Tourists of the Apocalypse (23 page)

…

Just before dusk we stop to gas up. I snake a long rubber hose down the gas fill tube of a very new lime green Dodge Challenger. Putting the other end in our gas tank I crank the handle on the pump to make the transfer. Lucky for us, the slick bandits had this syphon system already figured out. Staring at the bright green paint, I would no doubt prefer to drive the Dodge. We take turns doing the cranking and switch to a maroon Ford after a bit.

“What do you do?” I ask Fitz while Izzy pumps the gas.

“Nurse.”

“Handing out aspirins and taking temperatures?” Izzy needles her.

“Trauma nurse.”

“Nice,” I jump in. “How did you get into that?”

“Well if you must know I washed out as a surgeon. After being dismissed, I was in the parking lot crying in the front seat of my car when the E.R. Director tapped on the glass and offered me a job.”

“Lucky,” I nod.

“Well, he basically got a surgeon for the price of a nurse, so it might have been his lucky day.”

“You like it?” Izzy asks, pulling the hose out and handing the contraption to me.

“It’s never dull,” she admits. “I’d rather be in the operating room.”

“What happened?” Izzy presses her. “What washed you out?”

“I couldn’t sew,” Fitz shrugs, but in the silence that follows the point is made.
Don’t ask about this.

“None of our business,” I interject. “What did that last exit sign say?”

“Delhi,” Fitz calls out.

“Okay, forty miles to Monroe,” Izzy mumbles, looking at her phone. “Another hundred and a half to Shreveport.”

“Why does your phone work?” Fitz butts into Izzy’s mental calculations.

“Long story,” I jump in, worried that explaining that will be difficult.

“Seriously, that’s the first phone I have seen work in over a week.”

“I come from outer space,” Izzy divulges, slipping into the driver seat. “Our technology never fails.”

Fitz watches her slam the door and then eyes me, making a swirling motion with her finger on the side of her head. I shake my head and shrug, unwilling to get involved. We hop in and again the car won’t start. Black smoke bleeds into the open windows behind Fitz before it roars to life. Once we’re moving the burnt smell disappears.

“If we are lucky and make good time we could be outside Shreveport by noon tomorrow,” Izzy announces.

“Is that important?” Fitz queries, leaning her chin on the back of our seat.

“It’s a big city. The highways are almost certain to be crawling with people. By now the food’s gone and they will be fleeing the madness,” Izzy declares. “I want to get close by noon so I can see the lay out in the daylight.”

“Works for me,” I declare, and then point at Fitz. “You want to navigate or sleep first?”

“Sleep,” she responds quickly.

With that, she curls up in the backseat and slips under a rough looking comforter Izzy plucked out of Bill’s garage. I whisper in Izzy’s ear about driving, but she pushes me away and shakes her head.
If Izzy is awake, she’s driving
. This has become a hard rule with her. I lean on the passenger door and observe her. The light from the dash glows across her face. If not for all the craziness, we could be just a couple on a weekend trip
.
I would greatly prefer that to this
. I imagine the two of us driving somewhere fun, maybe Branson for a weekend. This daydream rolls across my vision like a movie until I am kicked in the leg.

“Wake up Dylan,” she whispers a bit too loudly. “You’re supposed to be keeping an eye out.”

“Wrong vacation,” I grumble, getting my hand around the shotgun and sitting up straight. “Wrong frigging vacation.”

Overnight, I crawl in back for three hours, and after my nap, I ride up-front while Fitz drives. I was going to learn to, but she drives the stick shift just fine, having grown up on some sort of farm. Just before dawn, we come to the top of a rise in the highway and see the first of three big exits for Shreveport. I signal Fitz to stop and we coast to a halt. Izzy remains asleep. The poor thing was so worn out she nearly wrecked the car before I forced her into the backseat. Putting a finger to my lips we slip out of the car, leaving the doors slightly open so not to wake my special girl.

“How long you two been together?” Fitz whispers as we step away.

“Eight days. Known each other a lot longer than that.”

“Yeah, I would have thought years.”

“Is there a Mr. Fitz?”

“Several candidates, but no one with enough delegates to take the nomination.”

“Surprising.”

