The Great Wreck (41 page)

“About
seventeen miles. You up for it?”

“Fuck
yeah! Radium Springs or bust! Fuck the rain!”

It
rained all day.

We
finally reached Radium Springs and quickly found a hotel with a third floor. We
made our way up to the top floor, checked all the rooms and chose one that was
all the way at the end of the hallway.

Inside
we dropped our gear and nailed the door shut then piled up the room’s furniture
in front of it until we felt safe enough. James undid the smaller duffle bag
and set in inside the closet. Before he could shut the door, the bag tipped
over and something that looked like a brick fell out of it. I caught a quick
glimpse of the yellow green block and saw a large ‘C’ on the side of it before
James shut the door.

He
looked at me for a minute but I just shrugged and started getting ready for
bed. If James wanted to carry around a bunch of explosives, all the more power
to him, I thought thinking of the claymores I had stashed in the outer pocket
of my pack. Might come in handy.

As
I crawled into bed, I figured with the door shut tight, James planned on
staying with me at least another day so I fell quickly asleep.

In
the morning, we were up with the sun and quickly found a sporting goods shop
that had a nice rain parka for James. He pulled it on over all his gear and
looked like some sort of deranged Eskimo but I kept quiet. When we finally hit
the road there was not a cloud in the sky and the sun had begun to deep fry us
in our own sweat, James ripped off the parka and tossed it to the ground, “Fuck
you, you bitch!” he said to no one.

“It
might rain later,” I said helpfully and James glared at me. I shrugged and
James started walking north. I noticed then that he didn’t have the smaller
duffle back strapped to his back pack. Must have figured the extra weight
wasn’t worth the effort.

It
rained later.

And
by “rained” I mean it fucking poured down out of the sky in long, continuous
sheets that felt more like someone had turned a firehose on us instead of a
thunderstorm.

James
was not pleased but kept on walking none the less.

The
road between Radium Springs and Hatch was almost completely empty as far ahead
and behind us as we could see. The monsoon finally tapered off around noon and
we were back in the frying pan sweating our balls off but at least the dead
were nowhere to be seen.

I’d
check behind us every half hour or so to see if another wave of dead was
sneaking up the highway but for the last two days James and I were together,
there was nothing.

We
reached Hatch late in the afternoon and found a Holiday Inn Express where we
could stay for the night. On the fifth floor we closed up the room. I was about
to nail the door shut when James said, “I think we OK for the night. This place
is empty.”

I
knew James would be gone in the morning so I just nodded and bolted the door
shut. I wouldn’t be sleeping that night anyway. We both sat at the room’s big
window facing west and watched the sun go down eating our dinner. This was the
last can of food I had in my pack and with only my pistols, a rifle, and a few
boxes of ammunition for each, I was as light as I could get without risking
starvation, dying of thirst, or running out of ammunition if I needed it.
Tomorrow the race would begin.

James
sat there at the edge of the window sill looking out of the wreck of Hatch, his
legs bouncing up and down, up and down and I heard him whisper to no one, “I
think I’ve waited long enough.”

I
knew he wasn’t talking to me, so I just got up and filled my water pack up,
then dropped onto the bed. I lay there in the darkness pretending to sleep
thinking about the series of things I needed to do to pull this off, going over
each step in my head again and again so that I would not miss anything.

Finally
around five o’clock in the morning, I heard James shift in his bed and get up.
He moved as quietly as he could but he still made enough noise to wake the
dead. He grabbed his gear, unbolted the door, and made his way out. True to
form, he left the damn door wide open. I wondered if he wanted the dead to
catch me. It didn’t matter to me. I was done with James.

I
waited until I thought he had reached the ground floor, then jumped out of bed,
threw on my cloths, and opened my pack to retrieved the package Birch had given
me. I unrolled the towel and out dropped an infrared night vision scope. I was
also surprised to find the Birch had given me a heavy duty radio. I put the
radio back in the pack, stuffed the rest of my gear in it, and headed towards
the roof.

