The Dark Roads (5 page)

"Elvis," Buddy beckoned, "Trade me rags, man. That one's drenched."

"Thanks, Buddy," Elvis said, switching with him, "It's hotter tonight, huh?"

"Only a little," Buddy answered, giving Richie a look, "It'll cool off in a few hours."

Elvis nodded, thankfully, and wiped at his brow some more. Richie and Buddy had gotten into the habit of trading out Elvis' bandana with their own in shifts. They'd gotten pretty good on the timing and were able to keep the things drying in a somewhat regular cycle during the past weeks.

They were able to ignore the steady sheen of running sweat on their faces, were in fact thankful for the liquid as it proved that they were still hydrated enough to keep going. Elvis couldn't copy that ignorance. The sweat was a constant nuisance for him.

Heat stroke was a worry that none of them really discussed. If the sweat stopped running they were screwed, because drinking water throughout the heat of the night was almost impossible.

They'd tried to keep drinking steadily during their first few months of travel, but had become nauseated by the fullness and sloshing in their bellies. Buddy believed that the water was actually heating up even more inside their stomachs. Elvis just didn't like drinking water that had warmed almost to the point of boiling. Richie chose not to think about it, knowing that he wouldn't find a real answer through discussion. They simply filled their stomachs at the beginning of the night and waited until they stopped walking to have a drink unless it was absolutely necessary.

"You going to tell me?" Buddy asked without looking Richie's way.

"Not yet," Richie replied, his eyes never leaving Elvis' back, "After he goes to sleep."

"We can't keep anything from him, man. You know that."

"
This
we can keep from him. Trust me, Buddy. He doesn't need to know about any of that shit."

"What'll we tell him when he brings it up?" Richie asked, "You going to lie to him? I say
you
because you're not telling
me
shit."

"The truth. We don't know why they were gone. The letter explained a few things, but not everything. Just go with me on this one."

Buddy finally turned to look at him, but quickly looked away. There wasn't anything to be done for the time being, but to keep walking.

***

"It's fucked up, Buddy, but Dundel saved Elvis' life," Richie explained, long after Elvis had rolled over and fallen to sleep.

"What does that mean, Richie? I've been cool so far, but you're gonna have to spill."

They were sitting, nude and sweating profusely, at the top of a stairway that led down to the cellar they were holed up in for the night. The door was uncomfortably near and they could feel the heat baking off of it.

Neither man wanted to be this close to the surface, but it was the only way to talk so that Elvis wouldn't hear them if he woke up.

The sun was out, but luckily there were no cracks in the barrier above them. Even a stray beam of sunlight could cause their skin to broil. The night seemed miles away.

"I'm going to. Just let me get to it my way," Richie said, "It's a tribute to how screwed up the world was, even before this shit happened."

"Okay."

"You remember how Dundel said that the girls' mom and step-dad stayed behind?"

"Yeah," Buddy responded, wiping sweat away from his brow with a forearm, "But they didn't show back up. What's that have to do with anything?"

"What they didn't tell us was pretty fucking important. What they didn't tell us is why Dundel had to drag his daughters into the light."

"Fuck you," Buddy said a bit loudly.

"Yeah," Richie agreed, "Fuck me. Fuck all of us."

They were quiet in the darkness for a few minutes. Richie unfolded the piece of paper he'd pulled from his pants pocket before they'd crept to the top of the stairs and looked at it for a moment. There was no way to read the words in the darkness, but he could almost see them, anyway. Dundel's handwriting was neat and legible. It was actually in cursive, which had become a sort of lost art in recent years. Richie knew that some people couldn't even read the style of writing anymore. It had become a different language, like hieroglyphs.

"Light the torch," Richie told his friend.

Once there was meager illumination from Buddy's penlight, Richie handed over the paper.

Boys,

You're going to want to get down the road after you've read this. I'm sorry that things have to be this way. You don't know how sorry. My girls have gone bad inside and I'm sure at least one of you noticed.

The boy in your group, Elvis, bears a striking resemblance to Annie and Theresa's half-brother David. He's also got Down's, but I'm pretty sure that's where the similarity ends.

