Bowie V. Ibarra (13 page)

THE DRIVE TO San Antonio was slower than expected, as I-35 was a mess. Cars wrecked, trucks smoldering. Bodies burned, torn, and dismembered littered the highway. Large portions of the highway proved difficult to navigate and could only be bypassed by skillful off-roading and the occasional pushing of wrecks aside by the large camouflaged humvee. Zombies were a bit of a threat on the highway. Every once in a while, one or two would rise from a wreck and move toward the armored truck. With the slow advance through traffic, they would reach the Hummer. But since it was a military vehicle, the occasional one or two were not much of a threat after George found an opening and drove away.

Misty was still a bit of a mess, catatonic one moment, laughing the next, then weeping again. George tried to comfort her, and it did help for the most part. It had to be hard to watch close family brutally murdered like her uncle and cousin were. She seemed to be doing fine though, all things considered.

The closer they got to San Antonio, however, the more difficult it was to travel. The cars themselves seemed lined up for oblivion, stretching deep into the city. The cars and trucks and even rigs were standing, flipped, or crashed very much like in San Marcos in front of Jeff’s store.

Within the city, several fires were burning out of control in the distance. The once thriving metroplex had now become a sinister, foreboding obstacle. A dark cloud of smoke filled the skies. There even seemed to be smoke emanating from the historic ‘Tower of the Americas’ near downtown.

As George drove under the 1604 bridge, he thought he heard something over a loudspeaker.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“Think so,” Misty replied.

George stopped the vehicle for a moment and listened.

Looking up by the access road at the top of an embankment by an old car dealership, two camouflaged soldiers were walking down from what looked like a similar checkpoint that George was caught at in New Braunfels.

He whispered, “Shit.”

The voice was clearer now and was emanating from the tower. “Occupants of the humvee identify yourselves! This is your third warning!”

Looking closer, George saw there were only four soldiers, like at the other checkpoint. Two stayed at the tower while two were coming down the side of the embankment.

“What is it?” asked Misty.

“A checkpoint,” George replied. “Just stay calm.”

The two soldiers worked their way through the wrecked cars, jumped the median, and were nearing the humvee.

“What do they want?” asked Misty.

“Probably to put us in a camp like in New Braunfels,” replied George.

“Then why are you just sitting there?! Drive!” screamed Misty as she tried to force George to push the gas.

“Misty, no! They’ll kill us!” he retorted.

After a moment of struggling, gunfire erupted from outside the vehicle. Misty screamed and George flinched. Both ducked down. Though they assumed it was gunfire directed at them, no bullets seemed to be hitting the vehicle. Both heard some people yelling at each other nearby. Several more shots were heard.

“Stay down,” George told Misty as he looked out the window.

The advancing soldiers were no longer in sight. George looked up at the checkpoint tower. A shot rang out from the checkpoint. Someone dashed beside George’s driver-side window toward a wrecked car in front of them. George flinched again, thinking it was a zombie, but watched the person with a machine gun position himself behind a car and begin firing on the checkpoint. Several others joined him, advancing on the checkpoint through the cars.

One of the soldiers tossed what seemed to be a grenade at the people, exposing himself to gunfire. A shot ripped through his neck as he let the bomb go. Several people cleared the area as the grenade went off, budging several cars from their parked positions.

Misty yelped, then asked, “What’s going on?”

“It’s people shooting at the checkpoint,” George whispered, shocked. “And it looks like they’re winning.”

After a brief firefight, the guard in the tower went down. Things were quiet for a moment. A voice yelled, “They’re done, Abe!” George watched as four to five people stood up and started to cheer.

Misty rose from her hiding place. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know yet. Could be looters. Let’s just sit still for a moment.”

George reached in the back for one of the weapons. An M-16. He and Misty continued to listen to the voices outside.

“Good shooting, Alex.”

“Damn right.”

“Dibs on that guy’s gear!”

“You asshole!”

One guy ran to the bodies of the fallen near the highway. Another person ran to the tower up the hill.