I
found the roof access and quickly opened the door then got down on my hands and
knees so that I was below the short wall that circled the roof. I scrambled
over to the south edge, turned on the night scope, and slowly, so slowly peeked
over the edge of the wall and looked back towards the freeway.

I
figured James would have been walking for a total of fifteen minutes after he
hit the street so was maybe a mile or so away by now and approaching the
freeway onramp. Sure enough, I spotted him, a bright red figure walking quickly
down the road glowing with all his body head pouring off of him in the infrared
spectrum.

I
watched as he hit the freeway and froze as he looked back. But I knew he
couldn’t see me in the darkness but I made sure I didn’t move when I saw his
little head turn my way, just in case.

I
waited until I could no longer see him, a tiny, tiny figure hauling ass and
headed south back to Las Cruces to play with the dead and hunt down my friends.
As soon as he was out of sight and the sun tipped up over the mountains, I sat
up and pulled my backpack completed apart. I removed and inspected every piece
of gear that I had had while I was with James: every scrap of cloths, every box
of ammunition, everything until all of my stuff was strewn out across the top
of the roof. Then, once I had inspected every item, I began pulling apart the
seams of my pack until I found what I was looking for.

I’d
remembered what James had told me outside of Las Cruces, “I can track you
anywhere you go,” he said right after beating the shit out of me, “Don’t
believe me? Then consider this. I left you in Phoenix, what, three weeks ago? I
got here long before you, made my way through a fucking million dead people,
countless burning towns, and I still nearly put a bullet right up you scrawny
ass. I can do that anytime I want.”

I
had thought long and hard about that as I planned my escape from James. Sure,
we were going the same direction so James knew roughly where to look for me.
But how did he know I hadn’t been caught by the dead or killed by King Ahg or
died in any of the thousands of fascinating and painful ways there were in the
New World Wreck?

Blind
luck? Expert tracking skills?

Nope.
He had found me with the thing I was now holding up in front of me: a tracking
device. He had somehow gotten his hands on one, probably in the armory in
Blythe, rigged it up with a shit tone of extra batteries and slipped it in my
pack. All that fucker had to do was get within a few miles of me and he’d know
where I was. And since I had stuck to the freeway, all he had to do was move
east and eventually he find me or my body.

He
thought he could find me anywhere but I had a little surprise in store for him.
I put the tracking device back in my pack, gathered up the rest of my gear and
headed down stairs.

I
hit the streets and pulled out a small map. I found the nearest cross street,
located my position on the map and headed west along Roosevelt street until I
found what I was looking for: Hatch Bicycle and Outdoor Supplies.

I
broke in through the front door and found a suitable bike. I bypassed the
trailer and any other gear taking only the bike and a tire repair kit. I
grabbed a new water pack, and filled it up with my bottles of water in my old
pack, transferred the bare bones of ammunition I needed and left everything
else on the floor of the shop. Before I left the store, I stopped and grabbed
an inflatable tube that kids used for playing around on in a pool. I quickly
pumped it up, then placed the tracking device in a water proof bag, then tapped
the bag to the inner tune. I was ready. It was nearly six o’clock and James
should be a good four to five miles south if he was really boogying and
wouldn’t be able to spot me as I made my escape.

I
jumped on the bike and headed east until I came to a bridge that passed over
the Rio Grande. I stepped off the bike, took the pool float off the back, and
tossed it into the river. The Rio was swollen from the rains and was flowing
rapidly. I watched as the pool float with its tracking device sail quickly away
and thought, Good luck following that, you fucker! Maybe you’ll follow it all
the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. And I, my insane fucking friend, will be
long gone!

I
laughed and raised my arms up to the sky. I was free! But I still had work to
do to make sure James didn’t hurt my friends back in Las Cruces or catch up to
me so I jumped back on my bike and quickly left Hatch passing over I-25. But
instead of heading south, I kept going east on a paved back road until it
turned into a dirt road that lead to the base of the low hills to the east of
Hatch. There I found Road E077 that lead south to East Jornado Road which would
take me all the way back to I-10 and Las Cruces without me ever having to cross
paths with James.

