The Day Time Ran Out
Darrel Bird
Copyright 2010 by Darrel Bird
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At the CDC Atlanta Dr. Vernon Sedgwick hooked the air supply hose into his bio suit and opened the door of the level 5 bio containment where a fresh slide of the virus lay ready.
He nimbly moved manipulator control then gave the glass slide a final bump as it slid under the electron microscope.
Although the germ was small it couldn’t hide from the best microscope in the world. “No Sir my tiny friend, you cannot hide your face from me no matter how small you are. Come to poppa now and don’t be shy.”
He began adjusting the microscope a micro meter at a time and as the dimness cleared a shining metallic like figure came into. He stared at what had already killed half of Atlanta. The virus resembled a vortex, so unlike the Ebola virus which killed quickly enough, but this thing was twice as deadly.
He jumped when the virus he thought was dead exploded into a fireworks of color then settled back down, only this time it was larger and more ugly. Fear like he had never known filled his gut.
“Lacy…Lacy!
“Yes doctor Sedgwick?”
“I thought you said you treated this virus before it was handed off to me?”
“Yes sir..it was.”
“Then why is it still alive?”
The slender good looking woman on the other side of the inch thick glass stared at him for a moment.
“We did treat the virus Doctor, you know I don’t guess at those kinds of things, that’s why I work in level 5.
“Well..never mind its just as good, get suited up and come in here.”
“Doctor, you know the two of us are not supposed to be in there at one time, it’s the rules!”
“Well to hell with the rules, just get your pretty ass in here; the rule makers are mostly dead!”
The 29 year old graduate of Nova South Eastern and Cal-tec donned the bio suit quickly and stepped through the airlock door as it slid behind her and sealed.
“What are you so excited about?”
“This…take a look at this.”
He readjusted the microscope until the vortex virus was again clear; she stared at it a minute then jumped back as it bloomed again like a beautiful but deadly flower.
“Oh God!
As she stared into the microscope he reached over and hit the button that would seal their fate. She did not hear as the oiled 2 inch bolts in the door slid softly closed.
He reached into a drawer and as she stared at the image he put the gun close to her temple, just touching her bio suit and pulled the trigger, then he aimed the gun at his own head and pulled it again.
The first time Atlanta burned was during the civil war, the second time it burned was when the war against a man made virus was lost and Atlanta would never burn again.
The bio suited bodies of Dr. Lacy Miller and Dr. Vernon Sedgwick would watch over the bio containment level 5 long after the suits finally rotted off heir bones and blank eye sockets as a testimony to what man could do to himself. They would stay a hundred feet under ground while Atlanta sank into oblivion.
The Road
Virgil and Jan Grissom were just a normal couple, living in Beverly Hills. They weren’t part of the show crowd. Virgil had an auto repair shop, and Jan was a dental assistant at the local dental clinic. They did pretty well for themselves, just living their lives before the day.
They still remembered the hell-fire and brimstone preacher who had come on television, stomping around on the stage and warning about the things to come, but they didn’t believe him. He had made his way out of the missions to Costa Mesa, where they had some sort of Christian televised show that ran 24 hours a day. This preacher was sort of weird, and sounded like he was from the south. It was entertaining when he got really lathered up; he would yell and scream about something called the great tribulation.
Turns out the crazy sucker wasn’t so crazy after all, because in one short month, everything went from business as usual to hell in a hand basket, right after he preached his best sermon yet. Virgil and Jan sat on the couch that Sunday morning, eating popcorn and having a good old time watching him stomp and yell and wipe sweat off his face, while spit was flying everywhere. They laughed until they hurt. It was one month before the day that the preacher preached his last sermon down in Costa Mesa. The TV station closed the day after he preached it, and they must have all gone home.
Virgil had just gotten a contract to take care of a fleet of cars for the Hollywood crowd, and they were in the dough. It looked good as far ahead as they could see, until the day some Muslims stepped off a plane in Chicago with a load of a brand new blood-sucking germs with an 80% kill ratio. The rag heads didn’t get far, after they broke the beakers, before they were dead too, was Virgil’s thought on it, but it didn’t change a thing just because they were dead. The germs killed quickly and painfully. Filthy looking sores broke out on people, and they were dropping like rocks.
Other planes landed in New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Orlando, and the world as they knew it ground to a halt inside of a week and a half. The plague spread like wildfire blown before the winds of high speed travel. People rushed to the hospitals and killed the doctors and nurses and the people in the hospitals with what they brought with them. The ones who were just getting well got sick all over again; only this time they didn’t survive. The germs quickly made their way to the CDC, and killed the workers by the droves. People fled from the cities to the farm land, only to kill the farmers. The truck drivers with their loads of freight died en route to the cities, and the trucks rolled to a halt on the freeways and the interchanges.
Some fell dead with heart attacks as they saw the waves of death coming at them from every direction. Some sat and hugged their money to their chest, just in case it would buy them a day or two. It didn’t. The grocery stores ran out of food in a day; the gas ran out next. They guarded the hospitals with automatic weapons, and killed anyone who tried to break through the lines; yet it wasn’t nearly enough. The National Guardsmen died too, with their weapons in their hands.
The wheels of the industrial nations quickly came to a stop, and the Bedouins died in their tents in the desert. The gray horseman galloped back and fourth across the land, his steed rearing and pawing the air, a hideous smile on his face. As he rode to and fro across the earth, hell followed after him.
