Black Autumn Travelers Read online

  The sun set slowly in the west, making it hard to concentrate on the maddening process of rolling forward ten feet, waiting two minutes, then rolling forward another ten feet. The glaring sun added a jagged edge of headache to Mat’s slow-motion torture. With the constant stress of the traffic and civil disorder, Caroline drew visibly inward, like a flower drying out.

  “How’re you doing? Are you hanging in there?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” she said, pushing back her long dark hair. Even in horrible traffic, Mat couldn’t help but notice she had incredible tits.

  “Don’t shut me out. We’re in this together.”

  “Are we? Why didn’t you just leave me in my dorm? You didn’t have to take me to Louisville. I’m sure it’s making you drive out of your way, and you don’t owe me anything. I was just a one-night stand.”

  A rush of guilt hit Mat. “Don’t say that. Helping you get to your parents is literally the best thing I could be doing right now.”

  “Bullshit. I know what I am. I’m a great piece of ass. I have nothing to add to our survival. I’m like a mouth with no hands.”

  “I’m not going to lie and say that you’re not hot. I’m not going to say that I’m not attracted to you. Of course I’m attracted to you. But I think you’re selling yourself short.”

  “Don’t let it bother you.” She waved him off. “Everyone makes me feel like a sex object.”

  Mat went silent. Things had gotten more real than he was prepared to address. Right now, with people being murdered in the street and cities rioting, a hot girl feeling bad because people saw her as a hot girl sounded like a first-world problem. It bothered him anyway. Mat retreated to his old standby—humor. “Actually, I need your hands for something right now. Something very useful. Especially useful for a man with needs.” Mat leered.

  The girl made the universal expression for “what the fuck?”—throwing her hands up and scrunching her brows.

  “No… young lady. Check your dirty mind.” Mat continued, “I need you to go through the backpacks I threw in the back seat. I’m curious what the rich guy packed for the Apocalypse. What did you think I meant?”

  Her face relaxed, a smile returning. “I thought you were going to ask me to make you a sandwich,” she joked, uncurling her legs and reaching back to grab one of the backpacks.

  Fantastic ass, too, Mat noticed as she reached across the console.

  “When you’re done with the backpacks, I could actually use a sandwich,” Mat said.

  “That’s how you see women, huh? Good for hand jobs and kitchen work,” she sighed dramatically. “What’s a modern feminist to do?”

  “I’m your knight in shining armor, carrying you back to your father’s castle on my trusty steed.” Mat patted the steering wheel. “Feminism might have to take a breather.”

  “Pretty much true, I suppose,” she said as she figured out the combination of buckles and drawstrings at the top of the backpack. “Let’s see what a crazy prepper person thinks will save him from the end of the world.”

  “Right now, those ‘crazy preppers’ are thinking they’re the smartest people on the damned planet. Kind of hard to argue the point, considering…” Mat waved his hand at the traffic.

  “First up: we have extra clips for the big guns,” the girl held up a heavy chunk of stamped metal, filled with 7.62 bullets.

  Mat faked a lisp and whipped his hand around like an interior decorator. “Young lady, that would be a magazine, not a clip. And the ‘big guns’ are AK-47 rifles. Let’s get our terminology straight, okay, if we’re going to be traveling the end of the world together. That’d be just fabulous, sweetheart.”

  She laughed as she fished out the next item, a blue stuffed sack. She pulled the drawstring open and peered inside. “A bunch of laminated maps,” she reported. One by one she opened the maps, puzzling out their purpose. For the next few minutes, Mat drove silently while Caroline went back and forth between half-a-dozen maps.

  “The rich guy drew a black line on the maps going from Baltimore all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah.” She showed Mat a line across one of the maps, probably drawn with a Sharpie. “That must be home for the med student.”

  “I think that’s what they told me; that they live somewhere in Utah,” Mat recalled.

  “Why are there two backpacks and two motorcycles if only one daughter was at school?” she wondered aloud.

