The Black Seas of Infinity (18 page)

The urban areas I encounter are more
disquieting... vacant strip malls, the premises devoid of cars...
city streets with little or no traffic, the tall office buildings
nestled amidst empty parking lots. They all look trashier than
ever, the refuse taking center stage as it’s tossed about by the
wind, the stained buildings vulnerable in their desertion.

I wonder how long this will last, this
hibernation and shock. It’s only been a couple of days—and I have
no idea how the local militias and governments are operating—but
this has got to progress to some new state of sovereignty soon.
There’s probably more tension and malcontent in the cities, but I’m
avoiding them as much as possible. I don’t need to get caught up in
some local insurrection, I just need to make it to Mexico. The
smoother the ride, the better.

This car is a gas-guzzler. The engine growls
heartily as I fly down the interstate, but the needle seems to
constantly drop. I don’t even know what state I’m in... probably
still Virginia. Spying a blue sign indicating food and gas, I pull
off the highway at the next exit. Immediately afield the ramp is an
Exxon on the right. Closed up tight, but easy enough to break into.
I wonder if the more corporate businesses are opening later? The
mom and pop shops put money earned right in their pockets, but the
corporate wage slaves have no way of knowing they’ll get paid. Then
again, I wonder what the currency is? I doubt the US dollar counts
for much anymore. That might explain the delay. No one wants to
reopen for business until they are sure they’re getting paid!

The gas station is the contemporary
cookie-cutter design, all stiff glass panels and glistening steel
corners, brandishing digital pumps and the modern conveniences of
quarter vacuums and pressurized air. The pavement appears to be
recent, the jagged fringes of freshly poured concrete still
visible. I kick in the glass door, creating a spectacular bluster
of spewing silver shards.

These modern gas stations have an electronic
system for turning on the pumps, which for my purposes proves
inconvenient. I survey the interior of the little mini mart for the
utility closet.

Buried in the shadows are shelves gorged with
junk food and cheap plastic contraptions. In the back corner,
nestled between a beer poster and a cooler actually stocked with
the real thing, is a matte gray door.

Maneuvering between the rows, I grab the
handle. Locked. Tightening my grip, I jerk it backwards. The metal
wrenches away with a screech. The L-shaped door lever trails a
string of shiny components in its wake, leaving the door behind
firmly locked in place. Great. I pause and simmer. That sudden
anger that creeps up when things don’t go my way evidently is still
with me. I punch through the hole, spread out my fingers, and pull.
The door tears open with a whine, the last bits of the deadlock
flying out and torpedoing into the shelves behind me. Gripping the
edge of the door, I pull my hand free.

The closet is small, and I can barely squeeze
inside. This body apparently isn’t as flexible as the human form. I
crash into a mop bucket, bathing my feet in dirty water, and fall
forward into a wall- mounted metal box. Steadying myself, I rip off
the dented lid of the circuit breaker housing and flick a couple of
switches. A humming noise ensues, and the store is drenched in
fluorescent light. Returning to the register, I turn on the pump
and head back out to the car.

The nozzle clicks off a full tank, and I
wander back into the mini-mart, scanning the aisles for a few gas
cans. Scooping them up, I head back out to the pump. A little
insurance for down the road.

The large commercial gas stations are my new
focus. Easy to rob, often a fully stocked little store, and I don’t
feel like I’m robbing some poor guy’s livelihood. I grab a few gas
cans whenever I find them and load the containers up. The back seat
is starting to look like a depot for red plastic jugs, the assorted
sizes and shapes forming a cluttered mess. I can sense the gas
fumes, but they don’t bother me. I’m sure a human would find them
almost unbearable. This car is a tinderbox, but I’d survive an
explosion—and it’s a better gamble than trying to find fuel.

After a few more breaking-and-enterings, I
return to the endless highway. I could take 85, which would be
quicker, but I don’t want to pass through any more cities than I
have to, especially after the misadventure that was Philly. I stick
to 95, deciding to take it down to 10 before crossing over to
Texas. The funny part is that I go right by Fayetteville. Although
in the midst of all this turmoil, I’m probably the least of
anyone’s concerns.

