Post Apocalyptic Ponies: Revolutions Per Mile, Book 1 (2 page)

I changed the subject. “Are you still driving?” There
were few good opportunities for kids who gave up driving. Unless you
were older, it was farming or wrenching, take your pick.

“Nah, I need to take care of Garth. I moved us into a
farmhouse not far up the road. We work with the other families
there.”

I wondered if it was true they
both
worked up there, but I
didn't press.

I was starting to get fidgety. They didn't want a ride, and I was
caught up on Penn's unfortunate life. I'd been standing still for too
long.

“Well, I have to—”

“Wait, before you go.” He also seemed anxious. While
he rubbed the back of his head he looked at me with embarrassment. It
was kind of cute. “I, uh, thought maybe you'd come by sometime
and I could look under your hood.”

My eyes must have lit up with surprise because he was quick to
continue. “No! I mean look under your car's hood. Oh, man.
Sorry, no. Let me start over.” He took a quick breath. “I've
spent a lot of time up in the big garages working on cars. I could
look under your
Camaro's
hood and help you tweak her.”
He pointed to my car. “Find a few more horsepower. That's all.”
His red face practically glowed.

I imagined my dad's response if he heard us talking. “Danger
K-bear, danger.” Always danger.

I'd almost never turn away help with tweaking my car's engine, but
seeing his brother, knowing the situation of them both, and feeling
the strange attraction despite all that was too much for me at that
moment.

I took one last peek into his eyes—I hesitated beyond my
comfort zone—before I turned around with a stiff wave. I shook
my head no.

“I'll see ya round, Penn. Good luck.”

I practically ran to the car, jumped in, and drove off.

“You should belt in K-bear. It isn't safe to drive without a
seatbelt.”

“I know, Dad. Damn.”

I was up over a hundred before I finally listened to his advice.
My mind was still a quarter mile behind.

My dad used to always talk about Murphy's Law. “If something
can go wrong, it will,” he'd say with his deep laugh as he
worked on cars in our garage. “You think this bolt was just
gonna come out on it's own, all nice and prim?” he'd say. “Hell
no, this thing is rusted on, and because Mr. Murphy is watching, he's
going to make sure that damned thing is going to require me to grind
it off, even though it's in the most inconvenient spot you can
imagine.”

He'd laugh of course—he was an optimist—but he would
cuss for the next hour while he did the job that should have taken
fifteen seconds with his impact wrench.

That bastard Murphy caught up to me on the dual-lane route home.

I saw the lights before I heard them. At the speeds I was going in
my beater '97 Camaro it would have taken a normal police car a long
time to catch up to me, and even longer to convince me to pull over.
But out here, on these roads, the word “normal” was long
forgotten.

The Kansas Highway Patrol ran an office out of Hays in the old
days. As the world died they stayed at their posts long past their
ability to do their jobs. It was a desperate time on the roadways.
They became targets for the anger of those with nothing left.
Finally, the few that remained walked off the job. Those that took
over were in it for entirely different reasons than law and order,
but they kept the guns and the cars.

The pursuit vehicle was one of the last models to come off the
production lines at Ford before they shut down forever. The KHP
Mustang was pure black, and if it were possible to look malicious, it
oozed it. The sirens on top were sleek and low profile, and in the
end, unnecessary. Everyone in the courier service knows to stay away
from them. “Just let them pass” my mentors had told me.

Here's the part they didn't mention: when you're going over a
hundred miles an hour, no one can
make
you pull over. I was
already halfway home, I hadn't broken any laws—no laws existed
out here, and I wasn't in the mood for a “courtesy safety
inspection,” as I've heard them called.

So I did what any girl would do in my situation. I ran.

I'd like to say I was so skilled at driving I was able to keep
them off my bumper for forty miles until I made it safely back to my
garage, but alas, that isn't what happened.

I got about ten miles. I had the wind in my hair, my music was
blaring, and I had found something approaching love of life. Then
they did the unthinkable: they nudged my rear bumper.

