“Can you make the gun shoot quieter?” Jo Ann asked hopefully.
“When we get home, I can,” Wendy winked at her.
Nodding, Jo Ann looked ahead with the binoculars. “Wendy, there’s black clouds coming up from the ground. Does that mean a storm is forming?” Jo Ann asked.
Squinting her eyes, Wendy looked at the horizon. “Are you sure?”
Handing the binoculars over, “Yeah, and if it’s a storm, we are going another way,” Jo Ann informed everyone.
Slowing down again, Wendy lifted the binoculars up and zoomed in. “That’s smoke,” Wendy told them. “A lot of smoke from something burning.”
Handing the binoculars back, “Grab the atlas and see what’s ahead of us,” Wendy told Jo Ann.
Opening the Atlas up, Jo Ann turned it in her lap. “We are on the road you have marked with a pink highlighter?” she asked.
“Yes, highway 84,” Wendy said, glancing over.
“Dothan,” Jo Ann said, pointing and gave a grin. “We don’t go there, you have us on a road that circles it.”
Getting closer, Wendy didn’t need the binoculars to see the thick smoke billowing up in the air. “Girls, keep a sharp eye out,” Wendy said, gripping the steering wheel tight with her left hand as her right pulled the Glock off the center console.
The closer they got to Dothan, the wider the billowing black smoke got. “The road can’t be on fire,” Wendy thought out loud.
“The road’s still wet from the rain,” Jo Ann cried out. “There’s mud puddles everywhere.”
Not having an answer, Wendy tried to come up with one and the smell of the fire hit them. “That’s houses, not trees,” Wendy said, wiggling her nose. When the GPS announced their turn two miles ahead, they passed a subdivision on their left and dozens of houses were on fire.
Turning ahead, they saw larger buildings on fire and the smoke started making it hazy around them. Making the right turn, they saw a big hospital across the street fully engulfed in flames. Afraid to speed up because the smoke got thick in places on the road, Wendy saw a huge factory burning but on the right side of the road, a small group of houses were smoldering.
When the smoke cleared off the road, they all turned to look in the loop they were driving around the city. They could see fires raging across subdivisions near them. Turning back to the road, Wendy saw a man running across the lanes in front of them and angling toward them.
“I see a man coming!” Jo Ann yelled out, pointing ahead.
“I see him,” Wendy said. It was easy to tell he was a man because he was stark naked.
Wendy steered the Tahoe wider and saw the man adjust his run to intercept them. “Fuck this,” Wendy said and punched the accelerator. The Tahoe lurched forward as Wendy dodged a stalled car. Now much closer, Wendy could tell the man was screaming with wild eyes, running to intercept them.
Still speeding up, Wendy couldn’t move over anymore and just held the steering wheel. The man ran right into the back passenger door, on the driver’s side. With the Tahoe doing sixty, the man was thrown back violently. Looking back, Wendy saw his head hit the pavement and literally bust open as the body skidded to a halt.
Jerking her eyes forward seeing the body never move after hitting the pavement, Wendy slowed down seeing businesses ahead. Most were already burned down, but some looked like they had just caught fire. Wendy jerked at seeing another naked person running at them, screaming. “Bullshit,” Wendy growled, stomping the accelerator.
This time, they saw it was a woman angling to intercept them, but they had picked up too much speed. After they had passed the woman, Wendy slowed down and looked back in the mirror. The woman just ran across the highway and right into a burning building.
“That crazy woman just ran into the fire,” Sally mumbled in disbelief.
Driving on, they saw several more people, but none charged at them. Off to their right, they saw a huge parking lot with a massive pile spread over it. When they were next to the parking lot, Wendy turned away. “Girls, look ahead,” she snapped at them.
“Those were bodies,” Jo Ann gasped, turning to look ahead.
“We’ve seen bodies,” Sally pointed out.
Hearing the GPS telling her the turn was ahead, Wendy sighed with relief. “I know,” Wendy said, not telling them even from that far away, she could see thousands of brass casings carpeting the parking lot.
Making the turn back onto eighty-four, Wendy groaned to see houses on both sides burning. They were two miles outside the city when a car shot onto the road in front of them and literally, took off like a bat out of hell. In seconds, it was gone.
“I want a car like that,” Jo Ann mumbled as Wendy glanced in the mirror at the billowing black smoke.
“Baby, that was a Porsche. All of us couldn’t fit in a Porsche,” Wendy told her as she set the cruise control.
They rode in silence, trying to make sense of what they had witnessed as the afternoon sun started to set. Seeing a sign for another town coming up, everyone tensed up but they made the loop around Enterprise, seeing no fires and only a few people. None of which charged them butt-naked, screaming.
Spotting a wreck ahead, Wendy tapped the brakes and still no one had spoken forty miles later.
Getting closer to the wreck, Wendy saw the car had hit a light pole that had been in the road, but had been going so fast the light pole had shattered. Looking at the mangled car, Wendy gave a groan
