The Long Way To Reno (11 page)

            Everything
caught up to me at once, so when I flopped once more to the ground, I didn’t
bother getting back up. I curled up as best as I could and went to sleep,
hoping to be woken by the sun, rather than nasty alien creatures and Rabid.

            It
felt like I’d just fallen asleep when I was roughly hauled to my feet. Instead
of firmly setting my tired stubs onto the dirt, my weight pulled forward and we
both hit the ground. I didn’t bother to apologize or help the other person get
up – Sandy was man enough for both of us. She cursed, climbed back up and
made
me get up.

            “We
found a truck,” she said, as I blinked heavy, thick eyelids – eye
lid
.
The other one was still swollen shut. It ached, now, as I looked around and saw
that it was darker – the moon was lower. I’d slept for some time, but not
enough time. I wonder how she found me. She was practically holding me aloft
with one arm as she moved toward the freeway. There were three vehicles sitting
in a group, heaters blasting.

            My
selfish, black heart was glad that I didn’t see the people I’d left behind, the
ones that tried to help the one from the river. But I cringed at the thought of
it just the same.

            “Found
another one!” she said as we approached, and before I could do anything, she
was shoving me face first into this dually, where I had to climb and rely on
her pushing hands on my ass to get me into the extended cab. I was grouped with
a couple of shivering men and – yup. Harley.

            He
patted me atop of the head to say ‘hi’, then returned to resting his head on
the driver’s side passenger window. I made the man sitting next to him switch
me seats. I was determined to use the one I knew as a pillow. Sandy was saying
something to all of us, but I was too tired to bother listening to her. I went
back to sleep with my Fubar digging into my back.

            When
I awoke, feeling somewhat better with the rest I’d taken, the sun was extremely
bright – the truck rattled, and we were driving slowly along a dirt road
I didn’t recognize. Sandy was sitting in the front passenger seat, her
un-helmeted head resting against the inside crook of her arm, which was holding
tightly onto the panic handle above the window. The driver was another soldier,
who was snapping his gum noisily while the person sitting between them
struggled to maintain balance to rest his head on Sandy’s shoulder. Harley was
still sleeping, and when I left my head, I saw that I’d drooled on him. I
patted on it absently, and looked over at the other two men. They were just as
dead-tired, and were sleeping as best as they could.

            I
winced at the taste in my mouth, and realized that I was sweaty. But it felt so
good to be warm again. I removed my gloves, setting them neatly on my lap and
finally wiggled around as I removed my Fubar from between my back and seat.
When I settled that between my knees, pry-side down on the floor and wrench on
my thigh, I exhaled low again. I was starving, so I wiggled around to find one
of my protein bars – dug out a bottle of water from my bag. So much stuff
on me, so little room. But I was unwilling to part with any of it, considering
the mess we’d just been in.

            “Got
any gum?” the driver asked me, sounding hopeful.

            I
dug around in my bag until I produced a set of convenient Colgate Wisps. I
passed one to him so he could brush his teeth, and I ate my protein bar
hurriedly, in case I didn’t have a chance to. After washing that down, and
using the other Wisp, I felt loads better. The driver was content as well,
re-focused on the road while someone snored loudly. To occupy myself, I
rummaged into my bag again, and pulled out my makeup pouch.

            I
wanted a hot shower, I wanted a change of clothes, I wanted to wash what hair I
had left. But at least I had my makeup. I had removed some of the dirt and
grime from my face and neck and replaced what essentials I needed to look
presentable. The driver saw what I was doing and laughed.

            “Are
you
serious
?” he asked the rearview mirror. I finished applying my blush
and frowned at him.

            “I’m
going to be good-looking when I die,” I declared. “None of this looking like a
bedraggled survivor when I have the chance to touch things up.”

            “The
human race is being slaughtered by infected and aliens, and you’re worried
about your looks?”

            “Priorities
are different for everyone,” I said, carefully applying a coat of pink
lipgloss.