Do you know what happens to a car when it's nudged at such insane
speeds? Nine times out of ten it means the car loses traction and
bounces off the narrow road in a twisted steel rollover. It's ugly to
watch and horrible to feel—I can only imagine, but I'm sure
it's a horrible last feeling. More rarely, the car will lose control
and spin in circles until it comes to stop on the pavement. Only the
driver's nerves and panties are ruined.

I did neither. I experienced a miracle of high speed aerodynamics.
My rear end nudged to the side, and I steadied the wheel almost at
the same time. I felt the back get all squirrely on me, and it did
slip and slide, but I held it together. I wasn't twisted metal or
pissing myself.

But I was mad.

The police cruiser seemed to drop back, perhaps surprised their
move failed, but whatever the reason it was lucky for both our cars
because I slammed on the brakes. My crew wouldn't be happy I used up
so much rubber on a milk run, but I wasn't thinking past my trembling
hands.

When I rolled to a stop, I was out and yelling at the police
before they'd even stopped their car.

“Are you jackboots insane? What the F-Francine do you call
that, numbnuts?” Yeah, I was thinking worse, but my dad was
listening. He could cuss, but not his precious K-Bear.

Yelling at the police has always been a bad idea. It's even worse
when the badge they're wearing isn't real. I was halfway to their
car, and running out of my version of expletives, when I felt the
wind and sensed the empty spaces from my feet to each horizon on the
prairie as far as I could see. I was at the mercy of the
armed
men in the car—they were all men—and I was doing
everything I could to get them to come down hard on me.

In another life I might have argued I was having a blonde moment,
but I knew that would never pass muster with those guys. In fact, it
might have had the opposite effect.

I stopped talking as the two men got out. For some reason they
reveled in dressing all in black, probably to make themselves as
scary as their cars. Each of them donned their black cowboy hats as
they strode forward. Without the engine noise of their car, their
boots clacked loudly on the hot asphalt.

Both of them were built like bricks. I briefly considered if I
could outrun them, but another look around told me I could run ten
miles and they'd just drive up to whatever road I finally made it to.
There was nowhere to hide out here. That was another bad idea. Murphy
finally found me, tripped me, and tossed me against this situation to
see how I'd handle it. The letter “F” was hovering over
my test paper.

I changed gears, hard. “Oh sorry about that! What seems to
be the problem, officers?”

I could switch from bitch mode to charm mode on a dime, but I
could tell it wasn't going to matter.

I took some steps backward as they silently approached. “I
didn't see you guys back there, sorry.” I used my ditzy blonde
voice—something I remembered from the TV shows I used to watch
before the Great Power Down of the world—but the expressions of
the two men didn't change at all.

“Step over to your car, miss. Spread your arms and legs.”
The corner of the driver's mouth turned up, like he was in on a joke.
His mustache twitched as if to get in on it, too.

My stomach swirled, and not in a good way. I was in more than
trouble out here.

“I uh, why?” My charm gone, I began to stammer. It
didn't stop until they grabbed me by my arms and dragged me bodily
over to my car. They pushed me up against the white paint, and I
looked in the rear window. Nothing back there could help me.

“You made us put you in danger,
miss
. You shouldn't
have done that.” The other man spoke as the driver adjusted my
hands where he wanted them.

I didn't dare repeat what I'd said while shouting, I prayed they
didn't hear everything I'd said as they were pulling to a stop, but
the fact is
they
endangered us both by trying that maneuver. I
was willing to drive all the way home without incident. They wanted
to play rough.

I gulped involuntarily.

With my hands and legs spread, it dawned on me I was at their
mercy in every way. I felt the fear in my chest, but also pangs of
sadness and grief. Life wasn't supposed to be like that. My dad was a
police officer. It should have been an insanely expensive ticket,
nothing more.

“Look at those long legs, boss. I think those could teach us
a thing or two about fast drivin', don't ya think?”

I couldn't see either of them given my compromising stance, but I
could sense the other man's eyes on me.

“Oh yeah Nicky, I think you're exactly right.”

Both men snickered.

“Sirs, I'm sorry. I'm running freight to captain Ross. He'll
vouch for me.”

