The Great Wreck (7 page)

           
“Good
deal, friend,” he said and to my great relief, stepped away from the door and
waved us on. Another set of military guards waved back and rolled their huge
tanks out of the road and let us through.

           
We
passed through and watched the nervous soldiers who wanted to be home with
their families or just about anywhere but the edge of the fucking desert watch
us roll by. I wanted to take them with us, have them jump in their jeeps and
just roll along behind us but I knew they couldn’t come. They had their jobs to
do and I had mine.

           
“What
the fuck was that?” Tony said form the backseat.

           
“That
was a military blockade manned by a bunch of scared kids with large caliber,
fully automatic weapons,” I said as we sped up and left the checkpoint far
behind.

           
“God,
that’s scary,” Greer said, “What if they hadn’t let us through?”

           
“I guess
we’d be headed back to Nicky’s house,” I said.

           
I heard
Dreysi snort and whisper, “Like hell.”

           
“Did he
say the city wasn’t going to last?” Nicky asked as we sped down the nearly
empty highway, “What did he mean by that?”

           
I knew
what he meant by that but wasn’t going to share my opinion with everyone and
scare the shit out of them so I just shrugged and replied, “Nothing. Just
nerves, that’s all.” We drove for nearly two hours without seeing another car
heading east or west. We did see a few abandoned vehicles on the side of the
road but no one was in them so we moved on.
 

           
Soon I
spotted a sign that said Grants, five miles. It was almost noon. It would take
us two more hours to reach the trailhead, then another two or three to reach
the cabin. We’d get there well before dark. I breathed a sigh of relief. We’d
be moved in and locked up tight in Tony’s cabin before the sun went down. I
didn’t care if we were out in the boonies on the side of an isolated mountain,
I didn’t want to be hiking around in the forest in the dark with fucking crazy
people just wandering around trying to infect me.

           
“I need
to pee,” Dreysi said from the back. I glanced back in the rear view mirror and
could see Dreysi scowling back at me as if to say ‘fuck you, you mother fucking
mother fucker. Fucker.’ Yep, all that. In one look.

           
“Me
too,” Greer chimed in.

           
“OK,
we’ll stop at the next station. We’ve got plenty of time to get to the cabin,”
I said and pulled over at the next gas station.

           
As I
pulled up to the gas pump, I looked around: there was not a single car in the
parking spaces and no one other than us at the pump. I began to wonder if
anyone was here when a tall, lanky man in a pair of biballs came around the
corner and waved to us, “You open?” I asked as we all watched nervously to see
what he would do.

           
“Yep,
I’m open. Come on in an get what you need,” he said and unlocked the front door
to the station.

           
Nicky
got out and hollered after him, “Can we use your restrooms?”

           
The old
guy nodded and jerked his thumb back towards the way he’d came.

           
Tony had
also gotten out of the Bronco and asked, “Everything OK here?”

           
The old
guy looked back at Tony as he stepped inside and said, “If you’re asking if
there are any of those crazy infected around, then no. Haven’t seen any since
the government put up all those checkpoints.”

           
Nicky,
Greer, and Dreysi locked arms and went around the corner to the rest rooms
while Tony and I walked into the gas station. I was surprised to see there was
still water, toilet paper, and food stuffs still on the shelves and said so.

           
The old
guy had moved behind the counter and was looking at something underneath, “When
things first started getting out of hand, there were lots of people heading
east or west, or north, or south. Most of them had already filled up their rigs
with whatever they could carry from wherever they were coming from. They only
thing they needed from me was gas. What about you? Where you headed?”

           
“We’re
heading up into the mountains. My friend over there has a cabin,” I replied,
“Do you still have gas? Most stations were running out in Albuquerque.”

           
He
looked again beneath the counter and replied, “Mountains? Good choice, although
my brother, he’s a Ranger up there. He says that all sorts of folks have been
moving up into the mountains, too. You might want to be careful up there. Seems
like most everyone has the same idea as you,” he said looking at the gauges
underneath the register, “Yep. Looks like I got a few hundred gallons of gas
still. Let me just turn on the pump.”

           
“How
much?” I asked as I pulled out my wad of bills, “I have cash.”

           
The old
guy looked at me, then out at the girls who were getting back into the Bronco,
“I don’t think cash is going to be worth anything for very much longer, do
you?” I looked over my shoulder at Tony and was about to reply when he
continued, “Nope not much longer. It’s on the house, son. And take anything
else you can carry too.”

   
       
“Are you sure?” I asked and stuck out my
hand.

           
He took
it and pumped it twice. I could see his eyes filling up with tears. I don’t
know why, but that scared me more than anything else I seen had.

           
“I’m
sure, friend. Get as much gas as you can and take anything you need.”

           
“Thank
you,” I said and stuffed my money back into my pocket, “Tony, I’ll pump the
gas, take a look in the back and see how much room we have, then fill it with
anything we might need.” Tony nodded as I walked out into the hot, dry air and
started pumping the gas.
 
I looked around
the empty gas station and out towards the highway. It was completely devoid of
anyone or anything. I guess that was OK. It could have been crammed with people
running to the city, running from the city, or just plain running. I topped off
the tank while Tony loaded more water in the truck, then cans of food and
toilet paper while I filled up the reserve tank and two more portable gas cans
the old guy gave me. Tony crammed in the last cases of tuna and water and
sealed the old girl up.

           
I put
the nozzle back on the pump and stood next to him, “We ready to go?”

           
“Guess
so. Creepy isn’t it?,” Tony replied, “It’s like the whole world just ended.”

           
“Not
yet, old friend,” I said.

           
Inside I
could hear Dreysi complaining, “Oh, god! It’s so fucking hot! Can we get this
piece of shit rolling anytime soon?”

