The Highway

The incessant honking was unbelievably the worst part. All that had happened, where they had come from, what he had seen, and it was the damn honking driving him mad. There was nowhere to go. Why were they honking? Both sides of the highway were completely blocked from rail to rail and beyond. Any movement there had been ended several hours past.

The gas would run out soon, bad news. It was so hot, and the van’s AC was the only respite. His girlfriend spent most of her time crying in the back, staring at a framed photograph. He could not blame her, though he had grown tired of offering ineffective consolation. There were times he wanted to break down with her, but he was too focused. No consolation for him, he thought, holding the resentment at bay. She was not the only one who had lost someone, or everyone. He thought she might be a bit more grateful to still have each other. That was an unfair thing to think, he knew.

“That fucking honking!” he slammed his palms into the steering wheel. Why he insisted on sitting in the driver’s seat, he was not sure. Some subconscious illusion of control he did not question. There was unease no matter where he sat, but here was the least so. When he was not speculating to himself of what was next, he dreamt of strangling every single person honking, the only bit of pleasure he had.

Many of the cars had been abandoned, but on they honked as though they would just move themselves. Once the wireless went down, so did all those self-driving cars. They tried so hard to pull all these gas guzzlers off the streets, he reflected. Assholes. Where would we be without this van? He realized it was a ridiculous question as soon as he thought it. We’d be right here. Wireless or not, we’re here just the same.

“Are you laughing?” Sarah asked from the back. He shook his head and let her go back to her tears. There was no point in explaining. Anyway, the damned honking snapped him free of his train of thought, white knuckling, grinding his teeth.

“The radio said to stay put,” he muttered bitterly. “Stay put? Stay there and die? That was their plan? Those… things… in the streets.”

“Don’t talk about them,” Sarah said quietly.

“They attacked everyone.”

She hugged her legs, pretending not to hear.

There was a knock at the window, and he nearly screamed, reaching for his gun.

“What?” he said to the man standing outside who was clearly drunk.

“Hey, man. We’re having a party. Want in? Got any?”

“Everything I got is just for me, thanks,” he said restraining himself from letting out every bit of pent up rage. “Move along.”

“Aight,” the man shrugged and moved onto the next vehicle, continuing to recruit for what was certainly not a real party.

Maybe that guy has the right idea, he thought. What were they doing just sitting there? What were they waiting for? Was someone coming to save them? There were only two options: stay or go. Go where? The food would soon run out, perhaps it would be prudent to make friends with the neighbors. They all had the same choice. Many chose to go. He had seen them pass by, some carrying nothing, others with entire wardrobes. Idiots, he reflected, idiots valuing the wrong things. But who was he to judge? He was concerned with survival; maybe those possessions made their lives worth living. Why else would they burden themselves like that? He looked back at his girlfriend who sniffed. There’s my reason, he thought.

“We don’t need anything else. Do we babe?”

“What?” she said meekly from the back.

“With everything. At least we have each other.”

“I love you,” she sobbed.

“I love you too.”

The night came cool, but not calm. Shouting and the sounds of breaking glass pocked the stillness. Whether it was violence or just the “end of the world” party was unclear, but it never came near them. Some lights flared off in the distance, fires. The gun still fit snugly on his belt. Sarah had beckoned him to join her on the cot lining the back of the van, but he would not leave the driver’s seat, so she took repose in the passenger seat next to him. With his left hand, he patted the steel that had warmed with his own body heat. With his right hand, he gripped her left. He could not tell whether she truly slept, though she breathed as such. Perhaps he would sleep in the day, trusting the sun to be their guardian while he guarded the night.

For breakfast, he lit a joint, taking a long drag before waving it beneath her nose, waking her. She smoked while he opened a can of peaches and took a long swig of the juice inside. He offered the can to her, but she had fallen back asleep.

The honking seemed to have stopped, or at least reached a lull. Perhaps cars only have so much honk in them before crapping out, leaving those poor assholes to lay into their steering wheels in futile efforts. Whatever party had taken place had also ended or moved on. He imagined dozens of drunk, hungover people lying atop the hoods and rooves of cars, getting sunburn while they snoozed or worse.

They had sex all through the morning. He fell asleep between her breasts as he felt her fingers through his hair, and they stayed like that through much of the day and the next night. The day had been overcast and misty, hot but bearable. They did not have to run the AC all day, not like the next day. They woke sweaty and steamy. He climbed behind the driver’s seat and turned the AC on.

No one was coming to rescue them, he decided. He supposed he would have to leave the van at some point, it was unavoidable. He sweated and gritted his teeth looking at the “E” on the fuel gage, closer and closer the dial counted down. The cold air finally started flowing to a bitter sigh of relief.

He had been putting off a search for gas. The van felt safe. It provided a comfort that exceeded its protection. Those things in the city, they did not care what people were driving. They broke in through windows and pulled doors from their hinges. But this van is safe, he thought. Nothing is getting to us in my van. But the fuel problem remained.

Without AC, that sun is just as much a death sentence as venturing out into the river of steel. He remembered those things crawling on the ground, leaving smears of black tar behind them. Could they be out there, hidden by the cars around us? Could there be one under the van as he sat? What if his first step out was met with teeth? They could not last here forever, and he saw no trace of tar.

