CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Maxwell Rankin hated truck stops but, given his chosen profession, he spent a lot of time in them. He wasn’t tired and only rested in this spot because the government’s transportation weenies passed laws preventing him from driving for another eight hours. The low rumble of his idling Freightliner kept the diesel warm while he sprawled in the sleeper cab, trying to sleep and failing. The call home to Betty had irritated him too much to rest a troubled mind.
Things at home were fine, except for Tom skipping class again. His wife had blamed Max, accusing him of taking too many long hauls while their teenage boy approached manhood.
“Black sons need their fathers, Max!” She had said the words often to him, as if he didn’t know firsthand. His own father had perished in Vietnam, leaving behind a wife to raise his two sons. Of the boys, only Max turned out okay. Ryan was still serving time in Heritage Trail Penitentiary.
The rest of the call was pretty much a continuation of the same nightly ritual, with Betty voicing frustration and him trying to convince her everything was fine. Except, this time she had found a bag of weed in the boy’s backpack.
He wasn’t a bad kid. He was a normal teen and Max saw no need to worry. “He’s not a stoner,” he had tried to explain to Betty, “and it’s only weed.”
“Marijuana’s a gateway drug,” she argued, “and he’s only doing it to get your attention! He’s been hanging around with those other boys whenever you aren’t around.”
That did get his attention. The other boys were part of a wannabe street gang called the “Get Money Gang,” or GMG for short. They were loosely affiliated with the Crips, who in turn preyed on the suburban teens to peddle their drugs. Max had no patience for crime and wanted them nowhere near his son.
“Fine,” he had promised. “Let me haul this load to Fargo and I’ll be home by Saturday. Then I’ll take a few weeks off. I’ve got vacation hours, so maybe we can take him camping.”
“I don’t want to go camping,” she complained, “I want to go somewhere. Take us to Disney or something.”
“That’s a waste of money,” he had protested, “a hole in Florida you throw cash into, and all you get in return is a hat with stupid ears. Besides, I drive every day. I don’t want to drive on vacation, and we can’t afford airfare.”
“You’re so selfish, Max!” The line fell abruptly dead, and he at first thought she had hung up. But then he realized the phone had died, plunging the cab into darkness despite being plugged into a charger. Great, he thought, she’ll think I hung up and won’t ever let me live this down. Add one more thing to my list. He tossed the useless device across the cab. From the sound of the ricochet he’d find it later, probably somewhere under the driver’s seat.
That was when he realized he couldn’t sleep. She’d revved him up, quickening his pulse and stirring his mind. Thinking of their bank account hadn’t helped either, so he decided to read a book. He pulled his e-reader from under the pillow and pressed the power button. It was as dead as the phone. Max gave in and closed his eyes, tossing and turning for the better part of an hour. But he must have finally dozed before waking abruptly.
His stomach rumbled and he knew he was awake for good.
He thought again about Tom and the boys he’d been running with. They weren’t bad, at least not all of them. They were boys, bored and feeling cut off from a world that didn’t belong to them. They were angry, incited by the new movement for justice and equal rights. Not that he disagreed, only they had a different view of the subject than his son.
Max’s mother and grandparents had preached love and peaceful protest and often talked about the rallies they’d attended with the reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. That’s what Max wanted, peaceful living filled with education and opportunity.
But the protests these boys tried to drag Tom away to, preached a different message—one of anger and fed up calls to action. In the end, Max knew the small business owners absorbed the damages these movements caused, especially after insurance companies raised their rates so high they could no longer compete with big corporations.
Betty was right. When he got home, he would speak frankly with the boy, getting his mind in line with his heart and teaching him the lessons Max learned from his grandfather. Maybe he’d convince him to join the military like the old man had encouraged him.
Hunger rumbled again and he decided to go inside for a meal. As Max rolled over to reach for his shoes an explosion rocked the truck, shaking it violently and causing it to bounce atop its springs. The cab lit up with brilliance, reflecting against the back wall of the rig. The flash was unlike anything he had ever imagined, lasting several seconds and warming his back with a searing intensity of light. Instinct told him to bury his face and he waited until the cab returned to darkness. Throwing off his blanket, he slipped into the captain’s chair and pulled down the sun shade.