  “Her dad must’ve thought it’d be too dangerous for her to travel alone. He must’ve planned for her to find a traveling companion. Maybe that was going to be me. She never mentioned it, though.”

  “Probably because it would’ve made her sound like a loony,” Caroline chuckled. “If she already had a car, why did she have motorcycles, too?”

  “Traffic and gas, Miss Hot Tits. Traffic and gas. More than a dozen motorcycles have passed us in the last couple hours like we’re standing still. If we ditched the truck and got on the motorcycles, we’d be making a lot better time. Also, you saw the lines at the gas stations we drove by? Soon, gasoline will be scarce. Those two bikes are light—almost mopeds. I’ll bet they get over a hundred miles per gallon.”

  “So why not leave the truck and head out on the motorcycles?” she suggested.

  “Hush. You’ll make Vanessa sad,” Mat soothed the dashboard. “We won’t abandon you, Vanessa. Don’t listen to Miss Hot Tits. I wouldn’t give you up if my life depended on it. There are a lot of advantages to having wheels and those motorcycles barely qualify as wheels. For one thing, we can’t hop into the cab and get out of the weather on motorcycles.”

  “I’m not Miss Hot Tits. I told you, I don’t like how that sounds.”

  “Sorry. I’m joking. I’m trying to lighten up this whole end of the world scenario. Did you ever see Land of the Lost?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re too young. I’m too young, too, but I’m into vintage television. Land of the Lost was a seventies TV show where a family falls through a portal and into a parallel dimension of dinosaurs and Sleestak lizard, zombie-monsters. Maybe that’s us. We’re like the Marshall family. We need to be thinking about all the people in these cars turning into Sleestaks. I’ve seen it happen, honey pie.”

  “You’ve seen people turn into Sleestaks?”

  “Yep. One day, the Iraqis were living their lives, waiting for the next Ironman movie to come out in Baghdad, and the next they were trying to blow up every American they could find. I’m not sure how it happens, but people can turn into Sleestaks.”

  “You’re scaring me, Mat. I don’t see how that could happen in America.”

  “I don’t mean to scare you. I just don’t want us to get caught behind the times. If that happens—if people start going zombie, like we saw in Baltimore—I don’t want us to miss the turn signal.”

  She looked down, studying the floor mat. “I don’t think I can make it in a world like that.”

  Mat thought about it for a second. He had seen the first signs of grit in this girl. He wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t make it in a world like Iraq. Maybe with a little experience and some training, she might be okay.

  “I’m not sure you’re giving yourself a fair shake,” Mat argued. “Anyway, that’s why you have me.”

  Too late, he realized that he had just committed himself.

  5

  “Soon to fill our lungs, the hot winds of death

  The gods are laughing, so take your last breath

  Fight fire with fire, the ending is near

  Fight fire with fire, bursting with fear.”

  Fight Fire With Fire, Metallica, Ride the Lightning, 1984

  Highway 68, Near Ices Ferry, West Virginia

  “Could you show me how to use this?” Caroline asked, holding the AK-47 assault rifle like a dead rat by the tail. They had pulled off the highway onto a dirt access road to get a little sleep and now, with morning dawning, they were ready to get rolling again.

  “We’ll be back on the road soon, so I doubt the police could g
et here before we head out. Yeah. I suppose we can shoot here.”

  They had passed homes half-a-mile back in the night and then parked the truck in a gravel quarry. Mat figured they could shoot safely into one of the embankments without any risk of sending lead caroming into a house. Someone might still call the cops but, given the chaos pouring into the hill country like a rising tidal wave, Mat wasn’t too worried about police intervention. The AKs might be illegal in West Virginia—but on second thought, who knew? Maybe a redneck state like West Virginia tilted more red than blue. In any case, Mat smelled lawlessness in the air and it wasn’t a smell he entirely disliked.

  “Rock and roll, Sister Christian.” Mat looked around and stretched his back. Driving all day and then sleeping sitting up in the driver’s seat wasn’t as easy as it had been when he was a younger man. He was creeping up on thirty years old—something he would prefer to forget.

