Post Apocalyptic Ponies: Revolutions Per Mile, Book 1 (5 page)

I could hardly do that since she was behind the wheel, but it did
make me feel a little better.

Hays was still sixty miles away when she suddenly let off the gas
and allowed the car to decelerate. Whenever possible we tried to save
the brakes, as every resource was valuable. She eased left onto a
gravel side road.

“I've got one more stop to make. There's no smoke, so I hope
she's there.”

Unlike the highway, she took the gravel at a jogging pace. As in
foot jogging. I assumed it was because she didn't want to damage her
paint or undercarriage. I knew something was up when her hands
gripped the wheel like she was at speed. She gave me a sideways
glance, confirming I was looking at her.

“I hate gravel. The road moves under me. Feels like we're on
the ocean.”

I'd never thought about it. I kind of liked the feeling of sliding
around on gravel. I did it all the time in my now-smooshed IROC.

“I guess you'll not be hauling with the rally drivers, huh?”
I let out a hearty laugh. She remained fixed on the road. I thought I
heard a subdued affirmation, though. I was truly joking. There were
drivers who crossed the landscape using
only
the gravel roads,
but they were few and far between because they were so specialized.

It took us a half hour to reach the tiny farmhouse tucked next to
a brackish little creek. I wasn't a farmer, but I didn't detect any
active farming taking place ahead.

A middle-aged woman came running out to meet us. She carried a
small black suitcase.

“What's she got?” Normally it was impolite, even out
on the lonely roads, to ask what someone was shipping inside a closed
container. Jo probably didn't even know.

I thought she was going to reply, but instead she looked in the
rearview mirror and wiped her face with her sleeve. I had to admit,
she really did sweat bullets driving on that gravel.

“I have to finish what I started.”

A noble sentiment for a courier, but with homes burning and war
coming, it seemed a little misguided. But then, who was I to tell
her? It was only my second war.

By the time I'd gotten there, Jo had already taken possession of
the suitcase. The woman nodded to me as I approached. She had long
brown hair and a tanned face with a murderous case of crow's feet
next to her eyes. Her yellow and red sun dress reached down to her
cowboy boots. The dress looked happy—completely at odds with
the rest of her environment.

“You know how to use it, right?”

Jo nodded.

“I do. But Evans...” She looked at me with something
like regret. “Evans was unable to make it. Someone blew up his
house.”

“What! Oh my God. Why?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Jo countered.

The woman paused, then seemed to finally notice me. “Hi, I'm
Professor Skellert. University of Kansas.” She made no effort
to shake my hand. That was a custom that died with all the sickness
after the war.

Then she turned back to Jo. “Your driving with her?”
She asked it tentatively, and a bit on the quiet side. Like she
pretended I wasn't standing right there.

“Yeah, I got lucky, I guess. I found this pony on the side
of the road being harassed by the flying monkeys, of all things. I
saved her, so she kind of owes me.”

Jo giggled, but the professor turned serious. “They're
here
?
In the south?” She glanced over our shoulders, as if the police
followed us in.

Jo nodded solemnly.

“Then I guess you're both lucky!” Her words had mirth,
but I read her eyes. They conveyed only fear.

Fear was not uncommon, even in the pastures. The order was being
upset in ways I couldn't fathom. Still, I took my role as co-pilot
seriously. Stay quiet. Learn from those with the skills. Just like
holding wrenches for my dad on those quiet Sunday afternoons...

I was lost in thought when I heard Jo.

“Yo! Co-pilot? You in there?” She had taken a few
steps toward the car and was waiting for me to follow.

“Yes, ma'am,” I replied as if snapping to attention.

She tilted up her seat so she could fit the suitcase into her
cargo area, then we both found our placed in her car. As we backed
out and turned around, the professor stood with her arms crossed
until the last moment. Then she gave a curt wave and headed back for
her home.

“What is she, some kind of oracle? Why is she out here all
by herself?”

Jo chuckled. “Oracle? Naw, she's just a little reclusive.
That means anti-social.”