“Whys that?” she blurts out, then lowers her voice.

“You’re,” I stutter and pause, not wanting to queer this relationship by seeming fresh. “You just seem like a great gal.”

“I’m high maintenance,” she admits. “And I prefer some variety.”

“Say no more,” I beg, holding up a hand as all sorts of scenarios pass through my thoughts.

We take a moment to check all sides for anyone coming our way. I raise the shotgun once, but it turns out to be torn fabric blowing off the back of a truck.

“When I was in the backseat napping, I overheard you talking about Izzy being a time-travel tour guide?”

“Uhm, yeah, that’s kind of an inside joke,” I scramble to avoid this topic.

“Sounded pretty serious. Is this compound you’re running to going to be safe?”

“We think so?” I suggest. “Fingers crossed.”

“They have room for me?” she asks boldly. “I got some things to offer.”

“I thought you weren’t at the post-apocalyptic whore stage yet?”

“Jerk,” she mutters, punching me in the shoulder. “Medical skills might be at a premium now. There might be general practitioners or podiatrists available, but that’s no help if you get seriously injured.”

“Trauma nurse,” I recite slowly, making eye contact.

She nods, looking serious. I hadn’t spent much time thinking about her fate when I stopped, but she has a point. If we get back home, I’m only marginally sure they will take me.
What will their reaction be to a stray cat?
She makes an excellent point. Her skillset might come in handy.

“You had to think too long,” she shrugs. “I guess I’ll be on my own again.”

“No way,” I fire back, trying to reassure her. “Worse case, my mother has a place right next to their houses. If they bail for safe haven you’re welcome to stay with us.”

“Izzy’s not going with them? Hard for me to imagine you two apart.”

“That’s complicated,” I admit. “Her boyfriend is running the show. Upon our return we may have to cool it.”

“Oh wow,” she moans. “Then you’re absolutely going to need me.”

“How so?”

“As a shade. If you bring me home on your arm it will get his mind off you,” she proposes. “I’m not opposed to some playacting. I’ll even sleep in your bed as long as you keep your hands to yourself. That should throw him off the scent.”

This girl is sharp as a tack. She’s on to something here as well. With her as a distraction, Lance might not worry about me. I don’t want to alarm Izzy, but I plan on keeping Fitz around if at all possible.

“I like it, but keep it between us till we get closer to home. I don’t want to rock the apple cart.”

.…

Izzy sleeps another hour and by 9 AM she’s starting to wake. Fitz and I fill the gas tank from cars nearby. Soon after Izzy rises from the sleeping dead, we all lean on the front bumper watching the overpass. There is a line of the lost, a name we have given to the highway homeless, lined up on the exit ramp. It looks like there is a check point of some kind. Some of them get invited in, while others are sent back onto the road. Fitz suggests they are taking in people with skills who don’t look sick. When I ask about the sickness inference she explains that being out in the elements for over a week without enough food and water will bring on illness. With antibiotics a finite resource they may be trying to avoid a sweeping epidemic.
After only eight days?
I can’t argue the point as we watch most of the line get rejected and sent back to the road.

The highway is mostly clear, but the milling sea of lost souls might be tough to navigate. They will no doubt be grasping at straws. Izzy rolls her eyes in a gesture that almost certainly indicates her willingness to run over a few bystanders to get where she wants to go. When I broach this subject with Fitz she’s looks horrified, but warms to the idea when Izzy suggests she can stay here if it’s a
moral hardship
. In my opinion there’s virtually no doubt we will have to shoot into the crowd and hit or clip more than one person.

Izzy drives, I ride shotgun with the aforementioned weapon. Fitz is given a handgun and sets up in the back. She will have access to both sides of the vehicle, which may be important if she can bring herself to shoot.
The jury is still out as to my own ability to shoot truly innocent people.
The engine cranks for a full minute before starting. Black smoke pours out the exhaust then goes away after a bit. We sit all keyed up for several minutes before Izzy shoves the car into gear and we begin to roll down the incline.

We accelerate quickly and I lean over to check the speedo. Izzy elbows me in the head and scowls. When she lays on the car horn many of the lost turn around to see what’s making the noise. The idea is for them to see us and get out of the way. The closer we get, the less dense the crowd looks. Apparently at a distance 100 people appear like three times that.

