Highway: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival Read online

  Two sets of light stains on the concrete told her that both the occupants and their vehicles were probably away, and perhaps never returning.

  “Someone forgot to shut the garage door when they left for work this morning,” Travis observed, probably accurately. Then he perked up and pointed at the back wall.

  “Look! Two bicycles; one for me and one for you,” Travis looked up to his sister wearing a huge grin and wide eyes, his face pleading for them to walk into the trap.

  What the hell.

  She was exhausted. If it wasn’t a trap, it was a sanctuary. She almost didn’t care which at this point.

  As they both softly treaded into the garage, Lexi noticed the door at the back was ajar, its frame busted inward. She hesitated for a moment, tossing around in her mind their chances with each potential action. The safe thing to do would be to take the bikes and run. But, they needed a place to sleep; it was dark, and she was hoping whoever had broken in had taken what they wanted and left. And if she was right, and the homeowners were stranded in broken-down cars, they may have lucked into a semi-safe place to sleep.

  Swiftly, she unslung her backpack, withdrew the revolver and flashlight, and flung it back, now wearing the straps over both shoulders. She tilted her head to Travis and whispered, “Stay behind me and be prepared to run if I tell you. We need to make sure there’s no one else inside.”

  The door offered no resistance.

  “Hello?” she called through the opening, afraid to say anything too loud. The darkness was foreboding, causing prickles on the back of her neck as she led them inside. As soon as she clicked the button, the flashlight bathed everything in front of her in a white light. She steadied the gun on her flashlight hand, and then realized why the protagonists of all cop shows did it this way.

  Their footsteps were dull and quiet. Thankfully that was all she heard.

  After checking out the entire house, her nerves calming, Lexi felt satisfied they were alone. Several of the drawers and closets were upended, presumably by whoever broke in. She wondered what they were searching for; probably money and guns.

  Maybe she had been riding on adrenaline the past several hours; maybe it was a momentary feeling of safety, when every moment since the crash she felt like they were in peril; maybe it was all of the walking; regardless of the reason, Lexi was beat. Travis yawned, telling her he too was tired.

  “Safety first!” That was on one of the pages she saw in the Prepper Brothers book in her father’s pack.

  Without electricity, the garage doors posed a safety problem. First the main garage door. She noticed the small handle on the cord and wondered if it would be as simple as pulling on it to close the door.

  “Yes, that’s what the handle is for,” Travis said with a giant bear-about-to-hibernate yawn.

  An aluminum ladder she took down from the wall provided her the boost she needed to reach the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. She shot him a glance that said “Help me!” Travis just shrugged his shoulders in a wordless “Got me.”

  The only thing she could think to do was hang from the rope and use all her one hundred pounds. She bounded off the ladder, clutching at the handle like a trapeze. On her arc downward, the rope snapped and she landed on her hip hard on the concrete.

  Epic fail.

  “Bet that didn’t go as well as you thought,” Travis said with a slight smile and then headed through the door into the house, leaving her to figure it out for herself. He was going to find a place to sleep.

  “At least take the bicycles inside,” she huffed, while rubbing the newest place on her body that hurt like hell.

  While Travis rolled each bicycle inside, she set her mind on securing the door to the house, giving up entirely on the garage door. She rummaged through some drawers in a chest, abutting a wall with precisely mounted pegs of tools. Next to this was a table saw, covered in sawdust. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but knew she would find some solution in this handyman area.

  A wedge!

  That sprang to her mind, maybe from the Prepper Brothers book she thumbed through earlier or her own memories. By the table saw, in the corner of the garage, were dozens of little pieces of wood in a pile of sawdust, scraps from a project the owner would never finish.

  She snagged two wedges with 45-degree angles. After kicking both under the door, she pulled on the handle and thought it might be secure enough. She checked the two other exits, the front door and back slider. They were locked and secure. She moved the bikes from where Travis had left them, and leaned them against the wall by the slider. If they needed to run, they’d exit there with their new bikes.

