The Great Wreck (5 page)

           
The things were fast and were soon
scrambling over the back fence and had reached the location I had spilled
myself just moments after I began to roll. But I was gaining speed and putting
more distance between myself and even the fastest of the infected. I thought
for a moment we were in the clear until I saw more of the dead pouring in from
the surrounding forest to our left and right. That was bad. But worse was
seeing them pour onto the dirt road in front of me. Georgie was a good half
mile ahead and I couldn’t see if more of the things were coming out of the
trees there but they sure as shit were coming out of the woods closest to me. I
could try to shoot them down as I drove but I wasn’t that good of a shot. My
only chance was to gun the bike and ride right through them.

           
I twisted the throttle and felt my
quad runner lurch underneath me. One of the things was coming in fast from my
left. I pulled my pistol and put a few rounds into its chest. It was knocked
backwards but immediately got back to its feet and took off after me again but
I was past it. I didn’t have time to figure out what it meant that two shots to
the chest didn’t kill the thing because the next group was upon me. I lurched
through the first one, a young teenage boy with only the remains of an arm and
little of his face left reached out to grab me. I bowled him over and nearly
tumbled the bike. I twisted the handlebar left and right trying to right myself
and kicked out at another of the things as it grabbed onto my left pant leg. I
jerked free and put my boot in his face sending him tumbling back along the
dirt road. The third was coming at me head on. I hunched down over the bars and
twisted the throttle back as far as it could go, I was either going to knock
this son of a bitch over or go tumbling along with it if I lost control of the
bike. Either way, I wasn’t slowing down.

           
I crashed into the thing with a bone
jarring thud that brought my teeth down on my tongue and felt like my neck had
snapped. It was such a massive impact I thought for sure I would lose control
of the bike and for a moment it looked like I would as I fishtailed and shagged
back and forth trying not to spill over. The thing screamed and flipped back
over the bars of the bike, rolled over my back, struck the trailer, then rolled
to a stop a few yards behind me. Then it sprung back up to its feet and was
running after me again. But I was through the thick of them and putting
distance between me and the mass of dead behind me. A few minutes later, as I
climbed the progressively steeper road, I was clear.

           
Ten minutes after that I caught up
with Georgie. She was crying, standing beside her quad runner tears and snot
running down her face.
 
I pulled up next
to her, got off my bike, and wrapped my arms around her, “Shh, shh,” I said,
“We’re OK.” She nodded and wiped the snot from her nose and we both pulled water
bottles from our packs and sat on our bikes watching back along the road. After
ten minutes it seemed like the things had lost our trail. It was all quiet. We
mounted our bikes and headed deep into the mountains.

           
Several hours later as the sun dipped
low to the west we reached the top ridge of the mountain. There we found a fire
watch station and sealed it up for the night. Out the windows we could see all
along the front range of the Sandia mountains. See the fires burning in the
city below, see the electrical grid go dark section by section. In the morning
we’d head deeper into the mountains, maybe all the way up to Sandia Peak. There
was some type of ski lodge up there along with other ranger stations and cabins
where we could hole up inside. And we would be far above the death and chaos of
the valley below. I didn’t know if it would work out. I didn’t know if the
mountain would already be overrun with the infected. But it was a plan and it
was all we had. There we would wait out the storm.

           
But oh God what a long storm it
would be.

The
Dead of Summer

           
“What the fuck is going on?” Casey
Stofler whispered to himself as he rode the nearly empty gondola down to the tramway
station at the Sandia foothills. Riots in the city, martial law, reports of
fucking cannibalism? It was all fucked up. And this was supposed to be his last
summer working at Sandia Peak before he knocked the dust of Albuquerque off of
his shoes and headed west to Los Angeles where the sun never set and ocean
waves never ended. Instead interstate travel was restricted to military
vehicles and it looked like he would be in town for the duration of the
emergency.

           
He watched the nearly bare stone
peaks dotted with pine trees slide beneath him. He and Dan, the gondola
operator, watched in silence as the tram station approached. They were the last
two off of the mountain. They had closed up the visitors center and restaurant
up on the mountain top and would shut down the tramway station as well before
locking up the gates of the facility and heading back to their respective
homes.

           
When they reached the station, they
locked up the gondola, then began shutting down all the power and locking the
doors to the shops, café, and other tourist areas of the station. They walked
together silently down to the parking lot and then Dan got into his beat up ‘89
Honda civic and started it up.

           
“Good luck, Casey,” he said shaking
my hand.

           
“You too, bud. Stay safe,” I replied
as Dan drove out. I never saw Dan again. He must have died like all the rest
that stayed in Albuquerque. I started up my Bronco and rolled out of the
parking lot, then put her in neutral and set the brakes while I got out and
locked up the heavy steel bar gates behind me. I looked at the tramway station.
It was sealed up tighter than a vault and would do just fine until the crisis
or epidemic, or whatever the fuck it was sweeping the city, passed and things
got back to normal. I pocketed the keys and jumped into my Bronco and headed
home.
 
On my way to my tiny, one bedroom
apartment, my cell phone rang. I picked up knowing who it would be and I didn’t
even say hello, “Dude,” I said, “I just closed up shop.”

           
“Dude, we need to get out of town
like last week,” Anthony, my long time skiing partner and best friend replied.

