Riding The Apocalypse (3 page)
A fresh barrage of intense questioning ensued; this was the most frantic and disordered press conference I had ever seen. Dr. Higgins tried to explain, contradict, or downplay a lot of things that certainly sounded crazy but I could tell she wasn’t sure what was truth and fiction. I started to wish she would just end the damn conference already.
My ex and I both put down our coffee and spontaneously huddled together when the network crawler proclaimed,
“The Outbreak Virus, which originated in the South American Country of Chile, has begun to spread rapidly across the principal metropolitan areas of the United States.
Once infected, victims appear to expire within twenty-four hours. Within minutes of clinical death—although sometimes longer—the infected are reportedly regaining consciousness and engaging in violent cannibalistic attacks aimed exclusively at the uninfected.”
“What the fuck did that scroll thing just say? Cannibalistic?”
A list of places with confirmed cases of infection was now scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Many familiar American cities were passing before my increasingly distressed eyes. When I saw my own city it gave me that feeling you get when you’re leaning back on a chair a tad too far, and you just catch yourself before crashing. It jolted my core. This was not some disturbance in some foreign country with a spicy food name, it was here in the United States. And not tomorrow, or next week.
Right fucking now.
The station all of a sudden went black.
I have this thing with my ex. Well, I am going to be honest, I have done this with most of my girlfriends over the years, at least all the ones who would let me. I love to watch TV in bed, and my preferred position when in female company is to rest my head just above her left breast as she lays on her back. I curl on my right side, then position my head so my line of sight to the TV is directly between her breasts. Now over the years, let’s just say, the TV has been less obscured by others compared to my ex. That day I was grateful for more than the obvious reason because they helped partially obscure what I was seeing. I huddled down further and changed from the black screen to another news station which was still broadcasting. I was trying to watch the coverage, but it was becoming increasingly difficult as the minutes passed. I could feel her warm breath as she gasped repeatedly, and felt my own head shift as she turned to the left, averting her eyes. We could not look away for long though. We were drawn to the images like rubberneckers to an automobile accident. It was so hard to believe what was unfolding on my TV was real and not some bad movie. It just couldn’t be real, could it? I edged back, closer to my ex’s left ear, her long, brown hair partially blocked my eyes and felt comforting against the side of my face.
The camera must have been mounted on a tripod atop a news van or truck or something like that because the camera angle never moved. The cameraman was probably long gone.
The unmanned camera was focused on the turnabout in front of Stanford Hospital. It was a wide shot, showing the entire loop of the drop-off area, a road up a small hill and back down the other side with a small lawn inside the cement loop. Grass covered the hill leading up to ambulance parking. It was actually pretty nice as hospitals go. Or would have been if not for what was unfolding.
The scene was surreal. There was a crashed ambulance abandoned at an awkward angle, almost perpendicular to the glass doors atop the roundabout. The emergency vehicle had come to rest with the right bumper abutting the right innermost column, the lights were flashing silently and all the doors were opened and marked with reddish brown smears. The column which had halted its progress was one of four that supported the bright white awning sheltering the drop-off area. “EMERGENCY” was emblazoned across the top in bright red letters, completing the facade of the building.
How literal.
“Who the fuck was that?!” my ex screamed in my ear.
Our heads collided together as I pulled her tightly to me. She screamed again as I buried my thumb into her right triceps muscle. I released her upper arm and watched the color return as I slid back down to my preferred position.
“Who the fuck was that?!” I repeated. I again saw what appeared to be a pale gray man wearing a crimson red scarf stumble from behind the right side of the ambulance. Then he abruptly reversed his course, and stumbled out of sight behind the emergency vehicle, gone from the camera’s static view.
Partially obscured by my ex’s left breast was another man, lurching slowly up the hill. His gait was odd, and he was covered in blood. I immediately thought of the Surgeon General’s warning—
“Oh my God!” I shouted.
The man with the scarf appeared again. He wandered from around the ambulance toward the camera. As he passed the emergency vehicle, the scarf left a bright red streak across the back of the van.
It was not a scarf.
