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The sky was still dark when I woke, which was unusual for me since I naturally woke at dawn every day. At least, unless I spent the evening at Pops’ place imbibing in his homemade hooch. The mornings after those events, I always slept in. I lay in the dark and listened, because something woke me from the dream I was having. Struggling, I propped myself up on one elbow and listened. I heard it again. It sounded like a smoke detector battery was going dead, or perhaps the microwave was beeping, but I realized neither was the case since the microwave didn’t work and I didn’t own any smoke detectors.
I caught the sound again, threw my blankets aside and got out of bed and plodded into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I did. The beep sounded again, and I finally realized where it was coming from. I had a satellite phone on the counter, right under the kitchen window where it received a solar charge every day from the afternoon sun. I had forgotten all about the phone until I found the thing when I cleaned out all the secret pockets in my windbreaker. It beeped again. I had never gotten a call on it before because only one person had the number, and I guessed that person would only call me in an emergency.
I picked up the phone. Its presence seemed strange in my hand considering that in the old days, people didn’t think twice about picking up their phone thirty times a day to text someone, or snap a photo, or check the net. It became an extension of their arm, and they did everything with it except make a phone call. It beeped again and vibrated slightly.
I hit the green button and placed the unit to my ear. There was a click, and I spoke.
“Hello?”
“Baker? Can you hear me?”
“Kayla? Hello? Are you okay?” I realized that was a stupid question the second I asked. She wouldn’t be calling otherwise. I perceived a sniff.
“Jon died yesterday.”
“I’m so sorry. What happened?” I asked.
“His diabetes got him. I tried to find insulin. I looked everywhere for drugs. Even searched almost as far as Dallas. I tried to trade, but no one had any. So many times, I tried and failed.”
I overheard her break into tears, although she pulled away from the phone to hide it. I felt based on the type of person she was that she did everything she could do, but in these times, more often than not, the best wasn’t good enough.
“You’re not to blame,” I said. What else could I say?
I listened to her cry for several minutes, and eventually she calmed.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.
“Are you still in Oklahoma?” I asked.
“No. We moved back to Texas about a year ago to be closer to my parents.”
“How are they?”
“Gone. They got trapped in a food riot a few months ago and didn’t make it out.”
“My god. I’m so sorry, Kayla.” I didn’t know where to go from there, and I guessed my condolences offered little in terms of comfort.
“With Jon gone, I’m all alone now.”
She paused, as if getting up the courage to say something else, and I suspected what it was before she said a word.
“Do you remember the promise you made to me?”
And there the penny dropped. The promise. I remembered the promise very well. I made that promise years ago, long before the world turned to shit. That was back in the days of sit-down restaurants, and football on Monday nights, and Internet shopping. Long before Kayla’s husband and my move to Charlotte. It felt like a million years since I made that promise.
“Yes. I promised to help you if ever you needed me to. Whatever. Whenever. Wherever.”
“You called them the three W’s.”
That part I had forgotten, but it sounded like something I’d say.
“Baker? You there?” she asked.
“Yes, still here. Just thinking.”
“I recognize I’m asking a lot, but you’re my last hope. Baker, I know no one here, and I don’t trust anyone enough to try to meet new people.”
“I agree. You shouldn’t do that. It’s too dangerous to be on your own. You were right to call me.”
“So, you’ll come?”
“I will,” I said immediately.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“At my parents’ place. In Rice.”
“I’ve never heard of it. Where is that in relation to the nearest large city?”
“Rice is about forty miles south of Dallas on I-45. Your average small Texas town.”
“Tell me about your parent’s place. Do they live on a ranch?”
“No. They only have a small house off a few blocks from the interstate.”
“Okay. What about the area? Any farms? Good land? Water?”
“We get a fair amount of rain every year. Most of the farms around here are ranches that raise cattle or chickens. The grass grows, so the soil must be good, right?”
“I suppose.” Of course, I didn’t know for sure. I’d only been to Texas once, and that was a road trip across the panhandle on the way to Las Vegas. I don’t even remember if I stopped while in Texas. If I did, it was only for gas or a trip to a restroom.
“The way I see things, we have three options. Option one is I come get you and we find a place nearby to live. We’d have to find a location with enough land to grow food, and near a good water source, and preferably within a short distance to a larger town so we can scrounge for materials or find people to trade with. Option two is I bring you back here. I’ve got a house in a valley with a productive garden, lots of game, and a stream right in the backyard.”
“What’s the third option?” Kayla asked.
