Tourists of the Apocalypse (31 page)

“There aren’t any dead cars on this side,” I mutter. “They loaded that side because they knew we were coming.”

“Who, who, who knew?”

“Lance,” I growl. “He kept Fitz from coming because he set us up.”

“Cuh, cuh, can’t be.”

The red Mustang turns and flies across the median. They get airborne momentarily then hit the road with squealing tires. Our car sputters briefly, then speeds up again.
He put water in the gas tank then sent us out here to die.
I feel suddenly responsible for this. Poor Dickey is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is about Izzy and me, not him.

“When they catch up to us keep your head down and drive straight,” I instruct him.

“Buh, buh, better if I keep moving from side to side,” he stutters, a problem made noticeably worse under stress again.

“Just keep it straight and lower your head,” I order, turning around and kneeling on the floorboard facing backwards. “Let the Army guy handle this.”

Peeking between the seats, I see the Mustang flying toward us. I hold the gun in two hands and take a deep breath. Two shots echo then they hit us hard. Dickey keeps it straight and after we initially bounce forward, their bumper comes to rest on ours as we fly down the expressway like a train. Popping my head up, I see the driver wearing clear goggles grinning back at me. The passenger is getting ready to lean out with his pistol waving wildly at the window.

“Sorry guys,” I mutter as my gun barks, unloading a continuous steam of rounds into their windshield.

The shots echo into the small space making me dizzy for a moment. I duck down to gather myself, forearms damp with cold sweat. The driver must be holding the pedal down. Although I doubt he can see clearly through the spider webs on his bullet riddled windshield. Their bumper stays pinned to ours. More shots ring out, but my ears seem deaf and I can’t tell how many. When the shots stop, I pop back upright and fire into the driver’s window again. After a half dozen shots my gun locks open, out of bullets. The passenger is sitting on the window ledge with his gun pointed at us. I must have hit the driver as their car suddenly swerves into the median, tossing the passenger out onto the pavement. The car flips over landing on its side as it careens off a dead car onto the other side of the highway. A wall of sparks ends with the red sports car on its roof, turning slowly in a circle.

“Oh, thank God,” I gasp, turning around and slipping back into the seat. “That was close.”

Dickey slows and then spins around, pulling the e-brake. Before I can say anything, the tires spin and white smoke surrounds the car. We rocket back in the other direction, Dickey’s mouth’s wearing a sneer.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Aye, aye, I’ve seen that car before.

“Where?”

“Tee, Tee, T-Buck,” he chokes out. “He had it parked in one of the garages on the next street over. I don’t think he knew that I saw it. He had the engine out.”

“You’re suggesting those aren’t even
Road Pirates
?” I ask using the designation for the gangs that patrol some roads.

“Nuh, nuh, not, suggesting,” he glances over at me. “Flat out saying it.”

As we close in on the man in the road who was thrown from the car, I see a beat up grey sedan parked on the other side of the expressway. Two men have exited the car and are looking at the skid marks left by the rolled red sports car. The man tossed onto the pavement struggles to his knees and turns his head slowly in our direction. I try and say something but Dickey drives right through him. He catches him with the passenger bumper, exploding the headlight and fender as the car bounces over the man’s body. We race past, then do another e-brake induced spin. It’s like the car is an extension of Dickey’s body. After executing the perfect arc, he starts back.

“What are you doing? You’re going to get us killed.”

“Suh, suh, send your guys after me,” he snarls. “This is my road. My frigging road.”

As he races up to the body on the road he honks the horn before slamming on the brakes. We skid to a stop near the dead man lying at the end of a twenty-yard bloody skid mark caused by him being dragged under our car. I am worried the men will shoot at us, but they don’t appear to be armed. They are mere back up.
They were sent by Lance to report on our deaths.

Once we stop, Dickey puts a hand out the window and gives them a one finger salute. When they don’t react he shouts.

“Thuh, thuh, this is my frigging road. I am the man out here, not you. Tell your friends this, this, this is my road.”

