Tourists of the Apocalypse (25 page)

“Someone’s coming,” she groans. “We are screwed.”

“Might be friendly,” I venture optimistically.

“Or just pass us by,” Fitz suggests. “We didn’t stop for anyone.”

We stand on the side of the road and wait. No one wants to waste energy running. The vehicle gets closer, slowing possibly to check us out. After a pause it pulls up next to us. It’s a crew cab Ford pickup, probably mid 90’s. I’d imagine they had a replacement engine before all hell broke loose, probably a used motor from a junk yard.
The poor and downtrodden suddenly have all the power.

The back window rolls down and the barrel of a rifle points in our direction. Inside the truck are at least four people, maybe five. We don’t move, but remain slouch shouldered watching them.

“You got any water?” a voice barks. “If you do hand it over.”

“Sorry we don’t.” I declare, setting down the backpack. “All out.”

“Maybe we should come out there and check for ourselves.”

Now, I am standing a bit sideways to them. The shot gun is hanging from my right hand, hidden behind my leg.
Will they shoot me if I pull it on them?
They confer inside the truck and then I hear the door latch.

“Wait, we do have something for you,” I blurt out.

“Let’s have it then, the man answers, throwing open his door.

Lifting the gun, I point it at the unopened front door and fire. The slug puckers the sheet metal, tearing through the outer skin, but probably not going all the way through. The guy behind the door yelps, indicating some shattered piece apparently did. The aggressor with the rifle pulls his door shut, slamming it on the barrel of the gun in his haste.

“Tires next,” I shout leveling the gun at the front tire.

The truck peels away expletives flying as it does. We all watch as it disappears in the distance, then Izzy starts to giggle. Fitz follows and we find ourselves falling into a laughing fit once again. All of this relieves tension, but is probably due to dehydration, lack of sleep and hunger. The beef jerky ran out this morning and the cracker situation is grave.
We are slap happy and in shock.

“Nice shooting Eastwood,” Izzy remarks, punching me in the upper arm with her left hand. “I about soiled myself when you started shooting.”

“Why is that?”

“By my count you have one more live shell and then you’re shooting air,” she reveals, raising an eyebrow.

This is followed by more laughs. I pick up the backpack and toss it over my shoulder, but an engine noise can he heard coming from the direction the truck left in. On the other side of the highway, a silver car comes barreling down the road, swerving around a dead minivan before flying past us. It moves away from us, but suddenly the brake lights come on.

“Is that the guys you shot at,” Fitz coughs, wiping her forearm across her forehead.

“No, just a car,” I mutter.

Tires squeal and the car skids to a stop spinning around in a police cross over, throwing up dust as it peels back in our direction.

“Shoot first,” Fitz suggests, pulling the handgun and nodding at the incoming threat. “Save time and avoid talking to them.”

“Wait and see,” I suggest. “There’s something about that car.”

Maybe not the car from this distance, but I have some memory of that distinctive engine noise. The car flies right at us and then slams to a stop, turning the passenger door to face us in the process. Fitz points the gun at the tinted window, but I reach up and put a hand on her arm, lowering it.
I know whose car this is
.

There’s a pause and the driver revs the engine. I put a hand on my hip and toss the shotgun over my shoulder. The dark tinted passenger window cranks down revealing an odd looking fellow. He’s wearing a jean jacket with the sleeves cut off and has a wild looking mullet haircut. The driver pulls off a set of wrap around shades and grins.

“Dickey Bennett,” Izzy utters, leaving Fitz confused. “You scared the crap outta me.”

“Yuh, Yuh, You,” he stutters. “You all look lost. I’ll give ya a lift if you chip in for gas.”

“Who the hell is he?” Fitz demands, pointing her finger at Dickey.

“Aye, aye, I’m,” he sputters. “I’m Batman.”

…

Hugs are exchanged between Izzy, me and Dickey. Amidst this reunion I have three burning questions rolling around in my head.
How did he find us, who sent him and why is there a gun mounted on the roof of his car?
Unable to decide on the order in which to ask, I wait. After a long introduction between Fitz and our rescuer we catch a glimpse of several people walking our way from the east. A quick peek with the binoculars reveals them to be harmless in appearance, but taking no chances we pile in the battered silver Mustang. I sit in the front, while the girls crawl in back. Izzy puts her head in Fitz’s lap, her newspapered arm clutched to her chest. There is little leg room and Izzy curls her feet up on the seat.