Los Angeles quickly became unsafe for the few survivors to come out of their houses. The wicked became more wicked, and they had the run of the gun shops. They had all the weed and dope they could smoke and shoot up their nose, and they killed for the sake of killing. They would kill a man for a dime, when they could get money for free just by walking into the stores and banks.
So far, the germs hadn’t touched the Grissoms, or they were some of the lucky ones who were immune to this thing; only time would tell. They kept hoping things would get better, so they holed up. But they stayed too long, as most other people did. Finally, the city water ran out, and it was time to go. The other survivors must have realized the same thing, because it was as if a message was sent along an invisible wire, “Get out of Dodge, and do it now.”
“Virgil! What are you doing?”
“Just a minute, will ya?”
Virgil took one last look around the house, slammed the door, and walked to the loaded four wheel drive Land Rover. They were going to try to make it out of Beverly Hills by way of the Tujunga Canyon road, and then up over the hump and down to the interstate 5 after they cleared the Grayson Ranch, which lay atop of the mountain. His brother-in-law lived just outside of Porterville, and he had advised them to come on up, but Virgil was afraid they had stayed too long in the Los Angeles basin.
They wouldn’t be able to get over the freeway that led out of Los Angeles; it was too clogged with wrecks and desperate people with guns who wanted anything that rolled. Virgil had made a trial run the day before, and it was just impossible. His only hope was to catch the freeway at Castaic junction, and then head north. In order to do that, they would have to make their way through Burbank over the back roads. He figured the roads would be somewhat clear past Castaic.
Anyway, they couldn’t stay here, and perhaps there was food or fuel in the San Joaquin valley. There was food in the houses along the way, but no one dared to go foraging in them, because before the people at the CDC croaked, they had warned the people of the rampant disease that would be fermenting in houses with dead bodies soaking in the heat.
Virgil got behind the wheel and started the big Land Rover. He had the car behind their house for the last fifteen years. He had overhauled the engine and the transmission, intending on restoring the vehicle completely. On a whim last spring he had completed the job. Now he was glad he did, because if anything could make it over those roads, the Land Rover could.
Jan looked across the seat at him with fear in her eyes. She didn’t want to leave the house at first; she just couldn’t get it through her head that this had happened, and that her comfortable world was gone so quickly. She longed for the hair parlors and the Bunco dice games once a week with the girls. Now everything was a mess. Her hair wasn’t professionally done, and she was mad as hell at anything she felt took away her comforts.
She was skinny, black haired, with a pretty face and cute turned-up nose, and it was love at first sight. He had met her at his high school basketball game. They had gotten married after high school and settled down in the quiet North Hollywood neighborhood where his father had built the garage for him.
Now it was all gone. Almost every one of their neighbors had died in the first week of the epidemic. Virgil wondered how or why they both had not died with them.
“You ready honey?”
“Yeah…Virgil, do you think we can make it to John and Nell’s place?”
“I don’t know, Jan, but if anything can make it, this old Land Rover will.”
“I gave you a hard time about this thing lying in the back yard all those years. I’m sorry, Virgil.”
“It’s ok, honey. I know it was an eyesore, but it was my dad's car, and I just couldn’t part with it after he passed away. Fasten your seat belt; here we go.”
The car shifted smoothly as they pulled out onto the street and headed toward the Tujunga Canyon road. The scene was surreal. Beside him lay two pump shot guns, and a 357 Magnum was in a holster he had on his gun belt. It was a German-made replica of the Colt 45 revolver some guy had given him to fix his car, along with the western type gun belt. He had hung the pistol in the closet, only to practice with it from time to time up in the hills behind the house. He had gotten fairly good at hitting what he aimed at with the thing.
“You look like a cowboy with that thing strapped on.” She smiled at him out of her hazel eyes. “The girls better let you alone.”
“I can handle all the girls who come my way.” He winked at her.
When they got into the canyon, about a quarter mile up, they rounded a bend, and came upon a large dog eating at a dead body. The dog growled and snarled at them as they gently skirted the body. Virgil saw his wife cover her eyes as they passed the ugly scene.
About two blocks up, they came to a stalled Arrowhead water truck that was crossways in the narrow road. No one was in the truck. Virgil got out and began to take out a tow chain he had stowed in the back of the Land Rover. He hooked the chain to the truck and walked back to the Land Rover. A man and a woman roared up on two Harleys, and stopped about 50 feet away.
“Need any help?” the man called out.
“I might need someone to steer the truck,” he called back. The man cranked the big Harley and pulled it closer; the woman stayed where she was. Virgil saw her hand go into her leather jacket, and he knew she had a gun in there. The large man got off the bike and walked over to the truck and got in.
“Pull until it gets to the edge of the road, then stop, and we’ll push it over the side, ok?”
“Ok,” Virgil said, as he cranked the big Land Rover’s engine.
The chain went taut as the jeep pulled the truck to the edge of the road. The man got out as Virgil unhooked the chain; he unhooked the other end. They both walked to the back of the water truck, and with a good shove the truck rolled over the edge of the canyon road and crashed down through the underbrush to come to rest at the bottom of the canyon.
“Thanks,” Virgil said, as he gathered up the chain.
“You’re welcome,” the big man replied. “You think maybe you might want a couple people riding along with you?”
Virgil looked warily at the man’s bearded face, stained teeth, and half shell helmet. He tried to read the man’s eyes, but the eyes told him nothing, as if the man took things as they came. “How do we know we can trust you?” He looked at him flatly.
“You don’t, but I don’t figure any of us have much of a chance with just the two of us.”
Virgil thought a minute. “How good do you ride those things?”
“Buddy, I was born on a hog. How good can you drive that thing?” he said, pointing at the Land Rover.