That boy wasn't right from day one. He did things that didn't make any sense to anyone. Let's just say that my ex couldn't keep a pet cat or dog with him around. They came up missing for a while and then they'd find the poor animal in pieces somewhere on their property. The boy did it.

Everyone knew, but nobody did anything about it.

Once he got older, he got after those girls in ways I don't even know about. They were young. Hell, they are young. Nobody really knew what was going on and I wasn't around at the time because of work. They learned to hate him. I don't think I need to spell it out for you. You're smart boys.

Until you three showed up, I thought that their half-brother died of going outside too early, but I think maybe things were different than how my girls explained them. They were planning the same thing for your friend and I caught them at it. They fought me on it, gave me a taste of what they were going to give him, I think.

They were poisoned by what they went through. For that reason, I forgive them and hope that you will, too.

I've got both of them tied up, right now. It won't hold until nightfall, but I think I'll be able to get through this letter before they can get loose. I can't risk letting them hurt anyone that doesn't deserve it. There are too few of us left to allow that.

The other problem is this. Without my little girls, I can't keep living. So that tells you what I need to do and why I'm doing it.

Make sure that you get deep underground within the next few months, boys. This is all going to get worse if I'm right. Alaska could be safe, but I don't know.

Take the food and water. Stay in the house if you want to. We're going outside, so we won't need them anymore.

Don't let this sacrifice be in vain.

Steve Dundel

Secrets are hard to keep, but from time to time they have to be kept. Richie and Buddy decided to keep this one to themselves, saving Elvis from something he might or might not be able to understand. Neither of them stated their intention, sitting together in the heat of the stairwell, but both of them knew what needed to be done.

They stood, one at a time and went down the stairs, made alone by the darkness, but held together by pain. They slept through dreams that would never hold in their minds and were grateful to wake up without memories of them.

Billings, Montana

January 28, 2021

1:21 AM  97*F

The going had been easy during the last six nights. They were far from the underground home of Steve Dundel and hadn't been very successful on the front of putting the things that happened out of their minds.

Elvis was in his usual jovial mood, but Buddy and Richie were pensive at best. Elvis hadn't asked about the letter anymore, had just accepted the fact of leaving in a way that made Richie wonder if he had some idea of what he'd escaped. The very notion that someone would consider killing their friend was beyond Richie's ability to reason. It was a ridiculous idea.

Buddy was walking ahead of Richie, Elvis behind him, and they both appeared to be lost in thought. They were silent. No hectoring or bitching was able to get past the thickness of the air.

Richie had been watching the yellow lines in the center of the road and listening to his friends’ footsteps for a few hours without interruption. Their pace was good. They were making some headway on their journey. By Richie's calculations, they would be out of Montana and across the border into Canada in less than two weeks.

"Holy shit," Buddy said from up in front.

"What?" Elvis asked, but was soon standing next to Buddy in the middle of the road.

Buddy began to laugh, as did Elvis, which made Richie look up at them for the first time in hours. When he did, he had to join them in laughter. They had stumbled into some good luck, after all.

"Do you think it's empty, Buddy?" Elvis inquired once he’d stopped laughing.

"Don't know, kid. Only one way to find out."

"Might be. We're in the middle of nowhere," Richie added.

They started walking again, this time side by side, as they always did when approaching something risky. It was instinct, more than anything, to make a larger image of their group than would be interpreted if they walked single file.

Each of them pulled a weapon, but didn't hold them at the ready quite yet. They were too far away from their destination to justify pointing the guns at anything but the ground.

"First one we've seen in Montana. Thought these places were like McDonald's. One on every block," Buddy said.

"Don't care. I'm getting some new boots and about fifty bandanas if they got em'," Elvis pronounced giddily.

"I'll get fifty more if it'll stop your whining," Buddy countered.

"To hell with all of that," Richie said, smiling nearly from ear to ear, "If I have to I'm going to force a shit just so I can use toilet paper to wipe my ass."

This cracked all of them up. They didn't stop laughing until they reached the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter and headed for the back entrance. Their guns were now raised and ready.

***

The thing that all of those books about the apocalypse never consider is how unpredictable weather can really get and how much that can affect everything.