“Slow down,” Fitz begs from the backseat.

Izzy doesn’t respond, keeping her hand on the horn. The sea does part as we roar in their direction however. Gradually slowing from what I gauge to have been at least 60 MPH to maybe 30, we weave around the first clump of humanity.

The people look tattered and dirty. There are many women barefoot who probably had heels of some kind on when all this began. Cars pushed to the side of the road have people sitting on them like bleachers at a baseball game. Just when I am sure we will pass unrestricted two men rush at the passenger side of the car. One wears a grey trench coat, while another is in a white dress shirt and khaki’s.
They aren’t bikers or thugs, just people in the wrong place at a bad time
.

Izzy pulls as far left as she can without plowing into the bleacher section. Trench coat must estimate our speed poorly as he appears to want to grab the window, but gets to us far too early. We hit him with the passenger side bumper and I think he might pop up on the hood, but that doesn’t materialize. As if he was caught in the undertow at a beach his body is sucked under the car. My feet thump as he bounces off the pavement and hit the floorboards under them. We slow briefly as Izzy tries to straighten out the cars trajectory.

The second man is a few steps too slow, but gets to the tailgate before Izzy stomps on the gas again. He grabs the rear window posts which without glass are reduced to handrails. Fritz screams as he drags his top half into the rear of our wagon.

“Shoot the bastard,” Izzy yells, the car pitching right as she swerves around something.

It only takes a quick glance to see Fitz isn’t shooting anyone. She’s cowering against the back of the front seat holding the gun out in a shaky hand. For all her bravado and escape from her rapist captors, she not up for shooting a guy in the face. He slips over the tailgate, gathering himself on all fours.

“Drop the tailgate,” I bark at Izzy, who shrugs, indicating she has no idea how.

On the dash above the radio is a switch labeled
REAR GATE
and I push it down. The power-tailgate begins to lower in the very back. It’s at least six inches thick and it disappears into a channel in the underside of the car.
Honestly its amazing engineering
. Yesterday, we hit a stopped car at 40 MPH with the back end and today the tailgate works.
Will miracles never cease?

The man pushes forward with his feet on the tailgate, but as it disappears he slips, holding onto the back of the second seat with one white knuckled hand. I turn the shotgun around so the butt faces the back and tap Izzy on the shoulder.

“Brake hard now,” I request.

She does and the man slides headfirst into the seat back. When he pops up I hit him in the bridge of the nose with the butt of the gun. Blood explodes on his face, his eyes rolling back into his head.

“Hit it,” I shout, then brace myself with a hand across Fitz in the backseat.

We rocket forward, spilling the man out on the road. He rolls over and over, before coming to a stop on the side of the highway. I watch as a few ragged people rush to his aide. Sliding back into the front seat I peek back and see Fitz with a hand on her forehead.

“Sorry,” she stammers. “I just couldn’t.”

“It’s okay,” I assure her. “None of this is easy.”

Settling in again I try to raise the tailgate, but it just clicks and remains down. I suppose crashing it probably bent something. From the front I can see out the back as if it’s one of those huge doors on the back of a cargo airplane. The road rolls away and we head for another overpass.

We don’t get a chance to survey the second overpass. It’s on an uphill grade and we decide to just plow ahead like before. Several rocks and some glass bottles are thrown, but no one is injured. The people here look far worse off than at the first exit. These look like city people who are trying to get out.
I wonder what Pensacola looks like now?

It’s ten miles to the last Shreveport exit and we guess it will be free sailing from there to the Texas State line. We fly along in silence. When I catch Izzy glancing over she wrinkles her nose then blows me a kiss. I lean over and kiss her and see Fitz grinning when I pull back.

“Don’t mind me,” she remarks, pretending to look away. “I didn’t see anything.”

“Then us getting in the back seat and doing it while you drive is an option?” Izzy shouts over the wind, looking at Fitz in the rearview mirror.

“It would not be the worst double date I was ever on,” she assures us.

“Fitz,” I mumble. “Fitzpatrick. What’s your first name?”