  “I’m Catholic, just so you know,” she said, smiling.

  “Yeah. I’ve noticed you’re quite a saint,” Mat made eyes at her, obviously referring to the backseat gymnastics they had shared before going to sleep the night before. “Sister Christian’s an eighties song, in case you were wondering. You’re at least eighteen, right?” Mat shot her an expression of mock concern.

  Caroline gave him the bird, simultaneously sweeping the rifle playfully in his direction.

  “Whoa, whoa.” Mat grabbed the muzzle and pushed it downrange. “Rule Number Two of Firearm Safety: don’t point the gun at anything you don’t intend to destroy.”

  “It wasn’t loaded,” she argued.

  “Rule Number One: treat every gun as though it’s loaded. You with me?”

  “Yep. What’s Rule Number Three?”

  Mat reached in and gently removed her finger from the trigger. “Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire. Rule Four: know your target, what’s behind it and what might step in front of it. This berm right here,” Mat motioned to the cut-back wall of the gravel pit, “is a safe backstop. Let’s pop a mag in and go Ted Nugent.”

  “What’s a Ted Nugent?”

  Mat sighed, confronted by their age gap for the fourth time in ten minutes. “Ted Nugent is a who. He’s a seventies rock star. You know, spokesman for the NRA? Reality show host? Cat Scratch Fever?”

  “How old are you?” She laughed, this time minding the muzzle of the AK.

  “I’m old enough to know good music from bad, young Padawan learner. Now, rock the mag into the mag well like this, run the bolt like this and defeat the safety like this. Got it?” Mat popped the mag out, ejected the round and returned the gun to safe. “You do it.”

  Caroline executed the sequence perfectly, even clicking down the stiff clacker bar safety with the long side of her thumb like Mat had done. Mat reached around and reset the safety.

  “Color me impressed, young lady. Not only are you beautiful, but you follow instructions like a natural. Let’s shoot. When you’re ready, you’re going to defeat the safety again, line up the sights on that white, bowling ball-sized rock and squeeze the trigger.”

  “How do the sights work?” she asked.

  “Great question. I’ll show you.” Mat dove into teaching her the basics of sight picture—the art of focusing on what matters when sighting a firearm. Then he had her dry-fire the AK until her trigger press was smooth as butter.

  Within fifteen minutes, she had chewed the white rock into half a dozen chunks, blasting through an entire magazine of 7.62 bullets.

  Mat took the rifle and launched into his best southern accent. “Why, Miss Caroline, I do declare, you are a fine natural shooter. I do say, I may have misjudged your aptitude for the charms of combat.”

  “Why, Mister Rhett Butler, you’ve gone and made me blush,” Caroline replied, quick as a whip, in a perfect southern belle accent.

  Mat dropped the accent. “I thought you were from Kentucky.”

  “I say, a well-bred gentleman like yourself should know when he’s courting a southern lady. I was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. My parents and my brother only recently relocated to Kentucky.” She nailed it, proving without a doubt that southern English was her maiden tongue.

  “Goddamn. You are beautiful on many levels. Miss Caroline, I would love nothing more than to take another run under your petticoats, but I’m afraid we’ve overstayed our welcome by burning through that magazine. Let’s saddle up and get moving down the road.”

  As Mat walked to the driver side, he puzzled over the feeling in the pit of his stomach, a sensation like he had just emerged the winner from a gunfight. He knew what it meant to find a girl attractive, but this had bumped to another level.

  What’s wrong with me? he wondered as he stepped up into the cab, marveling at the girl sitting across from him. He felt his capacity for rational thought get a little fuzzy.

  Wallula, Washington, “Starbucks Camp”

  “We’re out of water again,” Penny informed the Starbucks Clan. By the time they were done with breakfast coffee, one little pot at a time, it was almost time for lunch. “And we’re running out of food.”

  Justin groaned. “I can go check the store again today. Maybe they’re getting back to normal.”

