How to Find Peace at the End of the World (16 page)

There’s still the wind. At least the Rapture has not taken the wind and every now and then it comes around and rustles the leaves and jostles the sunlight that falls through the cab interior.

??????AM? Hope.

I just about slap myself for being so silly. Had I continued on a little longer, about a mile and a half, I would have come upon a near pristine car carrier. I could have taken a car and been in Dallas by last night. What’s been lost? Would the evacuation have continued overnight? With this one bad decision might I have lost my chance to be reunited with Amy?

I can’t believe my good fortune: most wrecks and cars along the interstate are bound to either be crashed and irretrievably stuck or run out of gas. Then my stomach scrunches up as I realize that I’m not in the clear. First, how do I find the keys? Second, how the hell do I get the cars off? I try the doors of the truck and they’re both locked.

Rock time. I look around and don’t see anything too useful. In the end I just use the butt of the shotgun and smash the driver’s side window in.

Keys? Keys? Well, they aren’t on the trucker’s keychain. I rummage around for a while longer, hope draining away when I come upon all of them in a compartment, a safe almost on the other side of the center console. It seems like it’s been tacked on to the car carrier interior. It’s locked. I take the keychain and try one key after another. A few keys trough the lock turns; the door opens. Inside are a stack of sealed and signed envelopes. I break one of them open and a piece of stamped steel covered in rubberized plastic drops out in my hand. Bingo! I grab the trucker’s key chain and undo each envelope and string them into the big loop.

Time to get me a ride.

The carrier looks like a puzzle, cars all tilted and slotted. The one at the back, a silver mini-SUV, is perfectly positioned its front pointed back out from the carrier as if it might just be a matter of driving it off. Methodically I use the key fobs and unlock the cars. I take a look in the silver SUV and curse to myself – the tank is nearly on E.

All the other cars don’t look so new by any stretch of the imagination. They look like they’d been pre-owned, or even in the process of being shipped by their owners cross country. Not from factory, but that they look in good running condition is the important thing. I check a few others and some have more gas than others.

I walk Charley under a lone surviving shade tree by the freeway and tie him up. I give him one of the last bottles of water I’d found in the truck we’d slept in before I go, pouring half down his mouth and into the dry grass, and then, my sense coming back to me, pouring the rest in a big plastic shell I’d found from the truck cab that looks to have once packaged electronics. I save a few sips for myself and drink. My throat already seems blistered, a combination of the heat and the smoke.

I look around for something I can use, any piece of tubing. I finally resort to opening one of the cars near the front of the carrier and popping the hood. I take a piece of tubing from the engine. I’m thinking I can use the thing for a siphon to get some of the gas out of a few of the other cars, enough to get me to Dallas or to some other vehicles that are more intact.

Nothing to hold the gas. I look back to Charley under the tree and think about using the plastic shell that is now his water dish but then realize that it might be better to plug one end of the tube into the vehicle up top and one into the bottom and do it that way. Slow going but at least I won’t have to worry about pouring. I pop open the lid to the car with the most gas in the tank and curse again as I find the hose won’t fit. I slam a fist into the side of the car denting the body and bruising up my knuckles. Charley perks up from the tree line.

Pacing back and forth I notice the lines on the back of the 18 wheeler that are hooked up to the carrier, all sorts of tubes and nozzles. I rummage around until I find a blade in the messy cab of the truck. I pick one of the smaller diameter lines and cut the length of the hose. It looks like a curled up sippy straw and releases just a puff of air after when cut. This might work.

On the way back I think of something else. I check the car above the SUV again. The tank is a little over half full. It’s a full sized truck above the SUV and half a tank might mean a little bit more in the crossover. I pop the tank lid and say a little prayer before I try the hose. Thank the Lawd Almighty! It fits and I keep feeding the hose into the pickup’s gas tank until it won’t go anymore.

I’ve only ever had to do this two other times in my life, one of them less than successful because the car was too new and had these spring things to prevent gas theft or at least that’s what I was told, but the truck looks old enough and not all that finicky and I climb down and take a look and my spirits are definitely lifted.

The fuel doors are aligned on the two cars, luck is with me, the left side of the truck facing in and the right side of the SUV facing out, so I take the hose and string it out between the two fuel doors just so. The tube on the top keeps wanting to slide out so I grab some rocks from the divider and wedge the hose so that it’s secure. I move back to admire my handiwork. That should do it. I get myself ready for the least pleasant part of all this. I grab the lower end of the hose and start sucking on it, feeling that stubborn resistance, tasting the fumes on my breath. Nothing comes out at first but it feels like whatever I’m getting through the tube is falling back down as soon as I stop. The thought of it, just the anticipation of the cool, noxious liquid itself is enough to make my lungs seize up, make me stop several times to dry heave into the grass.

Then after what seems like an eternity it’s there. I can feel the coolness before anything, followed by the burn and I turn my head and spew the sip of gasoline out into the grass. I cough and then blow the fumes from my mouth trying to keep from inhaling them again like the worst case of garlic and whiskey breath mixed all up together.

I lose quite a bit of the gas before I regain the presence of mind to get the free flowing end of the tube into the SUV. I stand back again and assess my situation. I reek of it, I know, not that I can smell anything right now with my overloaded, burning senses. The gasoline stain is quickly cooling and intermixing with the sweat down the front of my shirt. I take my shirt off and begin fanning it and then spread it over the pavement to dry.
I
’ll have to look for another shirt, not that it matters in a social sense. I’m probably not attending any mixers any time soon.

Charley watche
s
inquisitively from the tree line. He’s on his belly in the dirt paws out in front, a Sphinx made of snow white fur.

