Alone, Book 3: The Journey (8 page)

    I’m just guessing. But I’m pretty confident in my assessment and would rather not find out.

     I could have gotten farther last night except the rain slowed me down.

     If I get the chance, and I stumble across a place to get it, I may stop and get a couple cans of that stuff that you spray on a dry windshield to repel water. I’ve never used it before, and really don’t even remember what it’s called. I just remember it comes in a yellow spray can.

     Hey, it’s worth a shot, right?

     I saw something this morning that puzzled me. A couple of men just strolling down the highway, like they had no care in the world. I only saw them from behind, but they didn’t even appear to be armed. I mean, they definitely had no rifles or shotguns. And I don’t think they were carrying handguns either, unless they carried them in their pockets. I mean, one of them was wearing woodland camouflage pants and no belt.

     I had to wonder what kind of world these guys lived in, where they felt comfortable walking around without weapons. And that made me think… maybe there’s a whole new subculture of society that lives on the isolated highways. Like the long stretches of roads far from the nearest cities. Maybe there’s plenty of food and water on the abandoned big rigs to sustain them, and enough distance from the cities not to fear any aggression.

     Maybe these people have stumbled across their own nirvana.

     It would also explain why FEMA and the National Guard wants city people to stay in the cities. Government officials don’t do anything unless it benefits them or their cronies. I’m wondering if they know how much stuff is stranded on the highways. Maybe they want to confiscate it all before the city people take to the highways and use it all up.

     I’ll shut up now. That’s the conspiracy theory side of me coming out.

     But hey, I can’t help it. I read “The Allegiance Device” a few days ago for about the fourteenth time, and it got me thinking.

     Enough about that. More about us.

     I haven’t seen any FEMA people or troops yet. Maybe they’re afraid of bad weather. Maybe they melt when they get wet. Maybe I’ve just been lucky. Or, I’m hoping, maybe Frank just heard rumors that aren’t true.

     In any event, I’m not going to let my guard down. I’ll continue to move only as fast as the darkness and conditions will let me.

     And, God willing, I’ll be there in three or four days.

I have to go now, babe. I’m losing my light. I’ll relax for now and see if I can get a bit more sleep, and will set out again around midnight. All the highway nomads should be safely tucked away by then.

     I love you. Kiss my girls for me and tell them I love them too.

Chapter 15

     “Please, God…”

     Dave crossed himself, held his breath, and turned the key.

     The starter hesitated for just a second before turning over.

     That single second was all it took, though, to let Dave know the battery was a bit weaker than when he’d started it the night before.

     He now knew that the alternator was shot. It wasn’t using the engine’s power to recharge the battery when the vehicle was running.

     It had been ruined by the EMPs almost a full year before.

     Before he’d climbed into the vehicle he’d taken two of the five gallon Jerry cans out of the back and topped off the gas tank.

     Although the gas gauge, like all the other things that went through the electrical system, was no longer working, he knew instinctively that a full tank would get him through another night.

     He’d be driving a little faster tonight, of course, since he was out of the city and the rain wouldn’t slow him down.

     But he’d used only a third of his tank the night before. Even at slightly higher speeds, he’d have plenty.

     The battery was more worrisome.

     How many starts did he have left, before he drained all the battery’s power and it went dead? One? Two? Five?

     He’d never used a battery without the aid of a generator or alternator before. There were a couple of times in his life when the charging system on one of his vehicles went bad, sure. But he’d always gotten it fixed right away.

     The jump starter he brought along as a backup was capable of starting the vehicle at least twice, maybe three times. So it wasn’t a major crisis. He didn’t have to worry about being stranded anytime soon.

     But if he couldn’t find a new alternator, one that was undamaged, the SUV he was driving would eventually die for good, and would be as worthless as the thousands of other relics blocking his way to Kansas City.

     He’d been able to solve all of the problems that popped up to this point. But this, this was one he had no idea how to fix.

     It would worry him through the night.

     He was roughly thirty five miles from the center of Austin. He didn’t drive through Austin often, and in fact hadn’t done so in several years.

