600 Miles: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure (5 page)

"But Los Angeles! Ain't nothing there but bad things, Elgin, a city of full of man-eaters and the dead. And who knows just who that man is, but now you're wanting to travel with him to a place you said we weren't going to go?"

"I know I said it, and if you're really stuck on going back to the creek then I can't say no. But think about it: the good pickings, the adventure, life in a new land. And the ocean! I never seen it before, but I hear you can live out there just fishing and napping all day like it were paradise. Wouldn't that be wonderful if it's true?"

The last part of it softened her up a little, like she could imagine living out there near the California ocean, the cool air and the beautiful surroundings and such. When finally we was done talking about it, she seemed a little sad about the whole thing but told me she'd go with me no matter where I went. I felt wrong about breaking my promise to her, though I knew if I was brave enough to follow my dream to California that we could find a better life, something more than living like animals out in the desert, and after I realized it there weren't nothing more to think about after that.

Chapter 9

I found him just before the sun came up warming his hands over the fire and staring at it with that serious look in his eyes. Gitty was nervous, not knowing what kind of man to expect. She didn't say nothing other than "how do you do", keeping close by my side. Weren't much to say other than that though, and so we set off, leaving the trading post behind.

Things was a bit uneasy at first, what with neither side knowing who the other was all about, though after we found weren't nobody going to try bushwhacking the other we settled down. "Roy" he said his name was, though apart from that it was hard to get him to talk about much else. He was a strange man, no doubt, not only for being so mysterious, but especially on account of the way he looked at me when I talked, them eyes of his just staring like he was looking right through my head, like he could see right through me or something, maybe read what was going on in my mind. It was just something I was being silly about though, because there weren't no such thing as magic or people who could read other people's thoughts.  

The miles were peaceful, though I admit it might have been worth a little danger just to see him whip that pistol of his out. I had the notion more than once to ask him about it, but didn't want it to seem like I were paying too much attention to his gun. Peaceful as it were though, them miles was damn hot, the desert sucking us dry, that highway that must have once been so busy now nothing but a never ending stretch of unforgiving road where we ain't seen nothing but the occasional dead thing, and even that were rare.

Some days it were just too hot to keep walking, so in the morning we'd find what shade we could to rest and started walking nights. It might have been more dangerous like that, what with not knowing who else might be camped along the road, but weren't no one we found in that week it took us walking to what Roy said was the Colorado River. We were in California now, he claimed, not that it looked any different to me and not that that border meant much anymore. Weren't no government anywhere, I don't think, no laws or courthouses or even police officers, at least any that I'd ever seen. There weren't no rules and there weren't no borders apart from the dotted lines you could see on old wrinkled up maps, though seeing as people still knew the different parts of the land by the places they once were, that's how they were still called.

The river was nice and cold and it did us good to refresh ourselves there, the three of us getting much needed rest. Gitty had me stand watch for her as she had a nice long soak in the water, and then I did too, that day doing much to lift her spirits. She was still sad about leaving our old place at the creek behind, I knew, though she tried not to show it, not wanting me to feel too bad about leaving.

I did feel bad I had broken my promise to her, but I knew there was a better life waiting for us in California. I asked Roy about it and he said he didn't rightly know, though in his opinion Lost Angeles weren't going to be much more than a city of the dead. He'd heard tales of the warm beaches full of golden sand just like I had though, so maybe that part were going to be true.

"After we're done visiting Lost Angeles," I told him, "me and Gitty figure we might go on to the coast and make ourselves a good life there."

He ignored me at first, busy whittling some toothpicks with the little knife he'd had hidden in his boot. I watched him, his strong yet nimble hands working the sharp blade back and forth.

"Sounds like a nice place to live," he said at last.

"And how about you?"

"I don't know. Wherever, I suppose."

"Say, this Lost Angeles, what do you really think we'll find there, I mean apart from it being dead and such? You think them stories about all them crazy man-eaters are really true?"

