SurviRal (12 page)

“Right,” Harold said. “Remember when he offered to siphon some gas to us? That struck me as odd. Obviously, he had a siphon. Now I see it was a sly way of finding out how much we had.”

Jenny looked shocked. “I …I just can’t believe it. They were so nice. And they gave us their address and phone number.”

“Fake,” Harold said. “Guaranteed. That’s why he wanted the last watch. I shouldn’t have fallen for that. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

“Not your fault,” Clint said. “They fooled all of us. Good actors. But what are we going to do now?”

“We need help!” Jenny shouted to the air. She began waving her arms frantically. “Somebody, help!”

She then lowered her voice and looked at Harold. “We need to find someone who will give us some gas.”

“Not bloody likely,” Harold said.

The sound of a big motor drew close as the black Suburban on the field suddenly pulled up next to them. The passenger window rolled down and the driver leaned over in his seat.

“You folks all right?” the driver said. “Having some kind of trouble?”

Jenny ran up to his window. “Oh yes, yes, thank you for stopping! Someone siphoned all our gas last night while we were sleeping. We made friends with this other couple, but we think they ended up stealing our gas! Please, can you help us? We just need some gas. At least enough to get back to Denver.”

The driver turned his engine off and climbed out. Clint thought the man looked out of place as he came around the front of his big SUV. Probably in his early fifties, he was too well-groomed, and appeared too well-rested, to be one of the campers from last night. He wore a dress shirt and sports jacket, which smartly complimented his jeans, cowboy boots, and partially-gray hair. This man moved with a certain confidence. Somehow, his presence here relieved much of the stress of the current situation.

“Name’s Wade. Sorry to hear about your trouble. Gasoline has become a scarce commodity, so I’m not surprised by your story. Unfortunately, I can’t spare any, either. And I’m not going to Denver anytime soon—like for the rest of my life, if I’m lucky. About the best I can do is offer you a ride into Springs.”

“Did you spend the night here?” Clint asked. “I don’t remember seeing your car.”

“No.” Wade shook his head. “Not in the park. I got stuck in the Black Forest, too, though. Fortunately, I have some friends with a house here. Heard about the impromptu communities of stranded motorists and decided to take a quick survey of the scene before heading home.”

“You look familiar,” Jenny said.

“You folks live in the Springs area?”

“No, Denver. But we have a second home down near Springfield.”

“I see.” Wade looked disappointed. “Too bad. Well, my offer stands, anyway. You seem like nice people. I’m your fifth-district congressman, Wade Bennett.”

“Oh.” Jenny giggled. “That must be why I recognized you. I’m Jenny Stonebreaker. This is my husband, Clint, and our neighbor, Harold. We were trying to make it down to our second home.”

“Maybe we still are,” Harold said. “Would you mind making room in your truck for some of our equipment?”

“I suppose I could do that. Not the entire load, I hope.” Wade eyed the rear compartment of Harold’s wagon.

“No,” Harold said. “Only the bikes and backpacks.”

“Wait a minute,” Clint said. “We need to discuss this.”

Wade nodded. “Of course. Talk it over. I’ll wait a bit. Those look like good bikes, and you all appear to be in decent shape. You might be able to get back to Denver by early afternoon. Although…”

Everyone looked at him.

“It might be safer heading south. Guess it depends on your second home. Denver had some problems last night, from what I hear. More riots and looting. Just so you know. Up to you.”

Wade sat in his car while Clint, Harold, and Jenny talked. Clint wasn’t initially sure about trying to finish the trip by bike, but when he heard the congressman’s warnings about Denver he was much more inclined towards it. The ride would be difficult either way. But at least going south figured to be more downhill than facing the steep inclines back to Denver.

Then there was Jake. Clint still had no way of knowing if he was okay. Stopping by his house in person might be the only way to do that now. And travelling by an internal-combustion powered vehicle no longer seemed to be an option.

Harold, predictably, was all for it. Jenny took some persuading. Ultimately, though, she was sympathetic to Clint’s fear of riots and acquiesced.

Chapter Nine

The big black Suburban swayed as it took the sharp turn transitioning the end of Highway 83 to the beginning of Highway 21 too quickly. Wade then had to swerve to avoid a stranded motorhome on the shoulder. Clint, sitting in the back seat with Jenny, reached behind him to keep the mountain bikes from sliding too much. The front wheels had been removed from all three bicycles to better fit them in the rear compartment with the rest of their gear.

“Sorry about that,” Wade said.

“That’s all right.” Clint let go of the bike frame.

“Yes,” Jenny said. “Thank you so much for helping us, Congressman Bennett.”

“Well, I am a public servant, after all. Sorry I can’t shave more than fifteen miles or so from your ride. Truth be told, I wish I was going with you. My wife is down that way, in Rocky Ford, staying with her mother. But a good congressman should stay in his district. That’s where the latest President wants us all, anyway. To go down with our own ships, I suppose.”

“I appreciate your being willing to keep my extra gear,” Harold said from the passenger seat.

“Not a problem. Especially since you possess such nice …gear. I should warn you, though. There may be a storage fee—taken in the form of a slight amount of usage of said gear.”

Harold laughed. “By all means. Go ahead and shoot them, Congressman. Talk like that makes me want to move to your district. I’m thankful we ran across someone trustworthy, so I have a chance at getting my stuff back.” Harold glanced behind him and let out a sigh. “If only I could feel that way about my car.”

Wade slowed considerably on the Kettle Creek bridge. It seemed to Clint that he was looking for something on the side of the road.

“Don’t worry about your extra gear. I’ll keep all that safe for you. Now your car, that’s another story. Putting it in the parking lot like you did, and leaving the doors unlocked, was the best you could do. There were a few others left there, probably for the same reason. They’re off the road, so the tow truck drivers should leave them alone. Not sure how much of a fuel supply the towing companies have left themselves. Your car might be okay. Maybe it’ll become home for a vagrant who’ll protect it.”

