Worlds in Chaos (60 page)

“What about my guys back there?” the leader asked. “Is it okay for them to come back now? We’re all friends together, right?”

“Over there, where we can see them,” Mitch said, waving at the shoulder on one side of the roadway. “Have one of them pick up the guns and leave them by the truck.” The leader yelled back to relay the directions in Spanish. Buff and Luke had come down from the cab and were staring at the bridge and the strip of highway disappearing into the swirling vapors beyond. Luke turned and said something; Buff shook his head stolidly. The others were appearing from the back and coming around to inspect the situation. “You guys bring some women too,” the leader commented, tugging his beard and grinning approvingly.

“What else are we going to do?” Mitch said. “Shoot them? We don’t have any choice but go back toward Corpus Christi. We can’t just drive away and leave them here to drown?”

“I suppose we have to take them that far,” Cavan agreed. “Then it would depend on what we decided. Are we still talking about finding a long way around, or do we give it up and head back for San Antonio?”

Mitch pulled a face and looked toward the sky. The booms and rolling of distant thunder had intensified in the last few hours. “I don’t like the way this is going. It feels like it’s building up toward the Big One that Charlie talked about. I don’t want to be anywhere near any ocean when it hits.” Cavan looked at Keene to invite comment, but in a way that said Mitch was speaking for both of them.

“What’s happening?” Charlie asked as he joined them.

Cavan gestured. “See for yourself. The only way now is back. What we do when we get to I-37 is the question.”

Alicia was turning her head from side to side, as if searching for a way around. “But . . . San Saucillo?” she said. “What about the shuttle?”

“What do you want us to do, fly the truck over?” Mitch asked her.

“What’s the deal? Are we trying for the long way, then?” Colby asked, moving into the circle.

“That’s what we’re debating,” Cavan told him.

“Athena’s closing in,” Charlie said dubiously. “Every tide is going to be higher than the last.”

“How far inland could the next one go?” Cavan asked, looking alarmed.

Charlie showed his hands in what could be the only honest answer. “How can I tell you? Maybe to Saucillo.” In which case, he didn’t have to add, there would be no point in spending maybe all day tomorrow looking for a long way around. It would achieve only the guarantee of their getting trapped also. Cynthia moved closer to Keene and squeezed his arm as if in a gesture of sympathy for how he must be feeling.

“You people talk much longer, and we’re gonna need that boat up there anyway,” the leader called over at them.

Mitch looked away, indicating that as far as he was concerned there was nothing more to be said. Cavan stood waiting for Keene to acknowledge the inevitable. Alicia shook her head protestingly but could add no words that would change anything. Even Colby was reduced to an awkward silence. Keene stared across past the bridge; unrealistic, romanticized images poured into his mind of Vicki, Robin, others, waiting somewhere. Everything in him rebelled at the obscenity that was being forced upon him. His gaze came back to the battered green truck, weighed down by its almost comical burden of accoutrements. And finally, the obvious dawned on him.

He stabbed a finger, pointing. “
There’s your answer!
” he threw at the rest of them. Their eyes followed, then came back to him disbelievingly.

“What are you talking about?” Mitch asked uncertainly. Keene was past debating; in any case, there was nothing in the way of reason or logic left for him to debate with. He turned and began shouldering his way back between the others.

“What are you asking us to do?” Alicia pleaded as he passed her.

“I’m not asking anyone to do anything. I just know what
I’m
doing.” Keene walked to the end of the truck, climbed up into the shelter, and began collecting a share of rations, water, and other oddments to fill his pack. They had brought spare rifles and magazines. He selected a standard Army pattern and a pouch filled with clips. Alicia and Colby arrived as he clambered back down off the tailboard, Cavan not far behind. Alicia gaped at him for a moment, then grabbed his jacket with both hands, pulled him close, and kissed his cheek.

“Have you gone completely mad, Landen?” Cavan called ahead.

“Why me? Wasn’t it you who was mad a short while ago?” Keene gestured the way ahead. “You said it yourself. There’s people depending on us. You change your mind if you want, Leo. I’m going on.”

“But . . . you heard Charlie.”

“All the more reason to get moving, then.”

Alicia started saying something to Cavan. Keene came back to the leader, who was watching, confused. “How far did you come in that?” Keene asked him.

The leader waved vaguely. “Was a long way from south, a place you never heard of.”

“It runs? It’s got gas?”

The leader made a face, shrugging. “Well, is like you expect, you know. We take some from a car we find here, a truck there. But is good for a few miles yet, sure.”

“Okay. Then I need the keys.” The leader seemed to hesitate reflexively. “Hell, come on! It’s not going to be any more use to you.” Keene said.

The leader stared at Keene for a moment longer as if confirming that he was dealing with someone crazy, then shrugged and looked away. “
Augusto. Come here,
” he called, and followed it with something in Spanish. One of the men came forward and produced a set of keys. He removed a couple carefully and presented them to Keene. God alone knew what he thought he’d need the rest for.

Keene looked quickly around the rest of his party, the troops, Buff and Luke still standing together. More than anything, he was conscious of time relentlessly passing. “I would have wanted a better way to do this, but it’s what we’ve got,” he told them. “You’re all great people. It’s been a privilege. Let’s consider the rest all said, eh?” Some of them managed a response; others just stood mutely, as if unable to believe it was happening. Keene glanced back at the leader and indicated the green truck with a wave. “And if you want any of that stuff off there you’d better get your people moving, because I’m dumping it.” Slinging the rifle around behind him to leave both hands free, he moved onto the bridge. Behind him, the leader’s voice launched into a tirade at the others.