He shrugged, any guess he might have given me being no more than one I could come up with myself. Sheesh, what kind of man was I to be thinking so scared anyway? Fortune favors the brave, as old Pete use to say. Too bad it's what he said just a little time before going into them old ruins in Albuquerque and falling down that hole, though he had a point, I guess. Weren't nothing to gain without something to lose. Or something like that. I don't know if it were something Pete had said or if I'd just read it somewhere, but weren't no denying it was true. I said it then asked Roy if he'd ever heard such a thing said before, and he told me he had.
"Audaces fortuna iuvat,"
he said, though what kind of crazy words them was I didn't know. I waited for him to add something or maybe explain it to me, but he didn't, just going back to puffing on that queer smelling cigar as he whittled away. Them still waters ran deep, I knew. Was another thing I'd heard, another thing that some wise man once wrote down as being true so long ago.

The desert was sure beautiful at night and it made me think, both about the past and the future, all them stars spread out overhead, hundreds of them, thousands maybe, probably even a lot more. Pete had once told me all about them, about how they was so far away that even if we could fly we'd never reach one before getting old and dying, which I didn't quite believe but hadn't said anything in case it were true and I ended up looking dumb. Weren't no people out there with us, it seemed, no hollering or gunshots or even quiet passersby. The only sound were the owls and the coyotes, them coyotes howling and barking every once in a while or stopping to get a look at us in the dark, though they were cautious fellas and never came too close.

Highway 10 was a straight shot to Lost Angeles, Roy told me. We left our camp near the river, though Gitty had wished we could stay another day, and continued on. Another week, Roy said, less if we made good time. Wasn't much out there, not even old skellies, nothing but the ruins of some small towns of long ago that we occasionally spotted from the highway, places with names like "Indio" and "Palm Springs", though Roy had said there wouldn't be nothing worth finding there, and even if there was they were probably home to men of the sort we didn't want to run into, most bandits setting up base in places that were close to the road.

After days of traveling, we were finally seeing signs of coming to a place that had once been home to so many, more and more ruins littering the dry desert, scores of dead automobiles either burned or shot up or simply left where they had run out of juice in them days of fighting and killing years ago. The land was changing too, the desert that surrounded us not so hot and merciless anymore. I asked Roy if it meant we'd be coming up on Lost Angeles anytime soon, Roy reckoning that it weren't too much farther to go. These were just the outskirts we was passing through, he said, smaller cities with funny Mexican names I couldn't pronounce as I read the signs along the highway, all of them at one time feeding off the great riches that had flowed to and from Lost Angeles.

"You'll know it when you see it," he said, and soon enough I understood. Far in the distance I could see the line of magnificent skyscrapers set against the clear blue sky, a few of them reaching much higher than all the rest, the smaller ones huddled all around, the ruined, littered highway leading us straight toward it, that great, slumbering mass of dead civilization silently awaiting our approach.  

"Is that it, Elgin?" Gitty asked, wonder in her eyes. "Is it really Los Angeles I'm looking at?"

"Ain't nowhere else," I said, so worked up that I couldn't help but give a little shout.

"Looks like the City of Angels is waiting," Roy said. "Let's go."

He were a real cool fella, so calm about things and always with a purpose to what he said, the kind of man I knew I could rely on if ever there were a need for that pistol of his to come out, that shiny gun with the ivory grip he hadn't yet had reason to draw. Me and Gitty followed him, walking alongside, though somehow we always seemed to end up a couple of paces behind.

Lost Angeles had seen it's share of fighting, no doubt. There was signs of battle all around as we walked down the freeway, more and more automobiles of all kinds, smashed up, crashed up, them skyscrapers getting closer, bullet holes and craters, then more cars, hundreds, thousands, more than I'd ever seen, and lots of burned up skellies, the three of us picking our way through the mess, the freeway so cluttered with old wrecks that the going was slow.

The wind picked up, nice and cool, an orange glow stretching across the sky. Gitty looked at me and I smiled back, like despite all we'd feared there weren't nothing to be afraid of no more, and it was a good adventure to be seeing the ruins of what some said was once the most important city of the United States of America, that it were so important that there weren't nowhere in the world where it wasn't known.

We camped outside the ruins that night, dozens of long dead, broken down automobiles all around, our small fire keeping the chill away, everything so still and quiet, Gitty pressing close to me as she nervously eyed the darkness that caged us in. From far off echoed the sound of something striking metal, giving her a good scare, a banging sound like something knocking against a pipe, but we only heard it a moment before it went away.

"Just the wind unsettling things," Roy said, the firelight lighting up his rugged face. "It seems this city is as dead as I heard it was, though I wouldn't want to speak too soon."