They don’t reply and the tires spin and white smoke rolls. We scream down the road, shifting through every gear angrily. Once we get clear of them, Dickey slows and passes over to the correct side of the highway using a police turn around. As he weaves through the dead cars, a plume of steam begins to flow from the bent hood at the front corner. The edge of the hood is bent over as if it was a dog-eared page from a well-read book.

“You alright?”

“Aye, aye, I’m fine,” he stutters. “This is my road.”

“Right, I got that. How far to our exit? Are we going to make it with that?” I ask pointing at the steam.”

“Fuh, fuh, five miles. It’s not a problem. Engine’s full of graphite oil.”

“What’s that?”

“Thuh, thuh, they make it,” he explains. “More future tech.”

“But the car won’t overheat?”

“Nah, nah, not for a while.”

We ride in silence the rest of the way. At the exit, the men move the saw horses and wave, but Dickey drives past without acknowledging them
.
I think good old Dickey just had a mental breakdown
. I secretly hope he can snap back. We pull into the cul-de-sac and right up to Graham’s house. When we stop, he turns off the car aggressively. The radiator whines and steam spills out. There is a sudden boom as one of the hoses bursts, spraying green fluid all over the windshield.

He gets out, slamming the door behind him. I crawl out and see him walk right up to Graham’s door and pound on it. When I try to follow, he turns and wags a finger at me indicating he doesn’t need an audience for this conversation. Heeding his warning, I head back to my house. I get to the porch at the same time the yelling starts. I don’t turn back; instead I slip inside the screen and smell brownies in the oven.
This is going to be a can of worms.

….

Lance does not turn up later that afternoon as we were lead to believe. I pray that Fitz is okay, but I’m not completely unhappy to avoid confronting Lance today. Graham gets Dickey and me alone in my room and reads us the riot act. He instructs us not to share with anyone the fact that we knew they were not run of the mill
Road Pirates
. As long as we play dumb, Lance and his people won’t be pressured into covering up, which might include getting rid of us. We are warned that T-Buck, Blister or any of the rest could be aware of what happened. We decide to keep it between the three of us for now, remaining un-decided on telling the girls. For a guy who never leaves the cul-de-sac, Graham is pretty bossy about how we proceed. It’s almost like he knows what’s coming. Not regarding the rest of the world mind you, but only the people inside our small circle.
What does he know that we don’t?

We stay up late, drinking beer on my porch keeping any eye out for Lance. At some point, we individually drift off to bed, leaving the street deserted and unwatched except for the security team.
For some reason they don’t leave me feeling secure anymore.

I am jostled awake in my own bed. Remaining still, I try and fall back to sleep. I was dreaming about Izzy and clench my eyes shut, fighting to stay with her. Cold hands wind around my sides, hair tickling my neck. Shaking off the cobwebs, I realize Fitz has cuddled up next to me. She puts a finger to her lips and shakes her head.

“When did you get back?” I blurt out, but then lower my voice to a whisper. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, go back to sleep,” she whispers in my ear. “Lance dropped me and went into town for the day. Rest up. I’ll fill you in later.”

She has been sharing my bed since I got back here, but we almost never touch other than when she’s had a few too many. When I start to roll away, she pulls me back, wrapping me around her like a blanket. Being this close to a girl wearing only a t-shirt and panties other than Izzy makes me very uncomfortable.
Doesn’t she usually wear pajama bottoms?
Before I can get a word out she does.

“Just keep me warm. I’m not starting anything,” she assures me, kissing my forearm. “Just make me feel safe until tomorrow. I just need to feel safe for a few hours.”

That’s the funny thing about casual sex. You never really feel safe with anyone. She has by circumstance alone, become my best friend. It’s doubtful that I’ve been this close to anyone besides Izzy in my entire life. Fitz has been protecting me like body armor since our return. I don’t go back to sleep right away. The uncomfortable tension of being this close to her is praying on my mind. Eventually, sleep does find me.
Did she say Lance went into town?

….

Everything feels like slow motion this morning. Fitz stays in bed, but when I smell coffee my ability to sleep evaporates. I’m soon joined by Graham and Violet at the dining room table. No one’s eating anything, just coffee and small talk. Violet, whose face is nearly back to normal, follows my mother into the kitchen, leaving me alone with Graham. He tips back his chair, making sure Violet’s not around the corner.