     But from what he remembered, the interstate cut through the west side of the city and missed the congested downtown area.

     Or was it the east side?

     He couldn’t remember.

     Not that it mattered much. I-35 would take him almost to his final destination. It was, in essence, his ticket to reuniting with his loved ones

     It was the little things that Dave had missed the most since the blackout. The things he always took for granted, and never gave a second thought to.

     Those things that turned into big things when he no longer had them.

     Like, for example, the ability to just open up his freezer and get a few ice cubes when he wanted to get a cold drink of water.

     Or, just jumping into the car and driving down the street for a hamburger.

     Or, being able to listen to music when he drove.

     In the absence of music, he sang the songs he knew the words to, and whistled some of the ones he didn’t.

     It was as good a way as any to keep from dying of boredom.

     This part of Texas, although flatter than the hill country a couple of hundred miles to the west, did have an occasional rise and fall of the terrain.

     About five miles south of Austin, Dave happened over a hill and was greeted by an unobstructed view of the roadway ahead. His view went on for at least two miles, and he was startled by what he saw.

     There, in the distance, at least a mile and a half away, was a brilliant white light.

     Dave’s eyes, accustomed to the greenish-gray glow of the night vision goggles, weren’t used to the harsh light. It was almost painful to look at.

     He coasted to a dead stop and wondered.

     “What in heck is that?”

     He looked around, and saw no signs of life in any direction.

     Then he took off the goggles and propped them atop his head.

     Night vision goggles amplify available light, and made the light appear brighter than it actually was.

     But even without the goggles, it appeared brilliant.

     It could have been someone in another vehicle approaching him with their headlights on high beams.

     At least, in another time, before the blackout, it could have been.

     But he sincerely doubted that was the case.

     He had no other explanation, though.

     So he placed the goggles back over his eyes and pressed on.

     Slower this time, and more cautiously.

     He tried not to focus directly on the light, even after his pupils adjusted to it. An occasional glance, just to see if it had changed in any way. He spent much of his time scanning his peripherals, for he was worried now.

     Dave was not a man who liked being presented with a problem, or a threat, he knew nothing about.

     He had to know what he was dealing with before he could conquer something.

     It wasn’t until he was half a mile away that Dave could finally make out what lay ahead of him.

     It was two dozen flaming torches, stuck into the ground at regular intervals a few feet apart.

     Behind the torches were three wide, squat vehicles that looked suspiciously like the Humvees he drove in the Corps.

     Again, he stopped dead in his tracks.

     It was a roadblock.

Chapter 16

     Dave’s mind raced as he sat in the darkened vehicle, studying the scene before him and considering his options.

     Oddly enough, although his present situation was far from similar, his mind went back to his Marine Corps days. When he and his platoon patrolled the burning sands north of Fallujah, scanning the horizon for insurgents with fast moving Range Rovers and RPGs.

     The common link between the two, of course, was his knowing he had to keep a clear head. His survival, or at least his chance to keep his vehicle and all the treasures it contained, depended on it.

     He weighed his options.

     They obviously were able to get the Hummers running after the blackout. They weren’t sitting there, lined up nice and pretty in a neat little row, when the EMPs bombarded the earth a year before.

     Dave had long wondered if the government knew ahead of time what the Mayans knew, and took the time and effort to protect its own resources. Perhaps that’s what was
really
in Area 51, or all those other secret bases, all along.

     Maybe it wasn’t UFOs or top secret aircraft under development.

     Maybe it was massive equipment stockpiles. Tanks, choppers and Hummers by the thousands, stored in massive Faraday cages made to look like hangars and warehouses.

     In any event, he’d driven into a trap. And he had to figure out how to extricate himself.

     He suspected they hadn’t seen him. If they had, then surely they would have noticed he’d stopped and wasn’t coming any closer.

     And surely they’d have either shot him by now or given chase.

     Instead, they just sat there on the horizon, going about their normal business.

     He could make out the figures of men, walking around, talking and doing a dozen other things soldiers do while awaiting orders from their superiors. The flames from the torches gave the men and their machines an eerie orange glow.

