CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Around the fire, sharing the goat and some wheat cakes the strangers have brought out from their patchwork rucksacks, they see the faces behind the black rubber gas masks.

Grayson is a young man. Not much older than the Boy. He is quiet and smiles with dark eyes. The Old Man knows he’s shy and that women find him handsome.

Trash is a girl, a woman really. Maybe in her midtwenties. Her race is mixed. Maybe some Asian. Some black. Blond dirty hair. Her tight jaw and clenched teeth show she is older than the other two, but not by much. She does not speak.

‘She reminds me,’ thinks the Old Man, ‘of a wounded bird, or a good dog that was once mistreated.’

Harmonica Man’s real name is Kyle.

He is ruddy faced and swarthy and the Old Man knows that he is the kind of young man who would fight the whole world if he had a good reason to.

Names from Before.

Names.

“If you keep going east,” said Kyle as he chewed some goat meat, “there is only one island of sanity between here and Flagstaff. That’s the Dam, where we come from. Beyond that, I’ve heard there’s electricity in ABQ but that might just be something the Apache made up, ’cause they’re crazy. I don’t put much in what they say, especially these days.”

They eat around a fire next to the tank in the shadow of the broken tower. Night falls. Only Kyle talks. There is goat, dry wheat cakes, and warm water.

“Then there’s the bad news. Between you and that island of sanity is a small army of crazy. Even worse, something big is going on to the east and we don’t have much information other than what the Apache let slip when they come in to trade. The real truth is, I don’t know what’s going down out east. What we’ve heard is there’s a big, organized group, almost like an army come up outta Texas. They seem to follow some guy who calls himself King Charlie and what he’s all about doesn’t sound good. Slaves. Torture. Voodoo. Bad stuff. It was six months since we’d heard from Flagstaff when our bunch got sent out here, and that was a little over a year ago. But whatever’s going down out that way ain’t so good. The Apache, on a good day, are hard to deal with. But whatever’s going on beyond their lands is makin’ em even crazier than usual. So there’s that. Which still ain’t your biggest problem.”

The Old Man chewed some of the stringier goat meat, letting the newcomers enjoy the tender goat they’d seasoned with the last of their pepper.

“Your biggest problem,” continued Kyle, inspecting the rib he’d been gnawing on to make sure it was indeed devoid of meat and fat. “Your biggest problem is that small army between here and the Dam. You make it to the Dam, you can go forward. But we’ve been stuck out here for a year. They’ve got Vegas all booby-trapped up, never mind the radiation. Hell, we had a tank just like yours. I mean, maybe not the same, but old Art, he kept her running. We had some motorized flatbeds we got together and we’d run ’em up to the old air base at Creech and do some salvage. Well, that little army came in and cut us off a year ago. Now things are weird. We can’t get back to the Dam. They can’t get to this old place, which we think they want to real badly. They can’t attack the Dam ’cause they’d never make it to the front door. But word is, they’ve got a bigger army somwheres out to the east. If that’s actually the case, then that’s a game changer as the old say. In the end, there just ain’t no way through that madhouse for you and your tank.”

There were no more ribs.

Kyle stared into the fire.

“Where is this ‘Island of Sanity’?” asked the Old Man.

Kyle sighed.

“Home. Our home. The Dam east of Vegas.”

“And so if we can make it there … to the Dam, then we might find some fuel if you had vehicles once.”

“Yeah, we gin up a little fuel that’s probably not the best, but it’ll get this hunk o’ metal a little farther down the road for you. Problem is, mister, you’re not makin’ the connection. We can’t get into the Dam. There’s an army between us and it. King Charlie’s got an advance force all dug in like a hornets’ nest.”

The Old Man looked at the tank waiting in the shadowy darkness beyond the firelight.

“Did you hear me, old man, when I said we also had a tank? How d’ya think we lost it? It’s in a ditch out in North Vegas. They knew we had vehicles so they booby-trapped the whole place. You try to go through Vegas, north or south, and you’ll lose your ride. Plain as day, there just ain’t no way through!”

Silence followed and the Old Man listened to the dry sticks within the fire crackle and pop. He watched the night wind carry sparks up and away from them.

“I don’t mean to be hard on you, mister,” said Kyle softly. “But you can’t make it. At least not that way. You’ll need to go off-road way out into the desert. If your ride’s in good shape, that won’t be a problem. Unless you get really stuck and then yer out in the sticks with their patrols.”

Silence.

Overhead, a comet streaked through the atmosphere and burned up in almost the same second it had appeared.

Life.

And death.

“We need to stick to the roads,” said the Old Man, thinking of the bad right tread.

“Well, you can’t,” whispered Kyle in disgust. Or fatigue. Or both.

The Old Man watched them all.

The girl, Trash, seemed somewhere else.

Grayson looked off into the night.

Kyle stared into the fire.

The Boy appeared to watch the night but the Old Man knew, or felt was more like it, that he was somewhere else, far from this fire and this night.

His granddaughter watched everyone.

And yet we must.

“We can make a way.” It was Grayson.

Grayson stared hard at Kyle who refused to return the look.