Virgil laughed, “I can drive it, and I can fix it. I owned a garage a ways back down the hill.”
By this time, the woman had walked over from the bike, and stood a few feet away, listening to the two men talk. She said nothing. Jan was looking suspiciously at her; she had a plain face, and a hard look about her.
“You planning on going over the mountain and coming out at Castaic?”
“Yeah, that was the plan.” Virgil’s instincts were in full gear, as he appraised the situation. He liked the man; he didn’t know about the woman. “So you think we might do each other some good?”
“We might. Hell…I’m just taking things as they go.”
“Where did you come from?”
“We came out of Anaheim. It's pretty rough back there. The people who survived are killing each other right and left; we figured we would scoot.”
“Were you part of some biker group down there?”
“We had our Bro’s, but the most of them died.”
Virgil couldn’t exactly place why, but he trusted the big man. He had a Lone Wolf patch on his jacket, and that was encouraging too. “I’m Virgil,” he reached out his hand. The big man took it into his huge paw.
“I’m Zack, and that there is my wife, Rosy.” He indicated the woman in the leathers. “Come on over Rosy; we’re going to do a ride along with these folks.”
Rosy came walking over and extended her hand. She had grease embedded in her long nails, and she looked gravely up at him.
“Jan, get out and meet these folks.” She got out of the jeep and came around. The women eyed each other up and down, and then as if some silent communication passed between them, they gave each other approval of some kind.
You can never figure women out. The thought passed through Virgil’s mind like a fleeting bird, and then he was all business again. “Since we are going to do this thing, we need to trust each other explicitly; do you two have any food?”
“We got enough for three or four days in our saddle bags; how much you got?”
“About the same; maybe a little more.”
“You ready to ride? It's not safe sitting still for very long. Some people camped and were killed back down the road. The world has gone crazy, man.”
“Yeah, let’s roll.”
The Ingathering
The two cranked their powerful engines, and the two big bikes made a loud racking sound that broke the silence of Tujunga Canyon. Virgil started the Land Rover and moved slowly up the canyon road. They passed house after house with their neat landscaping already becoming overgrown with weeds. They saw no one in any of the houses.
They soon came to the end of the paved road, and from here on, it would be just a pig trail of a road on over the mountain. The Land Rover began to seesaw back and fourth on its heavy springs as it started the steep climb. He knew in some places the road might be washed out. Although the state forestry maintained the road fairly well, it washed out often in heavy rains.
“Do you trust these people?” Jan yelled above the noise of the Jeep’s groaning engine and the roar of the two bikes right behind them.
“Yeah, I trust them for now. “Even so, you keep your hand on that shotgun, and if they make a wrong move, kill them both.”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” she said, as she hooked her hand around the grab rail over the glove box of the jeep.
“You better, if you want to live,” he said, matter of fact. She looked sharply at him.
“You have got to realize that things have changed, honey, and the world has just taken a huge dump on us. It ain’t civilized anymore, if it ever was.” The conversation came to a halt as the Jeep began to buck and sway up the steep mountain road, and the Harleys screamed, grunted, and spun their wheels while trying to get a grip on the loose gravel that coated the road.
They were finally over the top of the mountain, and Virgil stopped the Jeep and killed the motor. The two bikers pulled up along side, and did the same. All they could hear in the silence was the sowing of the wind through the pine forest. It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun was baking the pine trees while the smell of pine needles and resin soaked the air.
“What say we camp here for the night, Virgil? From here we have good vision, and a clear field of fire.”
“Sounds good to me, Zack. If we keep going, it’s going to put us in the low land around Castaic Junction; more dangerous there.”
They looked across the hills; a forest fire burned somewhere up past Castaic Junction. Virgil reached into the Land Rover and pulled out his binoculars to have a look. He could see two gas stations and a grocery store clearly through the lenses, but he saw no one. He swept the binoculars further on toward the smoke and saw the flames licking up to the sky. The fire, being swept through the grass and trees by the wind, had already jumped the freeway, with no one to fight the fire. He gave the glass to Zack, and waited while Zack scanned the visible terrain. He noticed with approval that Zack scanned the terrain with great care.
“I think we need to get off the road and back up into the trees a way for the night…There’s no telling who might come in behind us. I don’t think we have to worry too much about people trying to get into Los Angeles, but there are some mighty bad people trying to get out, though,” Zack said, as he handed the binoculars back.
Virgil thought about that a minute. “Yeah, far enough back to make a small fire; it gets cold up here at night.”
“Let's do it then.”
Zack walked over to the big motorcycle, and cranking it up, he spun off over a clearing to their right, and headed for a grove of pine trees. They gathered fire wood for the night, and the girls opened cans of food, and began heating it over the fire.
Dark came slowly to the hills, and the air cooled swiftly. Zack threw another stick of wood on the fire as they began to huddle close to it in the night chill.
“Virgil, do you think this is what the Bible speaks about in Revelation?” Zack looked at him intently, rubbing his hands together.
Virgil looked sharply at him, “You read the Bible?” he asked, surprised.
Zack, with his bearded, tough looking face, in his motorcycle garb, and his wife with her hard looks, looked right out of a Hell’s Angels gang of cut throats, dopers, and thieves. “Yeah, I read it from time to time, I never did know how to take it…too many unusual things that are said in it, like a donkey talking to a man and such, but I have read most of it.”
“I don’t know, Zack, a preacher who has been coming on TV for a while now has been saying something like this was going to happen. I thought he was pretty loony, but now I’m not sure but what he was crazy like a fox.”
