Post Apocalyptic Ponies: Revolutions Per Mile, Book 1 (4 page)

“Girl, I thought I was messed up. You got issues.”

I didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but she didn't want
to go claw to claw at that moment.

“Grab what you can from your car. This isn't right. We have
to tell someone.”

I didn't know what I'd grab. My cargo hold was mostly empty, just
as I'd said, but I had a few things I could take. My music player was
ruined, but I grabbed the one personal thing I always kept with me: a
little bobblehead golden retriever. I reached in through the broken
windshield, peeled it off the IROC's crushed dashboard, and put it in
my pocket.

I also grabbed my CB Radio and antenna. I'd need those no matter
what I was driving.

In the few minutes it took for me to ransack my own ride, Jo had
pulled hers around so it faced the road. She revved the engine and
puffs of dust rose from the dirty driveway from her dual exhaust
wash.

I read her engine noise as if she were speaking.

“Hurry, girl. We gotta scoot,” it said.

I popped my lift gate one last time, thinking I may have left
something back there. In fact there was one last paper bag fluttering
in the corner. I grabbed it and carried it with me to her Mustang.
When I hopped in I tossed the bag in the floorboard of her back seat,
along with my radio.

“So, where we going? Hays?” It would be the most
logical place, I thought. Find the authorities, tell them what
happened and all.

“No, I have another stop to make.”

“What? You're running freight, still?”

Jo had moved the car to the edge of the pavement. I felt the call
of the yellow line even as a passenger. My hands got sweaty in my
driving gloves, as they always did. But Jo was a tease. She stopped
so she could look over at me. “Listen...” She rubbed her
face, clearing her own sweat. “I can't go back yet. I just
can't. When you drive on the highways.” She looked both ways on
the road. The remote farm had visibility for miles in every
direction. “The stakes are higher. I was supposed to pick up
something from Evans. It's either phenomenally bad timing, or
something else is going on.”

Her demeanor turned serious. “What was that back there. Are
you all right? You said your dad was in your car. I was watching you
as we drove. You were talking to someone, weren't you?”

I felt the accusation, but I couldn't very well go on blathering
about how I sometimes talked to my dad, and sometimes when I went
dangerously fast he showed up to slow me down. Whether she saw him or
not, I knew he was there for me. I desperately wanted to explain all
of it to Jo, but I could sense that wasn't going to fly. Not here,
with a burning homestead off our rear quarter panel. She was looking
for a co-pilot, someone she could trust to help her get her freight
delivered, no matter what else was going on.

“I know it looked like I was talking to someone, and yes I
did mention my dad. But that's just my way of keeping it together out
here by myself. I don't have a co-pilot, and I hardly see people. I
just like to stay social, that's all.”

It sounded good, and mostly it was true.

I could tell she bought it. Maybe she had no choice, given the
circumstances. However, it was much easier to believe my story than
to think I was really seeing my dead dad in my passenger seat.

She turned left with caution, then worked through the gears with
great skill until we were tilting the speedometer past the 100.
Buckled in to the surging animal as I was, I could almost forget the
sadness I'd felt when I thought my dad was struck by the debris after
the explosion.

Searching my feelings, I knew deep down he was dead. But he was
also with me, out here in the wastelands of Kansas. He'd steered me
right, many times. Of course, an equal number of times I ignored him
and did what I wanted. Maybe it made him mad when I didn't listen,
but sometimes I thought I saw a smile on his face, like he was proud
he had a daughter who didn't
always
follow his rules.

Jo downshifted and the car lurched forward as we decelerated at
the edge of a town. Beyond, another thin rope of smoke rose into the
air, then bent over like a whip antenna on the wind.

Something serious was going on, and it wasn't just at the Evans'
farm.

In the rearview mirror I caught motion behind me, inside the car.
Jo had ripped her backseats out as most couriers did, but I know I
saw someone sitting back where the seats should have been.

I pretended to look back at the fire. But when I searched the rear
of her car, my dad was gone.