“I know what it means,” I snapped back, but only
because it hit a little close to home.

“Well, Ms. Gregarious, she lives out here doing research,
and stuff. Doesn't want to be bothered with all the normal goings on
with farming or running a town.”

I started to ask, but Jo guessed what was coming next.

“I met her when I used to run in the pony pastures, like
you. I'm surprised you didn't.” She was again clutching the
steering wheel while we practically idled along the gravel road. “She
used to work at a the University weather station up near the
interstate. She always asked if it was still there. I couldn't tell
her until I started driving the deep routes. We became...friends.”

She spun the wheel a couple times around a pothole, and the rear
end did a little fish tail as she gave it too much gas. I was really
surprised she was as tense as she was on the gravel, as it was almost
a capital offense for a driver not to be competent in almost any
condition. I was very tempted to say something to that effect, but it
wasn't my place.

“You all have your demons, Perth,” is what my dad
would have said.

After an eternity, we reached the pavement of the north-south
trunk line. Jo pulled out onto the road, but immediately pulled over
to the shoulder. I spun around, thinking the police had caught me
again—us again—but that wasn't it.

She jumped out and I was relieved she was only doing a rock check.
Having a piece of gravel lodged in the tires was fine when you're
going slow, but when a rock flies loose at 100 miles per hour...well,
let's just say you don't want to be on the receiving end of that
mistake.

I rolled down my window when she was on my side. “Come on,
girlfriend, I can't stand this sitting still.” I laughed to
cover my fears. I hated sneaking along the gravel, I hated what we
were doing on the side of the road, and I hated not having my own car
so I could fix both of those problems. My joke must have carried that
deeper seriousness because she didn't have a snappy retort for me.
She just watched me while she bent over to pull rocks from the front
tire. The deep thinking was broadcast through her eyes.

And yet, when I studied her face, she was looking beyond me.
Beyond our car. She looked back on the horizon. I couldn't see the
plumes of smoke anymore, but I knew they were there.

While sitting there, a couple dots showed up well ahead of us on
the blacktop. They grew into cars and I could see the sleek black
shapes approaching at a truly breathtaking velocity.

“Drivers up,” I called out to Jo. She finished her
work at the tire, saw where I pointed, then ran around the front and
hopped in. Only seconds later the cars were upon us. Their lights
flashed and their custom front grills sucked in air like hungry
hippos.

Jo sat with her mouth open. I rubbed my arms with nervous energy.

“Hey! We have to go.” I shook her shoulder, pleading.
Deep down I knew it was silly. If the monkeys wanted us, there was no
way to stop that from happening.

Jo made no effort to move. The low rumble of her Mustang engine
was even and subdued, as if it too were watching and waiting.

They arrived with the force and ferocity of the race cars they
were. From the ground it's difficult to judge speed, but the two
together moved with the grace and rigidity of arrows in flight.

They roared by almost as one explosive boom of engine and wind
noise. The second was only a few feet behind the lead car. They paired up
to get somewhere in a hurry.

Currents of air moved Jo's car from side to side as they passed.
We both turned to watch for the brake lights. But the red never came
on. They continued at the same speed, crested the next little rise
and descended out of sight. The whole event happened in about thirty
seconds.

We both let out the air we'd sucked and held in our lungs.

Jo snapped out of it. The engine, ready for input, responded to
her foot. The car jumped out into the northbound lane and she
clutched and shifted through all six gears until she was up over a
hundred.

I immediately felt better, and apparently she did as well.

“I don't think they're here for us. That's not Taylor's
car.”

I was relieved, but I couldn't help wondering. “Where do you
think they're going?”

She offered no clues, if she had any.

A few minutes later, she let off the gas. Then she coasted to a
stop, again on the shoulder. For a long minute she sat silently in
her seat, staring at the empty road ahead.

“I think I know what this is about.”

She turned to me with a sheepish look. “It wasn't
coincidence I pulled up to you when the monkey's got you earlier
today.”

I didn't know how to take that.