“Yeah, I heard him talking about the four horsemen of Revelation. Society fell so quickly; one day we’re having it pretty good, then the next, BAM!” Zack said, striking his hands together.
“You guys are giving me the creeps.” Jan leered at the both of them.
Rosy just sat and looked around at the three of them, her face stoical. Suddenly, she looked at Jan and snarled, “You might try getting your head out of your ass lady, or haven’t you noticed we are not in the best position to go getting on our high horses here.”
Rosy hadn’t said two words since they hooked up, and Jan looked at her with surprise, “What do you know about it?”
Rosy turned and looked at her, “I know enough to start getting my head on straight, and you better start doing the same. My mom was a Christian. I didn’t believe her, but I do now.”
“Cut it, the both of you! We don’t have the luxury of fighting here. If this is going to start, we’re beat already.”
“Zack’s right, girls, we better start trying to think…all of us. Zack, do you believe this is what the Bible and that preacher were talking about?”
“I wasn’t sure before, but I took a Bible class at UCLA for extra credit, and I remember explicitly what it says in Revelation about one of the horsemen… ‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.’ If you look at all the financial woes the whole earth has been in, then along comes this, it begins to make sense. Yeah, I believe we are right smack dab in the tribulation time,” Zack said, as he spat at the fire.
“You went to UCLA?” Virgil looked at Zack in surprise.
“Four years; right out of high school and into college.”
“You don’t look like a college grad.”
“What does a college grad look like?”
“Well…they are not usually the biker variety.”
Zack grinned at him. “I started riding when I was eleven years old, then I started fixing my own bikes, and I have had a love affair with bikes ever since. I didn’t get to ride much in college, but when I got out, I decided I didn’t want the business world, so I took a job in construction and became the foreman. That gave me time to ride. I met Rosy here, at a club party, and we hooked up; we’ve been together nine years now. What about you? What’s your background?”
“Oh, nothing much…I always loved tinkering with cars, so as soon as I got out of high school, dad built me a garage, and he helped me run it until he passed away a few years ago. Mom passed away right after. I just don’t think she could live without dad; she took pneumonia and just faded away. I guess I was lucky to have parents who could afford to give me a start.”
Rosy suddenly sat up, “You know, it’s almost like we were meant to meet. With the combined experience you two have, we might be able to survive this.”
Virgil and Zack looked sharply at her plain face, and Virgil saw a wisdom there he hadn’t seen before.
“You may be right, Rosy; neither of us wants to harm the other, and I think we can make a pretty good team.”
Zack held his hands out to the fire and stared into it in deep thought. Finally he spoke. “I don’t know about you all, but I am going to start praying and living the best I can. Maybe the God of that Bible has something for me to do yet. I don’t want to hold out false hope, because if this is what I studied about in Revelation, its going to get worse…far worse, but I don’t want to spend an eternity in hell, after going through hell on this old earth.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean, buddy.”
“Me too,” Rosy chimed in.
Jan just looked at the three of them and snickered.
Rosy looked at her and spoke, “My mother was a Christian; she took me to church up until she died. I was only fourteen at the time. I slept around until I got hell beat out of me. We lived in East LA until Mom passed away. Dad had left us years ago, when I was a baby. When Mom passed away, I lost it a little, I guess, but now I’m glad she took me to church regularly.
“Zack saved my life when a pimp tried to beat me to death… Zack came along down the alley on his bike and whipped him to a bloody pulp. I thought he was going to kill him. He put me on his bike, and I’ve been with him ever since. Times were always hard in East LA, never knowing where your next meal was coming from.”
Jan looked humbly at her with new respect in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Rosy.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, sis. If I hadn’t of had hard times, I don’t believe I would be able to face this; plus, it gave me Zack.” Zack put his arms around her shoulder, and tears came into her eyes, but she quickly brushed them away with the back of her hand.
Virgil looked at the two of them, and was glad he had found them. Jan was humbled by the poignancy of the moment, and she slipped her hand into Virgil’s and looked up at him. “I guess I better start giving my man some respect.” She smiled.
“Guess you better, and I guess I better start taking better care of my woman.”
After a while they crawled into their sleeping bags, and soon the sounds of regular breathing of the sleep of the exhausted came to Virgil’s ears, but he lay awake a long time thinking of the conversation that had taken place between the two couples.
A night bird gave its sleepy call across the top of the mountain, the wind sowed through the pine trees with its soft voice, and for the first time in his life, he thought deeply about God, and he prayed until he slept.
At day break, Virgil gently shook the others awake and they silently loaded the bikes and the Jeep. No one said anything as they quickly packed. The bikes roared to life, and the Jeep growled its displeasure at the whole situation.
Jan crawled into the Jeep and they started the long slow downgrade off the mountain and away from Tujunga Canyon and the life they had left behind forever. The bikes popped and the Jeep groaned as they made their way down the last steep road, and started the gradual climb toward Castaic Junction.
By 9 o’clock Castaic came into view. They stopped the vehicle while Virgil scanned the two filling stations and the store, a half mile away. He thought he saw movement at the side of one of the buildings, but he couldn’t be sure, and he didn’t see it again.
“We better go in slow and easy,” he said, as he slipped the binoculars between the seats. They drove on slowly toward Castaic; Jan held the shotgun between her legs as they drove. As they pulled up under the overhang of one of the filling stations, something began gnawing at Virgil’s gut. He couldn’t put his hand on it, but something just did not feel right.