“We can make a way,” Grayson repeated. “Straight through, and it’s all on-road.”

Silence.

“Yeah, I figured you was gonna say that,” mumbled Kyle after an interval full of something electric. “I figured that already.”

Grayson looked at the Old Man and began to speak softly.

“We could go straight down the Strip where their lines are thinnest. Right where the bomb went off. The radiation’s not too bad. They say it was just a dirty bomb but I don’t know what that really means. The important thing is the road is mostly clear of booby traps between the old casinos because of the radiation. We can go that way. We can guide you. We can make a way through.”

“We,” said Kyle softly. “We,” he thundered at Grayson and began to laugh. “We.” He snorted finally. “There just ain’t no way of gettin’ through!”

No one spoke and the mad laughter of Kyle died away on the night’s breeze.

“Kyle?” said Grayson.

“Yeah,” mumbled Kyle.

“We.”

“Yeah. I figured that already.”

The morning light shows an orange desert floor and a day turning into a forever blue. Hanging from the tank, riding in seats, or sitting atop the turret, they all depart the once-secret base.

There are still secrets buried in these sands.

Then let them stay buried, my friend. Let them stay buried forever.

Yes.

They travel south heading toward Vegas. The buckled road keeps straight, passing beneath toothy hills that guard a wide valley. An airfield rests in the center of it and buildings straddle the highway. Beyond and to the south lies a sea of rusting vehicles that stretch away to the indeterminate horizon.

Our Great Wreck seems small in comparison.

Yes.

“What happened here?” asks the Old Man leaning into Kyle’s ear as he shouts above the noise of the tank.

“Before my time,” yells Kyle above the wind and roar of the tank. “But they say that when the bomb went off, everyone in Vegas fled in two directions. Up here if you happened to be on the north side of town. If you were on the south side, then you might have gone out into Apache lands. My dad and mom were at the Dam on a ‘field trip’ when it happened. But most thought the Dam would be hit next so they just kept on moving. We never knew what really happened up here until we started coming to salvage parts years later.” He stopped, and then added, “It was like this when we got here. There hasn’t been anyone here for a long time.”

They drove down into the valley, passing the airfield where planes lay fallen and scattered. There were visible bullet holes in the walls of the buildings.

Later, in the large fields between the small mountains that bracketed the valley, they passed RVs formed into squares that had burned down to their axles and frames. Cars torn to pieces. Not in accidents, but methodically. All the tires on every vehicle were missing. They saw shreds of tent still hanging from poles, still flapping in the breeze of their passing. Ancient blue tarps lay dustily strung between the wrecks. Every imaginable possession seemed strewn about in the dirt and dust, some forever entrenched in the ancient mud of past rains.

I know the story of this place.

If I were going to salvage here, I could tell you their story.

But it would be a bad story.

And so, what is their story, my friend?

Somewhere, there will be a pit. Somewhere within all that wreckage, all those vehicles turned to shelters, there will be a pit. A pit of bones forty years gone.

Yes.

This bomb goes off in Las Vegas. Right in downtown. I must have heard the news of it then, but I have forgotten since. But it happened in those first early days. The bomb goes off and those who are not killed outright run.

As we ran.

As I ran.

Yes.

There is nothing but a desert to run into. The nearest cities are hundreds of miles away. And what good is it to go to those places, those cities? They too are targets. So the survivors stop here and begin to wait for help.

But there won’t be any.

They wait for food and medical attention.

But there won’t be any of that either.

The skies were dark within weeks.

Then there was winter.

For two years.

That is why there are no tires.

And the bullet holes?

When there is only a little left and there are many, then there are bullet holes.

And the pit?

If you wandered this maze of rusting and frozen vehicles and walked through the burned-down ruins of makeshift fortresses hustled together by a frightened few against a terrified many, on this hot desert day that will soon turn to dry afternoon, you will feel alone and a sadness you can’t name as you listen to the accidental wind chimes of wreckage and bone. You will ask yourself, where did they all go?

And soon after that, you will find the pit.

Because there was sickness.

The flu, some virus, a horrible infection racing and unchecked consuming the weak, the tired, the burnt, the hungry, the desperate. The survivors.

Because there was a sickness, there will be a pit.

The Old Man stopped the tank. Ahead of them, tractor trailer trucks and ancient military vehicles long stripped of their tires and things that might burn for the simple luxury of heat have blocked the road.

This was their checkpoint.

Their attempt to control what was inevitable.

The Old Man looked for a way around the wreck.

Easing the tank down off the highway, they skirted the ancient wall of vehicles, riding rough over the hard-packed dirt.

Ahead, the Old Man spied a deflated soccer ball half sunk in the calcified mud.

The Old Man avoided it jerkily.

Why, my friend?

I don’t know. But it seemed wrong to run over it.

They were back on the road and headed south.

The wind and the sun feel good and the opposite of that place, that cemetery.

Why? Why did you avoid the soccer ball? You must answer, my friend. You always have. Now, don’t be afraid.

Because …

He drove on.

Why?

Because it is the opposite of all those secrets buried in the desert. All those weapons. All those burned tires and open pits. It is the opposite of those things.

How so?

It just is.