“What about the humvee?”

“I don’t know. Let’s go see.”

George called over the Hummer loudspeaker, “Hang on, my friends. Who are ya’ll?”

A voice called to them, “Don’t worry. As long as you’re not military or bit by deadshit, you’re good.”

A person stepped in front of the vehicle and stood there. He was wearing a black flackjacket with a blue shirt on underneath and cargo pants below. He held up his hands in a peaceful gesture. Several of his buddies were getting closer, but he called to them, “Guys, get back and keep an eye out for zombies. I’ll take care of this.” The others walked back a little ways and started looking around.

George stepped out of the vehicle. “Stay here,” he instructed Misty. “If anything happens, take off, all right?”

Misty nodded her head in agreement, but then wondered just where in the hell she would go.

George closed the door.

He walked toward the civilian, but stopped several feet short. George continued to point the machine gun at the man.

“No need for that, my friend,” said the man amicably.

“Who are you people?”

“The resistance, so to speak.”

“Why’d you kill those soldiers?”

“Because they’ve been killing us. Probably better than those creatures have been lately.”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Abe. Listen, the commotion we started is probably going to attract some of our rotting friends. You take me and my buddies back to our base, we’ll help you get wherever you need to go.”

George heard a shot ring out in the distance, followed by a voice yelling, “Hey Abe, we’re drawing a crowd here!” and another shot.

George thought for a quick second. Misty shouted from the Hummer, “George, they’re coming!”

Knowing they were low on fuel, food, and water, George said, “All right, Abe. Let’s do this.”

Abe yelled to his friends, “Guys, get over here! We got a ride back!”

Things were a little cramped in the Humvee, but everybody was okay for the most part. Even though the air conditioner was on, the guys still reeked of body odor. George opened the window to let the vehicle air out.

There were four people in the back including George. One chose to man the mounted gun in back. At Abe’s suggestion, George let him drive the vehicle. Misty, though still shaken in the passenger seat, warmed up to the company and became a bit more conversational. Occasionally, the man manning the gun would fire off a blast or two. Abe drove cautiously, but was doing a lot of swerving. Other than that, the ride was fairly smooth.

“So who are you guys again?” Misty asked.

“I’m Steven Gomez,” one of the men answered. He wore a red bandana around his head, a gray zippered hoodie with the arms cut off, and an oversized white shirt underneath. It covered a lot of his blue jeans. He was armed with a very shiny AK-47.

Steven then pointed to the other three in the vehicle. “That’s Red,” he said, pointing to a man with a red goatee and a head full of curls. He had on a worn-out Def Leopard shirt and carried an M-16.

“And this is Petra,” he said, pointing to a woman that George and Misty originally thought was a guy.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, first shaking George’s hand, then Misty’s. She was slender, but well built. Freckles dotted her face. She had a dirty blond mullet cut short just above the collar of her white shirt. She wore a red bandana around her neck, a button blue flannel, and jeans. She wore combat boots and was carrying a SPAS-12.

“Mr. Hero manning the gun is Alex Rich,” said Steven.

“Very cool,” said George. “So what the hell’s going on?”

“Well, the way we can figure it,” said Steven, “It was a terrorist attack.”

“Hang on guys,” said Abe from the driver’s seat. “Speed bump ahead.”

Everyone braced themselves as the right side of the vehicle ran over something big enough to make everyone bounce in their seats. A collective “whoa” emanated from all the mouths in the back.

“Everyone alright?” asked Abe.

“Yeah, we’re fine,” replied Misty.

“At any rate, to what Steven was saying, bullshit,” said Red. “It’s totally obvious that it’s a government plot for total control.”