The routine continues with little variation.
The sky slowly darkens until it’s a thick mass of clouds blocking
out the sun. The air smells damp, like rain. Wait a minute... How
did I know that?

Big, fat raindrops start to speckle the
glass. Just enough to make me turn on the wipers. They screech
miserably across the windshield. There’s not enough rain to satisfy
them, but too much to turn them off.

I see a few more cars on the road now, but
the corporate gas stations remain closed. Time seems to drag. I’m
making good progress, my car traveling at ninety miles an hour.
There’s no police or traffic to slow me down, but the South isn’t
nearly as picturesque as upstate New York. The monotony starts to
wear on me. I almost want some obstacle to pop up and break the
tedium. I always hated long night drives.

Sailing by the outskirts of Fayetteville, I’m
a little disappointed. No roadblocks. No barricades. No
checkpoints. Just another small town in the endless procession that
is provincial America. The same pattern keeps repeating itself,
like a frustrating episode of The Twilight Zone. Endless rows of
foliage, with a Spartan stretch of interstate pummeling through the
midst. I need Rod Sterling to cut in and end this cycle.

The last of the daylight has succumbed by the
time I roll through the outskirts of Jacksonville, Florida. This
part of the excursion involves coming as near to a major city as I
dare. I’m venturing this close only because I don’t want to hazard
leaving the interstate and hampering my progress with local
streets. They might harbor community resistance, and I could get
lost in the unfamiliar terrain. I can guess how that would go down.
I traipse around aimlessly until I finally have to stop for
directions. I can’t even talk, and probably in this climate I’ll be
mistaken as a sign of the approaching apocalypse. Small-minded
people seem to interpret everything as a religious or supernatural
event, and their reaction more often than not entails violence.

I scan the suburban sprawl that skirts the
highway. Despite being cloaked in the darkness of night, it looks
surprisingly lively.

Off to the left I can see the distant glow of
industrial lights. There are more cars on the roads as well. Way
less than normal, but the few that pass me every ten minutes or so
seem an abundance compared to the deserted roads I’ve been
traveling on the past couple of days. They whisk by, most of them
exceeding the speed limit, and the vehicles seem to be mostly older
models. Mainly US-made pickup trucks and sedans. Probably the crowd
that possesses the pricier automobiles is still too timid to make
an appearance. The rich are always more scared of change than the
middle class. Some of the provincials, stuck in mind-numbing
blue-collar jobs, probably even welcome the new order.

I need to get out of civilization before
things start to coalesce. I can’t believe how naïve I was. It’s a
huge stroke of luck that everything is so chaotic right now. I have
no idea how I would have escaped the clutches of a united and
omnipresent government.

I’m still under the cloak of night as I pass
Tallahassee. Once again the traffic that had thinned out in the
rural areas burgeons into a fragile convoy. In fact, it appears
there are more vehicles on the streets here than in Jacksonville.
Maybe the populace is already bouncing back. Or maybe being the
state capital, and a much smaller city to boot, has emboldened the
residents. Fewer immigrants means they’re probably more insular and
capable of reacting more swiftly as a community. Signs of
increasing organization do not bode well. I need the chaos to reign
just a little longer. With more of the rank and file returning to
their daily routine, it’s probably unwise to raid many more gas
stations.

Passing the city, I pull off on the shoulder
and refuel. It takes a good five containers to fill up the tank. My
stockpile is rapidly diminishing. The mound rises up from the
floorboards and barely touches a backseat it formerly buried.
Tossing aside each used can, I litter the grassy shoulder with the
scraps of our flagging civilization. Non-degradable refuse that
will eventually bury us all in a mountain of useless garbage.

The fuel overflows, bubbling out of the
intake and flowing down the red fender in a glossy film. I ponder
for a moment how that will eventually strip off the paint. If the
car even survives that long. I don’t have high hopes.

