Lamp Black: Second Edition, Disaster, Preparedness, Survival, Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 2) (47 page)

Pete saw Bonnie and Vi walking to the truck, arm in arm. He was glad she connected with Vi, and he marveled at how some relationships just seemed to happen, but others took so much effort. “You’ve got a nice set-up here, but if your ranch hand . . . what’s his name?”

“Miguel,” replied Robert.

“Right, if Miguel returns that’s great, but if he doesn’t, then you might want to look for people to invite here, people you can trust, and who you can work with. Sitting next to the freeway like this . . . well, it’s only a matter of time before bad people find you.”

Robert nodded, shook the box of shells once, and said, “You’re right. I’m not prepared to defend this place by myself.”

“Don’t trust any stranger,” added Pete. “People can be very tricky when they’re desperate. Oh, and stay away from the access road as much as possible. Can you do that?” asked Pete, with a wink to Vi.

Robert nodded and reached out to shake Pete’s hand with both of his. Bonnie stood next to Pete and said, “Thanks again for feeding us. We wish both of you the best of luck.”

“If you come back by this way again,” said Vi, “please stop in and visit again.”

“We’ll do that,” said Pete. The two ladies embraced warmly, and Bonnie surprised Pete when she reached for and hugged Robert. Vi didn’t seem interested in receiving a hug from Pete. And since Pete wasn’t much of a hugger anyway, he offered her a gentle handshake, and thanked them both for their hospitality. “Please take care of yourselves,” said Pete, as he climbed into the truck to start it up. “I look forward to our next meeting.”

Before pulling out, Pete yelled from the window, “I’ll keep my lights off until I’m on the access road. Then I’ll close your gate. And don’t forget what I said about the trees.”

“Good luck to you, and safe travels,” replied Robert. Both couples waved farewell and Pete quickly rolled up the window to keep the ash from drifting into the cab.

“What trees?” asked Bonnie.

Pete told her what they talked about, and she said, “We should have taken them with us.”

Pete sighed and said, “It could have come to that.”

“Come to that? What do you mean?” asked Bonnie.

“We would have had to literally kidnap them. They wouldn’t have come with us even if we offered,” answered Pete.

“But you didn’t offer,” retorted Bonnie.

“You’re right, I didn’t. I didn’t have to. They made it clear that they didn’t want to leave. Besides how would we have managed it?”

“We have plenty of room in the truck.”

“We do? Only if they came without baggage, Bonnie. Are we to toss out our survival stuff to make room for theirs?” asked Pete, immediately irritated with Bonnie’s narrow vision of their survival.

“Pete, sometimes you’re such an insensitive jerk.”

Pete nodded and said, “You’re right, Bonnie. I am. I’m insensitive to anyone but you, and the boys, and it’s not nice to attack me when I’m trying to keep us alive. I’m not responsible for every nice person we meet.”

“But we have to remain human, Peter. We can’t just abandon humanity. We can’t turn our back on our Christian values.”

“But that’s just it, Bonnie, I’m not letting go of my humanity, or my Christianity, when I hold on to you. I could pull to the side of the road and start feeding everyone that passes by, but in two hours we’d have nothing left. And then what? What would we do to survive? Where would we go to find food and water?”

Bonnie buried her face in her hands. She didn’t seem to be crying, but she was clearly upset. Pete dropped the subject, but he was beginning to think that Bonnie might not be up to the mental challenge of disaster survival. He would need to be very patient with her if they were to have any hope of making it through the disaster as a couple. He reached over and put his hand on her shoulder. With a loving pat he said, “I love you . . . my sweet potato.”

Bonnie looked up and smiled, but her smile immediately turned to a laugh. Soon they were both laughing uncontrollably. With the tension in the truck released, Bonnie resumed her navigational duties once Pete cleared the Turner’s long gravel driveway. After closing the gate, Pete drove north on the frontage road. Bonnie informed him that they were about twelve miles from the I-35 split, which meant they would either have to get back on the freeway, or find an alternate road that ran parallel to the interstate’s western most path.