Zack and Rosy pulled up beside them on the bikes, but left the motors running. Virgil eyed the grocery store across the street, and again thought he saw movement. Just then, a door opened in a metal outbuilding, and a man came out with a rifle in his hand; two more emerged from the back of the filling station.
“You got gas mister, and we want it.”
Three more armed men emerged from the grocery store. Zack just looked at Virgil, drew his forty five automatic and started shooting, taking out two of the men closest to him. Virgil dove over Jan and opened the door, pushing her out and to the ground. He came up shooting the 357 Magnum at the three who came out of the grocery store, hitting two and putting a bullet through the other man’s leg. The man went down, his leg splintered by the heavy bullet. One of the men started running up the road toward the freeway. Zack jumped on the hog, and chased the man, firing as he went. The man went down in a pool of blood a hundred yards away.
Zack came riding back, and asked, “Did we get them all?”
Virgil was standing by the Jeep, injecting a shotgun shell into the barrel of the 12-gauge. “There’s one lying over there; I think I hit his leg.”
“Kill him, Virgil. If you don’t, I will.”
They walked over to the man who lay there groaning, his leg was crooked where the bullet had taken out the bone.
“Please help me; I’m going to die if you don’t.”
“You’re going to die anyway, mister. You chose your path to follow. Now you’re going to follow it to hell.
“No…please!”
Virgil shot the man through the head, and then turned and walked back toward the Jeep. Jan looked at him with horror in her eyes. Rosy was her stoical self; she just turned and got on her bike.
Virgil read her eyes. “You didn’t even fire the shotgun…Woman, you better get the craziness out of your skull, forget the fingernails and the hair do’s, and begin realizing that world is gone. Those people would have killed us and raped you till you died.”
Jan looked down. “I just can’t kill people like that.” The tears leaked down her face, make-up beginning to run.
“Then you’ll die, and I can’t help you. You have to do your share or you will take others with you.”
Zack walked over to Rosy, taking her pistol and smelling the barrel. “It’s been fired,” she said. “Why don’t you guys go and see what you can find in the grocery store, while I talk to her, OK?” Rosy looked at them and winked.
“Ok,” Zack said. Virgil followed him toward the grocery store. “Let’s give them a few minutes, but only a few; we’ve got to go.”
“Yeah,” Virgil replied.
The grocery store had been stripped of everything; they walked to the shed in back of the station, and found a hand pump with a long hose attached. Zack carried the pump to the locked fuel tank.
“Find something we can get this lock off with.”
Virgil walked into the garage bay of the filling station and came out with a pair of bolt cutters. They were able to obtain about four gallons of dirty watery fuel from the very bottom of the tank. They filled the vehicles with the spare clean fuel and then poured the dirty fuel into the spare cans.
The two women came up just as they were strapping the can onto the back of the Land Rover.
“She’ll be alright now,” Rosy spoke up.
“We can’t depend on her,” Zack replied.
Rosy’s eyes blazed at Zack. “Now you listen to me, Zackery Taylor. You don’t know a damn thing about women, and you never have, so shut your trap.”
Zack looked at his wife in amazement; he had never seen her that way in all the time they had been together.
“I think she means it, Zack.” Virgil grinned at him.
“We’ve got to get along, and we have to depend on each other. That’s just all there is to it.” Virgil gathered Jan into his arms. The tears leaked out again, but she had a different look about her.
“I can do it; you’ll see.”
“I know you can. Let’s get on the road before we have more trouble. I think I heard a car coming down the mountain.”
A pickup with two people in the cab and two on the back with guns pulled under the overhang of the filling station just as they climbed onto the freeway, heading north. They stared as they passed the blackened land the fires had left behind. The land looked surreal in the face of what had just taken place.
They came upon a Winnebago 30 minutes up the road, and a young girl got out and stood in the middle of the road. The Winnebago took up almost all of both lanes. Virgil stopped the Jeep in front of the girl, and she came around to the driver’s door.
“My folks are sick; can you help us?” she said in a small voice.
“I doubt it. Do they have the plague?”
“I think so,” the girl said.
“Please Mister, they are all I have. Everybody else is dead.”
Virgil thought a minute, the motorcycles idling behind him. Zack and Rosy cut the engines and walked around to the door.
“What’s going on?”
“The girl wants us to look at her folks; she thinks they have the plague. What the hell,” Virgil said, as he got out and walked to the door of the camper. He held a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, and climbed in. The man was already dead, and the woman gave it up just as he was taking her pulse.
He climbed out of the camper and walked back to the girl. “They’re both dead now, honey.”
“Oh no!” The girl looked at them, stricken. Jan put her arms around the girl, and pulled her close. The girl sobbed.
“Do you want to go with us now? We have to go.” Jan motioned Virgil to get in the Jeep.
Zack and Rosy went back to the bikes, and Virgil waited while Jan whispered some words in the girl’s ear. Soon, she led her to the door of the Jeep, and the girl crawled into the back seat.
“Lay down in the seat, Honey.” Jan moved stuff farther toward the back, and the girl lay down. Jan tucked a pillow under her head.
“Drive, Virgil.”
Virgil started the Jeep and skirted the camper, then on up the freeway that led to Bakersfield and points north. The girl slept the sleep of the exhausted as they wound their way to Gorman, which lay at the top of the “grape vine.” There they would make the long steep descent into the valley.
The road was cluttered with vehicles, cars, trucks, campers, you name it; but for the most part, they were on the side of the road, where people had pulled over, too sick to drive, and had died in them. Everywhere they looked, the buzzards wheeled overhead.