  She hated the thought of stealing, but reasoned that the bikes would be taken by someone else soon enough. More importantly, she was excited that they could cover the distance to Abe’s in as little as a day, instead of the two or more they were facing if they continued by foot. Her feet would be happier too, as they ached like they never had before.

  They both felt weird about sleeping in the owner’s beds, especially after taking their bicycles, so they agreed to sleep on the living room sofa and love seat. Once the decision was made, Travis immediately flopped into the love seat; sleep came to him almost instantly.

  Lexi examined the living room more closely. The owners were baseball fanatics. Their walls were plastered with their passion: baseball pennants adorned the stuccoed surfaces everywhere, with pictures of individual players and teams—all autographed—filling the spaces between. A lone baseball bat rested with reverence on two clawlike braces above the fireplace mantel. It was autographed by an Evan L-something. The blue or black—she couldn’t tell with her flashlight—etchings were almost illegible. Like monks praying to their elevated deity, baseball caps with the initials TB filled the mantel space below.

  She slipped the revolver and flashlight into their proper places in the pack and kicked off her God-awful boots. Then she sank into the soft leather cushions of the sofa. Left with the company of her own thoughts, she wondered about some of the unanswered mysteries. Why was there no power anywhere? Why were all the cars broken down? She connected the conversation of Don and Ron at Simpson’s World Market and the cover of the Prepper Brothers guide, the lone book she was carrying. Emblazoned on its front was “EMP” or electro-magnetic pulse. Was it possible that this was the cause of everything breaking down?

  It struck her as a little too coincidental that if it was an EMP that caused all this, the only book her father happened to be carrying in his pack was about how to survive one. So far everything he had done seemed to have purpose, in the clarity of hindsight: the list of things to buy, the so called bug-out pack of stuff that included a revolver—the only type of gun she’d ever shot—and a book specifically about Surviving the First Seven Days After an EMP. Her head swam with a myriad of chaotic thoughts.

  Travis startled her slightly, mouthing something from a nightmare for less than a minute, until his breathing returned to a peaceful rhythm.

  She wanted to think more about their situation, or read more from the book her father left her, but she was too exhausted to entertain any more thoughts. Quickly, she fell asleep.

  She dreamt of an orange mushroom cloud, growing before her. Its billowing form grew larger and larger, enveloping the whole sky. In a moment of panic, she realized that she was going to be consumed by these billowing and fiery clouds. Just before the blast’s flames hit, her father appeared and jumped in front of it. He flashed his familiar crooked smile at her and then wrapped his arms around her as protection from the conflagration. She scrunched her eyes closed, to protect them from the molten prickles trying to force them open. She knew she shouldn’t look, but she couldn’t help herself; she cracked a lid open and peeked. But the sun’s single searing eye gazed right back at her.

  Then the blast punched at her and talked to her, and when she thought she might pass out from its unending brightness, it punched her again and yelled at her, “You alive?”

  A sharp pa
in hit her chest and then her eyes flicked open into the beam of a bright flashlight and a gruff voice demanding, “Hey son, you alive?”

  Terror once again consumed Lexi as she was prodded by what at first felt like a metal rod, but which she realized was the barrel of a shotgun.

  Chapter 12

  Frank

  Frank pounded so hard on the security door that it seemed the tiny single-story home it was attached to shuddered in response.

  “Gunny Sergeant Aimes, I need you on the double,” He yelled at the door and then stepped back and waited so that its alarmed occupants could see him.

  The scent of something sweet and familiar wafted through the door’s screen.

  Fresh baked cookies.

  Footsteps sounded from the clatter in the kitchen and approached, out of sight. A small, but broad framed man appeared abruptly. Although the screen obstructed much, Frank could easily see the man’s bald head, close-cut gray beard, and the prominent tattoo on his thick bicep, an eagle perched on top of the world, with an anchor mounted in it, and the letters USMC below.