My eyes searched the rubble around us, every creak and groan that came from the wrecked junkers and steel cables that stuck out from the crumbled overpass we sat under putting my nerves on edge.

"How come there ain't no people here, I wonder?"

"Nothing left here," Roy said. "Most probably died during the fighting. Those who survived probably decided to move on after the food ran out. We're probably the only ones around for miles. Go on, get some sleep. I'll take first watch."

I was tired and so was grateful he'd said it, laying myself next to Gitty and shutting my eyes. Weren't much sleeping that night though, at least for me, not in the ruins that was like an ancient graveyard, so creepy and quiet and feeling like death, the bridge over us creaking every so often as the wind blew. Still, no matter how sinister the place felt, nothing bad ever happened, which was a good thing because I wouldn't have wanted Gitty to be in any danger, though I have to confess I thought we might be knee-deep in it by now.

Maybe Lost Angeles was like every other place I'd ever visited after hearing so much about: a lot of tales of how exciting or dangerous it was, a lot of stories about adventure and hidden treasure, and then you get there and weren't much to it at all. A little boring, maybe. I guess that's just the way it was, things always being a lot less thrilling in person than people made them out to be, though at least it would still be some good sight-seeing and at least I'd be able to say I went.

I turned on my side and spooned up closer to Gitty, that good woman being the best comfort I could ask for sleeping in that gloomy place, my mind wandering to dreams of us resting nice and easy on the warm California sand.

Chapter 10

It weren't long after I got up to take watch and Roy turned in that the sound started coming again, that clink of metal on metal from somewhere out there in the dark. I listened a while until it finally stopped and it was quiet again, just the crackle of our little fire and the occasional creak from the overpass we was camped under, though I told myself it weren't nothing to worry about, that that bridge weren't going to come falling down on our heads.

All those hundreds of stars began to fade and then came the sun, and, though a little depressing, the dark ruins of Lost Angeles weren't so scary anymore. Roy was up even before Gitty, even though he'd hardly slept. Still, though the cobwebs were thick in my head he seemed alert and ready, though I could plainly see the dark circles under his eyes.

That cigar came out and he lit it on the fire and started puffing, his hand moving down to his holster, it being the first time I'd ever seen him draw his pistol since we'd been traveling together. He took out the magazine then slapped it back in, wiping down the barrel and the ivory grip with a fancy handkerchief that looked more like something Gitty would have worn.

"Fancy gun you got there," I said. "A real looker."

He stopped rubbing it down, holding it up and turning it around for show. "Yeah, she's a real sweetie," he said. "Hasn't let me down yet."

"Sure is something else," I said, taking in the beauty of that shiny, nickel-plated barrel and ivory grip.

"Beretta 92," he said, shoving it back in his holster.

"Where'd you get it? Puts most pistols I've seen to shame."

"It was a present of sorts, a gift from some scumbag who had a bounty on his head up in Utah. Of course he was dead when I took it. I don't think he would have been willing to part with it alive." 

"No kidding? So you're a bounty hunter then?"

"Used to be. Not for long, though it was good work for a while."

"Why'd you stop then?"

"Too much killing. I'm no Christian, at least not anymore, but it gets to you after a while. Problem was, not many men were willing to be brought in alive when they knew they were going to end up hanging anyway, and so finding a man usually meant a choice between getting shot at or gunning him down."

"I see. I got to admit it sounds pretty exciting though. Me, I ain't ever do much other than hunting for salvage and doing a little trading to get by, though one time I did have some work as a guard for some religious folks who was making a pilgrimage to some holy place down in Mexico. Too bad they hadn't hired more men though, because it was just me and one other fella and two days in we got attacked by some men on horseback, some mean sons of bitches who called themselves the 'The Pale Riders', which were strange seeing as not a single one of them was white."

"Interesting. So what happened?"

"Hell, they ended up shooting everybody. Didn't even care if you stuck your hands up, which most of them poor folks did. Well, everyone but me. Me they shot but I played possum until they'd looted the wagons and took off. I would have died, had not some other folks who was heading to Nevada found me after I'd been laying there bleeding a while. They patched me up real good before heading on."

"Looks like Lady Luck was with you."