           
“Where, man? Your folks house?”

           
“Yeah right. There not even in town.
They headed north to my uncle’s farm outside of Taos.

           
“Well, there then?”

           
“Fuck no! You know how my parents
feel about Greer,” he said.

           
“You mean your seriously underage
girlfriend, Jailbait?”

           
“Dude, not cool. Her name is
Núria
and we’ve been together for like, what? Two years now. It’s a real relationship
and you and all the other Avatars of Conservative Morals need to get over it.”

           
“Yeah,
man, she’s like fifteen now, right? Which means you’ve been raping her,
statutorily or course, since she was thirteen. Yikes! I can see why your folks
don’t approve.”

           
“Come
on, man! I was just eighteen when we met! I am not some kind of sick pervert!”

           
“Tell it
to the Judge, man,” I said laughing, “And then your cell mate and
non-homosexual, potential life partner Hubba the Hulk.”

           
“Do you
think any of that matters now?” Tony said, “We need to get out of town and let
this thing pass. What about your folks?”

           
“Up in
Santa Fe? Man it’s worse up there. And my parents hate me. Can you imagine us
all cooped up in there with them for months on end? I’ll take my chances with
the epidemic.”

           
“We
could always go up to my other uncle’s cabin. He’s out in Los Angeles and I
still have the keys.”

           
“Oh,
dude. He will be so pissed if he finds out. You know what happened the last
time we crashed in his cabin without him knowing it.”

           
“Well, I
can’t get a hold of him. I can’t get a hold of anyone outside the state so how
will he ever find out?”

           
“Yeah, I
guess so,” I replied reluctantly. They didn’t have many options, “Meet at my
place?”

           
“Yeah.
You going to bring Nicky?”

           
Nicolette,
his girlfriend of the last two years would probably be at his apartment now
waiting for him, “Of course, but you know she’ll have to bring her sister, too
right?”

           
“Oh,
god. Ms. Frigamortis?”

           
“Yep. In
town for the summer.”

           
“What
about their parents?”

           
“Back
east somewhere with their little sister,” I replied.

           
“God, the
east coast is worse than here. What were they doing back there?”

           
“Summering
at the Hamptons,” I said in my best English snob, Thurston Howell voice.

           
“I bet
they wish they were here. Why can’t we stay at their place?”

           
“Better
to get out town, I think.”

           
“Agreed.
Meet you at your place in an hour?”

           
“Yep.
See you then.”

           
I drove
through the side streets of Albuquerque avoiding the main highways passing gas
station after gas station that had “no fuel” signs posted in front of them
until I found one that was open. I pulled in and saw that gas prices were up to
twenty bucks a gallon. I sighed knowing there was no arguing with the guy who
owned the gas station and filled up my tank. Four hundred dollars. Rent for a
month? Poof! Gone.

           
I put it
on my charge card surprised at first that the guy took it and second, that it
went through. Looking around me at the smoke rising from the city center,
listening to the sounds of sirens and watching people fly out of the city, I
began to think I might not have to pay for it later. In fact,
 
I thought I might want to hit every ATM I saw
on the way over to Nicky’s place and get out every last dollar I had.

           
I bought
a bunch of water as well as filling up the two gas cans mounted to the back of
my old Ford Bronco, then drove slowly through the empty streets stopping at
four separate ATMs on the way until I reached my apartment on the southwest
side of the city. I sat in the Bronco and looked at my entire net worth: $700.
It would have to do.

           
Nicolette
Aisha Sherman, Nicky to her friends, had moved in with me a few weeks before
the outbreak. She was waiting for me as I walked up the stairs and opened the
front door.

           
She was
stretched across the couch wearing a white tank top and cut off shots. She had
a pair of hiking boots on the floor beside her and her pack stuffed to over
flowing leaning against the wall. She looked up at me with her pale gray eyes
and smiled, “When are we leaving?”

           
“As soon
as I can pack my gear,” I said and gave her a quick kiss. Tony and Greer will
be over in an hour,” I said as I moved around the cramped apartment grabbing a
few things I thought we’d need.

           
“Anthony
the Pervert is bringing Greer?” she said with a grimace, “Doesn’t that make you
an accessory to, what? Kidnapping? Child abduction? Transporting minors across
state borders?”

           
“No,” I
replied with a laugh, “It makes
us
accessories to kidnapping, child abduction, and transporting minors across
state borders.” In the bedroom, Nicky had already laid out all my cloths in
neatly folded piles, my toiletries, and my shaving kit. I quickly stuffed them
in my pack, grabbed a few more essentials then piled our stuff next to the
door. I also grabbed my bat and while Nicky was looking out the window, a 9 mm
pistol I kept in a locked box from the top of my closet. Nicky would freak if
she knew I had a gun in the house, but I figured with fucking crazy people
running around like mad all over the city, we might need it. I slipped a bunch
of ammunition in the outer pockets of my pack, then slipped the gun into my
waistband behind my back. I then sat next to Nicky on the couch and watched out
the window for Tony and Greer.

           
“We’re
picking up my sister and taking her with us, right?”

           
“Oh yes,
but it will cost you,” I said smiling.

           
“The
usual?”

           
“Oh, no.
Way more than the usual. If I have to put up with Frigadoris for the whole time
we’re at the cabin, you have to be my sex slave for two weeks.”