  “Major Cartwright, what a nice surprise,” the man said, unlatching and pushing through the security door an arm with a small white plate on which sat a single chocolate chip cookie. “Susie just made them; nothing better than cookies right out of the oven.”

  Frank accepted the cookie and immediately tore into it. He’d just become homeless, their country’d been nuked by invading Islamists, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t stop and enjoy one of Susan’s freshly baked cookies.

  After her stroke a couple of years ago, she took up baking as therapy. In a short time, she perfected the cookie. Then the doctors diagnosed her with some unnamable variation of Parkinson’s. So she baked even more, although not without help. To make extra cash for the doctor’s bills and meds not covered by insurance, Gunny sold them in town. Susie’s cookies were a big hit among the community, not only because they were helping the Aimes family, but because they were so damned good.

  “I know,” Aimes said, seeing the delight on his friend’s face. “I’m just glad we’ve got a propane stove and solar power. My neighbors are down, and best I can figure, so is the rest of the town. Did you hear we were nuked?”

  “It’s far worse than that, Gunny,” Frank said as he popped the last morsel in his mouth and licked off a hot chocolate chip stuck to his finger. “They got at least six nukes off, and two at high altitudes. Three major cities are gone.”

  “Holy crap, sir. Where?” Aimes propped himself against his doorway. He knew Cartwright had a shortwave and no doubt he would vet his intel, so it must be credible.

  “DC is gone; we probably won’t know who’s in charge for weeks.”

  “Damn.” Aimes’s face crumpled in disbelief.

  “New York City is also gone, so is Jacksonville—”

  “—Jacksonville?”

  “Yeah, the base. And Chicago is toast. There were a couple other bases, but I haven’t been able to find out which.”

  Aimes whistled at this. “Who got us, Sir? Was it the fucking Chinese?”

  “No, it’s Islamic terrorists, and … they’re here.”

  “They’re here in Stowell? You mean, right now?” Aimes hurried out of the propped-open doorway, letting the security door clank closed. At the edge of his porch he peered down both directions of his street.

  “No they’re out at the Maldonados’ place, a couple of miles from mine. They torched my place, but I’ve killed at least six of the bastards.”

  “Oorah, sir.”

  “That’s why I’m here. I want to get the rest of them. I don’t know how many more there are, but I can’t do it alone. They burned down my house and destroyed most of my guns and ammo. I’ve only got maybe one-hundred-fifty rounds for my AK and Berretta. I need at least a couple more guys to send these bastards back to Allah.”

  Gunny’s shoulders drooped, along with his whole demeanor. “You know I’d like nothing more than to kick Bin Laden’s ass, but …” He looked toward the house, and lowered his voice. “Susie has gotten pretty bad, as I told you last week. I don’t like leaving her for more than a few minutes, anymore. I’m all she’s got …” His gaze drifted to the ground and then sprang back up. “Have you talked to Grimes?”

  “I visited him first. He broke his leg this morning, falling off his roof. He said he saw the flash of one of the nukes—although it would have been too far from here … Anyway, he lost his balance and, well he’s not much good for a special op, in his condition.”

  “Look, Major, sorry for stating the obvious, but we ain’t exactly spring chickens anymore,” he said, glancing at Frank’s brace, which he had usually left at home each time he’d get together for lunch in town with the guys. “What about Sheriff McCullum, and his deputies?”

  “Already tried. Of course, the dispatcher can’t reach them because the radio doesn’t work. Besides, this is not some two-bit drug gang. These are well-armed and probably well-trained terrorists. They need to be killed, not arrested. The sheriff and his men would be out of their element and probably cut down as soon as they showed up.”

  At that instant, Frank knew this mission of his was probably a mistake. Gunny was right. What the hell was he thinking, trying to take on a bunch of terrorists himself?

  A long pause continued as both men awkwardly stared inside themselves.

  Frank thought, Oh fuck it.

  “Thanks Gunny. I understand. Please give my best to Susie.” Frank slapped Aimes on the shoulder and handed back the plate. “Another amazing cookie,” he said as he carefully navigated down the front steps.

