first impressions.
“Lift the gate. We’re here for an urgent pickup,” I say through my open window. I decide to save kindness for another day when I notice how fascinated they are about the truck. I think the people who own the Centaur are the ones who make demands in this new world.
“Tiana didn’t say anything about that. Let me call her,” one of the Saviors says after moving his eyes away from the truck for a second to glance at me. The second Savior watches us from the other side of the truck.
“We don’t have time for that. There has been an incident in Raleigh. Boss wants food stock immediately for a remote operation,” I say, trying to use the sense of urgency psychology. I move the truck a few feet forward to rush him.
I am not sure if it was a good idea to mention the incident since Toshi and I became two of the most wanted people in the East as a result of it.
Since he said, “Let me call her,” I figure he doesn’t have a radio. I hope he didn’t hear about Raleigh.
“The boss sent his precious toy for a simple pickup?” he says. We most likely came across one of the most stubborn Saviors guards in the region. This thin gate is a joke, but this Savior is well-equipped to cause us trouble.
He looks at my t-shirt under my jacket. I unintentionally tilt my head down. I see blood on my chest. It must be the blood of the Savior who bumped me in the hall.
I feel like the guard is putting pieces together.
We can’t go back. I have to complete this personal mission. We also can’t risk exposing our identities. There is one option left.
I turn my head to look at Toshi in the command center. He understands my intention and hits the button.
A hissing sound is followed by a big cloud of orange gas all around the truck. Particles fly toward Saviors and they fall down in pain as they cover their eyes. They are probably making the burning feeling only worse by spreading the substance with their hands.
I push the gas pedal as hard as I can. The Centaur rears up and destroys the gate. We speed up toward the greenhouses. People are scrambling outside to understand what’s going on.
Toshi gets up in the turret and grabs the machine gun. I continue to accelerate the truck to make it hard to target in case there are guards among them.
I slow down once I see who the crowd is. They are the people w
ho work at greenhouses. They are wearing green aprons, and they have various gardening tools in their hands. Almost all of them are women.
I stop about a hundred feet away from them. I open my door and stand on the doorstep while my other leg remains in the truck. Toshi holds the machine gun handles and watches the crowd closely.
Everybody is looking at us as if they are watching a movie. Our big entrance to the camp is probably the first exciting thing they have seen since the world went upside down.
While I scan the crowd for a familiar face, they just stare at us in shock except for one person. She walks forward, pushing others away. She stops one step in front of the crowd and looks at me with a confused face.
“Kathleen, get in the truck!” I yell.
I hear the happiness and excitement in my own voice. Since my bug-out from the apartment building, I have thought about her almost every day. I kept regretting throwing that paper to her balcony. Her reaction when Saviors took her away has been stuck in my mind all this time.
“Matt, what’s going on? What…are you doing here!” she says, perhaps trying to figure out why I have a Saviors jacket, what the heck this truck is, why I want her to get in, and all other questions that need answers to connect the dots.
“I don’t have time to explain. Trust me! Get in the truck!” I get back to the driver seat and reach out to the passenger door to open it. We should leave before people start clamoring. She runs to the truck and climbs to the passenger seat.
In front of all the puzzled eyes, I make a U-turn and drive back to the gate. The guards are no longer screaming out of pain, but they are still on the ground, trying to open their eyes. We drive over the broken pieces of the gate and head back to the highway.
“Matt, what is this?” she asks with wide eyes.
“I am so happy to see you! I thought I would never see you again after that day… The day Saviors took you away,” I say.
She looks more confused now. “You were there? I thought you left the city to find your family long before?”
I wish that was the case. She wouldn’t have gone through a painful process if I hadn’t exposed her hideaway.
“I need to tell you a few things about that day… and afterward,” I say. Recent memories come to my mind in a series of flashbacks. “Buckle up. It will be a long trip,” I say.
Chapter 16
We have been driving for about four hours.
There was only one Saviors checkpoint on the highway. They didn’t even try to stop us since they probably thought the state leader was in the truck.
We finally passed the North Carolina border and left the Saviors’ land behind. Even though North Carolina was our home, it feels good to be out of range from the gang.
We are now in Tennessee. I heard that most of the cities in the bridge states are abandoned but there are still peaceful local communities in several towns. On the contrary, some towns are managed by local mobs. Hopefully, they are nowhere near as big or cruel as Saviors.
We are all happy to leave the Saviors nightmare behind even though we still keep our jackets with their badges on them just in case. These badges may help us get green lights from local mobs if they don’t want to mess with Saviors.
Kathleen is on the passenger seat with her feet on the dashboard. She even sang a couple of times. I think I finally found out why her dog used to bark a lot. She probably sang at home a lot too. I can’t complain, though. Without any radio channels or phones to play music, I would say her voice is soothing and entertaining.
She told us about her grandparents in Salt Lake City. It’s on our way to the West. I can see the excitement in her eyes for getting closer to the only relatives she has left after the first wave of the virus took her parents and sister from her.