“Option three is I pick you up and we randomly decide where we want to live.”
“I like that option least of all,” Kayla said.
“Agreed. Me too. So, what do you want?”
Kayla was silent for a moment. I didn’t see her, but I assumed she had crinkled her nose and pursed her lips because she always made that face when she considered something important.
“I don’t want to stay here. Because of my mom I only came back to be close to my folks, and since they’re gone, I want to be too. Thinking about it, I certainly don’t want to go north where it snows a lot. I couldn’t handle the cold for half the year. The best option for me is to be at your place. Is that okay?”
“That’s fine, whatever you want. Kayla, hold on a minute, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Without waiting for an answer, I set the phone down, scrambled into the living room, and flipped on the lights. I had a top-rate atlas with detailed pages for each state, so I removed the tome from the shelf, returned to the kitchen, and placed it on the table. I picked up the phone as I opened the book.
“Hey, I’m back, give me a minute,”
I thumbed through the atlas until I found the several pages for Texas. I found Dallas, and a second later I-45, and I traced my finger down the road until it settled on Rice. I turned back to the first page, which showed the entire country, checked the scale, and gave my best guess.
“From me to you is about twelve-hundred miles,” I said.
“That far?” Kayla asked.
“Based on my best estimate. Might be farther or shorter based on the route I take.”
“Would it be better if I met you halfway somewhere?”
I pondered over that idea for a moment, then discounted it. “I appreciate the offer, but I imagine you should stay put. It would be too difficult to plan a place to meet. The only contact we have now are these phones, and what would happen if they stopped working? We’d never find each other.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. “I remember when I was a little kid I got lost at a mall when I was shopping with my mom. When I realized I lost her, I cried the whole time, and it took an entire hour until a security guard found me and got on the intercom to call her. That was only a mall. I can’t even imagine trying to find a single person in an entire city, even if we managed to narrow that down to a specific location.”
“There’s also a matter of timing. If we met somewhere, there’s no telling how long it would take either of us to get there. It’s not like the trains are running on schedule.”
“How long would it take you to get here?”
“Well, it would take me about an hour to get to the closest airport, maybe another three for the flight. I could be there this afternoon.”
Kayla didn’t say a word for a while, but after a couple of beats, she realized I was obviously joking.
“Funny man,” she said. “Seriously, though.”
“It’s hard to say. If this were the before times, I could get in my car and drive there in a day. There are way too many variables. May take me a day, may take me a week or two.”
“Okay,” she said, but she didn’t hide the disappointment in her voice. I didn’t blame her. I could tell even over the phone she was hurting.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there,” I promised. “I’ll need to do some travel prep once the sun comes up, and I’ll be on the road by noon at the latest.”
“Will you call every day? Tell me where you are?”
“Sure thing.”
Kayla grew quiet again. I sensed she wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what, and in the end, she didn’t say.
“See you soon,” she said, then closed the call.
I turned off the phone, set it down on the table and reflected on how I should go about this journey. I went back to the atlas, then state by state determined the best route to get there, which seemed to be to take I-81 into Tennessee, then I-40 to Little Rock, then take I-30 southwest to Dallas, then south on I-45 from there. On paper, it looked easy. Four main roads. It looked like a simple drive. Nothing to it.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, grabbed the barn keys, and sauntered outside into the night.
The light from the kitchen trailed off about halfway to the barn, but I found my way well enough to get there even if it was full dark. At the door, I slipped the key into the padlock, stepped through the door, and turned on the lights.
There were three vehicle choices to drive to Texas, but I didn’t want to risk the pickup truck that I had converted to run on vegetable oil, and the Mustang I acquired recently still needed engine work and a new set of wheels. That left the old trusty mail truck. I thought my spine was going to shatter during the few hours it took me to drive it from Charlotte, but unless I procured something else, the mail truck was my only choice.
I let out a deep sigh, then turned my attention to the truck. I opened the back doors and saw it was empty, just as I expected it to be, so I set to work filling it up. Into the truck I put a few full gas cans, a hand pump I could use to siphon gas from other sources, and a few tools in case I had a breakdown along the way. Once I got the truck-related items in place, I pulled it out of the barn and parked it next to the back door. From the house, I added a few days’ worth of food and water, a sleeping bag, and a backpack with a few changes of clothing. Almost as an afterthought, I added my 9mm and the rifle, with a couple of boxes of ammo for each, even though I had no intention of shooting at anything.