I go back to the cab of the truck and root around some more and find an old Texans T-shirt. It looks like it's seen better days what with all the stains and burns. It looks like an engine rag, actually, but it still smells slightly more like detergent than gasoline. I slip it on and it goes to my mid-thigh. There's enough room for me to grab the tag and pull it around for a look without even taking it off. XXL. I'm usually an M to L. It does the job, although this thought makes me pause. I begin to laugh. What does it all fucking matter? I could go around fucking buck naked and the only things would see me would be the grackles and Charley. Then I've never liked going bare chested, even playing ball and we went shirts and skins and I can even now still feel that compulsion, to cover myself. The momentum of modesty, I guess. Why shouldn’t I go bare chested? I take the oversized shirt off to test it out. It still feels off. It still feels like I’m being recorded, watched from above. It feels especially like the last few days have been one of the most elaborate pranks in the world. I feel now even more exposed, I believe, than I would have had there been people all around me. I take the oversized T-shirt and slip it over my head again. Good enough.

I can’t spend all day debating the merits of being clothed. Instead there’s the problem of getting the car off of the carrier. There’s a lever on the side of the truck with a Raise/Lower label and even after unlocking it I can’t do anything. I think that it must be hydraulic.

The problem is that the easiest car to get to, the one on the lower level in the back is still a good three feet off the ground. I’ve got the chain off, but it’s going to take me flooring it to clear this car out of the carrier. Again, Dukes of Hazard style.

I open the SUV and get in. I’m about to start the car before coming to my senses. I get back out and place my hand on the chains that tie the car down. I try the keys again until one works and spend more time than necessary trying to get the car unlocked and unhooked. Unlocking this thing over the chains only unlocks the ratchet, and then you have to spend what seems like forever loosening the tie downs.

After all this I get back in the car again. I say another little prayer and turn the ignition.

Hallelujah! Good thing I’ve tied Charley down because he’s on all fours now, is straining at his leash. I need him clear because this might not end well.

The drop is three feet but I know what it will feel like. I grit my teeth and slam the gas and the car goes ripping off the end of the ramp. I should have relaxed my jaw because the impact sends my teeth clacking and starts a ringing through my ears. The car skids to a stop. The engine is still purring, at least. I shake some sense back into myself and get out to inspect the damage. The car cleared the ramp, but the back bumper cover is loose now. I scraped the hell out of the plastic front bumper, but otherwise no tire damage and the structure seems sound. I kick the plastic back bumper cover off the car and leave it. Then I get back in and ease the car around the truck and transfer over to my new ride anything I find useful.

After I’m done I swing it by where I’ve left Charley and the rest of the supplies I’d managed to scrounge together since the fire and since losing the Beast. I let loose the whining Charley and load the stuff into the car while the big dog gets in the way trying to get me to soothe him. He’d get underfoot and trip me up if he weren’t so big. I take a few moments to brush ash from his fur. Then we get in and I turn the replacement car north. Charley whines and I soothe him (and myself) some more by smoothing down the long hair on the back of his big cowardly neck. Coward I say to him softly though I don’t mean it. I owe the schmuck my life.

In front of me the clouds look dark and ominous. I don’t know what will be at the end to greet me anymore. Not that I had much of a clue to begin with, when I set out on this fool’s quest.

The car has a quarter tank. Enough to get me there, I hope. Hope. I’ll find something, a way. I’ll get there.

I hold on to Charley’s collar and then run the car into the abyss ahead.

4PM. One hundred and ten miles outside of Dallas the SUV runs out of gas, or is about to. I pull off before it happens when I see a row of semis parked edge to edge on a road feeding the highway. I’d actually seen a few of these and passed them up wanting to see how far the little SUV might take me. The needle is just at E so I might have another twenty or forty miles but why risk it? I stop to investigate the parked semis.

I’d always seen semis stopped like this on the side of the freeways, blinkers on, like birds warming up in the morning, their drivers probably getting the few minutes of shut eye.

I decide to treat the nested 18 wheelers like a roadside café and raid the cabs for food first. I’m treated to stuff like rotted bologna and tuna fish salad in the fridges. I retch at the stench and slam the doors closed again. There are plenty of dry snacks though and I quickly grab them as I cover my mouth and nose with my other hand. Outside I open up a pack of beef jerky and some summer sausage. I pop a few drinks and bottles of water and Charley and I sit there on the ramp and have a nice mid-afternoon meal.

I consider taking one of the trucks instead of the SUV the rest of the way as I look down the line of trucks. They’re all nice trucks but they look as if they’ve been left idling so not much luck as far as having any fuel left. I go from the front and check backwards just to confirm my suspicions, ready to get back in the almost empty SUV and try my luck down the freeway when I decide at the last moment to check the truck way in the back. I hadn’t checked this one coming up the ramp but it’s got red hazard triangles trailing behind it and a tiny cab that is less likely to have fridges and TVs and what not. Score. Engine was off. More than three quarters of the way full.

As I stand in the open doorway I smile and shake my head. Of course I should have checked the ones with the red triangles first.

I climb in and rub my hands together. Let’s see if I remember my training from moving semis at the yard over those summers in high school. I turn the key front and let the glow plugs warm up. I’ve done this before: standard thirteen gear layout. Paddle down and button back. Clutch. And I’m off. No. Not really. I missed a step. Ah, there: Release parking brakes.

Let’s see if this thing will run.

Charley whines as the truck lurches out from under me. I feel like I’m in the rodeo for a moment and then the ride straightens out.

The Beast II, I shall christen you, I say to more myself than anyone in particular. Then the smile that’s been on my face this whole time, the dehydration delirium breaks. Charley’s ears flop down as I bust out into a full throaty rendition of “On the Road Again.”

****

I throw the eighteen wheeler into gea
r
and ram it straight down Dallas’ throat.