I heard a thump from the rear of the truck and saw a diseased, gray-blue arm gripping the tailgate…and then the revenant it belonged to, the skin along its front side shaved to the bone. I had no idea how these things were keeping themselves together, with seemingly mystical persistence, but this one was trying its best to climb into the truck’s bed even after great damage to itself.
“How fast are these fuckers?” asked Tarah, preparing her rifle for our stowaway.
The other vehicle revealed itself to be three men in a dune buggy, propelling down the highway like a rocket with a loud, exposed engine in the back. Two men sat in the front bucket seats and one stood at a big gun attached to the top roll bar, nearly straddling the engine right behind him.
The passenger handed the driver a bottle of bourbon while the man standing behind them caught a bead on the stowaway in our truck’s bed and sprayed a line of bullets above our heads and across the ripped flesh of its bony torso, the trio whooping it up the entire time.
We watched closely from the truck as they spun around at the first sight of our pursuers trying to catch up further down the road, spraying them down with the big gun while swooping in and out of the shallow ditches running parallel to the highway as though maneuvering through an obstacle course, the buggy catching air a few times and plowing straight into bad guys like a missile, its lights illuminating just enough to make the kill before it was on to the next revenant.
With the immediate area cleared out, the buggy turned back toward us. At face value, we could only hope their intentions aligned with ours; mowing down our mutual enemy was no guarantee of friendship.
The two vehicles stopped side by side in the middle of the lonely highway, forming first impressions among bluish clouds of exhaust and burning brake fluid.
The man on the big gun swung it around like the toothpick shifting between his teeth as he continued to scan the area for targets at the edges of sight. “Man, when we landed on a couple of ‘em down in them ditches, they were snapping like beetles under a boot!”
The scruffy driver surveyed us warily, not impressed with what he saw. He removed a well-used cigar from between his lips and spat onto the concrete. “Where ya’ll headed?”
None of us answered.
Then Tarah spoke up from the back seat: “Just trying to get the fuck away from here, mister.”
The men laughed, looking at each other in amusement.
“You think it’s different anywhere else, young lady?”
His passenger chimed in: “Yeah, don’t you know yer troubles just follow wherever ya go…a-heh…especially troubles tryin’ to kill ya!”
They laughed and laughed.
“Aww, we’re just fuckin’ with ya. You folks look alright.” He flipped a thumb over his shoulder. “What you see down the road is a little shindig at our junkyard. If you wanna join us, you’re welcome. It’s safe…at least for the night. How long after, we can’t guarantee. But it’s the end of the world and we’re having a party.”
“Shindig?” asked Sam. “It looks like everything’s on fire over there.”
They laughed again. Then the man standing at the big gun said, “It’s just our bonfire. Everyone not trying to kill us can come on in and party down. Everyone else is target practice…no questions asked-“
“-Because they can’t answer ‘em anyway,” said the driver. “We’re the only welcome wagon you folks are gonna get around here. But if you wanna keep heading your way, we can escort ya a quarter-mile or so on the other side. It’s all pretty cleared out.” He leaned back and looked at our truck. “Though from the looks of your ride here, I don’t see why you’d want to keep going in the dark.”
Suddenly, I heard a rustling in a nearby ditch and a revenant climbed out after us. The buggy’s passenger, interrupting a poke from the community bottle, lifted his pistol and shot the rev point blank, its body splaying out across his lap like a blanket. Once it fell limp, the revelry began once again.
“Jesus, did you wait long enough to shoot that some-bitch?” the driver asked. “He was close enough to give ya a reach-around.”
The trio howled before mocking the scratchy gurgling noises the rev had made before returning to permadeath.
“So what’s it going to be?” asked the driver. “Shall we leave you folks to your fate or…” He leered at Tarah: “…do we get to know each other better?”
She gazed right back, flashing her rifle. “Some things you’re better off not knowing.”
“Sister, I can see from your shiners someone already had to tell ya twice.”
The other two chuckled, then the one at the big gun spoke up. “Where are your manners, Carl? They’re our guests. Don’t make ‘em choose driving in the dark instead of having to deal with your drunk ass.”