She is concerned about not finding her grandparents at their apartment, but it doesn’t change her mood. With everyone enjoying the moment, it feels like a spontaneous road trip with friends on a beautiful summer day.
The sun is settling down. We don’t want to keep driving when it’s dark. This road trip is not for fun or adventure. It’s for surviving. We don’t want to be on the road with a noisy engine and strong headlights during the silence of the night.
I slow down and take an exit. Then I get off the road. I hit a wooden fence surrounding a wheat farm. I drive for about a quarter of a mile on the farm.
I don’t see any farmhouses or cabins around. Even if there is, I hope the owner of the farm has bigger concerns than somebody trespassing their land.
There are not many trees to get cover behind, but we manage to find some tall bushes on the border of two farms. I park the truck near them to have some kind of camouflage. I hope the truck is not visible from the highway.
“We should be safe here,” I say.
“What a day!” Toshi says, leaning back on his chair in front of the monitors and control panel.
“Is there any food in this truck?” Kathleen asks, looking around the cabin. It’s a good question. I would expect a post-apocalyptic truck to have a good amount of food stocked on board, but this truck may not have it since it was used only for the state leader’s daily commute.
Toshi crawls into the living compartment to find something to eat. One of the features I love about this truck is the ability to move from front seats to the command center and living compartment without getting off the truck. The openings between each section are not too wide but it’s big enough to crawl through.
“We got a few MREs and some water here,” Toshi says.
The ready-to-eat meals are better than nothing. We should be good for one day or two.
We climb to the roof of the truck and wolf down the MREs. They taste like expired unsalted rice, but we don’t mind it. We need as many calories as we can get.
“I hope you are not mad at me, Kathleen,” I say. I had told her the entire story on the way. She listened to me patiently when I explained why I wanted to communicate with her, which exposed her location to the Saviors on the street.
“I see your good intentions, Matt. I am actually honored that you wanted to invite me,” she says while snickering. It looks like she kept her sarcastic life view all these times.
“We should have hung out before the outbreak. We could have discovered a better way of communicating than throwing paper planes,” she says, laughing. I feel embarrassed.
“Ah, my bad...” I say and smile. Toshi seems to enjoy watching our conversation.
“What do you think about Steven?” She changes the topic. Hearing his name struck my nerves immediately. All residents liked and trusted him as our concierge. He betrayed us and joined Saviors when the hell broke loose.
“I believe in karma... He will get what he deserves,” I say.
“I hope so! He didn’t have even a hint of empathy when they dragged me away and shot Cub!” she says while tears fill her eyes. Cub is her Samoyed dog. He was a white flurry young dog full of life. He earned his name with his bear-like look. I can imagine how much she misses him. I close the space between us and put my hand on her shoulder. I try to find words to comfort her, but I freeze as soon as I hear footsteps from the nearby bushes.
It sounds like dead leaves on the ground are crushed by something heavy. I pull my sidearm and scan the surroundings of the truck. Toshi jumps into the machine gun hole and turns off the safety. Kathleen lies down, taking cover from the sandbags around the roof.
The moon is in the first quarter. We have limited vision in the dark. It’s hard to see if there is anybody near us.
“Let’s get back inside,” I whisper. I hope the night vision of the truck’s surveillance cameras helps with the visibility.
One by one, we get in the truck through the roof door and seal it. Toshi and I check the monitors in the command center while Kathleen goes to the passenger seat to watch the farm through the front window.
There are five high definition cameras around the Centaur. One camera in the front
, one in the back, and two on the sides. Another camera is attached on top of a pole at the roof. It can be rotated 360 degrees for a panoramic view. All cameras are equipped with night vision. Yet, we don’t see anybody or anything around.
We think about driving away to find another spot to spend the night, but it would be an equally dangerous plan. There is no guarantee of finding another farm that is safer. Additionally, the highway in darkness is not a survivor dream in a post-apocalyptic world. We decide to take turns watching the cameras all night.
I will have the first watch. It is going to be a long night.
Chapter 17
It’s another sunny day with two cool friends in a doomsday beast, the Centaur. We have been driving eight hours non-stop, except for switching the driver twice. Kathleen is driving now. She had a hard time keeping the wheel still at first, but she seems comfortable controlling the beast now.
We are close to St. Louis. This is not the fastest route to San Francisco, but it seems to be the safest one. There are fewer population centers we have to go through on this route.
“Let’s take this exit, Kathleen,” I say. Every time the highway goes through a big city, we take an exit and use the side roads to avoid the city. Who knows what’s going on in city downtowns? If downtown Charlotte was invaded with Saviors, other downtowns might have faced a similar faith.
We were alarmed last night because of the noise we heard, but nothing happened afterward. It was probably a squirrel or rabbit. There was one of us awake at any time to watch monitors during the night. Nothing caught our attention. Certainly, we are not followed either. It’s easy to know it when there are no other vehicles on the highway.
We have been following a map we found in the command center drawer. It’s a full-scale United States map with only highways displayed on it. Every time we need to take a detour around the highway, we rely on road signs and our instinct.