The dawn is almost upon me as I approach
Mobile, Alabama. That would be yet another city we stole from the
Indians. I-10 ascends onto a wide, flat bridge, the two sides
splitting into dual walled structures with each roadway harboring
twin lanes, the space in-between a sheer drop to the ocean below.
The highways wind out in a giant loop toward the faraway hint of a
dark metropolis. The streetlights aren’t working, and the night is
pervasive, imparting an abandoned, menacing aura. As I ascend onto
the overpass, half-walls of concrete edge in, flanking the
roadsides. It feels like they are closing in, the proximity
suddenly uncomfortable. A harsh gale sweeps in from the sea,
thundering the sides of the car and whistling over my skin.

I look out, past the dark outlines of the
opposite span, at the huge expanse of water beyond. The crests of
the waves catch the starlight, the monolithic body roiling in a
frigid mass toward the ocean. All looks forsaken and alone. The
cold forces of nature slowly wearing down any ephemeral structure
that man in his arrogance had erected. I wonder how long all this
would last without mankind? It might not even last with him.

The glare of my headlights catches the
contours of a car, deserted in a diagonal wreck that chokes off the
right half of the road. It looks like an early ’80s station wagon,
cherry red with faux wood grain paneling on the side. The front end
is crumpled in. Judging from the marks on the concrete sidewall, it
fought a battle it stood no chance of winning. The passenger window
is rolled halfway down and marred with a dried splatter of blood.
All the doors are closed, and no debris is evident. I veer to the
left and pass slowly, glancing in my rear view mirror as I roll by.
The driver’s side door is cracked open, and a trail of bloody
footprints meanders a few steps up the road in front of me before
ending abruptly. What happened to the driver? As if on cue, the
yawning maw of the George Wallace Tunnel comes into view, a glow
emanating from its depths.

Someone—or something—is in control. I could
bypass it, head back to Route 90 and circle around. Cryptic tunnels
likely to be under the control of hostile forces are pretty high on
my list of things to avoid. But there is no way anyone could be
anticipating me, and I seriously doubt they would have the means to
capture me. Besides, I don’t know any other way of retreat except
heading back across the bridge. Fuck it.

The sidewalls sprout up as I plunge into the
manmade cave. Dirty white tiles cocoon the cavern, debasing it into
a claustrophobic dungeon lit with the fluorescent overhead lights
of a penitentiary. Stepping on the gas and driving like a lunatic,
I skid through the bends, my tires screeching as my tail end drifts
between lanes. If there is a blockade ahead the force of my
vehicular assault should give me the element of surprise. Not to
mention the momentum to escape in the ensuing chaos.

With each bend I anticipate armed barriers,
government forces, or even worse. I strain my hearing for any
telltale sign and rigorously scan the horizon for peculiar lights
or shadows. But nothing materializes. I pop out into the hazy
yellow streetlights of Alabama.

I can see a gold Toyota Camry descending into
the tunnel on the opposite side, but that’s it. No military
presence. I’ve been way too lucky so far. Next up is Baton Rouge,
my last major city before Texas.

A few hours pass, and the sun slowly rises in
the heavens, the early morning light glimmering through a cloudy
sky, everything cloaked in a filmy shade of gray. A thick,
low-lying fog carpets the area, the backdrop returning to the
similitude that is much of highway America.

Some of the areas are slightly more
populated. I roll through stretches of interstate assailed by
onramps and merge lanes, the flanks populated by shuttered
buildings and furtive homes, rendered all the more morose by the
prevailing mist. The relentless forest closes in once I pass.

It starts to rain, the oversize drops
smothering the tiny windshield. They didn’t make old cars nearly as
resistant to the elements, the small curve of glass fighting a
losing battle of visibility against the assailing water.
Unfortunately I had smashed out the driver’s side window, and the
pellets of rain pound me in a steady barrage. The precipitation
progresses into a torrential downpour, a cascade of droplets
flitting around the windowpane and crashing into my face. Sheets of
water blanket the windshield, cutting down my range of vision to a
few feet. I slow to forty miles an hour. The red glow of taillights
drifts into view, and I cross over to the left lane, passing a
brown blur in the storm. The car slides too easily, and visibility
is low. A deluge of water buffets the passenger side as I pass,
pushing the Camaro into a tremulous slide. I’m so close. This heap
just has to make it through one more state!