After taking a swig from the bottle, Carl held it out to Tarah as a peace token, who declined with a calm wave. Then he passed it to his passenger, brought up an open palm, and said: “I, Carl Weaver, hereby solemnly swear…hic…to promise to behave myself…at least for the next fifteen minutes until I pass out in my bunk. After that… do with me what you will. I’m a cheap date and my memory is shit.” His boisterous laugh was answered by unholy howls of revenants in the night. He cocked his head. “Hear that? Some stragglers need attention. You folks go head on over to the gate and tell ‘em Carl said to let ya in. We’ll see y’all later! Whoop!”
Then the buggy launched down the road, its oversized tires bouncing the crew towards their targets like a carnival ride.
“I don’t see a lot of options,” I said. “I say we get on the safer side of those walls and we can at least decide from there when we can see more for ourselves.”
The only sign of agreement was Sam’s foot on the gas pedal.
***
We headed towards the walled firelight of the End of the World Party, passing a rusty, battered sign on the side of the highway that read “A-1 Salvage” in large red-lined letters that had been sprayed with buckshot once or twice, as is the custom with rural signage. The junkyard fort’s walls were assembled from crushed cars stacked ten high like long metal bricks in a rainbow of OEM colors, with newer placements stretching across the highway beyond the property’s original boundaries in a blatant challenge to eminent domain and the public good. Anyone coming down the road would have to veer far and wide to avoid the boundaries. But what kind of person would avoid an End of the World Party?
At the wall, the heavy gate rolled to the side, revealing all the blue-black smoke and drama of a curtain sliding open on a grimy sideshow. Sam pulled the truck inside and we got out and looked around while everyone there also got a good look at us. Maybe someone knew someone and news could be exchanged.
The fire was the main attraction, blazing high and bright enough to illuminate details on the labels of discarded cans and bottles lying around. Everything about it glowed angry orange, from the leaning scrap wood forming its circular base to the myriad sparks showering across the dark sky above. Before the flames stood the silhouettes of several figures standing and sitting, some of the larger figures with smaller ones, as they maintained families. A folding chair, recently too close to the fire, stood crookedly nearby, singed fabric hanging from it in tatters. Dogs roamed freely, patrolling between zones of food scraps and their owners, near their tents, under tarps, or other makeshift shelters of car hoods, plywood, and large sheets of scrap tin or aluminum.
We received once-overs from those who noticed us before they returned to their animated conversations and general revelry, though I felt an undertone of dread below the merriment, as though they were accepting their fates while still pining for the security present throughout our lives until recently, trauma forming in the gaps between civility and brute survival. We were all becoming veterans of this weird war. Still, neutral acceptance from other humans was better than open hostility any day.
A man wearing a huge foam cowboy hat that fans wear to football games appeared out of the shadows like a surreal cowboy as we stood a comfortable distance from the roaring fire. “Hey there! I’m Eddie and this is my place. Carl and his crew must’ve sent ya because y’all came from the same direction they left’n.”
“That’s correct, Sir,” Sam replied. “Looks like you have quite the shindig going on here.”
“It might’ve been a tough choice to stay out there with them or come in here with us,” Eddie said, “but you’re welcome to stay just the same. Just don’t start no shit. We got enough of that outside these walls.”
I followed Sam’s gaze to a young woman on the periphery, watching them exchange smiles and furtive glances.
“Where y’all headed?” Eddie asked.
We looked at each other.
“Come on, people…there are only four directions. Never Eat Shredded Wheat.”
“South,” I said. “Towards Bridgeport.”
Eddie adjusted his hat as it wobbled in the breeze, as though lifting it to allow the words more access to his noggin. “It’s none of my business, but you got a reason for that? I’ve heard nothing good about Bridgeport and not just from any flappin’ lips, but from folks who were there. Folks who had to escape from there. In fact, I think Jessie came up from that way.” He turned towards a slim man crouching near the wall who was pouring boiling water into a pouch of dehydrated food. Eddie waved at him. “Hey, Jessie!”
The man held up two fingers, nodding at his task at hand.
“Ah, he’ll be over in a couple minutes,” Eddie said. “No sense for him to burn the hell out of himself just to come over here to give y’all bad news. Here…” He handed me the bottle in his grip and I took a swig. It burned going down like whiskey but carried a sickly sweet cinnamon aftertaste that hung on the edges of my tongue like an overstaying visitor. It felt like poison, but it helped…a mixed blessing in a life full of them.
I took another drink to see if it helped twice as much as the first.