Odd clusters of electronics are littered around his dash. There is a tiny flat screen maybe eight inches across, which seems to operate as a GPS, a map glowing on the screen. There are several gauges that glow faintly blue. One is clearly a fuel gauge, while another has RPM in bold letters in the center. The stick shift lays loose to one side, the rubber boot around the base is missing leaving a view of the metal underneath. A closer inspection reveals several corn chips are also floating around in there. Dickey takes the loose stick in his hand and jams it into first. The tires spin and we fishtail, picking up speed quickly. He rifles through the gears, then roars past dead cars, tossing us to the side as he rarely slows down.

“Yuh, yuh, you guys thirsty?” he stammers, looking in the rear view at the girls. “There are some cold ones in the cooler.”

Stunned, I turn and peek behind my seat. Where Izzy’s legs should be lies a small foam cooler. Fitz pulls off the top revealing five oversize cans of Bud Light with actual ice melting in the bottom. Unable to speak, she takes one and hands it to me. The cool condensation on the can touches my palm and chills roll over my shoulders.
Oh how I miss refrigeration
. Fitz cracks one for Izzy, who pushes herself to a sitting position then Fitz takes one herself.

“You want one Dickey?” Izzy asks after a gulp that leaves her upper lip wet with foam.

“Nuh, nuh, no, thanks, I just had one.”

“I don’t suppose you have anything to eat?” Fitz sighs, after a cold sip that causes her eyes to roll into the back of her head briefly.

“Nuh, nuh, nothing good,” Dickey admits, tapping his finger on his temple then shaking his head. “Oh, there are some pretzels in the glove box.”

When I push the button on the door it pops free. An unopened bag of Chili Cheese Fritos drops into my hands. I hold them up for the girls to see and receive wide smiles in return. Dickie eyes the chips and pounds his palm on his forehead.

“Ruh, ruh, right, I meant Frito’s.”

“No worries Batman,” Fitz chirps, pulling the bag out of my hand after I grab a handful.

On the screen, a red line traces across a map. The bottom has a running banner that scrolls. Leaning down I read
442.45 miles to target
. The only city name I can read from the map is Tyler, which is in Texas. In pre-apocalypse time that would be roughly six hours. I’m not sure how long it will be now.

“How long did it take to get here?” I quiz Dickey.

“Lit, lit, little over eight hours,” he answers, taking off his sunglasses and hanging them on his visor. “It takes forever driving around all the stalled ones.”

“That’s fast. We were barely making a hundred miles a day.”

“I guess people in Texas push their junk off the road before they walk away,” Izzy pipes up from the back seat.

The headlights come on by themselves, turning up the light on the gauges. The sun dips ahead, disappearing when we come upon overpasses. Dickey flips a switch on the dash and the road lights up. I had seen the big fog lights mounted on the front back home previously. Working for Lance has been beneficial to him. This reminds me of the gun. Over the driver’s seat on the roof I had seen what looked like a Gatling gun. No more than a foot and a half long, it had maybe eight barrels in a circle around a center hub. It’s a miniature version of what the movies sometimes refer to as a chain gun. I can imagine
Swartzenagger
or
The Rock
waving one around.

“What’s up with the gun mounted on the roof?”

“Aye, aye, I was trying to get that to work,” Dickey mumbles, wagging a finger over his head. “Can’t quite do it. Nowhere to put the ammo belt.”

This strikes another memory. A gun like that would have a ribbon of bullets that feed in one side so it can fire every time one of the barrels spins by the firing pin. I didn’t see any bullet ribbons on top. They would probably have to come through a hole in the roof and be kept in a crate. Since he mounted it over his own head there would be nowhere to put the ammo.

“Where did you come by that little gem?”

“Thuh, thuh, thuh,” he utters, coughing into his hand. “They got tons of them out at the Hive.”

“The place with the Inversion thing.” I suggest, looking at Izzy, who nods.