            He
snorted, said some disgusted things, and I ignored him while I curled my
eyelashes and fretted over the length of my dirty bangs. I snapped my blush
compact mirror shut and replaced everything, carefully, back into my messenger
bag.

            “Where
are we?” I then asked, trying to orient myself with my surroundings. I needed
to map out places to go when things failed again.

            The
driver looked as if he weren’t going to answer, then looked around. “Uh, looks
like Mustang. We had to pull over and separate because a few ships were spotted
in the area. Trying to lay low.”

            Okay.
We’re in the Mustang Ranch area. I thought of Benson’s words, before we were
attacked.

            “I
thought we were heading to Virginia City?”

            The
driver said nothing for a while. The more time passed, the more I realized this
fool didn’t know what he was doing. Sandy spoke up groggily.

            “We’re
lost
,” she stated.

            “I
didn’t know where we were going!” he exclaimed angrily. “When I lost sight of
Flaunders, I stayed on this road!”

            “We
were supposed to go
around
the fire! I knew I shouldn’t have been- ! You
need to turn around!”

            “Stop
freaking out on me! Let me find somewhere where we can,” he replied, searching
for a turn-off.

            I
exhaled low, sat back in my seat. Looked at the grungy town of Mustang from a
different angle.

            Sandy
turned in her seat to look at me. She looked as tired as I felt, her gingery
hair was visible in wisps around her helmet. “How you doing? Found your
boyfriend, huh?”

            “He’s
not my boyfriend,” I insisted, glancing at Harley to make sure he was still
sleeping.

            “Yeah,
right…” she studied me for a few moments. “Are you wearing
makeup
?”

            “She
was putting makeup on earlier. Said she’d rather die ‘pretty’,” the driver
supplied, heavily offended with my personal choices.

            Sandy
stared at me, then rolled her eyes, turning back in her seat. She then had to
dig her arm out and away from the man leaning on her, holding her hand out to
me. “Gimme some chapstick.”

            The
driver gave her a look of disgust while I rummaged for the tube.

            An
hour later, Sandy was trying to get a hold of somebody on her handheld, and the
driver was taking a leak in the bushes. I don’t even know where we were, but
we’d found a dirt road that promised us Dayton if we continued driving. Harley
was finishing off a box of cheesy crackers and a warm bottle of soda. The other
guys were eating what we’d had in our bags, but I was hoarding a bag of
chocolates to myself. Oh, and I shared some with Sandy once she discovered what
I was hiding – she’d asked kindly with a punch to my shoulder.

            She
shook the radio with frustration, saying, “This only works if we’re within ten
miles of each other. So it’s not working. You know what that means, Jordan?”

            The
driver scowled in her direction. He’d returned, looking annoyed once he scanned
the desert around us. The brush fire that started at USA Parkway had spread
– the skies were blanketed with smoke. But it was the least of everyone’s
worries, for the wind was pushing it away from us. There were bigger things to
think about, like the aliens and Rabid. There were more words exchanged between
them, and I used the opportunity to pull the dually’s bed door down, to sit
atop of it and scan the desert with a hand over my eyes. I’d lost my sunglasses
somewhere.

            Harley
joined me, looking up at me with that squinty look of his. His boring brown
hair was all ruffly, and kept blowing over his eyes.

            “The
sergeant said that the Rabid were caused by a virus,” he said, slinging his
rifle behind him. It seemed like he staggered under the action – I hope
from exhaustion, rather than the effort. I tried not to be embarrassed for him.

We
were the only ones armed, aside from the two now yelling at each other. Since
it seemed like a personal thing between them, I focused on the dorky guy who
caught my attention. He was so painful to look at – his clothes
overwhelmed him. “Released first, weeks before the attack – the
government had known an infection was spreading, and only attributed it to an
annual flu virus. Then, when the ships came in, it was activated. Turned those
people into mindless hordes of infected.”

            My
face scrunched with thought. “He said that to you? When did you have time to
talk to this guy?”