"Sure was. Hey, let me show you my pistol too. Ain't nothing fancy like yours but it sure has served me good."

I pulled it out, holding it up and turning it back and forth like he did.

"Nice. .357 Magnum?"

"Yup. Genuine Smith and Wesson. Just a snubbie, but it makes it easier sticking her in my pants. Nothing more reliable than a revolver, I'd say. I've had some of them fancy semi-auto pistols before and they weren't nothing but trouble half the time. Ain't no use in being able to shoot twice as many bullets if your gun jams up on you at the wrong time. Of course, none of them was as nice as yours. I imagine that pistol is about as reliable as they come."

"Sure is," he said.

It seemed he weren't much for talking shop, so I stopped gabbing and left him alone. Weren't nothing worse than someone who didn't know how to shut up when the other person just wanted quiet, and I didn't want to be impolite. When Gitty woke up we ate a little of what we had, which was some jerky I had in my pack and some nuts and stale crackers Roy was good enough to share. Then we was moving deeper into the city, some of the streets blocked by so much rubble that we had to climb over it to get by, them buildings looming tall, old automobiles smashed and rusted and flipped over, vines and dry weeds bursting up through the broken concrete, like Mother Nature was slowly trying to take back what was hers. Down one street was a tree growing up right in the middle, the road all cracked and turned up, rats scurrying back into their hiding places, a whole army of pigeons staring down at us from the windows high above.

And so we traveled through the maze of the city, every street looking as blasted and burned out as the one before.

"Must have been some fierce fighting here," I said.

"Looks like it," said Roy.

"Man, I ain't ever seen so many skellies before."

They was all around, hundreds of them just laying in the street, some of them still sitting in their cars, fleshless, dumb, and grinning, their empty sockets watching us as we passed.

"I don't like it here," Gitty said, sticking close to me the whole time. "Why are we even here? Ain't nothing but skeletons and rats."

"Oh, come on. Where's your love of adventure? Hey, I'll bet we'll find some real nice treasures for you here."

"I don't want any treasure if it means we're going end up like the rest of these folks."

"You worry too much," I chuckled. "Ain't nothing here dangerous but me and Roy. Ain't that right, Roy?"

"Look up there," he said.

Down the street was a great big white building that reflected the bright afternoon sun, taller no doubt than any building I'd ever seen, hundreds of windows, thousands maybe, stretching all the way up to the very top. When we reached the intersection where it stood, I could see in full just how far that giant tower reached up into the sky, feeling dizzy as I looked up.
Skyscraper
, I thought, understanding at last just why they were called it, marveling at how anything so big could have ever been made by human hands.

"Jesus Cries," I said, "I ain't never witnessed anything so tall!"

"A real life Tower of Babel," said Roy.

Tink... Tink… Tink.

I heard the noise. We all did, that hammering on the pipe racket from the night before. We looked around, Gitty suddenly all jumpy, though there weren't any telling where it was coming from, the sound echoing off the empty buildings that surrounded us. Then, silence.

"What do you think it is?" I said. "Don't seem like the wind doing it no more."

Then it came again, louder, stopping then starting every few seconds. I spun around. It seemed like it was coming from up the street, back toward the intersection from which we'd come.

"I don't know, but we should be moving," Roy said. "We might not be as alone as we think."

The noise tapered off as we started walking, as if standing still were the thing that made it come. Down Grand Avenue we went then made another turn, then another, each street as narrow and cluttered as the next, heaps of rubble and dead junkers blocking our way. Roy didn't seem to know where we was headed but he kept leading us, stopping at intersections and turning as if his instincts could guide us out of there, Gitty sticking close to me and staring up at the dark broken out windows and throwing looks over her shoulder like she might suddenly see something following us, though weren't nothing ever there.

Then it came again, only this time we hadn't been standing still when it happened. It didn't sound three times then stop like before either, but kept going and going, metal hitting metal, and there weren't no mistaking that it was following us from behind. My hand went to my pistol, Gitty unslinging her rifle as even Roy turned to listen, his boots crunching on broken glass as he walked back to stand in front of us.

Then we saw a startling thing coming from way down the street, tall buildings looming on either side. It was a man, half-naked, no shirt, just a ragged pair of old britches, his face looking like a skull. He kept walking forward, that painted on skull face—if that's what it was and he weren't some devil of Lost Angeles—getting closer and closer as we stood our ground.