Without warning, the car swerves around a line of trucks that didn’t make it off the highway. In the fading sunlight there is a flash from the top of an overpass just ahead. A bullet slams into the windshield just to the right of Dickeys position. I flinch reflexively, my body tingling from the release of adrenaline. Dickey simply looks up as we pass underneath, then puts a thumb on the spot. I would have expected a shot like that to come through the glass or at the very least spider web the entire windshield.
Certainly it was fired by a high power rifle of some kind
. In this case, it left only a half dollar sized mark, the center of which bubbles out on our side of the glass.

“Guh, guh, great,” he mutters, licking his thumb and rubbing the spot.

“They wrapped your window?” Izzy asks, nodding at the glass.

“Yuh, yuh, yeah, was gonna do the whole car, but T-Buck cried poor on supplies.”

“Wrap?” I shrug.

“Look hard at the window and tell me what you see.” Izzy orders.

I don’t see anything then I squint and lean closer. There is a textured screen like effect. Running my hand over the inside glass I can feel it. Leaning back, it’s obvious to me now.
Until you know it’s there it’s not noticeable.

“What is it?”

“It rolls on in a clear sheet,” Izzy explains. “You can apply it to almost anything. It’s not totally bullet proof, but it’s close.”

“Is this tour guide tech from your home planet,” Fitz jokes.

“Very funny, I need another beer,” Izzy snorts wrinkling her nose at Fitz.

There is a pause while Fitz studies her face.

“I’m hurt, feel sorry for me,” Izzy whines, puffing out her bottom lip.

We all chuckle and Fitz cracks her another; declining the remaining can and passing it to me. She holds the cooler on an angle and puts Izzy’s wrist in the cold water. She squirms at first, but then cuddles up next to Fitz sipping her beer. We fly along unmolested into the wee hours of the morning. Izzy falls asleep on Fitz’s lap and eventually her eyes go dark as well.

“How’s Graham,” I whisper.

“In, in, in the doghouse,” Dickey answers, shaking his head.

“How so?”

“Crossed Lance, nuh, nuh, now he’s on lockdown.”

“Crossed Lance?”

“Wuh, wuh, when things went sideways,” he explains, pausing and shaking his head as he sometimes does. “He took a car and drove into Abilene. Lance blew a gasket.”

“Why would he do that?” I shrug, recalling a conversation about the
Fail Safe
having to stay close to home.
What the hell is the Fail Safe anyway?

“Went luh, luh, looking for some hooker.”

“Violet,” I blurt out then check in the backseat to see if I woke anyone up.

“Ruh, ruh, right, Violet,” Dickey nods his head and slaps his palm on the wheel. “Crazy hot old broad. Lance whacked Graham around pretty bad when he got back.”

“Did he find her?” I ask, thinking old doesn’t really describe Violet, but I have not seen her in quite a while.

“Yuh, yuh, yup, but she’s all shades of messed up,” he shares. “Looked like the lone survivor at the end of a horror movie. She and Graham are banished to the house now, not that he’s complaining,” he nods, pointing a finger at me. “If you know—”

“I get it. As long as she’s going to be okay.”

Dickey wobbles his head from side to side, and then shakes his head like a cat trying to get dry. This is good news. I hadn’t had time to think about what might have become of her. Clearly Graham couldn’t stand to think about it
. What is the Fail Safe?
I ponder asking Dickey, but doubt he would know. I decide to wait and ask Graham directly.

We don’t make quite as good time as Dickey reported, but by sunrise we are sitting on the shoulder of I-67 syphoning gas from a Mercedes. Just shy of Barnhart, Texas we are within thirty miles of home. Under intense questioning from Izzy, Dickey reveals he found us by the GPS in her phone, making me glad we kept charging it in the car. Apparently, Lance told him he could come after us if we made across the Texas State line.
Peddle down till we blow
turned out to be a good plan.

In his trunk, Dickey has a second cooler containing ice cold water and Cokes, as well as a box holding a selection of Hostess snacks. I’m on my second Twinkie when Izzy walks me away from the others, glancing over her shoulder until we are a safe distance away.

“We need to talk about what happens when we get back,” she whispers. “Everything changes the second Lance finds out I am still breathing.”

“Right,” I grumble. “So this is over?”

“Not in the least, but we need to walk away for a while. If he even suspects, what’s been going on he’ll hurt us both.”

“What do you mean by walk away for a while? What’s your definition of a while?”

“Play it by ear, but keep your distance and I will try and stay out at the Hive,” she explains, making air quotes on the word
Hive
inferring it’s a dumb name.