While formulating my feelings, she continued. “I think they
burned the Evans' house. I told them that's where I'd be.”

“Why?” It was the only word I could get out.

“Look, I'm sorry. But you're in this now. I need a co-pilot
or none of this will work.” She took a deep breath, bolstering
herself. “You can either get out and I'll send a bike to get
you, or you can stick with me. I hope you'll stay.”

The bathtub of emotions swished and sloshed. Anger on one side for
reasons that were unclear, and pride on the other that she said she
wanted me to help her. She'd hinted at achieving the one thing I
wanted more than anything else right then: the open road of the
interstate. Even that might be upset if war was coming. It was a “now
or never” moment for me.

All I had to do was stick with her. I didn't see that I really had
a choice.

“Well, you
did
get me away from those guys.” I
had already forgiven her. I admit, I was a sucker for abuse.

I almost felt the tap on my shoulder from behind. I didn't need my
father involved in any of this. He'd have me on the side of the road
waiting for the motorcycle rescue guys to come “rescue”
me back to the safety of Hays.

“Not this girl.”

“What?” Jo responded.

I'd said that out loud. Don't tell anyone, but sometimes I got
things mixed up. My dad did that to me.

“Kind of like Penn, eh K-Bear?” My dad asked with a
mischievous chuckle.

He always knew just how to push my buttons.

I held on as Jo turned the car around.

For about the fifth time today, we were heading for trouble.

“Hang on, I'm going to open him up,” Jo declared.

Yes, it was trendy for us girls to name our cars after boys,
though I'd heard that made it harder to lose one in a wreck.
Searching my feelings, I had no such remorse over the loss of my own
car. I'd never thought to name it.

The U-turn was done gingerly, always to preserve tire rubber. Yes
our empire of grass contained something like a million derelict cars,
but finding a good high performance tire was still next to
impossible.

Then she kicked him in the guts. With crisp gear shifts she had us
up over a hundred, which was the typical playground couriers
frequented.

“Let's do this.”

I watched as the speedometer continued to fall down the right side
of the arc, ever toward the bottom. On a good day I could take my
car—my old car—into the 130s or 140s. Not because it
couldn't go faster, but because an old car like that was more prone
to a mechanical failure. Also, it sucked down buckets of gasoline.
Just like Jo was doing.

Fortunately the Hwy 183 trunk line was mostly a straight shot from
Hays—in the middle of the state—to the southern border of
the place I call home. It doesn't have a name anyone can agree upon,
though they try. Horse Lands. The Ogallala Plains. Western Kansas
Peoples. But most of us just call the whole thing Hays, because
they're the town that brought it all together.

The police cruisers were hard to catch. In fact, I assumed it
would be impossible except they had to slow down at the town of
Kinsley.

A funny town. You pick up a lot of gossip and rumor on the road,
but I heard the town leaders in Kinsley got tired of fast cars
blowing down Main Street and running over their people, so they
parked derelict cars in a serpentine path through the city blocks. It
was probably murder for any big rig to traverse, but it was a lucky
break for us because we saw the twin cruisers up ahead in the winding
maze.

“I'd bet anything they're going to the south gate. Nothing
else makes sense.”

I didn't want to sound self-important, but—

“What if they got word that you and I were at the Evans
place, and then reported it at the Greensburg Sheriff's Office?”

She turned with what I guessed was admiration. “That's a
really good idea. But if that was the case they could just radio in
for them to hold us. It would have been easy. We were standing right
there like a couple of stupid ponies.” With a smile she said,
“I didn't mean anything by that.”

I had no worries. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't a pony
anymore.

“No, they're heading somewhere else. Somewhere that would
make sense if all this
is
a war.”

It took her a few left and right turns to work it out. The Kinsey
Snake had several cars going in both directions, mostly local slow
rollers. A few couriers, like us. Jo hummed a series of uh-huh's and
nuh-uh's to herself, like she was thinking and driving at the same
time. She seemed to have it worked out by the time we hit the open
southbound highway once more.