What I had thought was a scarf was actually the man’s right arm, or what was left of it. The arm had somehow been nearly severed at the elbow, and was flailing alongside his body with no bone to hold the flesh in place. The blood was a darker crimson than I imagined it would be. I was amazed at the almost purple appearance of his ripped skin and exposed sinews. His movements were coltish as he stumbled then turned again toward the camera. He promptly tripped again as his left foot dragged across the red-painted cement curb. The monster rolled awkwardly down the small grassy hill, staying in view the entire time. Had it not been such a terrifying scene, it would be comical. The one armed man did not even attempt to break his fall, and rolled down the bank. Near the end he tumbled into another monster who was limping up the same bloodstained grass hill and together they barreled toward the bottom. The dark red bloodstains contrasted starkly against the vibrant green of the well-manicured front lawn. It was like a fucked up, horrific Christmas card. I will never again look at green and red together in the traditional way.
I actually winced as he and the bloody stump hit the grass over and over, gaining speed, but he didn’t seem to notice. I cannot explain how strange it was to see someone crashing like that and making no attempt to mitigate the impact, or shield his severed appendage, flailing and slapping against the soil. It was seriously messed up.
Just then I saw a flash of movement that tore my eyes from the one-armed man. A woman came running out of the emergency room’s double doors at an amazing clip. Moving quickly, at first glance she appeared unhurt, though her screaming was gut wrenching. I reluctantly removed my hand from my ex’s side and fumbled for the remote. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as her high-pitched shrill caused me to bite my lip so hard I felt the warmth of blood and the taste of iron in between my teeth.
Muted.
“Stop! Not that way!” My ex and I shouted at the television as the woman hurled herself down the hill directly at the two bloody men trying to stand up at the bottom. She obviously could not see them from the crest of the hill, probably because they were not yet upright. The monsters had worn an opaque red patch in the middle of the grass as they fumbled against each other, trying to gain purchase on the matted lawn. She spotted them just as the two men got to their feet, stopped dead in her tracks less than ten feet away. The woman changed course, as nimble as a child who just heard an ice cream truck, and disappeared to the right of the camera shot.
“Why are they still broadcasting this?” my ex whimpered.
I quickly flipped the channel, not wanting to traumatize her further but unable to turn it off. I looked for a news anchor to make some sense of what we were seeing.
Flip…
More of the same. I stopped on the third channel just in time to see a police officer rushing into a panicked crowd in front of City Hall. He struck a man in the back who was attacking a screaming woman on the street. The man turned, revealing his ghostlike complexion and jet black eyes, similar to the men we had just seen on the hospital lawn. The attacker opened his mouth, revealed his bloodstained teeth, then bit the officer on the right side of his neck. The blood spewed out of the officer’s jugular with such force it temporarily blinded the attacker with dark red blood. The monster was not intelligent enough to rub his eyes clear, and lost track of his catch as the officer broke free. The cop took just two steps before the loss of blood caused him to meet his Waterloo. But before he even hit the pavement he was savaged by another infected bystander, who, if he could have rationalized, would have had difficulty believing his luck. The original biter joined in the feast as soon as he stumbled onto it. Within seconds, three more joined the buffet. The camera began to shake so much it was no longer possible to see what was happening.
I grabbed the remote.
Flip...
Static snow.
Flip-flip...
What station still uses a damn test pattern?
Flip...
“What the hell are these monsters? Are they rabid or something?” I asked my curled-up ex.
The man, or monster, or whatever it was, was being filmed from the back. He was shirtless and had been relieved of the entire left side of his waist and back by another monster, I surmised. The wound was gaping and bloody. Although his small intestine dragged behind him, it did not seem to cause him any distress. The visual reminded me of a dog that had broken his leash.
So much blood, it was everywhere, on everyone and everything.
It was absolute chaos. Terrified, screaming, running, panicking people were rushing around, unsure where to go. The city streets were packed with immobile vehicles, horns blaring, as corpses littered the street in various states of dismemberment. Steam was rising from cars that had collided with street poles and other vehicles. The surrounding city in the background of the shot looked familiar although, to my relief, it certainly wasn’t San Francisco. Maybe the capital of Chile, whatever that was? Then the camera panned slightly higher, and I saw what might have been the most disturbing thing I had seen yet…the Empire State Building.
Flip...
A talking head! Finally! We both sat up and listened intently. The news anchor looked pale and was sweating profusely, he kept glancing around the studio nervously. He had a
General Custer’s last stand
kind of vibe. Check that, maybe more like
one of
General Custer’s infantrymen’s last stand
quality. He loosened his collar and spoke.
“The President of the United States has proclaimed a State of Martial Law for the entire country. Please go to your homes as soon as you can and secure your doors. Please do not take advantage of...”
Looters—hate those bastards.