“Would you let me finish?” said Steven. “Then you and Alex can share your kooky theory.” Red sat quiet. Steven continued, “Anyway, before the news and TV went off the air two days ago, they were reporting that terrorists had dispensed some sort of chemical and biological weapon into nursing homes across the country. Seems it sped the deaths of the old people, but brought them back. Lots of nursing home people and families, not knowing what was going on, were bit or scratched by those things, which then infected them. People were locking up their family members or strapping them down when they became crazed. But they just kept infecting people. At any rate, after it started here, it started in England, then Europe, then Asia. No word on if it got to Australia or Africa yet. Last we heard, England was quarantined, France and Germany were totally under, and Russia was holding out, but just barely.”

“Probably kind of like us,” said Petra.

“The president came on and said he was going to hunt down the terrorists that did this. Never mind the chaos in the streets. It was war. We don’t know if he knows the group or where they’re at, or even if the war started yet since the communications went down.”

“Yep, FEMA has total control over the radio stations and TV now,” jumped in Red. “Right now, it’s mainly just a recorded message on all the channels. The movie channels are still running, though. That’s cool.”

“You want to tell him your theory, Red?” asked Petra.

“Oh, yeah, right,” said Red.

Petra began to smile and giggle, turning to George and Misty and saying, “You’re going to love this!”

“My friends, this plague is one of the final phases in the master plan of the Illuminati,” Red proudly stated.

“Who are the Illuminati?” asked Misty.

“I know where he’s going with this,” said George. “I used to hear this kind of stuff all the time on Austin Public Access. Listen close.”

“It’s a secret society with ancient wisdom that goes back many centuries. Some say to the wisdom of Atlantis. Some even say to the beginning of the earth when the aliens came from Mars after a great cataclysm and created us as their slaves.”

Petra started laughing. “Red, you are so full of shit! So we’re all Martians now?”

Misty giggled a bit as George smiled back. “Hear him out. It’s kind of interesting.”

“Anyway, on May first, seventeen seventy-six, Adam Weishaupt officially created this group in Bavaria, most of its members coming from other ancient religions and secret sects.”

“Did you say sex?” asked Petra with a laugh.

“Sex?” Abe chimed from the front seat. “Now I’m interested. Speak up Red!”

“Not sex. Sects,” replied Red. “Sects as in cults.”

“Cult sex, Red?” Petra teased. “Boy, you are a freak!”

“Shut up. Listen, it includes the power elite of the world at that time and today. Some say most are even part of family bloodlines that go as far back as Ramses in ancient Egypt.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Abe as he clipped another zombie’s leg, sending it crashing into a wrecked car beside the road.

“But somebody found out about the group,” Red continued. “They had to split up. They split into other groups, and disguised themselves in groups like the Freemasons, the Trilateral Commis-sion, the Bilderbergs, and others.”

“Dude, those are our world leaders. They’re trying to help all the crazy shit in the world,” replied Petra.

“No, they’re planning our destruction and total control of the planet,” Red replied. His energy became more enthusiastic. His hands were flying around as he continued to describe his theory. “See, the Illuminati ultimately see us as cattle, like slaves. They use the term ‘goyen’ to describe us. Their cattle.”

“You haven’t even told us why, though.”

Abe turned a corner swiftly, rocking the passengers around for a bit.

“Hey, Speed Racer, take it easy now,” said Steven.

“See, the Illuminati, they’ve been looking to thin the herd for years now. The U.N. even had a resolution to that effect.”

“Oh yeah? Which one?” asked Petra.

“I don’t know for sure, but I know they had one!”

“Right,” replied Petra.

George and Misty looked at each other. George shrugged.

“So now we’re in the middle of it. You want to talk about ‘thinning the herd,’ this is it.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” said Misty. “If they’re using us as slaves right now…”

“Yeah, through the IRS system. It’s a tax on the money that’s lent to us through the fraudulent Federal Reserve system. The federal reserve note is issued by a private, run-for-profit corporation. It’s printed for nothing and backed by nothing. It is a completely fraudulent, perpetual debt slavery instrument. It’s fiat money, worth nothing. Article One, section ten, clause one of the constitution says that…”

George chimed in, “The only lawful money is gold or silver. Yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about. A friend of mine used to use a competitive currency of silver and gold in Austin all the time.”