Several state trooper vehicles came into view, parked on the shoulder on the far side of the bridge. Clint saw two or three troopers rummaging around in the grass down by the creek. Wade pulled over to the shoulder on the south side.

“Wait here a minute, please.” He got out and walked up a trooper standing next to his police car.

“Maybe he knows that trooper,” Jenny said. “They’re laughing together.”

Harold glanced in the back seat long enough for Clint to give him a mean look.

“What?” Harold asked.

“One good rifle.”

Harold fought off a guilty expression. “That’s what I brought. One good rifle. Unfortunately, I’ll have to leave it with the congressman—along with my shotgun. Good thing I also brought the backpacking rifles.”

“Never heard of such a thing.”

“Then you’re in for a pleasant surprise.”

Wade returned, smiling as he climbed back in.

“Well, here’s the cause of all the trouble last night. What a Larry, Curly, and Moe act. Can you see it, lying next to the creek down there?”

Clint stretched to look out the window. “I see an appliance or something down in the grass.”

“Yeah, that’s it. It’s an ATM machine, stolen from a looted convenience store. The idiots had all the state officials in a panic.”

“Over a stolen ATM machine?” Harold asked. “They closed all the roads because of
that
?”

“That’s how it turned out, fortunately. Not how it started. The police received reports that some sick people got into the state and were racing down I-25 in a pickup truck. They called in the military and shut down all the roads to chase the suspects. Two jumped out of the car near the Air Force Academy and were pursued on foot into the woods. They didn’t find the last guy until early this morning. Meanwhile, the driver kept going and cut across InterQuest Parkway to the 21, here. Dumped the ATM over the bridge and then kept going. They nabbed him at a roadblock south of here. He wasn’t sick. Not with a flu virus, anyway. None of them were. Don’t know where that rumor came from.”

“Wow,” Jenny said. “Did the crooks get the cash out of the machine?”

“No. Didn’t have time. Funny thing is, the trooper I was talking to said they’re probably just going to leave the blasted thing laying there, like bait, and maybe come back once in a while to arrest anyone they catch tampering with it. Talk about entrapment. Who wouldn’t try to open it if they found that there? They’re tough to crack, though, from what I understand. The police have better things to do than stand around guarding it. The bank that owns it is temporarily closed and doesn’t currently have the resources to try and retrieve it themselves.”

“Plus cash isn’t as valuable as it once was,” Harold added.

Wade gave him a curious look as he put the car in gear and pulled back on the highway. “I suppose that’s true—and on different levels, too.”

Clint whistled. “So, the entire Colorado state police and military forces were freaking out over the prospect of someone with the ferret flu being in the state. So much so, that they shut down all the roads and surrounded them with a wide dragnet. That’s really something.”

“I understand that,” Jenny said.

Harold nodded. “Me too. I applaud their efforts.”

“I guess I’m glad they’re trying to protect us,” Clint said, “but I wonder if this kind of hysteria is in store every time an unsubstantiated rumor of sick person starts.”

“This was the first such incident,” Wade said, “so it logically figures to be the biggest alarm. I imagine if it keeps happening, the reports will be given less credence.”

“Like the boy who cried wolf,” Jenny said.

Wade chuckled. “I was just about to say that. As of this morning, there were still no reports of ferret flu anywhere in the Great Plains. But the borders are becoming harder to secure. People from other states are climbing mountains and crossing deserts in remote places to try and get in. With forty million Americans sick and dying, one can hardly blame them. Thank God we have the Rocky Mountains protecting our west flank here, and the rest of the plains states providing insulation on all our other sides. Colorado is shaping up to be the best place in the world you can be at the moment.” He paused. “Of course, I’ve always known that. Even with all the freaks.”

“Is it up to forty million, now?” Jenny said hanging her head. “My God. Where will this thing stop?”

“There’s a wide range of estimates for that.” Wade looked out the passenger window as they passed Pine Creek Golf Course. “Man, I could really go for a round. Especially with no greens fees. Too much to do. Anyway, the most conservative estimates are that fifteen percent of our country’s population will die before we get it under control. Other so-called-experts are predicting numbers as high as forty percent.”

“Almost half the damn country dead,” Harold said. “That’s almost like wiping us clean and starting over again, wouldn’t you say, Congressman?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. The growth rate has slowed, thanks to the CDC’s lockdown, and people everywhere holing themselves up.”

“Any news on a vaccine?” Jenny asked.

“No.”

“What about Europe?”

“They’re screwed.” The congressman slowed and veered off the road to get past a cluster of abandoned cars. “Too much dependence on public transportation over there. Damn trains will end up killing all of them.”

The closer they got to Colorado Springs, the more abandoned vehicles Wade found himself maneuvering around. They also passed three sets of hitchhikers along the way, but didn’t bother acknowledging them. Clint thought a couple of them looked familiar and might have camped in the same field last night. But Wade’s truck was already full, and you can’t save the entire world—even if you need their votes. The roads were certainly becoming more difficult to traverse in a large SUV.

They made it into the city. Wade exited Highway 21 in Northern Springs and then took surface streets, including some back roads, until they came alongside a large park.

“We’re here,” Wade said. “Palmer Park. This is as far as I can take you. I’ll help you get outfitted for your ride as soon as we reach my spot.”

Where exactly he was planning on parking his Suburban was of some concern to Clint. The streets around Palmer Park were crowded with traffic of all kinds. Motorcyclists, bicyclists, pedestrians, and other drivers weaved their way through an increasingly difficult obstacle course. They all seemed to be going someplace nearby, perhaps into the park itself. Clint began biting his nails.