Picking his way over the chunks of broken concrete was trickier than it had looked. The sloping surfaces were slippery, making it necessary to find footholds in the breaks and where possible hold onto the jagged edges higher up. In places he had to move on exposed steel reinforcement, greasy and treacherous, causing his body to tense involuntarily as when sensing insecurity walking on ice. All the time, the wind gusted and raged around him in its attempts to pluck him off. He was perhaps a quarter of the way across when Alicia’s voice floated through from behind. “
Lan!
” Holding tightly to the stance he was on, Keene raised his head to look back. She was coming around the truck, lugging a pack in one hand and what looked like a medical kit in the other. Cavan was behind her with another pack and his submachine gun. “
We’re coming with you.
” Such was Keene’s concentration at that moment, that the message only partly sank in. He kept his head turned for a few seconds, letting the gesture say what his position prevented him from articulating, and then looked back to his task.

Near the midpoint, he came to a section where the group crossing the other way had tied ropes as improvised handrails—the worst part, with all the pavement gone and the creek visible below, from where the smell of decay reached his nostrils. Clutching the ropes and the girders, he had no defense against the flies. The sky to the west lit up with an incoming fireball landing closer than most. Keene braced himself for the boom and the shock wave, waited until they had passed, and carried on.

Then he was once again among flakes of shattered concrete, and by comparison the going seemed easy now. The last few yards, and he was standing on unbroken roadway again, in front of the green truck. At close range it looked even more antique than before. He walked up to it. All the glass was gone from the passenger side of the cab, and what looked like the rear window from a different vehicle had been lashed in place of the truck’s absent windshield. The sides were dented everywhere and missing a few panels. Keene picked out a scattering of what looked suspiciously like bullet holes. Grunting to himself, he turned back to look for Alicia and Cavan. They were close together on the bridge, Cavan helping Alicia at the awkward center section.

But that wasn’t all. There was another figure some yards behind them . . . and another two farther back still, just moving onto the first stretch. Keene peered, and after a few seconds made them out to be Colby, followed by Charlie and Cynthia. A tall figure that had to be Mitch was walking from the truck, at the same time slinging a large pack over a shoulder; as Keene watched, two more jumped down from the rear of the trailer and followed.
They were all coming!
Keene wiped the grime and perspiration from his face. It felt sticky and stubbly, but all of a sudden none of the discomfort mattered. Something warm and uplifting, brushing a depth of the spirit that in his life had seldom stirred, flooded through him. He rubbed an eye with a knuckle. More than just the fumes, he realized, was causing his vision to blur. He turned away and climbed up into the cab.

He first tried the engine. After a couple of backfires and two unsuccessful attempts at starting with different setting of the choke, which was manual, it finally coughed into life with a celebration of blue smoke from the tailpipe, indicating burning oil. Looking out through the improvised windshield, Keene saw the figure of the leader on the far side, beaming and giving him an enthusiastic thumb’s-up as if to say,
See, I wouldn’t fool you
. For what it was worth, the gas gauge claimed almost half a tank. Check with a dipstick before setting off, Keene told himself.

By the time the others began arriving off the bridge, he was already tossing out filthy blankets, piles of clothes, and pots of partly eaten food from the back. The inside stank of tobacco and pot, too many unwashed bodies crowded together for too long, and fear. While he was still clearing space, he heard the sounds of the rest of the baggage being cut free from the roof. Legermount and Dash appeared at the doors and began heaving in packs and equipment. Keene climbed out and found Cavan and Mitch poring over a map that they’d brought from the other truck. “Come on, we need you, Lan,” Cavan said. “This is your country we’re in now.”

“Buff and Luke aren’t coming?”

“It appears not,” Cavan said. “Perhaps they decided that trucks, not spacecraft, were more their line.” Keene realized that for some reason he had half expected it.

“Here,” Mitch said, handing Keene his radio. “You want to wish them luck?” There was still a set programmed to the same frequency in the cab. Keene took the unit and pressed the call button. Across the bridge, one of the figures near the truck turned around and walked back to the driver’s door.

“Yeah?” a voice answered in the radio that Keene was holding. It sounded like Buff.

“Lan Keene here. So you guys aren’t coming along after all?”

“Well, you know how it is. . . . I could never really see me up in one o’ them spaceships, anyway. And these people aren’t so bad. Someone’s going to have to get them to San An or wherever they want to go. And then Luke and me figured that if it works out that it’s possible, we might try heading back east when the worst is over, and try to find our folks—just the way you’re doin’. I reckon like maybe you gave us some inspiration. Anyways, we’re set on giving it a try.”

Keene swallowed. There wasn’t a lot left that he could say—or the time to say it in. “Well, you’ve been a big help to us. Good luck.”

“We’ll take whatever comes. Hope it all works out for you.”

Keene clicked off the radio. The others were already aboard, Legermount waiting on the driver’s side of the bench seat. Keene and Mitch squeezed in with him, while Cavan went around to the rear. Nobody else from across the bridge was coming back to collect any belongings. Evidently, the things they had found in the larger truck would suffice. Legermount fought the shift into reverse with a frightful grinding of gears, backed around onto the shoulder, then engaged forward and turned onto the highway. A series of blasts from the other truck’s horn sounded behind.

As they lurched their way among the washed-up debris, broken paving, and fallen rock rubble, Mitch nudged Keene’s arm and pointed ominously in the seaward direction to their left. Through the patches of brown haze twisting in convolutions with clearer air drawn in off the sea, a line of fuzzy whiteness had become visible, extending as far as they could see to the south ahead of them and northward behind, paralleling the coast.

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