     Dave assumed that he was being watched, but with the same type of night vision goggles that Dave had.

     Had they been using infrared night vision goggles, they’d have picked up the heat signature of the Explorer’s engine.

     As it was, Dave and his vehicle were just another black spot, mixed in with hundreds of others, on the distant terrain.

     And coming directly toward them, as he was, it would be very difficult for anyone watching through the gray-green goggles to notice that one of those black spots was very slowly getting larger.

     Dave’s challenge was to make that spot get smaller, but not so quickly it was noticeable.

     I-35, as it was nearing Austin, had widened to three lanes in each direction.

     Dave was exceedingly lucky, in that at the time he had slowed to a stop, he was in the far left lane.

     He was passing a big rig, who was passing another big rig at the time of the blackout.

     So there were two tractor trailers, forever abandoned and slowly turning into dust, at his immediate right.

     He shifted the Explorer into reverse and very slowly, so as not to attract attention, he backed around the trucks to place them between him and the roadblock.

     At fifteen miles an hour, he drove south in the northbound lanes, moving around abandoned cars that now appeared to be coming toward him.

     At the same time, he kept a nervous eye on the bright light in his rear view mirror.

     And hoped like hell he didn’t see three sets of headlights suddenly come on.

     For he knew instinctively he had no chance of outrunning three fully operational Humvees. They were more powerful, more able to drive off-road, and able to see a heck of a lot better than Dave.

     Two thousand yards later, the bright light suddenly disappeared from view, as Dave crested the hill.

     But he wasn’t out of the woods. Not yet.

     Dave continued south, knowing he had to find an alternate route around Austin.

     He wondered if he should cross the median to the southbound lanes, and look for an exit for an east-west farm to market or county road.

     But he thought better of it. If it had been dry, the wide tires of the Explorer wouldn’t have any trouble traversing the eighty feet of prairie grass separating the northbound lanes from the southbound.

     But the thunderstorm the previous night surely left those grasses soaked, and probably puddled.

     It would do Dave no good to come all this way, only to get his SUV hopelessly stuck in the mud.

     He couldn’t chance it.

     Instead, he continued south down the lonely highway, passing one ghostly relic of a car after another, until he exited on an on-ramp.

     He had no clue where he was.

     Since he was going the wrong way, the signs were no help to him.

     The on-ramp led him to a desolate two lane road.

     He headed east, and after a quarter mile or so, he came upon a small white sign, on which black letters announced “State Highway 150.”

     At least now he knew where he was.

     In the middle of frickin’ nowhere.

     Dave lifted up the night vision goggles and parked them temporarily on top of his head. He reached over to his backpack and removed the road atlas, then removed a small flashlight from the breast pocket of his camouflage jacket.

     The atlas was still turned to the page reflecting I-35 between San Antonio and Austin, so it took no time at all to find his present location. All he did was run his finger along the highway until it crossed Highway 150.

     He studied the map and saw that he could head northwest on county roads until he connected with Highway 281.

     Highway 281 was familiar to him. He’d spent some time training at the Air Force base in Wichita Falls, in the northeastern corner of Texas. While there, he used Highway 281 to drive to and from San Antonio on the weekends.

     He knew that it, like I-35, headed north, was well-maintained, and less traveled.

     It would add some extra miles to his journey, but would be a good way to bypass Austin.

     He just hoped it wasn’t blocked as well.

Chapter 17

     Dave’s stress level went up tremendously as he traversed the narrow road. The terrain grew more hilly as he headed east, and the road wound back and forth like a snake on a Sunday stroll.

    The hills and turns combined to make this stretch of road potentially more dangerous than the interstate.

     If there were a roadblock, there was a good chance it would be sitting just on the other side of a turn or just over the crest of a small hill.

     He might not see it until he was right up on it. And the soldiers manning it would very likely see him at the same time.

     Dave did what he saw as prudent.

     He slowed down again, to fifteen miles an hour. And he kept his eyes glued not only to the road, but to the horizon beyond it, for any hints of the light that might indicate another roadblock might be ahead.