            “Hours.
We were hiding in the wreckage.” He trailed off. He gave a slight shake of his
head as I combed my hair, struggling to look presentable. I reapplied my
lipgloss, glancing at the soldiers to see if they had their shit together.
Realizing he didn’t have my full attention, Harley’s voice had taken on a
sullen tone. “He only told me because he thought he wasn’t going to survive.”

            “Did
he?”

            “Yeah,
he’s in another truck. I’d asked. Y’know, just to see if he knew anything about
it.”

            I
thought about what he just said. Brushed hair from my face. My neck and back of
head ached so badly, but there wasn’t anything I could do for it, but take more
ibuprofen. I had a headache a mile wide.

            “Of
all the cities, the areas in the world, this one gets hit, too,” I muttered,
utterly disgusted.

            “They’d
pretty much conquered much of the East and West coast before coming this way,”
Harley then said. “Much of the forces were pulling civilians to safety by then.
Hiding people. They found me in Fernley – I was trying to get a truck out
from the Pilot parking lot. Oh, and that girl….her name’s Emmy, she’s with that
guy Benson and a few other girls in the other truck, the last one – “

            I
somehow managed to repress the look of joy on my face to know that Benson was
still alive.

            “
– her entire family was turned. She had to kill them all. I found her
over by the state yard. She didn’t say an entire word that whole time, until
we, well, found you.”

            Harley
then frowned. I think he saw my expression of joy over Benson being alive and
was offended by the powerful effect the stud had over me. I tossed my hair
strong enough to hit him in the face to show that his opinion didn’t matter to
me, so he had to bat it away from him. By this time, I noticed Sandy was
ignoring Jordan. He was trying to get somebody on the radio. I pulled my hood
up against a sudden gust of wind that had tumbleweeds blowing by. The smell of
smoke
tasted
awful. That was when one of the guys dumbly pointed out a
fresh fire to the west of us, traveling towards us.

            We
all climbed into the truck and Jordan continued on the road we were on, while
Sandy continued trying to reach somebody on the radio.

Chapter Seven

            It
was dark, and the moon was high by the time we met with the others in Lockwood.
Driving in that dually was really uncomfortable by then, but I was brimming
with anticipation and dread. Because just over those hills was Sparks. But from
Lockwood’s point, the cities were still in flames. Smoke billowed over like an
abnormally fast-moving fog, and explosions boomed in the distance. Those ships
occasionally zipped about in the sky, moving so quickly that their maneuvers
were impossible. The roadways were blackened, destroyed –it didn’t look
like a freeway, anymore. The river below was crammed with debris – cars,
people, animals…

            I
wanted us to keep moving, but their commanding officer told us we were to hole
up here. Until they could find another route to Virginia City – there
were enough dirt roads to use, but with the way the ships kept patrolling the
city, he was reluctant to continue until the place was checked out.

            I
was so close to home that I just wanted to
go
– but the guy wasn’t
letting anybody leave. The evacuation centers – he called them Camp 1
through 7 – were taking in whoever made it to them, and they were
protected by as much military force as they were able to spread them. The thing
was, because of the combined invaders, people that were found by the military
had to be escorted in by the same military group. Which puzzled a few of us
– who cares about an escort?

             We
were holed up in a doublewide, in a neighborhood named after a French worded color.
The dump nearby was on fire, and so the guys in charge were worried about that.
Rabid were stalked and destroyed by what soldiers were left. While they
traipsed around the neighborhoods, killing the Rabid, the rest of us civilians
set up camp. Sandy, Benson and this other guy named Allen were there to ‘help’
us, but I think they were really there to make sure we didn’t escape.

            There
were twelve civilians in all. The three guys, Harley and I, Emmy the teenager,
four ladies, and two other men in that looked as if they’d been chased from the
basketball court. The ladies were attempting to make suitable bedspaces for
everyone in the living room, wanting to break us into girls here, boys there,
but I didn’t want to be included in their plans. Too wary of things that had
happened, I lingered near an exit I found suitable – the garage door,
which would lead me out into a yard and into a narrow alleyway created by
wooden fences.