Then the screen split and footage was showing opposite the news guy that almost immediately turned my fear to anger. The announcer’s voice seemed to fade into the background as I fantasized about heading to that Walmart (which was mere miles from my home) and beating the crap out of the man carrying a stack of football jerseys out of the store. What a douchebag. The scene reminded me of that viral internet picture of a mouse with its head caught in a snap trap while another mouse is screwing it from behind. Seems there is always someone there to take advantage. I am actually not terribly strong, and that person probably would have beaten the hell out of me, but I was still angry.
“All looters will be shot at the discretion of the military. Please make sure you keep open lines of—”
Snow.
Flip.
“This is a test of the emergency—”
Click.
That was it for me. I sprang out of bed and grabbed a pair of jeans that were draped over the Nordic Track, which was, without a doubt, the most technologically advanced clothes hanger I’ve owned. As I began to dress, I made time to peek at my ex who scrambled to collect her clothes from the floor as she straightened her panties.
Priorities.
After I finished getting dressed, with so many thoughts running through my mind, I just froze momentarily. I did not know what to do next. You dream of moments of bravery as a kid and springing into heroic action, but I simply froze.
“Wait, where is my phone?” she asked.
“In the living room, remember?” We both had received calls right when she came in the door, so we laughed, shut the ringers off, and threw them on the couch. We laughed again because they landed on top of each other, and were still vibrating.
That had been seventeen hours ago.
Should I call my buddies? Devise a plan to go to the mountains like Patrick Swayze in
Red Dawn
? I drive a Camry, fat chance. I just stood there nonplussed until my ex spoke.
“I have no idea what the hell to do right now.”
“That’s your decision; if you reconsider, call me.”
When my ex decided to end her indecision by heading for the bathroom I had a few minutes to ponder my own course of action. If history was any guide, my ex’s morning prep time should take somewhere between twenty-five and thirty minutes before she would emerge from the bathroom looking almost exactly the same as when she entered. To be fair though, she’s a natural beauty and wears little makeup. It would also be fair to say if you saw us together, you would think I had absolutely outkicked my coverage, pardon the sports metaphor. Regardless, I still do not understand the amount of time it takes her to be presentable by her standards, especially since she often emerges with wet hair and a toothbrush in her mouth.
We met about six years ago in the service department of my previous place of employment. Before I bought my own garage, I had been an automobile mechanic for the local Chevrolet dealership in Santa Clara, California. The dealership was aptly named Courtesy Chevrolet because, well, there were courteous people there. She drove a blue Corvette, and I was explaining some repairs to her, and specifically how to avoid seeing me again by circumnavigating curbs when traveling at high rates of speed.
I left Courtesy a few months later when my father passed away from cardiac arrest on his way home from a fourteen-hour shift. He was a widower, and I am an only child, the sole heir. My mother had passed just two years before from breast cancer, which had taken a toll on my father.
To be honest, their entire relationship had taken a toll on him. My parents were not exactly the loving upper-class couple they appeared from the outside. My mother, whom I did love, was very possessive of my father. Insanely jealous would not be an unfair categorization of her or her behavior. I remember the pre-dawn bouts of fighting and accusations after my father would return home in the wee hours. From the outside, we looked the typical nuclear family, perhaps even a little elitist. My dad was handsome, my mother was very attractive, and I was cool as hell. Well, at least I think I was. But behind closed doors, my mother would be up waiting, night after night, pacing and cursing under her breath. What the hell did she expect though? Dad was a doctor and injury has no timetable. The soundtrack of my youth was a constant stream of insinuations from my mother, including accusations of infidelity, punctuated by the deafening silence of my father’s extended solo business trips, which only served to rouse her suspicions all over again. Personally, I think he just needed the break.
I don’t know whether or not my dad ever did step out on my mother, but he certainly had the opportunity and the motive. If he had, I would not have held it against him; he was a good man, maybe just not in the ideal relationship. He seemed mostly impervious to my mother’s relentless assaults, but emotional wounds can be invisible. Maybe he was hurt by the lack of trust. What the hell do I know though? I am horrible at maintaining a relationship.
Wonder where I get that from?
Ironically, I am more like my mother than my father. I am sure there is some bullshit psychotherapeutic mother-complex reason why this is true, but I’ve never really cared enough to find out. Whatever the reason, I am not exactly trusting of people. Aside from my core group of guy buddies, I tend to be a tad skeptical of everyone. I don’t want to paint a terrible picture of my mother, especially since I am like her in many ways. The truth is she was a great mom, she just didn’t trust people, not even me. Like mother, like son.
