Rabid

“I’m just saying.  That must have been most of the city walking along the road.  What’s the population of Cheyenne?”

Tina said, “Right around fifty thousand, I think.”

“You think there were fifty thousand of them on the road,” Carl asked.

“I don’t know about that many, but there were a lot.”

“What’s important is that they’re going the opposite direction from us.”

“If they’re all doing that, we’re bound to see a lot more than that,” Tina said.  “Like if it’s the whole United States that this is happening in, and if there’s some force drawing them east, then there will be lots more.”

“No need to worry about that now,” Taylor said.

Cheyenne fell away abruptly as though an invisible fence marked its termination point.  A restaurant, hotel, and home supply stores were some of the last indications that a civilized world existed.  After that, a long, winding highway snaked ahead for as far as the eye could see.  A few miles later, they passed a chemical plant that looked like the ruins of a futuristic kingdom that had been forgotten after an apocalypse.  Metal stacks telescoped into the sky like spires.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Carl said, sweeping his hand around in an arc, “the end of the world.”

And Tina thought that was exactly what it looked like: the end of the world.  She touched the pocket of her jeans, the outline of her cell phone visible there.  Ring, she thought.  Call me and let me know you’re all right.

Taylor said, “Don’t forget about Buford.  That’s the real end of the world.”

“You could be right,” Carl said.

“This reminds me of when we were kids.  Dad taking us up here.  Those were some good times.”

“Hell yeah, they were.”

In the backseat, Tina began to cry, but silently and to herself so Taylor and Carl wouldn’t see.  They still had hope, and she didn’t want to ruin it for them because her own hope, what little she had left, was running out.

Chapter 8 The Mountains

With all that had happened over the last twenty-four hours, Taylor thought it was odd that they had so little to talk about.  He couldn’t help but feel that everything he said was forced; that he was creating noise if only to break the silence.  And that made him feel self-conscious.  He scoffed at the feeling.  Let it go, he thought.

For the next thirty miles the highway was remarkably free of obstruction.  They encountered two abandoned vehicles, both of which had been courteously parked on the shoulder of the road, almost bumper to bumper.

He caught himself taking abnormal breaths; quick shallow ones that weren’t at all satisfying to his lungs.  He noticed he started breathing that way whenever he got to thinking about whatever disease had affected all the people they had encountered.  It was mostly due to Tina suggesting that whatever it was might be airborne that brought on the brief fits.  He would think about how those same particles could be hovering in the air all around them now, and almost immediately his pattern of breathing would change.  As though somehow, if he was careful and didn’t pull air too deep into his lungs, he would be okay.

Carl saw him in the middle of one of his shallow-breathing sessions and said, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“You look like you can’t catch your breath.”  Carl let their speed drop as he watched Taylor with a concerned look.

“Keep going.  I’m fine,” Taylor said.  “I can breathe fine.”

“That’s not what it looks like.  Your asthma?”

“Yeah, but nothing serious.  It’ll only last for another minute or two.”  He sucked in a long breath to prove it.  He lied because it was less humiliating than telling the truth.  “See.”

“All right.  If you say so.  But let me know if you need me to stop.  It’s pretty isolated out here.  I’m starting to get the feeling that all those things have cleared out.  All traveled east on their hippie parade or whatever you want to call it.”  What he didn’t say was that he hoped he wouldn’t need to stop.  Rabid things or not, Angie was the focus of his mind.  The uncertainty was eating him up inside.  For some reason his mind had the most difficulty envisioning a scenario in which she was safe and sound, Angie and his mom and his dad all camped out around a fire somewhere in the mountains.  Instead, his mind insisted on showing him all the negative possibilities.

Taylor said, “We’re almost there.  Only a few more miles.  I’m nervous again, you know that?   I’m almost starting to think it would be better not to know one way or another.”

“I need to know,” Carl said.

Tina thought about her father and said, “I think it would be better to know.  When you know you can deal with it either way.  Not knowing, it kind of stays with you and you’re always wondering.  I keep thinking of my dad.”

It’s time to tell her, Taylor thought.  Maybe not right this second, but as soon as possible.  Otherwise that guilt could eat at you forever.

He was determined to tell her.  It was a promise to himself.  And he would do it…soon.  It all had to do with timing.

Tina could already see the forest up ahead.  She could also see the huge rock formations and could see why someone might mistake them for mountains.  She had a minor fear of heights.

Carl pointed.  “That’s what we call the mountains.”

“I think she’s smart enough to figure that out on her own,” Taylor said.

“Right.  Well, they aren’t much, but it’s what’s available.  A lot of people do their rockclimbing here.”

Carl turned onto the first path available; a narrow dirt road barely wide enough to support two-way traffic.  Carl drove slowly because of the road’s state of disrepair.  “The roads are shit,” he said.  “They have been for as long as we’ve been coming here.  Four-wheel drive is practically a necessity.”

“Will we make it in this?”  Tina asked.

“Yeah.  We can make it.  I don’t know if it rained out here last night, the ground looks pretty dry.  That’s a good thing.  Otherwise we’d probably get stuck.  I’ll take it slow and we should be okay.”

Tina took in her surroundings.  It would have been a beautiful place had the circumstances been different.  Her mind was a full plate, and it was difficult to appreciate the beauty around her.  She was too expectant of those rabid things to come running out from the trees.

“Where to start,” Taylor said.

“If Dad brought the boat, the lake is the best place to start.”

“That’s a good idea.”

Carl said, “That’s about two miles in.  We can drive most of the way.  When we get close it might be easier to walk the rest.  Usually the ground gets muddier the closer you get to the lake.  Just the way it is, so we don’t want to chance getting bogged down.  Search on foot.  We can come back for the stuff in the car.”

The dirt road curved to the left.  Tina felt like they were making a lazy circle and that they would end up in the same place they had started, but the road eventually curved to the right and then straightened.  The trees seemed to be closing in on them.

The giant rocks spiked up all around them.  They reached the top of a hill and Carl pulled as far over to the right side of the road as he could without hitting a tree.

“This ends the driving portion of the tour.  From this point on, we proceed by foot,” Carl said.  He killed the engine and stepped out of the car.  The others joined him.

“Do we need to take anything with us?” Tina asked.

“It’s about a mile to the lake.  Maybe a little less.”  He picked up the shotgun and then walked around to the trunk.  He opened one of the packs and placed several bottles of water into it.  “Besides the guns, it would probably be good if we each take some water.”