            Emmy
looked surprised that I was there. I don’t think she expected me to have
survived, and gave me an expression that said so. I didn’t know whether to be
offended or flattered. While the women chatted and found blankets from the
bedrooms, with Allen going next door to search for more bedding, she wandered
over to where I was sitting and sat next to me.

            “I
like your knife,” she said.

            “You
want it? I haven’t used it since I found it,” I said, unstrapping it from my
thigh. She took it with a quiet ‘yey!’, and strapped it onto her own limb.

I
played with the ends of my hair and watched as Harley chatted the ear off one
frazzled looking lady. He looked so dorky with his flannel, my Halo shirt
visible as it hung open. The woman was in a nightdress with black sweats
– her grey streaked blond hair was pulled into a high ponytail, and one
could tell she was a smoker. I hoped she didn’t smoke around us. It was bad
enough this place stunk enough of smoke and mold.

            “Do
you like him?” Emmy asked me, and I blinked away my thoughts of disgust to
focus on what she meant.

            “Oh,
I barely know him.”

            “He
likes you.”

            I
thought about that for a few moments, then had to shrug. “Whatever. I’m not
interested.”

            “Why?”

            “I
don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m more focused on surviving this chaos than I
am falling in love?”

            She
ignored my sarcasm. “I think he looks like JGL.”

            I
scrunched my face, and she gave an impatient noise, and said the name of the
actor whose name I couldn’t think of.

            “So
I think he’s cute. And soooo nice.”

            “I’m
more attracted to men types,” I said distractedly. She plucked at her checkered
Vans slip-ons.

            “Like
Benson? You had this super dorky smile on your face when you talked to him,”
she stated, and I turned away from the shaky laughter and low conversations to
frown at her. She blinked makeup heavy eyes at me.

            “Sure,”
I said, looking around and finding tall, blond and gorgeous chatting with a
couple of younger ladies that were fawning over him. “What’s not to like about
that hunk of man meat?”

            “Seriously,
huh?” Emmy said with some relief.

            We
watched other people for awhile. The only things they had running in this dump
was the heater, so I started to feel warm. Despite what had happened recently,
I felt myself start to relax. I started to remove my vest – my blanket
fell out, and after that, I removed my hooded jacket. I was down to my crewneck
sweater and jeans when I decided I couldn’t part with my Fubar and messenger
bag. They stayed slung on me by the time I settled back down on the floor.

            Emmy
stared at me for a few moments, then shifted. “Can I use your makeup?”

            I
was annoyed at the request. Sharing makeup with others encouraged pinkeye
infections. How inconvienent to have when one was trying to survive zombies.
“Ew, really?”

            “You
want to know what’s ‘
ew’
about this situation? The fact that you have
makeup
in the first place,” she said with heavy teenage disgust. “We’re fighting for
our lives,
starving
, and lost people we love – and you have makeup
and won’t even share it. You’re just as bad as the things that killed us!”

            “It’s
too bad I don’t give a shit,” I told her. “Trying to make me feel guilty won’t
make me share anything with you.”

            She
frowned at me for a few seconds, then tried to ignore me while she considered
my attitude. Finally she muttered, “Okay, fine, I’m sorry.”

            I
handed her some wipes and my makeup pouch, and instructed her to use the stuff
still in containers. She said something insulting about my supply, but took the
items she wanted and went in search of the bathroom.

            A
few minutes later, Harley came over, lightly kicking my shoe to get my
attention, as I was busy fretting over the kid giving me pinkeye. “Are you
hungry? Lydia and the others are going to make sandwiches.”

            “No,”
I replied, pulling my shoe in to avoid another kick.

            “You
should eat something other than Snickers and protein bars.”

            “I
don’t want to. I want to be able to run away when stuff happens,” I said,
rummaging in my vest for another bar.

