Post Apocalyptic Ponies: Revolutions Per Mile, Book 1 (3 page)

I waited for another slap. I deserved it, and I wanted the
punishment as a reminder of how stupid I'd been.

“Perth, you are either the bravest, most crazy-stupid girl
I've ever met, or you have a deathwish.” She laughed, and the
relief in me wouldn't be contained. I leaned up against my car and
began to cry.

“OK, not a deathwish. That's easy enough to come by out
here...” She let it hang, though we both knew it was true.

“Don't they teach you about the cops down here in pony land?
They did when I was here.”

I had so many questions, but I couldn't form the words over my
violent sobs. I tried to keep them down—no one wants to cry in
front of the older kids—but, well, I had no choice. I felt five
years younger just then.

“You cry it out, I'm going to move my car or we might both
end up in a fiery wreck if another hauler comes through while reading
a book. I'll be right back.”

I watched her go back to her car. She wasn't much older than me,
hell she could have been the same age for all I knew, but she had an
air of sophistication about her. A confidence. That swagger came from
driving on the dangerous roads up north, and living to brag about it.

Me? I fell to the pavement and sat with my back against my rear
bumper. I was nearly cried out by the time she parked behind
me—facing the other way—and walked up with a cigarette
hanging from her mouth.

My eyes must have betrayed me. My dad's views were hard to erase.

She pulled it out and held it off to the side. “What? I'm
eighteen. I can smoke, right?” She laughed as she re-affirmed
the obvious fact there was no law out here.

I shrugged my shoulders. The more I thought about it, I really
didn't care.

She put it back in her mouth and took a seat next to me. We both
wore long pants—required to drive a car—so sitting on the
hot pavement wasn't an issue. “My name's Jocelyn, but you can
call me Jo.”

“Hi Jo.” I reached to shake the hand she offered, then
she sat back and took a deep drag. “How do you know my name?”

“I probably shouldn't tell you this, but a lot of the
garages keep lists of drivers they want to recruit after you've done
the time on the milk routes. A few have pictures, too.” She
chuckled as she let out a cough of smoke. “They nicknamed you
'legs,' which makes you
popular with the boys
.” Another
deep drag. “Naturally I'm jealous.” She pointed to her
legs, the shortness evident next to mine.

I continued, as if I didn't hear anything about nicknames or
photographs. “Assuming I want to move up.” I was being
silly, though she couldn't have known it. Many of the young drivers
stayed in the safety of the farmlands. Nothing was certain anymore,
but you could be pretty sure you'd have more close scrapes up on the
interstate or, god forbid, up in the oil fields. But I wanted more
than
this
. I wanted a faster car, bigger roads, and longer
straightaways.

She laughed a knowing laugh. “Well, I happen to know you're
a liar, Perth, my friend. Someone playing it safe would not have
tried to outrun the flying monkeys.”

We're in Kansas. The people here try to tie in the
Wizard of Oz
to every damned thing. The flying monkeys from that movie serve as
the resident bad guys in our local Oz. A shiver passed through my
bones after my run-in with said monkeys.

“I had a blonde moment.” She, unlike the officers,
understood.

“Next time, pull over, play dumb, let them pick apart your
car. It's not like you're running contraband—” she turned
to me and hesitated for ten lab-rat withering seconds, before leaning
back against the bumper next to me.

We sat together in silence for many minutes while she finished her
cigarette. My tears had dried in the hot, dry wind. The sun was
nearly overhead. A hundred yards up the blacktop a tumbleweed lazily
crossed from one side to the other.

Finally, after a final puff and toss of the butt, Jo spoke. “I'm
heading south. If you got the gas I really could use your help with
something. Might help get you
noticed
by them boys up in the
big leagues.”

She'd said it matter-of-factly, but the possibility was
tantalizing. She was offering a job and I was on someone's list, no
matter what they called me. The thought of getting to drive somewhere
exciting was suddenly much more real than it was before I got pulled
over.