  Sage doubted it. He had carefully shepherded his cell phone battery, and twice a day he checked for a signal. He checked half an hour ago. Nothing.

  “Maybe we can start foraging for food,” Sage floated the idea.

  “Hah!” Tyson jeered, “like you’re going to find anything edible out here in Sticksville. Good luck with that.”

  Sage ignored the insult. “If the farmer comes around, he’s going to freak out. This camp’s starting to look like a bunch of homeless people live here.” Clothes were strewn about and some kind of animal had busted into their trash bag overnight, chewing a hole in the side and dragging garbage around the camp.

  “That farmer can suck a bag of dicks,” Justin answered. He glared at Sage, daring him to make another comment.

  Sage shut up and went back to whittling sticks.

  “Whatcha making?” Penny asked. Sage had been whittling where she would be most likely to notice him. Penny had warmed to him this morning. He took it as a good sign.

  “I’m making figure-four deadfalls,” he said, fishing for a follow-on question.

  “What’s that?”

  Sage smiled. “They’re small animal traps. Let me show you.” He put one of the delicate traps together and pressed down on the top of the figure-four shape made by the sticks. His downward pressure simulated the weight of a rock.

  “I put a piece of bait on this pointy stick here, then set a big, flat rock here and, when the animal touches the bait…” Sage tapped the “baited” stick and the whole figure-four shape collapsed. “Wham! The rock falls.”

  He had been working on figure-four deadfalls since the crack of dawn. Truth was, he had never made one before, and it had taken him several tries before he got it to work.

  Penny looked impressed. “Wow! What kind of animal will you kill with that?”

  “Maybe a squirrel or a mouse. Maybe the raccoon that got into our trash.”

  Penny screwed up her nose. “We can eat those? Do they taste okay?”

  Sage figured any animal he would kill with the dead fall trap would taste like shit on a shingle, especially compared to the Mountain House freeze-dried hidden in his cache. He had radically exaggerated the size of the animal he might kill, too. It would take a two-hundred-pound rock to kill a raccoon, not that anyone in camp could call him on his bullshit. “Anything tastes good when you’re hungry enough,” Sage claimed, not at all sure that was true.

  Penny looked dubious, but Sage had already accomplished his mission, to look like a badass in front of the girl.

  By the time Justin got back from town, Sage had returned from a several-mile walkabout around the camp. Justin slammed the car door, obviously pissed. “Not only is the store closed, but the redneck gun fanatics around here are psychos. One guy
in town almost shot me. When I drove by the farmer’s house, men with guns were standing in his front yard.”

  “So what about Seattle?” Condie, the girl with the horse face whined at Justin.

  “How the hell should I know about Seattle? The locals have gone Red Dawn. I was lucky they didn’t blow me away. As though there’s not enough bad news, the car started sputtering the last quarter mile. I think it’s out of gas.”

  The news alarmed Sage, but it wasn’t unexpected. He had grown up listening to his dad, grandpas, and their friends talk about the fall of civilization or “When the Shit Hits the Fan” or “SHTF,” as they called it. To Sage, this series of events was like a scary bedtime story turned real life. He knew each chapter, and he suspected things were going to go from bad to inconceivably bad. Once things went pear-shaped with modern society, getting back to “normal” might take years, or even decades. Or so he had been told around his father’s campfire.

  “There is one piece of good news,” Sage chimed in. Justin turned on him with a sneer. He was probably sick of Sage contradicting him. “I found onions.”

  “What do you mean, you found onions?” Justin asked.

  “In the dirt field over there.” Sage pointed to the field on the other side of the road with the stick he had been whittling. “There are a few onions still in the ground. The harvester machine must’ve let them pass. We can sift through the soil and pick out the ones they missed.”

  “I hate onions,” Tyson remarked from his lawn chair.

  Justin marched over to Sage’s pack. “You can eat reject onions if you want, but you better not be holding out on us with your food in that backpack. What do you have in there?”