“What’s it like up north right now?” Eddie asked.
“Emptying out,” said Tarah. “Or being repopulated…depending on perspective. It’ll be hell on earth if we can’t get ‘em under control.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think cavalry is coming to help. I hear tales about a military virus…units being overrun…evacuation checkpoints turning into all-you-can-eat buffets for those fuckers. Now, I don’t believe ‘em when they say some virus was released on purpose but some of what they say could be true. After all, sometimes there’s a seed in a shit pile. But one thing’s for sure…if we don’t have the army, we sure as hell don’t have the discipline to organize much of a resistance.”
I wasn’t expecting to hear such a profound opinion on society from a man in a 20-gallon foam hat. “You decided not to evacuate? To put all this together instead?”
“Evacuate where, son? Aside from that, my wife has a health condition that isn’t compatible with travel, especially the kind of roughing it we’d have to do. No one old as us wants to spend their last days fighting for their lives.” He reached out his hand for a shake. “Anyway, I’ll leave ya to it. I’m sure you want to set up your sleeping spot because the day breaks fast for the weary.”
Jessie walked up, digging through the meal pouch with a plastic spoon. “What’s going on, Eddie?”
“Jessie, these here folks have a mind to head to Bridgeport. And why was that again?” He looked at us with an ear perked, maybe hoping it would make more sense coming from us.
“I’m looking for my brother, who was taken there by some revenants.”
“Taken? All I’ve seen ‘em do is kill. You mean they’re kidnapping folks now?” He asked, a brow raised.
I shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe, man. I just know I have to find him. He’s the only family I got.”
“Hell, if they’re that intelligent to be taking people off the street, we’re fucked.” Jessie folded the now-empty food pouch and tossed it into the fire, where it floated upward on the thermal draft before catching fire and landing inside the maelstrom. “How did you find this out? One of ‘em tell you themselves?”
“Believe it or not, that’s exactly what happened,” said Sam.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Our friend turned into a revenant,” I said, “but it’s like he wasn’t there all the way yet. Like he was in the process of turning. But before he turned completely, he told us about it. That they took him away.”
“Did you see it?” Eddie asked Sam, who nodded.
“You?” he asked Tarah, who shook her head.
“So what did he say? ‘Hey, amigo, your bro’s in Bridgeport?’”
“He mentioned a ‘city of the dead’ and a bridge of bones.”
“Well, ‘city of the dead’ describes Bridgeport to a ‘T,’” said Eddie. “But a bridge of bones?”
“Ever heard of one?”
“I never heard any such thing. Jessie, you know anything about this?”
“First I’ve heard. But I can’t imagine anything there being organized to the point they’re pulling people off the street and taking ‘em away. We just barely got away from Bridgeport with our lives, with the help of some people there. Can’t even use the streets anymore. We had to use the sewers.”
“Whatever’s going on,” said Eddie, “it doesn’t sound like a direction I’d want to head. We’re floating down Shit Creek as it is now.” He shook his head while tossing his now-empty bottle into the fire, sending sparks soaring into the sky. “I’d better keep that fire down. If something happens, they might not honor my property insurance if it gets out of control.” He howled with laughter. “You folks can sleep anywhere in the yard except inside the buildings there, which is where me and Nancy live. The garage is okay, but it’s probably full. And the gas fumes will give ya a headache after a while, anyway.”
“We’ll find a spot,” Sam said. “Thanks again.”
“Say no more. You can stay as long as you obey the rules, but after three days, we’ll give ya a job to earn yer keep.” And with that, he was off and out of the firelight.
“I’m heading to bed, myself,” said Jessie. “Maybe you’ll have luck finding the people who helped us. There’s a group there getting people out of the city. They might still be there, though it would be damned foolish. Take care now.”
Taking the initiative from Jessie and Eddie’s exit, the woman lurking on the outskirts trading glances with Sam stepped up to introduce herself. They spoke briefly, quietly, and then headed away from the fire.
“She wants to show me something over there,” Sam told us from over his shoulder as he walked with her.
I shook my head. “Can’t say I blame him. It’s an end of the world party, after all.” I stood up and grabbed my bag. “I’m going to scout around for a place we can hunker down for the night.”
Tarah strapped her backpack on a shoulder. “Guess I’m coming with you because I’m not going with them.”
“What…and ruin their good time?”
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