For the first time, they responded to me. “Ross, huh?”
I hoped they realized I would be missed. “Why don't you show me
what you're
running
for him?”

“I'm dead-heading back to Hays. I just left Wilmore. My hold
is empty.”

Dammit! I did it again.

My mouth was always my worst enemy.

“Well,” he said with an exaggerated drawl, “mayhaps
you can show me where you keep your cargo and I'll check if you
hold
is empty.” He pulled me off the car, then pushed me toward
the trunk.

I could see how this was going to go down, and I couldn't stop the
tears from coming.

As I stood over my own trunk and prepared to release the latch to
lift it, I saw another vehicle arriving at high speed from the
direction of Hays. I wasn't sure who it was, but both the officers
stepped away from me; a glorious couple of steps.

I'd seen the car before—it was hard to hide a car in a town
of a few thousand souls—but I'd never seen it up close. It was
a Ford Mustang, new, but not quite as new as the pursuit police car
behind me. It had a custom green sparkle paint job with shiny rims
and a custom hood scoop.

I wasn't surprised to see a young girl behind the wheel. She
killed her motor before she spoke, though I could hear her electric
engine fan continue to spin.

“
Hey
Officer Nick.
Hey
Officer Taylor.”
Her voice was friendly. Flirty. She was one of the older girls doing
the east-west run. I didn't know her, but she sure as hell wasn't
doing milk runs with a car like that.

“What brings you way out here? You're a long way from the
highway.” He spoke in monotone. Not exactly unfriendly, but it
had an edge. He didn't want her around, but couldn't tell her to
leave.

I had no idea why. Nor did I care, as long as she stayed.

“Oh, I'm on official business. You need to
frisk
me?”
I expected them to order her out of the car and soon we'd both be
crying. Instead, she made a big show of noticing me. “What did
this bitch do? If it's not
too
serious I could use her for an
emergency haul as my second, if I can get her. I'd hate to go all the
way back to town and have to ask for a replacement.” Then she
looked at me, “You're Perth, right?”

I had no idea how she knew my name, but I nodded yes. The tears
were frozen on my face. I hoped she saw them. I was screaming for
help, though my body was rigid as ice.

“She was going too fast, right?” She laughed as if it
was the funniest thing she could imagine. There was no speed limit,
so speeding was impossible. “She's exactly what I need. Thanks
for stopping her for me.”

She had an expectant look on her face.

Officer Nick got close to my ear to speak. I could see his face
out of the corner of my eye, though I didn't turn his way. “Perth,
huh? Got it.” He said it quietly, and then continued in a much
louder voice, “You drive safe now, miss.” He finished his
charade by tipping his hat to me.

I didn't dare look back at the cops, but their footsteps were
enough of a relief. In a minute the deathly-looking black Mustang
drifted by on the shoulder of the road. The crackle of tires on
gravel was the sweetest sound I'd ever heard. The driver was behind
his dark sunglasses but I could feel the eyes burning into me. My
earlier brashness was a ghost, willing itself to stay invisible.

I could think of a lot of ways to die that didn't bother me in the
least, but the torture they'd telegraphed to me was a new horror I
didn't want to tempt again.

When the police cruiser returned to the pavement it accelerated
away with a powerful roar of its top-of-the-line motor. The driver
didn't peel out like you see in the movies—rubber is too
precious for that—but they pushed the limit. Soon the sound of
the beast faded even as they became a dot on the horizon.

I was left with my savior. With a big sniffle I tried to pull
myself together, ready to give her a big hug and become fast friends;
two things I otherwise would have driven far out of my way to avoid.

Instead, the girl got out of her car, walked up to me, and planted
a big painful slap across my face.

She stood close, though she was almost a head shorter. She studied
me like I was a lab rat.

The girl wore most of the typical driver's getup: cowboy boots,
black leather pants, and something lightweight on top. Most girls
wear tank tops or t-shirts, but she had on only a bikini top. It was
red, white, and blue, like the old American flag. She had a black
shirt wrapped around her waist. Her stringy dark hair was in a bob
which framed her narrow face. She wore too much makeup, and while she
was pretty, her brown eyes were hazy as if she too had been crying.