Anyway, after my dad died a pretty nice inheritance came my way. My father had been a neurosurgeon and quite the investor, as it turned out. Realizing I had enough money to start my own garage and not much need of a steady income, I decided to be my own boss and opened Remy’s Auto Repair. I had been bequeathed a mortgage-free, two-thousand-square-foot hillside home in the foothills of Cupertino plus quite the lump sum of cash and a few investment properties. Being the only child of a wealthy widower has its advantages. Before you judge, you should know my dad and I had a strong relationship in his later years. Even though he was hardly around as I grew up, always at the mercy of his pager (there were no cell phones then), we developed a pleasant relationship as we both matured.
But I digress. Her name (I know you were wondering) was Emily. I called Emily my ex because she was just that, my ex. We dated tumultuously for four years. She was an extraordinarily ambitious and successful woman in her own right as an attorney in the field of healthcare law.
And therein laid the problem. She had loftier goals than I did; although admittedly I had become lackadaisical in regards to my career and my ambitions were modest and short-term. I lived within my means and had no long-term goals beyond early retirement. Riding motorcycles with my buddies every other weekend, working about thirty hours a week, and superficial relationships left me more than fulfilled.
Conversely, Emily tenaciously pursued ever higher career and social goals. She had even recently thought about running for City Council. It wasn’t that she wanted to marry me, she just wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. I don’t think she truly respected—or even understood—my decision to semi-retire at such a young age. I know she thought I should be more driven. Not opening the garage on a Friday, and instead sitting on the lake for a three-day weekend did not compute in her internal CPU. Meanwhile I just couldn’t see the point of holing up with a laptop on a beautiful Sunday morning. So even though we enjoyed each other’s company and got where the other was coming from, neither of us had any desire to meet the other halfway.
Yet our private parts lined up so perfectly.
Have you ever been with someone like that? If so, you understand what was going on with my ex and me. There was no awkwardness, no dissatisfaction on either end. There was no wondering about whether or not the other required cuddling or affirmation of their sexual performance, it just worked. It was like the perfect symbiotic relationship of the ZMS640 transmission and the mid-nineties Corvette with the 4:11 rear differential: seamless, strong, smooth, and powerful all at the same time. I cannot describe our sexual compatibility any better than that. Hence, even though we had parted ways, Emily was able to separate our opposing career and life goals from the exciting sex. Subsequently, she would wind up at my home on the odd Sunday morning in between our failed independent attempts at real relationships.
The familiar squeak of the shower knob signaled the end of the water flow. Out came Emily, in all her naked glory with steam billowing behind her, making her entrance all the more spectacular. If I had to make a celebrity comparison, Diane Lane with darker brown hair and bigger boobs is about the closest.
I myself resemble Stewart Copeland, the drummer of The Police, sans musical acumen. I thank Stanley Kowalski for making me look attractive to women. I am no Marlon Brando, but I can project the mechanic, fixer-guy, testosterone look. In fact, I had projected that look at our first meeting, greasy hands and all.
“I am going to call my mom and head over there now. How does the traffic look?” She spoke as she fumbled for her bra at the foot of the bed.
“I looked at the traffic app, and it is pretty much jammed everywhere on the 101 North. You might get there if you take the 280 North and cut across on Page Mill,” I responded as I fumbled through the missed calls on my phone.
There it was. I had pretty much told her I was not going with her. I have no immediate family locally to speak of—the exception being my estranged, seventy-four-year-old alcoholic uncle in Bakersfield. Most of my remaining family, consisting of a few cousins from my dad’s side, live in Michigan. My contact with them is less than frequent, and I am neither proud of this nor motivated to remedy it. Trips to the cold country did not fit with my relaxation therapy plans. Regardless, I was not going with Emily, passionate sex be damned. Besides, her aristocratic mother hated me. Maybe her mom fancied more the Cary Grant type over Stanley Kowalski?
Call me cynical if you wish, but I just do not have faith in relationships. The thought of going through what my parents did, with the fighting, and the stress, and the family drama, does not appeal. Thus I did not wish to huddle with my ex’s mother in time of crisis.
Fuck that.
“Okay, I will call you if I get stuck, Rem,” she said, then pecked me on the cheek and made for the door.
After a quick glance at her backside as she walked out, I headed to the fridge to grab a Diet Coke. I had to contemplate my next step. I have to admit, I felt a twinge in the back of my neck as she closed the door behind her that morning. Why didn’t she put up a fuss? Why didn’t she ask me to accompany her? She didn’t even ask me where I was going or what I was going to do. Didn’t she care at all? I would be disingenuous if I didn’t admit I had been miffed. I had been cheated a chance to turn down the suggestion we stick together. But Emily was confident, good for her.