An image straight out of hell awaited his tired eyes, and he watched as the city of Omaha burned in the distance. The skyline was gone, disintegrated from the horizon, and everything in between raged with fire. The winds of the night had already swirled the inferno into a maelstrom of flame, sending searing heat through the windshield. That convinced him. Fargo would wait and he’d return to Evansville and home.
He glanced quickly at the dark gauges on the truck’s dash, unlit except for the flickering reflection against the orange needle pointing at three quarters of a tank. Thankfully, that was just enough to make it home. The truck still idled, but all the lights remained dark. He tried the headlamps, but these too refused to work. Everything electronic was dead, even the radio. Putting it in gear he released the brakes with a hiss and groan of air, then pulled out of the lot and onto the access road, grinding metal as he struggled to find second. Turning southward onto I-29, he swerved to avoid the disabled vehicles littering the road.
He kept his eyes locked forward, avoiding looking at the people trapped in or abandoning their disabled cars, but he sympathized for their misery. Some, the lucky ones, screamed out in pain that reminded them they lived. Others stared trancelike with shock already set in, eyes wide and unseeing or blinded by the flash. He knew of only one weapon that could do that kind of damage to the city and everything around it, and it was time to go home.
He accelerated past, just as a woman dazed and covered in blood staggered into the road. Her haunted eyes reflected the flickering glow behind his fleeing truck. Max swerved and applied the brake hard, barely avoiding a jackknife to also miss colliding with her. She never even flinched, staring after his rig as if, by missing, he had ruined her plan for a quick death.
“Shit,” he muttered. The truck slowed to a stop but continued to run, air hissing into the carburetor and feeding the rumbling engine. Reaching behind him, he grabbed a blanket and ran to help.
*****
Linda Johnson rode in the front seat of the big rig, silently wincing from with pain. Her arm and collarbone were wrapped tightly on the left side, leftover injuries from the accident and expertly treated by the driver. At least she remembered it as an accident, the other car had come out of nowhere while she punched and screamed at Bryan, blaming him for their children’s deaths. She regretted that part, he was a good husband and father who loved them.
She also remembered averting her eyes from the road, focused more on getting out her rage than driving. Most of her punches were harmlessly deflected so she had unbuckled, shifting her weight for a better opportunity to punch. That’s when the other car came out of nowhere, topping the hill.
Suzy and Seth hadn’t died because of Bryan’s stupid vacation. Linda could have done more to keep them from wandering off by taking away their phones and forcing them to stay close. She’d blamed him because it was easier than blaming herself, and the crash could have been her subconscious selfishly trying to end a mother’s suffering over losing both children. Besides, with them gone, what was there actually worth living for? And where was Bryan now? He was surely dead as well.
After being flung from the vehicle, she remembered very little except awakening in a ditch, covered by a thin layer of falling ash and staring up at a reddened moon against a strangely colored sky. Her ears rang nonstop in the hours following the crash, and her shoulder throbbed. The cuts on her face had stopped bleeding, but their sting served as constant reminders of guilty loss. The ringing in her ears would also never end, she supposed.
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The trucker had driven by just as she had stumbled into the road. He had nearly killed her then, and she wished he had. He spoke kindly and wrapped her in a blanket before lifting her gently into the sleeper cab. That’s when he tended her wounds, marveling at how many shards of glass he pulled from her face. She tested her arm in the sling, wincing with sharp pains as stiffness set in.
“I have to find my husband,” she said quietly.
“Ma’am,” the trucker said, “beyond that ditch you stumbled out of, there was nothing alive. It’s a wonder you weren’t burned up in the blast.”
“What blast?” she demanded, suddenly remembering the fire and how it forced her out into the road. If Bryan had been caught in those flames, then this man was right. Nothing would have survived.