           
I looked
at Tony and smiled, “If the old guy wasn’t going to take our money, I was going
to offer him Dreysi.”

           
“Do you
think he’d take her? We might have to pay him even more just to get her off our
hands.”

           
“Yeah,”
I laughed, “Hop in. I just want to thank the guy before we get moving.” I went
inside the store and told the old man we were done and would be heading on.

           
“You all
take care now,” he said, “And of you find yourself coming back this way,
there’s a small tank of gas in the back with a gravity pump. You can take
whatever is left over if you need to.”

           
“Thank
you sir. I really appreciate. Good luck to you and yours,” I said shaking his
hand.

           
“And to
you, son. God speed.”

           
And with
that, I walked out of his gas station and got into the Bronco, started her up,
and headed towards Grants.

           
We drove
until we reached the outskirts of Grants before coming up on another military
checkpoint. This time, instead of a single nervous soldier coming out to greet
us, a whole platoon rushed out from behind their blockade of tanks screaming,
“Hands up! Hands up! Now, now, now!”

           
“What
the fuck is this?” Tony said poking his head over the back seat.

           
Before I
could answer the solders had surrounded us with their weapons drawn and pointed
at our heads. Their commander started screaming again, “Let’s see those hands!
Now! Right now!”

           
“OK,
OK,” I said putting my hands up as Nicky, Dreysi, Tony, and Greer did the same,
“They’re up, ok? We’re cool.”

           
“Sergeant,
get the fuck over here and test these people right now!” he screamed.

           
A female
soldier with a red cross on her arm came running up and pulled her .45 and
pointed it at my head, “Any infected in here? Don’t lie! I’ll be checking you
for fevers!” she screamed as he handed out thermometers, “Put these in your
fucking mouths! Now!”

           
“Holy
fuck,” Nicky whispered as she took the thermometer and put it in her mouth. The
rest of us did the same and we waited ten nervous seconds for the electronic
thermometers to beep.

           
The
medic walked around and carefully pulled the thermometer out of our mouths and
checked it, her .45 never leaving our heads, “Clear Major,” she said and moved
back to the blockade.

           
The
major walked quickly up to the side of the Bronco, “Anyone bit in here?”

           
“What?”
I replied totally confused.

           
“Has
anyone been fucking bit in here?” he screamed spraying my face with spittle.

           
These
guys were terrified and completely fucking crazy I thought, so I replied, very
calmly and coolly, “No sir. No one in here has been bit.”

           
“Where
are you heading?” he asked waving his gun around like he was trying to fan
himself.

           
“Mountains
sir. Mount Taylor.”

           
“Well if
you are lying and thinking about getting into Arizona, let me save you some
trouble and tell you that you won’t make it. Either the mobs in Gallup will get
you or the Arizona National Guard will. And those fuckers over there will shoot
you on sight. They will not bother to stop and screen you like we did.”

           
“No sir.
We are taking highway 547 all the way to the Mount Taylor Wilderness Area,” I
said wishing this crazy mother fucker would put his gun away. Didn’t anyone
practice firearms safety anymore?

           
“The
mountains,” he said more to himself than to me, “That might work,” to me he
said, “All right son. I’m going to let you pass. Do not stop anywhere in
Grants. Keep your windows rolled up and do not pick up or try to help anyone
else you might see.”

           
What the
fuck?
 
I thought when the Major’s radio
came to life.

           
“Major
Conrad, this is Checkpoint Sierra. We have reports from Check Point Whisky of
mobs head east along I-40. Also, we have spotted mobs coming up Route 53 as
well.”

           
“Well,
that’s it then,” he said again to himself, “Roger that Sierra. Pull back here
to Checkpoint Echo and prepare to move out of Grants to the Laguna Rendezvous.
Over.”

           
“Roger
that, Major. Checkpoint Sierra signing off. See you in Laguna, sir and good
luck.”

           
The
major stood their silently for a moment, then waved us on while screaming at
his troops, “Mobs moving in from the south and west! We’re pulling out to
Laguna!” to me he yelled, “You have maybe ten minutes to reach route 547. If
you don’t get there before then, well, lord help you.”

           
I moved
forward as the two tanks pulled aside then rolled across the median and started
heading west.

           
“What
did he mean by that?” Dreysi yelled from the back seat, “What the fuck did he
mean by ‘lord help you?’ What the fuck did he mean?!”

           
Nicky
and I exchanged glances knowing that what the Major meant was the hordes coming
from the south and west were infected and if we didn’t get out of Grants within
the next few minutes, we would be overwhelmed by them. I didn’t want share that
with Dreysi who would most likely freak out. Maybe even start screaming and I
needed to focus on the road which now had more abandoned cars on it. I
carefully swerved in and out of the stalled wrecks while Greer apparently had
decided this was the appropriate time to share her theory of what the mobs
might be.

           
“What he
means is that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of the dead moving towards
Grants from the west and from the south and if we don’t clear out of here,
we’ll be dead too.”

           
“What?!”
Dreysi nearly screamed, “What the fuck is she talking about!?”

           
‘I’m
saying that…” but then Greer shut up. We all shut up as we entered Grants and
looked out the Bronco windows.

           
It was
chaos. It was a disaster. It was the worst thing I had ever seen in all of my
twenty three years. People were running in all directions. Cars were racing in
all directions smashing into other cars, smashing into other people. Fire
trucks, buildings, and police cruisers were all on fire. People screaming,
people smashing windows and taking TV sets and electronics gear and throwing
them into their cars. People pushing shopping carts full of food east along the
highway. I slowed down to avoid the burning car wrecks in the road, to avoid
the people running across the highway, and to avoid the immense amount of junk
that people had seemed to just drop anywhere and everywhere.