With as little enthusiasm as I could squeeze into my reply, I
said, “Why not.”

On my feet, she grabbed my arm before I could head for my cockpit.
“Wait. There's something else. Have you ever seen the KHP down
in these parts?”

My dad always said I looked ugly when I put my mind to thinking on
something. It was our joke. He'd never say I was ugly, but he had a
point on this issue. My face would scrunch up and my eyeballs would
always look upward as if the answer was on my eyebrows. I knew I was
making that face now.

I couldn't say I'd ever seen the highway patrol south of the town.
In fact I only knew of them personally from seeing them drive around
the town itself, though I knew they ran east and west and often
accompanied the oil convoys up to the Nebraska line.

I shook my head no.

“Well that explains why you failed your first pullover test.
But why are there here, do you think?”

There were few laws anymore. When the lights went out, so too did
99% of the penal code. Some of the biblical codes persisted since
religion ran strong in these parts but even Thou Shalt Not Murder has
enough nuance to be a slippy slope. Not that I'd ever seen a murder,
though I'd heard about many.

That's why the new version of the KHP mainly focused on keeping
order out on the highway. There the rules were much clearer. They
catch you, they take something from you. Get into an accident, they
take something from you. You die, well, you get the picture.

Every once in a grand while they would be around when you needed
them to help fight off marauders or pull you out of a ditch. After
taking something from you.

The fact that they were down in the bread basket of Hays did not
bring warm feelings to my soul.

But Jo saw the dumb look on my face. “Hey, don't bust a nut
over it. You have nine lives apparently. Today's your lucky day!”

She released me and we both walked to our cars. I tossed my jacket
between the seat, keeping it close. Despite everything, I felt the
thrill in my blood as I fired up my engine. I was back in my element.

My dad said nothing. I could tell he wasn't happy.

My '97 was no match for Jo's screamin' Mustang. Besides being
twenty years newer, it had an engine so large it literally stuck out
of the hood. If she was being pursued by the police, I imagined she
could give them all they could handle. The sun reflected off her
custom paint and it almost made me cry to believe I'd someday be
driving a car like hers.

I was thankful she didn't try to ditch me. The roads were so long
and straight out here she could be over the horizon before I could
downshift. It was juvenile to think she'd do it, but I wasn't the
most popular kid back in school. I was always on the lookout for
someone laughing at my expense.

A slight exaggeration, no doubt, but her car
was
fast.

I trailed along for many miles, drifting in and out as we coasted
along. Actually we were doing 90, but the landscape was so barren it
was hard to gauge speed. She was on cruise control, though I hated to
use it. I wanted to keep control of my car every second...

I was in my head when she threw on the brakes. I eased down and
pulled up next to her, my window already down.

She wore a ridiculous orange pair of designer sunglasses, though
she didn't seem troubled by them. Her smile was gone when she turned
to me. “You see that?” She pointed ahead.

In the distance, toward the patch of irrigated land we call the
Water Wheels, I saw a thin ribbon of smoke rising into the sky. Fire
was a nightmare almost anywhere outside of Hays because there were no
longer any fire departments. Mostly anyone who saw the smoke was—if
they felt like it—encouraged to bring a bucket and hope some
water was nearby. Many times fires satiated themselves until
extinction.

“Funny, don't ya think? Police never show up down here, and
when they do there's a fire?”

I would have never made the connection.

“Let's check it out.” She held up a black pistol as
she pulled away, perhaps to reassure me. It had the opposite effect,
since I didn't have anything more dangerous than my fingernails on
me. I reached into the rear floorboard area for my little toolbox. A
screwdriver was better than nothing. As I held it and then set it on
the passenger seat next to me, I thought about my personal safety in
a way that, until today, had been lacking.

Even the end of the world wasn't as threatening and scary for me
as the two oversized jerks in the black Mustang. Yet, perhaps I was
being unfair. Back then I was younger, and the threats were probably
all around me—I was just too naive to see them.

“Well, I see them now,” I thought.