A little further on, they came to another stalled vehicle in one lane of the freeway. A man got out of the car and stood in the middle of the other lane. Virgil honked his horn, but the man would not move, so he pulled to a stop about 30 feet in front of the man. Virgil glanced over at Jan, who had the shotgun trained on the man, her finger on the trigger.
“We don’t mean any harm to you,” the man said. “We just need help.”
Virgil looked over at the car. There was a woman with two kids, looking scared. He saw no one else. Virgil got out of the Jeep and walked toward the man, his hand on the butt of his revolver.
“You going to shoot me with that thing?”
“I might. It depends on you. Where did you come from? Is anyone sick?”
“I came from Ventura. No, no one’s sick, I’m a doctor…they’re mostly all dead back there. I picked the woman up on the way, then the two kids. Her husband died on the way out of LA; the children’s folks died too. I just couldn’t leave them. “Did you see a gang back down the road a ways? They tried to way lay us at Castaic Junction, but we ran. They didn’t hear our car coming up, and we saw them ducking behind buildings, so I figured they were up to no good.”
“They tried to take our gas. We killed them,” Virgil said simply.
“Do you figure there will be more on the roads like that?” the doctor asked.
“There’ll be more… people are either decent or not, and they will turn the way they are bent.”
Zack and Rosy killed the bikes, and Zack got off and walked slowly up. He just stood listening, and said nothing.
“I think my car overheated; it doesn’t seem to be out of gas. I don’t know anything about cars; too busy going through medical school to learn much about them. Do you know anything about them?”
“I’ll take a look, but we can’t stay here long; too dangerous.”
“I appreciate any help you can offer.”
Zack already had the hood up. “Busted water hose; top one,” he said simply.
“I have some extra hose in the jeep. Yours is a preformed hose, but I think we can get the straight one to work.”
Virgil rumbled around in the back of the Jeep, and came back with the hose and a flat screw driver. He had the hose off and another one on in about five minutes. He got the 5-gallon Jerry can of water off the Jeep, and filled the radiator. The woman and the children sat silent all the while. The boy looked to be about eight, and the girl about six.
“You kids hungry?”
“Yes sir,” said the boy, politely. “We ain’t eat since yesterday.”
“I’ll get you something to eat,” Jan said.
Jan took the children to the other side of the Jeep, and began rifling in the back for food for them.
“What are your plans?” The doctor looked at them intently.
“We, meaning Zack and I, have been talking that over. Jan’s sister and her husband have a ranch just outside of Porterville, which lays the other side of Bakersfield. We have sort of worked on a plan to build up a strong hold. I’ve been up there and it’s a pretty good location, with the mountains on the back side of the property, and a river running right near the house.
“We may have to plan on defending it, though. People who are bad will get worse and try to take everything they can by force; we don’t aim to let that happen.”
“Sounds like it might work for a while.”
“Well…, it seems to Zack and me to be our responsibility to try and help others, instead of dying quickly ourselves, as long as we have a say in it.”
“Do you think this is what the Bible talked about in Revelation, Virgil?”
“We have talked about that too, and yes, we think it is.”
“I have never been a religious man. I guess eight years of medical school took care of that, but I am beginning to be a believer. If this is correct, we may be able to tell what to expect just by reading the Bible. I aim to do that as soon as I have the time.”
“Right now, we have to keep rolling.”
Do you think we might be able to tag along?”
“I was hoping you would say that, Doc. We could use your skills as a physician. We may be able to offer you some protection in return. Can you shoot?”
“No, I’m afraid I never learned to do that either. I took an oath to save life, not take it. However, that probably doesn’t count anymore; I’ll do what I can.”
“How about it, Zack?”
“I think we need him. Let’s get back on the road.”
They started the little cavalcade – the two children, the Doc, and the woman, following Zack and Rosy.
Virgil noticed the woman hadn’t said a word. He thought she was probably still in shock, possibly from losing her husband and family. At Gorman they drove slowly past some people camped there, but they didn’t want to take chances with them. The people just stood and looked at them as they passed on the freeway a few hundred feet away.
Virgil stopped at the head of the grapevine, and walked back to the vehicles. “Everybody be sure and check their brakes; it gets really steep going down the mountain.” Zack and Doc just nodded, and Virgil got back in the car for the long descent into the valley below. Funny, he thought, before this, I have crossed the pass a hundred times, and never even thought about checking my brakes. How things have changed in such a short time.
Halfway down the grade they came upon a semi-truck jack-knifed across the road. Its trailer had turned over and lay on its side across the freeway. Virgil stopped the Jeep, and walked around the cab of the truck. No one was around. He came back to the motorcycles. “I think we can make it around in front of the cab of the truck, Zack. “You two follow the Doc, then catch up and retake your position…No, on second thought it might be good if you follow the Doc the rest of the way. You can maneuver better than he can.”
“Sounds good to me.”
He patted Zack on the arm and climbed back into the Jeep. It turned out to be a little tricky to skirt the truck and stay out of the ditch, but they went around without incident. They rode on for the better part of an hour, driving slowly, until the outskirts of Bakersfield came into view. Then they exited off the I-5 and onto the 99 freeway, which led all the way to Sacramento.
Virgil again stopped the Jeep, and walked back to Zack’s motorcycle. “I think we better not try to stop in Bakersfield; it’s too dangerous. We’ll go straight on to the Porterville cut off, I’m going to drive faster going past Bakersfield, if nothing gets in my way.”
“I was thinking the same thing, buddy.”
Virgil turned, got into the car, and drove on. Before they got into Bakersfield, they could see the smoke from the fires. Bakersfield was burning.