By the time I packed up, the sun was already over the trees and spreading along the valley. Although I was in a rush to leave, I took the time to make a small breakfast of the three remaining eggs I had, along with some venison jerky. I cleaned up the dishes, locked up the house and barn, got in the truck, and drove it up the mountain.
I didn’t doubt that Pops was already up and about, and it didn’t surprise me when I saw him appear at the door when I approached.
Right on schedule, as I left the truck, Frank and Dino ran over for head scratches and attention, which I gladly provided.
“What’s up?” Pops asked as he settled into a chair.
“I’m leaving for a while. Think you can keep an eye on the place for me while I’m gone?”
“Going on vacation?” Pops asked, just before he broke into a round of laughter. “You going down to Florida beaches to work on your tan?” Pops teased.
“No. I wish. I’m going to Texas. Hoping to be back in a week, two at most.”
“Texas? You said Texas?” Pops confirmed. Sometimes he was hard of hearing.
“Yep. Texas. Near Dallas.”
“Why in the world would you go there?” he asked, as if he didn’t believe me.
It took me a full fifteen minutes to tell him about Kayla’s call and the plans we made. He didn’t interrupt, but I could tell by the look on his face he didn’t approve, either.
“Well?” I asked when I had finished, “what do you think?”
“I think you’re a damn fool,” he answered without a second of hesitation. “You can’t imagine what it’s like between here and there, or what trouble you could run into. Hell, if it weren’t for me, you’d have died of starvation two months ago.”
“I get that. I wouldn’t have made it without you, that’s true. You’ve been a mentor and a friend to me, but I need to do this. I’m all Kayla has left, and I can’t leave her like this.”
“I can’t go with you,” Pops said.
“I know, and I wouldn’t expect you to. This is my quest.”
That was an instance where the words sounded much cooler in my head than spoken aloud, and I confirmed it when Pops roared again with laughter.
“Your quest? You think you’re King Arthur looking for the grail? Or Frodo returning a ring to Mount Doom?”
“No, I’m just trying to help a friend, and I hope you’ll help me by watching my property.”
Pops’ countenance changed, and he looked more serious than I’ve ever seen him.
“You pack your gun?”
I nodded. “The pistol and the rifle.”
“Good. I understand you don’t want to use them, but if you have to, do it. And this ain’t like the movies, son, where you have to shoot to kill. If you shoot to wound, that’ll usually be a deterrent to a man. But it’ll be best to avoid trouble, avoid cities and crowds of people if you can. A person is fine, two people may be fine, but any more than two in a group, and I’d be wary about it.”
“I understand,” I said.
“What else you got packed in there?” Pops said as he pointed at the truck.
I told him, and when I finished, he stepped into the house and returned a couple minutes later carrying a backpack.
“Take this,” he said as he handed it to me. “It’s a survival pack. Matches, a knife, thermal blanket, water filters, that kind of stuff. Put your ammo in there, and if you ain’t got a holster, put the gun in there too. If you run into any trouble, make sure you got that pack and your rifle. Leave everything else. Don’t be afraid to travel light, especially if you need to walk or find another way around. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” I said. I took a moment to rummage through the bag and see what it all contained. Then I did as Pops said and added my ammo and 9mm to the bag. I had never considered a holster, but I imagined I should find one at some point, since it seemed to be the thing everyone was wearing these days. We had devolved from ‘don’t wear white after Labor Day’ to ‘don’t forget to strap on your holster’.
“I’ll keep an eye out, especially the garden,” Pops said with a wink.
“Thanks. I’ll be back soon,” I said.
“I hope so, son. I hope so.”
Without another word, I got in the truck, did a U-turn, and went down the driveway. When I got near the road, I spotted a huge, downed tree blocking the driveway. I left the truck running, stepped off into the tree line, and cranked at a hand winch that lifted one end of the tree. Once the driveway was clear, I drove the truck through, then winched the tree back in place. A month after we removed the sign, we put the tree there to deter visitors, although neither one of us got any visitors to speak of. It’s not that people didn’t like us, since we both got along with the folks in town, but we were just too far out from town for anyone to stop in for a social call.
I got back in the truck, then hesitated. As I gripped the steering wheel, I got a pain in my stomach, like I ate a plate of bad mushrooms, but I assumed it was just jitters and the stress of setting out on this crazy adventure. If I was smart, I would turn around and go back home. Back to my garden, and Pops, and Dino and Frank. Back to the life I was rebuilding for myself. But then again, no one ever accused me of being smart, so I released my death grip from the steering wheel, hung a right onto the county road, and made a beeline for the interstate.