  “Major, you’re not going out on your own, are you?”

  “Take care of that wife, Gunny, and keep your eyes open,” Frank said without turning to look at his friend. He hobbled into his truck and drove away.

  Unlike Aimes, Frank didn’t really have anyone that depended on him. The only family he had left were his two godchildren and his best friend, but they had each other; he wasn’t likely to see them—it had been many years, in spite of the texts promising otherwise. And even if they did visit his ranch, there was nothing to see, and they would be in peril if these terrorists were allowed to continue using his neighbor’s property as their base.

  His reasoning led him to one conclusion: He’d take care of this himself. With a little help from above, he wasn’t about to let these bastards take over his country without a fight. He’d take out as many as he could, and if he died in the process, so be it.

  He felt his old friend adrenaline start its familiar course through his veins, preparing him for the inevitability of his fate. Plunging the accelerator down, he steered north on Smithy Road, toward the enemy and his destiny.

  ~~~

  Hassan listened to the radio carefully, dialing the transceiver to the five different designated stations. His army would be arriving soon and so he was required by Farook to listen between 8 and 8:15 every evening for the call. It would be repeated once every three minutes on one of the five channels.

  He looked at his watch. It was 20:17. So, it wouldn’t be tonight.

  He dialed to their pre-selected channel and then keyed the mic. “One-Foxtrot. This is one-Tom-two.” He let go and the radio spewed a staticy crackle.

  After a minute he tried again, “One-Foxtrot. This is one-Tom-two.”

  Crackle.

  Just before he was about to try again, a deep voice sounded, crisp and without static, “This is one-Foxtrot, go ahead.”

  Hassan clicked the mic harder, his heart beginning to race. “Package is not being delivered tonight. Repeat, no delivery tonight.”

  “Copy that. One-Foxtrot is out.”

  He turned down the volume, making sure the crackle of static was still audible, just in case Farook called him later. Otherwise, he was done for the night. His pulse slowed as there was no chance he would upset his superior this evening. He wasn’t about to report the fact that six of his men had been killed by some insignificant infidel. Th
ere would be time enough to report this to Farook.

  He’d heard stories about Abdul beheading his own soldiers in the field when they disappointed him.

  No, he would wait till after Phase Three had begun and there was no time to find a replacement for him. He would prove himself on the battlefield during Phase Three, and then he would tell Farook.

  There was a knock at the door. “Excuse me, sir,” said Sayeed, who stuck his head through the doorway first, then his body. Hassan beckoned him closer so that he could see him better, as the mesh of the metal cage he sat in obstructed everything in the room. He spun his chair around to face the cage’s open doorway and waited until his number two man appeared. He watched Sayeed tentatively walk past each corner. Hassan couldn’t help feel like he was some prisoner in a high-tech jail cell, waiting for his daily beating—that was another place. He just didn’t want to hear of any more setbacks.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Hassan, but now that it is night, how many men do you want to put on watch?”

  Relieved at such a simple question, Hassan thought about this, rubbing his burning eyes, attempting to massage the fatigue out of them. It had been a crazy day, from the jubilation of taking down the American grid and confirmation that their nuclear strikes were successful, to these two setbacks at the hands of a single American. He couldn’t afford any more failures.

  “Post four on six-hour staggered shifts, allowing up to four hours’ sleep for those not on watch. Tell the men I will shoot them myself if I catch anyone sleeping on watch. I’m going to get some sleep now. Wake me up in four. Don’t wake me before then unless it’s important.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sayeed said resolutely. He jogged around the cage and slipped back out the door, clicking it closed.

  Hassan got up from his chair and shut the steel mesh door behind him with a metallic clunk. He glanced through at the radio equipment, locked in for the night, making sure once again that the volume was high enough if Farook should call. It was probably unnecessary to shut the door, as there shouldn’t be any more blasts and their ensuing EMPs. But being a cog in someone else’s battle plans meant that he would never know and his orders were to keep it closed at all times.