“What town is this? It looks like Greensburg. I can't
remember. Been too long.”

One of the fortified towns. A string of them run down the middle
of the pony pastures, sort of like lifeboats for the surrounding
homesteads and farming villages. Greensburg is typical for the towns
out here—flat, grid street system, and surly residents.

By the time she asked the question we passed the “Welcome to
Greensburg” road sign, though the population figure had been
painted over in an angry black streak.

“If you want to drop me off, I can make my way back to Hays
on my own.”

“No,” she said quickly, and to my relief. It was
exciting riding with a professional. “I, uh, need a co-pilot.
You can learn on the job.”

“Excellent! Where do we pick up the goods?” I'm sure I
sounded like a giddy schoolgirl, but I admit I was feeling pretty
happy. I didn't relish begging a ride home from someone else. That
would involve talking to them. Going to get my first piece of
important cargo was a much more exciting path.

Still, Jo looked at me sideways. “Hold your horses. We've
got to report this to the Sheriff. Since we're right here we can go
into the fort.”

I wanted to ask her why. Why not just radio it in? But I didn't
want to look like a total rookie, even though I was.

Inside Greensburg, things looked pretty much like the other towns
in these parts. Cars of all types were parked three deep in every
yard, open lot, and in front of every building. Every refugee between
Kansas City and Denver fled to points between to escape the
conflagrations. They brought everything in their cars and drove them
until they ran out of gas. In the early days it was a cottage
industry to go out and recover them. Now, they provided miles and
miles of spare parts for the survivors.

We drove through block after block of vehicles, until we came to
the squat brick building housing the sheriff and his deputies. Unlike
the highway patrol and their penchant for dramatic and menacing
interceptors, the local sheriffs usually stuck with the cars they had
before the bombs. The gold 4-door sedan cruisers were a few years
old, but still ran better than most civilian cars. And they were
perfectly clean.

Jo ran her Mustang right up the service garage door of the
department—a bay that was probably always hopping, no matter
the hour. Again, pretty typical out here. She pulled her leather
jacket from the mess in the back, put it on, then buttoned a few of
the lower buttons to cover herself up.

“Come on, rook. We'll report your car while we're here,
too.”

We walked by the big hand-lettered sign at the door. The three
rules for drivers everywhere. Losing a car in a wreck was usually the
first and last step in being reassigned to push a shovel at a farm
somewhere. Maybe it was true for the sheriff's office too.

Rule 1. Save the car.

Rule 2. Save the parts.

Rule 3. Save the driver.

I'd never noticed the driver was last, until just now. Of course,
I'd never lost a car before nor had I ever been so close to getting
myself offed in an explosion. If the car
and
the driver failed
to return...

“I guess I wouldn't have a worry,” I mused to myself.

We crossed the grungy floor of the work bay, and approached a
gaggle of farmers and a couple deputies. I could tell they were
already aware of what we were there to report.

“Smoke to the south and east, Marv. You've got to
do
something.”

The young deputies seemed overwhelmed. The other men had them
surrounded, though there was no hostility in the room. They just
wanted the attention of the law.

“Please. Listen. We know of the fires. We see them, too. But
we don't have the manpower to track down each one. There are too
many.”

Jo yelled over the backs of the men. “The Evans' place blew
up. We were just there. She lost her daily driver in the blast.”
The farmers turned to Jo, then to me. They sized us up, as men often
did, but resumed talking to the two uniformed deputies in their
scrum.

“You see? This is getting out of hand!”

“You have to go out there.”

“Who will protect my farm?”

I thought they all had good points, but even I could see there
were only two deputies. Not only could they not put out the fires
that had been reported, but they had no chance of doing anything to
protect the remaining farms. That was the purview of the respective
families living there.

Jo and I watched as best we could, though the chatter became
confusing and contradictory the longer we stood around.

She touched my arm to get my attention. “I'm going to go
around to the front offices. See if anyone else can take down your
information.”