“Nukes, I think. It was exactly how they described it in the movies growing up—the flash, then the blast followed by that awful heat. The radiation will come next, and that’s why we’re moving south to get away. I gotta get home to my family in Evansville, how about you? Once we’re clear of it, I’ll drop you off where I can, but only if it’s along the way. I’ve only got so much fuel, and can’t turn the engine off or get more.”
“St. Louis,” she muttered, thinking about the movies he’d mentioned. The Day After had been the one to explain radiation the best, as it seemingly turned the people into hideous creatures with burns and missing teeth.
“I can do St. Louis,” he promised, “but no guarantee it wasn’t hit like Omaha. Large military bases will be primary targets, but population centers and bigger cities might have been destroyed as well. That’s the way of nuclear war.”
“You sound like a soldier.”
“Once upon a time I was. My name’s Max, ma’am, Max Rankin.”
“Linda,” she replied and let him do most of the talking the remainder of the drive.
He was friendly, eager to talk and nice enough to realize she wasn’t interested in carrying on a conversation. He caught her up on the events of the day and night before—the earthquakes, the eruption of Yellowstone, and finally the explosion. Truth be told, she didn’t mind him prattling on and welcomed his voice. Silence would have been too much to bear. She listened with half interest, but flinched at mention of Yellowstone. Good riddance to that place, she thought.
“I’m not sure how we can still be driving, but this rig runs on a carburetor instead of fuel injectors,” he explained. “The radio won’t work and neither will the lights, so we have to be careful driving at night.” Despite her failure to answer, he went on. “We’ll reach St. Louis in a few hours. My goodness,” he added, “I miss my wife. Betty’s a real sweetheart, best cook in all of Indiana!”
Linda nodded. She considered herself a good cook, as well. Bryan had loved her meals. Of course, the kids did too when they were younger. Even as they grew older, they always showed up on time for a meal. Of course, most of the time they snuck their plates away to their rooms to avoid the parental conversation that always came with dinner. But she knew they appreciated her attempts.
“Tom.” Max said.
Linda looked up with alarm. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said that Tom’s my boy. He’s a bit on the spoiled side and doesn’t know the meaning of the word no. But he’s got a straight line to my heart, that boy!”
My Suzy was spoiled too. I should have put my foot down more often, maybe they wouldn’t have wandered off. Lynda shuddered at the frightening memory of steam and scalding rain drenching her children. I shouldn’t have blamed him, she thought as images of Omaha also flashed in her mind, scorched and crumbled from the attack. He’s gone, she accepted, probably killed by the flash and it’s my fault. Had she not caused them to crash, her husband would still be alive. Or, they could have both joined their children in death.
When they had passed Kansas City they took a wide berth, careful to avoid the abandoned and burned-out vehicles lining the major highways. Using farm and market roads, they circled around, viewing from afar the destruction and finding a warzone of twisted metal and debris blowing under a haze of radiation. They drove around in silence dreading what they’d find further up the road. Four hours later, and just as Max had predicted, the rising sun revealed a truly frightening visage in what had once been St. Louis.
There was no way around this city, the banks of the Mississippi River had swollen and swallowed the roads to minor bridges. They continued down I-70, making a switch onto I-64. The scene they drove into was unlike any either had imagined. Civilization lay abandoned, scattered, and scorched. Buildings lay as collapsed reminders that millions of people had been killed in an instant. Max carefully plowed through debris he couldn’t avoid, driving slower than Linda would have liked. Her anxiety urged them forward.
With a quivering voice she asked, “How bad is the radiation?”
“I’ve no idea,” he answered truthfully. “But I’m sure we’re getting a nasty dose of it. Whatever you do, keep the windows up and the door closed. Hopefully we won’t have to get out of the truck.” Linda couldn’t help but notice the unmasked worry in his tone.
She stared at the remnants of high-rises beside the highway. When she was a child, she had walked in on her parents solemnly watching the live news feed of the fallen New York twin towers. The damage done by two rogue jetliners paled in comparison to the widespread destruction of nuclear missiles, and every skyscraper here resembled their own version of Ground Zero. She noticed black silhouettes on the side of a building, eerily resembling the people going about their night when the missiles struck. One clearly showed a woman holding a leash and leading a large dog.