He looked at Sarah, snoozing naked and vulnerable in the back. Protecting her was the only thing he had left.

“Hey,” he whispered kneeling over his sleeping beauty. I’m going to have a look around.”

“No,” she whimpered. “Stay here.”

“I’ll be right back. I need to find supplies. The food won’t last, and neither will the fuel. You don’t want to be stuck here with no gas. It’ll be a furnace.” She didn’t look convinced. “You can watch out the windshield. I won’t go any further than you can see.” She nodded reluctantly.

He opened the door slowly, quietly and stared at the pavement, imagining something horrible happening the moment he put his foot down. All the confidence he had sitting in the driver’s seat evaporated like the sweat off his forehead. Not my van, he had thought. Now he was sure there was something underneath. He knew it. It would take him like they did they rest. But when he put his foot down, nothing happened, and he took a deep breath.

The sun beat down hard on their little van. The heat coming off it was intense. On the side was painted a detailed portrait of a barn owl inside a dreamcatcher. He had always thought it was a bit tacky. Were it a real owl, it would have been ash by now. He looked his girl in the face once more before setting off to wade through the hot steel parking lot. His hat protected his head, but his shoulders were bare and burning. He would not be out long enough to get too bad. People had abandoned far more supplies than he imagined. He looked back every few minutes or so to see Sarah's face watching, his beacon, a single beam lighting his universe.

He and she seemed to be the only ones around. Was this comforting? There were still some sounds in the distance he could not hear from inside the van. Shouting perhaps and echoing gunshots. I’ll have to keep a closer check on such things, he thought. What are we going to do if they come closer? What do we do if no one ever comes?

The door handles were so very hot, and the paint reflected the sun back at him. They were all mostly those damned smart cars. “Smart…” he muttered. His granddad was right all those holidays, automation is the Devil. Even if the road was wide open, they could not go an inch without the network. The most obvious thing to do was to check the cars with doors already wide open. He caught it strange that so many cars were locked. Of course they were locked. That’s what you do when you leave your car somewhere, but did those people really think they would return here in the future to reclaim what they had left? He hoped they would.

He stuffed the small bag he had brought with some salvage sitting in various back seats: dried food, rope, a flashlight, some clothing he thought Sarah might like. So many people had brought nothing but junk food. At least it would not spoil, he thought taking it. He passed a red car with closed windows. The inside was coated with condensation, and the seats filled with rotting corpses, the only other people nearby. It was not clear how they had died and he did not want to know.

There was an old rusty pick-up truck some distance ahead, a bit farther than he had promised to go, but the back was covered in a tarp and looked well stocked. He weaved between the cars, trying to avoid touching their hot surfaces until he got there.

“Pay dirt,” he said pulling off the tarp. Cannisters of gas sat tied in the bed. There was a tent, a small propane grill, a lantern, flares and a lockbox he suspected might have a weapon inside. An incredulous moment took hold of him. Why would they have left so much behind? The question was answered once he climbed up, a shriek and a bang came from inside the truck, a disgusting tarred hand pounding on the glass back panel. The man fell backward into the car behind, cutting the back of his arm on its front license plate.

He got to his feet, backing away from the rocking truck. He hurried to take what he could in hand and return to the van. Shattering glass sounded, prologue to louder screeches. The creature was forcing its way through the half-broken window, sheering its flesh, leaving black dripping meat behind.

“David!” he heard a yell. Sarah stood in the open door of the van. She was not looking at him, but behind. He scrambled back toward the van, bumping into the hot cars on the way.

“Sarah…” He wanted to tell her what just happened, but suddenly noticed the noise. The sounds he heard earlier had gotten closer. People were running toward them, and he heard their screams. “Back inside.”

They tucked themselves in the back of the van, away from the windows so no one would see them, doors locked. Dozens of people turned to scores in moments, maybe hundreds. There was no way for them to know except the sound of running feet and bodies banging into the side of their van and the surrounding cars. Every few moments, someone tried to get in, but quickly moved on.

Sarah became panicked and David tried to comfort her but found it strangely hard to speak. It was not the people outside that concerned her though. There was blood everywhere. The cut in his arm was deeper than he had thought, and it poured out his life with every heartbeat.

“It’s not stopping!” She pressed a shirt up against it which became soaked in seconds. She tied it as best as she could, and he seemed to bleed much slower but was already very pale. She held him in her lap as the thunderous pounding went on. Gunshots rang and the screams changed. They became something inhuman. Whatever had been chasing the crowd had caught up. Something big brushed the side of their van, denting it. Cars all around were run into and pushed aside by shrieking nightmares of black flesh. They saw only glimpses but heard everything, the screams of freshly caught prey, the breaking of bones, and the splashing of blood.

Despite the growing heat in the van, he had begun to shiver. “Stay warm, baby,” Sarah whispered, holding him close. “Just breathe in with me, like this." She inhaled and felt his chest rise with her. “Good. And out. In again. Yeah, just like that. And out. In… in… in…”