We'd made it outside the garage door when another gold car marked
“Sheriff” came to a hard stop just next to Jo's 'Stang.
It was close enough I could feel the heat of the engine on my face.

A stocky older man got out, quick to throw his Stetson over his
thinning gray hair. I raised my hand in a wave, ready to greet the
long-time sheriff, but he ran right by so he could address the men in
the garage.

“We're at war!”

Jo and I shared a look. Suddenly reporting a missing car was low
on the to-do list of our day. My mind spun like the cylinder of a
revolver. If this was a war, I knew what I wanted.

Find a new car.

Get to Hays.

See Penn.

I didn't know how Penn got in there. Could I see him? Should I?
Why would I?

The cylinder spun wildly until Jo spoke.

“They'll radio this in. I can't...I have to—”
She turned back toward the station. “You wait for me in the
car. We're leaving. I'll be right back.” Then, contrary to her
statement, she ran down the sidewalk and around the corner of the
building. Beyond her I could see a lot full of sad-looking impounds.

I sat in the car as instructed. Once in my spot, I slowly turned
around to look in the back. I really thought I'd see my dad, but I
only saw her cargo area. Unlike mine, hers was stuffed with junk. I
could see clothes of every sort, shoes, a plastic child's bucket, a
basketball. What did she do if she had to transport something with
some bulk?

It was a confused jumble of seemingly unrelated gear. Not what I
imagined for someone running in the pro leagues up on the interstate.
It was more like the stylings of a vagabond.

Some drivers lived in their cars.

I examined the area with an eye toward living in the Mustang. I
saw a tightly wrapped sleeping bag stuffed behind my seat. A mushed
pillow lay toward the back, under a net of some kind. A few cans of
food had been lined up in the floorboard behind Jo's seat.

My inspection was interrupted when Jo opened her door and hopped
in. I had “a look” on my face.

“What? You filchin' my stuff?”

“Filchin'? No, I'm not doing anything.”

“Good, hold this.” She said it as the paper came out
of her hand.

She started the car and slowly pulled back into the street. In
moments we were lost among the rows of abandoned cars and the
hunkering houses behind them. If war was coming, we were already in a
town lumbered down by the fortress mentality.

I was holding a highway map of Kansas. Not the typical hand-drawn
map of the major supply roads down in the pastures I was used to, but
the full-blown, 100% complete map of every road in the entire state.
I couldn't say why, but it felt dirty in my hands.

“Where did you get this? They give you guy the good stuff up
on the interstate, huh?” I laughed, but I was more impressed
than I wanted to let on. To know where every road went...

She was busy turning the wheel back and forth as she weaved across
the grid of streets until we returned to the road where we entered. I
could see men and women running here and there between their homes.
Word must spread fast.

A tornado siren whined as we left for the open road.

“I'm not supposed to have it.” Jo said it, though I
couldn't tell if she was talking to me. When I didn't respond, she
turned to me. “The map. I'm not supposed to have it. None of us
are.”

My eyes read the cover again. Kansas Official State Transportation
Map. The years had been crossed out, and someone wrote in “forever.”
Also, in red marker, someone wrote over the buffalo photo. “For
police use only.”

It all came together.

“You stole this?” I'd said it with some awe in my
voice. And a little fear.

“I need it.” She did not elaborate until we had turned
right onto the trunk line and were heading north for Hays. “We
need it, actually. If there's something going on down here we may
need to use roads we don't normally use. I can't remember them all,
and I don't trust you to know them.”

I felt a little hurt that she wouldn't trust me, but we'd only
known each other for a couple hours. Of course she wouldn't trust a
pony like me.

I absently rubbed my arm as the dry landscape screamed by. The
Mustang's tuned motor was obnoxiously loud but we could still talk at
almost-normal levels. It was many minutes before she spoke again.

“I didn't mean it like I said it. I like you. You seem
competent. That's all that matters out here. But I've got a lot on my
mind right now. Just ignore me.”