Things like canned goods and carbonated beverages become useless in extreme temperatures. If it gets too cold, everything freezes. If it gets too hot, soda cans and canned food can actually explode, wreaking havoc on everything that surrounds them.

Luckily for Richie, Buddy, and Elvis, most department stores don't store the food next to the clothing, and water is usually sold in plastic containers. The plastic bottles
can
melt, but the thicker ones usually warp rather than dissolve.

Richie took a few minutes to pick the lock on the back door while his friends kept a look out for anyone that might approach. When the door swung open they all nearly cheered aloud. It was nice, at least to Richie, to be in high spirits over something. It wasn't really happiness, but it was as close as they were getting to such an emotion just then. As they entered each of them had a similar thought.

The place was quiet and obviously deserted, but they still walked the entire store to clear the area. No threats emerged from the aisles. There were no squatters near the end caps. Nothing moved or made a sound other than a few rats that were living in the shelves. Elvis noted their locations for further investigation. They would need some fresh meat and they'd have to eat something other than their current stock of dehydrated meals if they wanted to make them last.

The rats had been a happy little coincidence from the onset of their journey across the United States. It seemed that they were the only sizable animals with the sense to both get under cover and stay there. The animals seemed to be plentiful in most of the squats they'd used and all of them hoped that they would keep up their appearances. Meat was hard to come by.

"I'll bet they have a slingshot in here somewhere," Richie said, "You could probably use a new one by now, Elvis."

"Yeah. I could," Elvis replied happily. He hadn't even thought about the possibility and was eager to take a look around for such a prize.

"Ammo, too," Buddy remarked.

"They probably have marbles, but I don't know about bearings. Don't wanna use marbles ‘cause they break, Buddy. I got enough bearings for now if they don't have ‘em."

"Duh Buddy," Richie taunted.

"Yeah. Duh Buddy."

"Get bent," Buddy said as they completed their circuit of the place, "Let's go shopping."

They pulled two shopping carts from a line of them at the front of the store, which looked as if it hadn't been touched by looters or even the odd shopper in a hurry. They walked through the grocery aisles while clearing the place and had seen the mess made by exploding cans, but didn't linger. There was nothing for them there. All of the food had long passed the point of spoiling and barely held the smell that would have assaulted their senses months before.

There was an abundance of water to be had so they each grabbed a warped gallon jug from the shelves, tossed another into one of the carts, and began to drink the warm liquid as they shopped.

Buddy led them, still holding his revolver in one hand, while Richie and Elvis pushed the carts. Better safe than sorry was their motto whenever they entered a structure like this one. In consideration of that, one of them would cover the other two at all times.

They picked things off of shelves as they passed making Richie nostalgic for the days when the three of them would do the same thing on a weekly basis. They'd been soft then and were happy in a way that they'd likely never be able to duplicate. He pushed the thought away while taking a long swig from his water jug.

They came to the toiletries aisle and Buddy stopped, abruptly. The other two men tensed, waiting for him to say he'd heard or seen something, but they relaxed when he turned to them with a huge smile on his face. Buddy took a bar of soap from a stack of ten and ripped it open.

"Elvis, kid, how much water do we have with us?"

Elvis grinned, already twisting the cap off of one of the jugs.

Richie laughed as Buddy laid his pack on the ground, stuck the now unwrapped bar of misshapen soap between his teeth, and stripped. Elvis squeezed the plastic jug, spraying his friend with water, and Buddy began to wash for the first time in more than a month. Richie held his coach gun at the ready, laughing at the two of them as he scanned the area for danger.

The smell of the soap, one he'd never thought he'd miss so much, was absent. It had been stolen by the same heat that seemed to pilfer everything from the world. It barely mattered to him. Barely.

"I'm next!" Elvis shouted, which would usually have drawn ridicule from his companions. This time no one reprimanded him.

For the moment, at least, they were safe enough.

***

Three hours remained before sunrise. They'd each bathed in the middle of the toiletry aisle before making their way to the stock room at the back of the store to see if it had a basement. As luck would have it, the store actually had one. Usually they didn't.