Certainly not, she thought, those aren’t their remains! But her eyes suggested otherwise.
“I’ve heard of that,” Max said quietly, indicating the silhouettes. “That happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The flash is so powerful, it literally leaves photographic shadows on walls and other objects.”
“So those people...” She didn’t want to ask the rest.
“Yep. They existed until that moment the bombs hit,” he confirmed. “The strike must have been close by, and this area was just outside of the blast radius.” He abruptly slammed on the brakes, sending her flying forward against the seatbelt. Shockwaves of pain rippled through her shoulder.
“What is it?” she groaned.
He pointed to the road ahead. Hundreds of refugees swarmed the bridge spanning the massive river. The wretched mass staggered instead of walked, clearly struggling as they tried to escape the toxic air lingering above.
“Keep going,” Linda demanded.
“I can’t,” Max protested. “There’s so many people in our way. It’ll take us an hour to get across, and the idling speed will burn the rest of our gas. We won’t make it to Evansville because I can’t fuel. Gas stations need electricity to pump.”
“I don’t care,” she insisted stubbornly. “We can’t stay here, and we can’t turn around. Go through them.”
With a sigh he eased the accelerator, picking up speed to match the migrants. He pulled the air horn, blasting several notes of caution into the crowd. The mass parted and wrapped around the rig as they inched forward.
Linda scanned the wretched faces of the mob as they rolled slowly past. Dragging personal belongings in suitcases and atop wagons, sadness and desperation filled each pair of eyes. One family in particular caught her attention. The father and mother were about hers and Bryan’s ages, and their two teens dragged suitcases filled with whatever they had packed in their rush to leave their home—wherever that was. The daughter held a smartphone with a black screen, staring blindly at the useless device but still mesmerized by its draw.
Up ahead a young woman turned, her face covered in bruises and open sores. A large swath of her cheek had sloughed away, leaving behind a rash as red as her sweatshirt hoodie. A trail of crimson dripped from her nostril, running down a blistered cheek as it soaked into her chapped lips. Linda averted her eyes, suddenly aware the same sores and illness affected the rest of the migrants. They’ve only been walking for one night, she realized, and have already felt the effects of radiation.
A hand pounded on the window causing Linda to jump. She screamed aloud as she turned to see a woman holding aloft her lifeless infant. The face of the child was swollen and red with raised welts that had ruptured, weeping yellow pus onto the mother’s hands. Through the glass she heard the woman’s pleas to bring her and the child inside the cab. Linda shook her head and mouthed a silent no.
“This was a mistake,” Max voiced his concern. “They’re desperate and I don’t trust anyone with nothing to lose.”
Soon, the crowd began crawling atop the semi, each begging for the safety of the interior.
“Floor it,” Linda whispered.
“What?” Max turned, a stunned look of mortified surprise in his eyes.
“Drive through them,” she insisted. “Haven’t you watched zombie movies? They’ll make us like them.”
“That’s stupid. This isn’t a movie and those aren’t zombies.”
“You have to,” she said quietly. “Look at their faces! They have sickness and will flood the cab and steal the truck. If you don’t gun it now, they’ll kill or leave us behind. Then we’ll be no better off than they!”
“They’re real people, alive as us, even if they’re sick from radiation. I can’t kill them.” He paused as if considering whether he could. He’d killed many times before, even if he didn’t like it. “I won’t,” he decided. It was a better word.
The rig continued to inch forward while several men pounded on the rooftop. One laid upon the hood and kicked at the windshield with his boots, screaming for them to stop.
Linda’s foot moved in an instant, driving down atop Max’s and slamming the accelerator to the floor of the cab. The truck revved, lurching forward and bouncing atop the fallen migrants as it plowed ahead. Max had no choice but to shift gears before shoving her aside. The Freightliner surged ahead, cruising over the top of the bridge and skidding as it cleared the leading edge of the mob. Scarlet tread marks followed as they raced across the Mississippi, dead set on getting to Evansville before noon. Neither Max nor Linda glanced back at the death they added to the city.