“Fuck,” I said to absolutely nobody in the room.
I cracked open the Diet Coke and clicked on the television in the living room to get the latest news. There were still a few stations broadcasting, but many were now down. It was hard to believe just yesterday this hadn’t been a problem.
“How did the sickness spread so quickly?” I whispered to myself.
As I grabbed my wallet, the cell phone buzzed. “Rem, what the fuck? I called like ten times.”
It was Buell. His name was actually Randy, but we all called him Buell because he rode a now defunct brand of motorcycle called Buell. Buell the bike was a descendant of the massively popular Harley-Davidson brand. It was a sportier version of the old style cruiser motorcycle with a little more flash, maneuverability, and style. Buell the man was a young-looking forty-two, with shoulder length curly blond hair and a slim but sporty build. We look a little like brothers, and the resemblance goes beyond the physical. Randy’s beloved Buell 1125R is an eclectic motorcycle. The Buell is a cross between a street cruiser and a standard, with some serious torque. Buell loved that motorcycle more than anything he ever owned. If Buell wasn’t talking about his bike, he was probably riding it. He hardly ever talked about anything else, I didn’t even know if he had a family. It was commonly known among the guys that Buell would rather have a motorcycle between his legs than a woman.
I get that.
Buell was one of my core group of three friends. Our common bond was riding motorcycles and a love for all things powered by combustible motors. Oh, and bourbon. Buell, however, was on another level in his love of machines and motorcycles; his penchant for fixing shit and his riding ability were truly exceptional. While his motorcycle was not the sportiest of our group, he was the fastest rider at all times, and he always took the lead and held it. I have been on thousands of miles of road trips with Buell and the guys, and I have never seen anyone pass him when he was riding hard.
Not once. And believe me, we’ve tried.
Buell lived in Los Altos, a beautiful area about ten minutes northwest of me. He worked as a software designer or coder or some shit like that. Buell never seemed to be working, yet always had money. He was slightly enigmatic in his lifestyle, and lived in a sparsely furnished apartment in a great building. Really he was just not interested in much more than computers and the Buell.
Emily loathed him.
“Sorry, man, I put the phone on vibrate for a bit, too much shit going on. You should have tried my home phone,” I said as I grabbed my motorcycle tank bag from the closet and threw it on the table.
“Seriously? You have a landline?” Buell jabbed back. “Hey, so what are you gonna do ’bout this? All hell is breaking loose, and I am not gonna sit here alone in my apartment, waiting for those sick bastards to visit. Have you talked to Rich?”
“Just you. I don’t know exactly what to do, but I do know I don’t want to be in my house. Too many windows ’n’ shit here. I don’t have a fenced-in yard either. So I’m headed to the garage to hole up there. At least in the garage I have higher windows and a fence around the property. You in?”
“Sure.”
“Do me a favor, try to get ahold of Rich before you head out. He said he would be riding to his son’s house in Carmel. Let me know if you reach him. I will try too, after I get hold of Max. I think he is at the garage working on the Duc,” I said as I threw a handful of underwear into one of the side bags I planned to strap to my KLR650 momentarily.
“I will be at the garage as soon as I can get there. Maybe ’bout fifteen minutes,” answered Buell. “Laters, Rem.”
I hung up without further adieu and went to the pantry. I stuffed my other side bag with assorted staples, breakfast bars, chips, sundry canned goods, and anything else I could fit in my bag.
“Bring any food you can,”
I texted Buell.
I was still monitoring the TV as I packed, and paused when I heard the Martial Law announcement again. This time from another talking head who was sharing gruesome images of Chicago.
It seemed to become more chaotic in the streets every moment the broadcast went on. I saw a tank retreating, for Christ’s sake. What the fuck? How could that be? As a reflex, I picked up my landline.
No dial tone.
Time to hit the road.
My garage wasn’t a downtown location, but it wasn’t in the sticks either. It was located in the Campbell foothills. Campbell, California, is small town just off Highway 17, about twenty-five miles inland from Santa Cruz Beach on the beautiful Pacific. The garage was in an industrial zone, on a cul-de-sac off a frontage road that led to the highway. It was a pain in the ass to find for some customers and hopefully it would be for these fucking monsters too. Plus, the area was usually deserted on Sundays.