Richie and buddy took turns at point, clearing the parts of the store they hadn't been through, and found nothing to be alarmed about. Once the basement was deemed safe they went back to the main aisles and outfitted themselves with new clothing. They tossed their old garments into the child's seat of the carts for later disposal.

None of them liked the idea of leaving evidence of their invasion. They'd even taken the time to clean up the mess from their showers. It was another of the habits they'd picked up in this new world that hadn't proven a bad one, as of yet.

They replaced gear that had gone too many miles with new stuff from the camping and sports sections, where they stumbled onto another great treasure. On an end cap, in the section marked for fishing and camping, they found another stock of dehydrated meals.

Arm loads of the packets were thrown into the cart. They would eat well without having to hunt if they chose. It was a luxury of epic proportions and each of them privately thanked whatever force might be helping to keep them alive.

Elvis, the great hunter of creatures great and small, waited patiently for the other two men to walk into the aisle full of glass cases that he'd been the most excited to see. There were rifles and shotguns stored along with boxes of ammunition, but that wasn't what he was interested in.

While Richie worked on the lock that held the glass cases closed, Elvis searched the shelves for a slingshot that would replace his weathered weapon. When he saw it, one of those models with the wrist support, he pulled it from the shelf happily and placed the old one in the cart.

By the time they'd decided on going back to the basement there was an hour left before the sun would peak over the horizon. They would sleep easily, on this day, safe from the sun and most other threats.

Each of them worked during the next hour. They barricaded all of the entrances to the underground stock room with pallets full of items that would never be restocked. They walked the wide open area to ensure that there wouldn't be any surprises. They covered vents if they were big enough to allow someone to breach them. None would've supported the size of anyone over one hundred pounds, but caution won out and they covered them.

When the three men rolled out new sleeping bags in the corner farthest from the main door all of them were tired and ready to sleep. The temperature was rising steadily, but would max out, soon. It wouldn't be like sleeping in the comforts of Steve Dundel's home, but it would be much more comfortable than most of their recent lodgings.

"It was a good night," Elvis said before drifting off to sleep.

***

"One more day," Richie said.

"Yep," Buddy replied.

Elvis was walking the perimeter of the basement with his slingshot. He was creating a small pile of meat for the next evening.

They'd been in the basement for two days, resting and recuperating in the way they always did when they found a safe spot to sleep. They never stayed for more than two days before this, but the distance between stops had been longer this time, more grueling. All three of them were in need of some time indoors.

The walk would continue soon enough.

Richie was working out the route that they would take once they crossed into Alberta. The Canadian road system was unfamiliar and it was taking some real concentration on his part to figure the plan.

Their atlas was open on the floor in front of him and he was jotting notes on a small pad he'd had since the three of them had started this journey. A yellow highlighter lay in the crook of the atlas' binding, ready for use when he needed it.

Buddy's nose was in the pages of a hard cover novel and he was intent on finishing the thing before they ventured back into the world. Richie remembered the book shelves that outnumbered everything else in Buddy's small apartment. The shelves seemed to be a starting point for a trove of books that were always laying everywhere.

Most men's apartments needed a good cleaning about once per week to gather the fast food containers and clothing laid around the place. With Buddy, you had only to pick paperbacks up off of the floor to make it look clean.

"You wonder why your eyes keep getting worse," Richie had remarked to him on some long ago day, "You read so much that they're giving up in protest."

"Is that why your right hand has gotten so much weaker than your left?" Buddy asked without missing a beat.

"Yes. That's how I know," he replied, “But you’re likely the expert.”

Richie wasn't going to say anything about Buddy's small pleasure now. He wouldn't even pick at him to keep himself from going crazy right now. Buddy deserved his book as much as Elvis deserved his slingshot.

Richie wondered what it was that he deserved and realized that he was enjoying his own prize. His friends were safe. For Richie, that might actually be enough. It wouldn't be a lasting thing, as the road beckoned to them even now, but he had it for the moment.

THWACK!

Buddy looked up from his prose to grin at Elvis. It was something that he didn't have reason to do for the most part, but the grin felt good. Elvis grinned back, loading a marble into the cup of the sling to replace the spent one.