The
road was hard packed dirt and I was able to fly along as fast as I could peddle
the bike. This far east of the highway, I knew James wouldn’t be able to spot
me so I was free to focus on pushing myself as hard as I could. All that
ridding from Phoenix to Las Cruces paid off and I was able to eat up the miles
until I hit East Jornado road. From there it was only a few more miles until I
hit the freeway on the eastern outskirts of Las Cruces.

I
should have reached Las Cruces far ahead of James who was on foot and didn’t
think I’d have to be careful to hide myself once I hit the city and by
mid-morning I was there panting and sweating sitting under and overpass of I-40
outside a small museum dedicated to space flight. I went inside and found,
behind a counter and covered by a tarp, what I had asked Birch to get for me.

Under
the tarp was a brand new bike with a trailer already hitched to it and filled with
jugs of water. On each side of the black bike were two packs filled with every
piece of gear I had lost outside of Las Cruces: night vision goggles, solar
chargers, a flashlight, my fancy shotgun, a new fully automatic rifle,
silencers for all of the weapons, food, a new pack for me filled with water, a
sleeping bag, and new camouflage netting.

On
top of the counter was a small container of food that Harriet had made for me
with a note that said, “Since you won’t have home cooking for a while.” The was
also a note from Birch and Doc that said simple “Good luck” and one from Marti
that had a picture of her. She had written on the back “I love you.” I nearly
cried. To be loved again in this blackened and burnt out world. It made me feel
wanted. It made me feel human. And it also reminded me that James was headed
this way and I had to warn the others.

I
climbed up on a nearby water tank and turned on the radio, “Birch you there?” I
said and let off the send button.

Immediately
a voice came back over the radio, “Thomas? My god Birch was right! This is
Harriet! Stay on the radio while I go to get Birch. Are you OK?”

“I’m
good but you need to know that James is coming back,” I replied.

“We
figured he’d come back. Sick fucker was just waiting until he could do…well,
whatever it is he wants to do to us,” Harriet replied, “Hold on while I get
Birch.”

I
waited in silence until I heard Birch’s voice come over the radio.

“Thomas,
is that you?” Birch said.

“It
is. James left Hatch this morning. He’ll be back in town in a day or two.”

“Did
he have the large duffle bag with him?”

I
thought about it for a minute than replied, “No why? He dropped it in Radium
Springs.”

“It
was full of explosives. We think he wanted them to get back inside the
warehouse when he returns.”

I
felt my blood run cold. Why else would he want the C-4? To get inside to the
people.

“Birch
you guys need to get out of there. James will get in and then…” I trialed off.
I could only imagine what James would do to the people inside.

But
Birch came back over on the radio, “Not to worry, Thomas,” he said with a
laugh,

“Doc
and I knew he’d try something like this and when we saw the explosives were
gone, we uh, slipped him a little something-something in that pack along with
his explosives. If he gets within five miles of the warehouse with those
things, we’ll know about it and we’ll blow him sky high. Are you where I think
you’re at?”

“Yes
and thank you so much for all the stuff. And thank Harriet for the food.”

“I
could come and get you. I could be there in twenty minutes and we can wait out
the year here until the good folks at Sandia come and get us.”

The
desire to go back was nearly overwhelming. I wanted nothing more than to say
come and get me, to get off the endless roads, the heat, and the burning wreck
filled with the dead. I could be there in no time and out of the Wreck for
good. But James would know. When he found out he couldn’t get in, he might just
give up and head north to catch up with me. If he thinks I’m inside, he’ll
never let those people go so I just couldn’t go back.

I
said as much over the radio and Birch agreed with me, “If we are able to kill
him, we’re going to come and get you,” Birch said.

“You’ll
know where I’m at,” I replied, “But if you can’t get me in the next week, I’ll
be too far north and we’ll meet again in Sandia.”