By the time they got to Wible Road and the highway 58 cutoff, the smoke was so thick they could barely breathe. The freeway was choked with overturned, wrecked, and burning cars. He wondered what was going on in that town, but he dared not stop or slow down, as he skirted the wrecks as fast as he could. The sooner we get through here, the better I will like it. The thought rolled through his mind as he skirted another wreck.
Just outside of Bakersfield, they approached a wooden barricade across the freeway. Some men with guns stood in front of the barricade. He stopped the Jeep and got out and walked around to Zack. “Barricade about 200 yards up the road.” He stated simply. It’s being guarded by armed men, Zack.”
“Well, to hell with them, man. We ain’t stopping; let’s plow through them. I’ll use your Jeep and Doc’s car as cover.”
“That’s what I was thinking. They may be local militia, but we can’t take the chance.”
He walked on back to the doctor’s car. “Doc, there’s a barricade up the road. We are going to try and punch through it, so no matter what happens, don’t stop, ok?”
“Ok, Virgil.”
“You kids lay low in the back seat. Lady, you better get down too.” The woman looked at him with blank eyes, not saying anything; she didn’t move to comply either. I wonder if she will ever make it back to the real world. The thought slid through his mind quickly, and he turned to the job at hand.
Virgil walked back to his Jeep and got in. The big Land Rover had an iron brush guard on the front, with a heavy winch mounted on it. He drove slowly toward the barricade, and then punched the gas pedal to the floor board.
The men guarding the road saw what was happening and scrambled to get out of the way as the Land Rover roared toward the road block. The car crashed through the barricade at 60 miles an hour, breaking up the wood as it went. He heard a shot ring out and saw Rosie’s bike wobble in his rear view mirror, but the bike straightened up and came on, the Doc following in hot pursuit.
He kept going for more than a mile before he slowed the car, stopped, and pulled over. He got out and walked back. “Everybody ok?” He looked at the small group.
“I think I’m hit,” said Rosy. “My arm.”
“Doc,” he called, “can you come take a look?”
The doctor got out of his car and walked forward. Rosy was pulling her heavy leather jacket off. When she did, he saw the blood showing through her sleeve in the fleshy part of her upper arm. He took some sharp scissors from his medical bag and began cutting the sleeve away from the wound.
“That’s my nicest blouse, Doc.”
“We’ll get you another one.” He grinned at her.
Zack frowned at the wound, “Damn, it don’t look bad, but that was close.”
The doctor began swabbing the wound with an alcohol swab. “It’s just a flesh wound. She’ll be ok in a few days.” He put some kind of salve on the wound, and then bound up the arm with gauze.
“Will you be ok to ride, Rosy?” Zack asked her tenderly.
“Yeah, I’ll be ok, Zack. Let’s go,” she said, as she began pulling on her leather jacket.
“I ought to go back and shoot every one of those sons a bitches,” Zack said angrily.
“Zack, we can’t afford that kind of thing.” Virgil looked at him. “And you know it. We have to keep our heads if we are going to live long.”
“I know it.” Zack got on the Harley and cranked the big bike up, but he looked mean. Virgil got the idea that if anyone touched his Rosy, they were in mortal danger.
He walked to the Jeep and got in, cranked up, and drove on. It went smoothly the next five miles until they came to a sign that read “Porterville next exit.” The little cavalcade pulled in at the Chevron station, and a man walked out of the front door. He had a blue work uniform on, with a greasy rag hanging from his back pocket. They saw no sign of weapons on the man. They looked around suspiciously, but saw no one else.
He walked up to Virgil’s jeep, “You need gas?”
“Yeah, how much do you want for it?”
“Man, I don’t want anything for it, what do I need money for?” The man looked at him in amusement. “Besides, you have to pump it from the ground yourself; no power.
“We’ll pump,” Virgil said with a grin. “What are you doing still here, if I might ask?” Virgil looked at the friendly man.
“Got no place to go.” He looked at Virgil seriously. “Been following the news that people bring in. This thing has circled the globe and then some, the way I get it. People dying like flies. All my employees are dead, and so I alone am here. I buried them out back,” he said sadly.
Virgil liked the man right away; he was fifty-ish with graying hair and a rugged face. They pumped the gas out of the tanks into cans furnished by the station owner. “Seen any bad men or gangs?”
“I’ve seen a few, but they haven’t given me any trouble since I just give them what they want. Where did you folks come from?”
“LA basin.”
“How is it down there?”
“Bad, and getting worse. We had to fight a gang down at Castaic Junction; it wasn’t a pretty sight. We picked up the folks in the car on the way to Gorman. The kids lost their family, and so did the woman in the car.”
“That’s really tough,” the man said sadly. I am divorced; my ex lived in San Francisco with my kids. I don’t know how they have fared.”
Virgil saw tears start to gather in the man’s eyes. “Why don’t you come with us? We are heading up to Porterville to my brother-in-law’s ranch.” He knew he should have consulted with Zack on this, but he blurted it out before he knew he was going to, and the man’s sadness touched him deeply.
“I might just do that. You seem to be some decent folks, and there’s not much gas left to pump anyhow.” The man seemed in deep thought for a minute. “Yeah, I think I’ll tag along. You know you are a natural born leader, don’t you?”
“Me?” Virgil said. “No, I’m not a leader.”
“Yes, you are,” the man said, as he looked deeply into Virgil’s eyes. The man’s eyes twinkled a little.
“Come on over and meet the rest. What’s your name?”
“Gus Malloy.”