            “We’re
fine, now,” Harley then said, snatching my vest. He walked off with it while I
gave his back an irritated look. How dare he behave so comfortably with me?
Like we even know each other that well to be, like, taking stuff from each
other.

            “There
you go, kiddo,” Benson said, smiling that perfect smile of his. He appeared in
my line of vision, holding out a bottle of water. Oh, I just loved the way his
jaw bunched up like that – like he seriously had muscles under muscles.
One of the girls he’d been chatting with earlier hung close to his side,
looking at me with an expression I knew well; that territorial
Back-Off-He’s-Mine look that girls always gave me.

            Hey,
I’ll work my charms on anybody if it meant giving me an advantage. I’ve stolen
best friends’ boyfriends just because I could; usually for stupid reasons, like
getting them to buy me video games or comic books, or some new MAC collection.
I’d feel bad, but not too bad when I had products in hand. Now that I think
about it, I feel pretty bad for breaking their hearts.

            “Thanks,”
I said in reply, stuffing the bottle into my bag. 

            “It
got a little sticky back there,” he said with a slight nod. “I admit, I was
ready for anything – I was in Afghanistan just last year, so I thought I
saw it all. Then
this
happened. I watched all these movies, man, about
alien invasions and stuff? The good guys always win, and they always come out
on top. They got it. Then it’s like, back there, actually looking at them? It’s
so totally different. They don’t play by Hollywood rules. Then you come in with
your can of hairspray…hell, that makes you bad-ass.”

            I
had been distracted by the way his muscles worked in his throat when he was
speaking to me, so I really didn’t know what he was saying until he gave me a
pat on the shoulder. From the look the girl gave me, it must’ve been a
compliment of sorts.

            “Just
for you, Benson. Have to make sure you procreate to spread more of that
good-lookin’ gene you’ve got,” I said, reaching up to pinch one of his cheeks.

            He
laughed, and the girl flicked her head and leaned in to say, “I’m really cold.
Can you help me find a jacket here?”

            “Save
the girls, Benson. I’ve got manlier things to do, like brag about my penis size
to this lesbian over here,” I said, walking over to Sandy.

            She
had her mouth full of some sandwich, and looked at me with a startled expression.
Benson followed, saying, “She’s single, and has been for awhile if you’re
interested.”

            “What
the hell?” she exclaimed with her mouth full, as I gave the set-up in the
kitchen a disinterested look.  “Like I want to be labeled like that!”

            “You
make me quiver inside, Sandy, and I always do that around men,” I said,
straightening.

            “
So
?”

            “At
the same time, I doubt you’re her type,” Benson continued, turning to assure
the clingy lady that he’d help her in a bit. “She’s more of the
healthy
variety.”

Sandy
chewed furiously, then looked at him in outage. But one could tell, with a look
at both of them, that their familiarity with each other spanned years. These
were friends that knew too much of each other, and could talk freely. “What the
hell?”

            Sandy
jerked away from me, sliding down from the counter. “It’s okay, Sandy. I’m
totally cool with it. You’ll fall in love with me soon enough, just like Benson
did.”

            “I
fell pretty hard – “ Benson mock-confessed, hand rubbing his chest.

            “I’ll
give you another black eye!” Sandy threatened me, licking crumbs from her
fingers.

            I
played with my hair, giving her a confident expression. “If it gives you an
excuse to lay your manly hands on me, I’ll let you.”

            “Jennings,
if you’re hitting on her, Harley’s going to have problems,” Emmy said, speaking
up from behind Benson, fully made-up and grinning as my face reflected
irritation at the boyfriend implication. The lady, seeing Benson wasn’t going
to be distracted from Sandy’s gang-bang, offered to make him a sandwich
instead. The other lady he’d been talking to was already there, totally cutting
her off at the pass.

            “Harley’s
not my boyfriend,” I said low, looking for him. He was still talking to the
other ladies, helping them arrange a massive bed for the women, the men
reluctantly attending to their own on the other side of the living room. He
still had my vest, hanging from one shoulder.