I sped up to catch Jo. She had moved up through the gears and
pushed her pony hard as she raced to the fire. I tried to think of
all the little emergencies I'd witnessed over the years, including a
few fires, though I was ashamed to admit I always let myself be the
bystander. This was the first time I was
heading
for trouble.

I glanced at the wraps on my arm as I held the wheel, then
steadied my car over the yellow dashed line down the middle of the
road. While it cost me gas to catch up, I had plenty left from my
easy day so far. And, as I expected, she kept her speed low enough I
could sneak in behind her and draft along.

In ten minutes we arrived at the farmhouse on fire. It wasn't far
from the pavement.

The place was newer—not the traditional weather-beaten house
and barn from the horse and buggy days you would imagine on the high
plains. A large antenna was attached to one side of the house and a
dozen green farm implements sat between the house and the large
wooden barn. Both structures were on fire, though the barn was
already nearly out after consuming everything inside.

A little warning light in my mind told me not to get involved
here, as the whole thing didn't add up, but Jo was out of the car and
screaming like a banshee. I parked well away from the heat and flames
and ran to meet her.

“Mr. Evans! Mr. Evans!” she screamed.

Jo ran to a nearby SUV. It looked foreign to me because my life
revolved around sportscars, but such vehicles were fine in the south
as it was—I thought—pretty safe now. Whatever she hoped
to find, it wasn't there. She ran around the back of the burning
house, screaming his name the whole way.

I couldn't keep up with all the fires. There were pops and fizzles
coming from inside the home; they drowned out Jo's calls from the
backside while they continued. I could imagine any number of
explosive liquids—oils, greases, gasoline—necessary for
the operation of the cars and farm equipment. It wasn't unusual for
citizens to keep those resources locked up in their living spaces to
keep thieves from taking them. That's another reason people tended to
live together out on the plains, at least in these modern times, so
someone was always at the homestead to keep watch. I realized there
was no one standing around watching but Jo and I. Whoever lived here
must not have been home at all.

Or, maybe they were there; just not alive.

Jo came around the opposite side of the house from where she
disappeared.

“Go! Get down!” She screamed wildly when she saw me,
waving me back. I hesitated, as I saw no threats beyond the huge fire
she'd circumnavigated without incident.

I took a step back, but still didn't understand. I formulated the
response in my head: “Where's the fire?” It was going to
be epic, and the timing exquisite.

I only got out the “Where” before something large
exploded from behind the house. The ground shook and I lost my
balance and fell from my feet. Jo, already running, looked like she'd
been picked up a foot, then thrown to the right a couple feet by the
force of the blast. She landed not far from me.

A huge plume rose from behind the house, even as debris started to
rain down everywhere around us.

A large crash sounded behind me. Small bits of debris tinkled onto
both our cars, but I knew something larger had struck mine. From the
ground I turned and could see a large piece of metal had come out of
the sky and crushed the middle of my car.

Jo was on her feet first, though I was ready when she pulled me
up.

With smoldering debris everywhere, and fires in multiple
directions, I stood there like an ass. After all, I'd brought nothing
but a screwdriver to an inferno.

The first thing I did when I reached my feet was run to my car.

“It's totaled. Leave it!” Jo yelled.

I was not going to leave my dad. Not for her; not for nobody. But
when I reached the car I'd used for so many months, I could see no
one was left in the front.

“He must have made it out.” I turned around as Jo
paced nearby. “He made it out. It's all good.”

“No, I don't think Evans made it out at all. I think he's
dead, inside. His car is over there under what's left of his barn.”
The barn had collapsed in on itself. The crushed and burned shells of
several cars poked out from the fallen rafters.

“I was talking about my dad, not Evans.”

Jo turned to me liked I'd stepped in dog crap. “Your dad? He
was in your car?”

It seemed perfectly obvious. Of course he'd been there.

I looked back at my Camaro, and reformulated my answer. “My
dad is
sometimes
in my car. He wasn't there when the debris
fell.”