Finally he stopped, maybe twenty yards, and we realized he'd been the one making all the noise. In his hands were two big metal pipes, and slowly he started tapping them again, that hollow clinking sound echoing off the walls.

"Holy moly!" Gitty said, the skull-faced man just staring at us, slowly banging his pipes together like he was keeping time with a windup clock.

"Come on," Roy said.

We turned away, walking faster than before, the skeleton man just watching from where he stood. After a few more steps Gitty stopped dead in her tracks, drawing a breath as she spotted the figures that suddenly appeared up ahead. They came out of the alleys, filing in from both sides until there were six, then seven, then even more, all wild and crazy looking like the one with the pipes, some of them with the painted faces, lean and hungry looking every one of them, wielding clubs and knives and baseball bats and broken bottles.

Weren't no parley to be had. They came on howling, fixing to make quick work of us, and maybe they was too dumb to know what guns was or maybe they didn't care, because they just kept coming even as we took aim. Then we started blasting, them bullets ripping through flesh and bone and making them howl even more as they started dropping, Roy's Beretta still spitting bullets as I stopped to reload.

Then Gitty shouted that there was more behind us, and as we turned even more was coming from the front, Roy and Gitty shooting away as I fumbled in my pockets yet again for more bullets. They were crazed for blood, and no matter how many went down they seemed ever more determined to reach us, except for a few who were finally smart enough to run.

When it was over, weren't nothing left but the dead, except, that is, for the skull-faced man with the pipes who'd been the only one to hold back. He stood there glaring at us from a short ways away, close enough that I might have taken a shot. I held my fire, as did Roy, Gitty shaking as I eased down her gun.

He came forward, unafraid, wielding them steel pipes, that skull face looking like death itself. Across his chest was a big black tattoo of what looked like an eagle with outstretched wings, or some other bird of prey. He stopped maybe twenty feet away, though we were all still too mesmerized to fire, none of us believing how brave, or how insanely stupid, he was. Then, slowly, he lifted up them pipes like he were up on the cross, his head tilting back, his eyes wide, those big white eyeballs fixed on us like it were some kind of warning, or challenge, or I don't know what. Then, with the three of us waiting to see what was going to happen next, he lowered his arms and turned away, going back the way he'd come.

Gitty raised up her rifle and was going to shoot, her hands still trembling, but I stopped her. "No, Gitty," I said. Then he was gone, nothing but the dead left with us.

"Oh my!" Gitty cried. "I thought we were dead! Oh, Elgin, we gotta get out of here!"

"Relax. We's still living."

"
Relax?
Damn it, this was a bad place to come!"

"I don't think they'll be back anytime soon," Roy said, "if there are any more of them, that is. Let's just keep moving before it's dark."

Gitty insisted there had to be more, and I reckon she might have been right, though I figured it would take a while for them to get brave again, what with all that shooting and all them that was laying dead on the ground. Mexicans, they looked like. By the time it was getting dark we'd gone quite a ways and it seemed we was the only ones around. There were lots of dark gutted out buildings we passed, though they weren't so big anymore, some of the walls covered with creepers and vines. A few of the places looked like they might be worth going into to have a look, though it would be a bad thing getting trapped inside if those Mexicans came back for us. It weren't too safe being on the street either though, Roy saying we should find a good place to hole up for the night.

We ended up at a place that looked like it had once been a store that sold women's garments, because inside it were some creepy lady statues standing around, one of them still wearing a big feathered hat that even Gitty thought looked pretty dumb. They were so lifelike, them statues, or trying to be at least, that they even had these eerie-looking glass eyes that I swore might suddenly move to look at me as I went up to take a good look.

I got a real hoot out of them fake ladies, though Gitty didn't think it too funny when I put my arm around one and asked it to dance. Were too bad for Gitty that there were nothing left of women's garments in there though, that dusty old place as empty as most every other place we might have found. In the back I did find a dead rat who'd been laying there so long that it didn't look like much more than a dried up clump of dirty hair and sharp little teeth, its long, nasty tail still attached. Gitty hated the sight of it and so I threw it where she couldn't see, at which point the three of us settled down nice and quiet in the back room with our guns ready, just in case those crazy Mexicans came looking for us in the dead of night.