They walked over to the cavalcade just as Zack was finished with the last car. “Zack, I want you to meet Mr. Gus Malloy; this here is Zack Taylor.” Virgil gave introductions all around. “I took it on myself to invite him to go with us.” Zack just looked at him, but he knew Virgil well enough by now to trust his judgment.
The little group began to pile into the vehicles, and Gus fell in behind in his Ford pickup. They drove the remaining miles to Porterville without further incident. They passed through deserted streets. The pipes on the Jeep and the motorcycles echoed through the streets, and they saw no movement at all. If there were any people, they were staying behind locked doors.
The line of vehicles circled the dam, and began the climb toward the ranch. Soon they were in the foothills, and came to the locked gate that was across the road to the ranch. Virgil got out of the jeep, and walked over to the gate. He shook the lock, and a voice came to him from a copse of trees a few feet away.
“There is a rifle trained on you, mister. You better turn around and go back to where you came from.”
Virgil slowly raised his hands. “This is my brother-and sister-in-law’s ranch. They invited us here.”
“You say John is your brother-in-law?”
“That’s right; my name is Virgil Grissom, and this is my wife, Jan, sitting in the Jeep.”
“You will have to stay there until I can get someone up to the ranch to verify you. I suggest you don’t move a muscle in the mean time. We have orders to shoot to kill.”
“Fair enough; could I sit in the Jeep? I’m pretty worn out,” he called back.
He heard some words he couldn’t make out; then the voice answered, “I guess that would be ok. I better not see any weapons, though. You get in there and sit still.”
Virgil turned and climbed back into the seat of the Land Rover. He saw a man leave up the gully and come out a hundred yards up the road on a horse. He knew the ranch lay a half mile up the road, and it would take a while before anybody could get back.
“I wonder if Nell is ok,” Jan said, while she fidgeted in her seat.
“No use letting your imagination run amuck, honey. Whatever has taken place here, has taken place, and there’s nothing we can do but accept it.”
“Yeah, I know, but my heart is pounding.”
“I know, Jan. I’m scared too, but we have to get tough in a hurry.”
“I love you, Virgil.”
“I know, and I love you too.”
“What will we do if they won’t let us on the ranch?”
“We’ll do what we have to, to survive; either here or there, I guess.”
“Nell is such a sweet sister; always has been. Do you remember how they helped us when we were first married?”
“I remember. John always seemed to be a good sort too. They were…are…a good match.”
“Are we a good match, Virgil?”
“Naw, but I make do.”
She grinned and smacked him on the shoulder. “Aww! That hurts.”
“Baby!”
They sat and talked quietly as the minutes passed, and then from around the bend in the road, they saw two horses approaching. Then the horses disappeared into the gully where the man had come out on the road.
“I figure there’s good cover from where they went in to the gate.”
“Yeah, I don’t see them,” Jan said.
Soon a figure emerged from the trees; it was their brother-in-law, John Harris.
“Well, if it ain’t Virgil and Jan! I had about given up hope you two were even still alive. How was the trip up, Virgil?” He hugged Jan, and wrung Virgil’s hand.
“Pretty rough, I picked up some others on the way, John.” He introduced Zack and the others to John.
“I trust your judgment Virgil; if you brought them I know they are ok.”
“I hate to ask, John, but do you have room on the ranch for us to hole up?”
“We’ll make room, we have been building steady now for a week. We have been hauling lumber from Waite’s Lumber in Porterville. It’s just there for the taking, but it won’t last long, I’m afraid; so we are getting it as fast as we can.
“No one tried to stop you?”
“No, not so far. Say, let’s get you all up to the ranch. He turned and locked the gate back as he led them through. “Keep a sharp eye, Jody.”
“Sure will, boss,” the man said, who had spoken from the trees. He had never shown himself, and Virgil knew they meant business.
They stopped the vehicles a few yards away from the main house. Nell came running out and hugged her sister close; both were crying tears of joy. Nell hugged Virgil and said, “I am so thankful you guys are safe. It’s been almost too much the last few days.”
“We are glad you are safe too, but I doubt if many of our kin folk made it through the first weeks of this.”
“Come on in and we’ll fix you all something to eat.”
After introductions all around, they trooped into the house. Virgil observed the new out buildings, small huts really, and the lumber stacked around with markers stuck in the ground outlining more buildings.
The sun was setting in the west, and the men sat out on the porch and talked while supper was being prepared by the women.
John began to speak, “I want you all to hear what I have to say…” He hesitated, as if he was getting what he wanted to say together for the first time. The men waited silently.
“There have been people dribbling in, good people; it’s almost like there is a magnet in this ranch, and they are being drawn to that magnet. I believe God is drawing people here for purposes unknown to me right now, and I may never know, but I believe he is.
“There have been many reports brought in of people having to fight some really mean people to get here. I never was very religious until late, but I have been reading the Revelation in the Bible.” Zack glanced sharply at Virgil with knowing eyes.
“Somehow I believe that we are living in the time of the plagues mentioned in that Bible. Nell thinks so too, and so do a lot of others. What do you all think?”
“Something’s going on,” Zack spoke up. “I have been reading the Bible for a while now, and I came to the same conclusion; we are in the time of the apocalypse. Virgil and I talked about this on the way up. I’ll let him tell you what he thinks, though.”
“I am of the same mind. We had to kill some bandits at Castaic Junction. I didn’t care for it, but I knew I had to. Zack and I talked about forming some kind of stronghold.”
“That’s what we are doing. I don’t know why we are doing it; I only know we are. I want to talk more about this, but let’s wash up for supper. I know you all must be starved.”
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