“Fitz turned up, but no Lance?” he confirms.

“Yeah, sometime last night she crawled into bed and told me he went into town.”

“She walk here from town?” he queries, sipping his coffee.

“Have to ask her,” I suggest, but a loud diesel rumbling echo’s down the street.

We get up and go to the door. A huge vehicle is coming down the street. It’s grey with black tires at least four feet high, maybe taller. The rubber looks wet as if the tires were recently wiped down. It reminds me of a personnel carrier, open down the middle of the bed with high walls on the sides. The cab is square with thick glass I can only assume is of their bullet-proof variety. All of this aside, the true oddity is sitting in the back close to the rear gate.

“Is that a Goliath?” I gasp, studying the gun turret.

“Looks like it,” Graham sighs. “That should eliminate the road pirate problem.”

He’s not wrong. I don’t know how fast this contraption goes, but coming up behind or alongside it looks like suicide to me. The gun is mounted near the back and may be tall enough to cover both sides. Two smaller cars come into view behind it. These look more like Sand Rails, a type of dune buggy. These two are for the highway with smooth tires and welded steel cowcatchers front and back. We watch as they pull into the cul-de-sac and park in the center.

Lance hops out of the passenger side and meets T-Buck who has come out onto his lawn. The two converse, with Lance pointing to the huge truck several times. Graham and I stay on the porch with our coffee, preferring to let him come to us. T-Buck hollers for Blister and the two of them disappear on the driver’s side of the truck to work on something. Lance starts toward his house, but Graham puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles loud enough to make me jump, making me spill coffee on my shirt. Graham waves when Lance turns around, drawing him in our direction.

“Let him do the talking,” he whispers, putting on a huge fake smile.

I nod, but before he can get to us, Dickey comes marching down the street. He runs into Lance on the sidewalk in front of my house. It’s curious that Lance stops to listen so intently to a person he tried to have killed yesterday. The two drift back in the direction of T-Buck’s place where Dickey’s Mustang sits on the curb, a puddle of radiator fluid under the battered front end. An animated conversation occurs next to the car. Lance does a lot of nodding, stopping to peek back at us several times.

“What do you suppose is going on there?” I whisper.

“My guess,” Graham offers and pauses. “The man wants to get his car fixed.”

“Think he’s saying anything he shouldn’t?”

“Time will tell,” he nods at Lance who is now marching in our direction.

“Heard you had a dust up on the highway yesterday,” Lance shouts, crossing the sidewalk into my yard.

I nod, looking at Graham, who says nothing. Lance walks right up to the porch steps, but doesn’t come up. It feels odd looking down on him this way when he’s holding all the cards.

“Fitz here?”

I nod, following Graham’s lead and remain silent.

“I’m going to need to her to come back with us,” he explains. “Not permanently of course, but she’s agreed to lend a hand to our medical staff.”

“Did she now?”

“Yes, but don’t worry, Dylan. I’ll make sure you two get to spend plenty of time together,” he promises. “She can split her time between here and the Hive.”

“Or, you could just find something for him to do out there,” Graham suggests in an obvious attempt to annoy the King.

“I’m going to need him to stay here with you,” Lance explains, the corners of his mouth revealing a smile. “I’m relocating T-Buck out to the Hive so Dylan’s got to stay here and keep an eye on you.”

“That’s convenient,” I grumble under my breath.

I hear Fitz’s feet padding down the stairs, but keep my eyes on Lance. Graham drinks the last of his coffee and hands me the cup. Without saying a word, he steps down the porch stairs and stands shoulder to shoulder with Lance. It’s a silent pissing match as they glare at each other. Just when I’m sure a fight is going to occur, Graham smiles. There’s a tense pause and then he turns sideways and slips past Lance. He whistles loudly as he walks back to his house, arcing around the enormous truck as he does so.

“What’s going on in town?” I ask, trying to shift the subject.

“Something of a pharmaceutical crisis,” he reports. “Nothing we can’t sort out.”

“There you are,” Fitz chirps, slipping out the creaking screen door. “Give us a minute will ya Lance?”