Once again alert and focused on the road, Pete drove while Bonnie listed and described the different routes they could take around the split. They were near their halfway point of the trip, but Pete wasn’t sure they could, or even should, continue their drive. He never thought they could make the trip in one day, but it was always a matter of where to rest. It was getting late, and he wondered why he didn’t just choose to crash at the Turner’s place for the night. They would have allowed it, but he didn’t think about it then, and he wasn’t about to turn around, not now, not after Bonnie so completely attached herself to the Turner’s predicament.
No
, thought Pete.
It was best to distance themselves from the Turner’s as far as possible before they stopped for the night
.

“You can stay on the access road all the way to exit 364,” said Bonnie, after a yawn. “That will put us near Hillsboro. From there we have a couple of choices. We can take 81 and go through Hillsboro to the west, and then take 171 northwest toward Cleburn, or we can stay on I-35W after the split. Either way, there are several cross-roads that connect I-35W to 171,” said Bonnie, and yawned again.

Pete was impressed with her knack for navigation. What Bonnie lacked in tactical skill, she made up for with brains and common sense. Like Pete, she was intuitive when it came to a sense of direction, but Pete was more willing to trust his intuition than Bonnie was.
Then again
, thought Pete,
Bonnie never had to trust her intuition
. Pete learned to trust his in combat. When being shot at by an unseen enemy, he was more likely to trust his intuition than not. He found that whenever logic failed him, intuition always came to his rescue. “Did you happen to see what mile-marker we just passed?” asked Pete.

“It was 356, which means we’re about ten miles from the I-35 split,” she answered confidently.

“There’s hardly anybody on the frontage road, so let’s stay put until we approach Hillsboro. We can decide what to do from there. Hey, do you see what’s going on in the construction lanes?”

“The construction lanes?” asked Bonnie.

“Yeah, the new lanes they’re working on in the middle of the freeway,” said Pete.

“No, I didn’t. Why? What’s going on?”

“I’ll stop at the next rise and let you see for yourself,” answered Pete. When he reached the next overpass, Pete pulled over and parked the truck. He turned off the engine, checked his pistol, and said, “Follow me. I want to show you something.”

Bonnie followed Pete up to the middle of the overpass. She joined him when he stopped against the middle of the south-side railing. What looked like the middle lanes of the interstate was actually the
future southbound lanes of I-35. It was newly constructed, so the surface was still unpainted, but it was almost entirely filled with human traffic. Hundreds of people walked south, down the length of the barricaded lanes, as if they were going to work in some distant big city. Bonnie gasped in surprise and asked, “Where did all those people come from?” She leaned over the rail to get a better look at the line of people as they disappeared in the dark gray distance. The occasional flashlight bobbed along, but for the most part, the headlights from passing cars illuminated the pedestrian procession.

“Most of them are probably walking because their cars stopped working,” said Pete, “but who knows.”

“Why are they all heading south?”

“Remember, we talked about this already. They’re probably heading south to get away from the ash,” replied Pete. Bonnie turned and started walking to the north side of the overpass, but Pete grabbed her arm, and said, “Stay on this side, Bonnie. I don’t want those people seeing us up here.” Bonnie nodded and returned to Pete’s side.

“It’s scary, Pete. It looks like that scene in that war movie, Band of Brothers. You know the one. It was the part where the captured German Soldiers were walking down the middle of the autobahn,” said Bonnie.

“Yes. I know the scene you’re talking about, Bon. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

They returned to the truck and resumed their drive north. They also noticed more stalled cars and trucks parked along the side of the freeway. They were lined up to fill every available shoulder space, and where they could, they were also lined up in the center divider. “Do you think all those cars and trucks are broken down?” asked Bonnie.

“I don’t know, but I bet a large portion of them died from ash inhalation,” said Pete. “We’d be on the side of the road too if we didn’t clean our air filter.”

“I’m surprised more people don’t know how to do that,” said Bonnie.

“Me too, but I’m betting not all of them are stopped because of the ash. I’m sure some of them ran out of gas, or are resting, or who knows what. Some people might just be waiting for the traffic to clear up. They’re probably living in their cars until the conditions improve,” replied Pete.

“That’s pretty scary,” said Bonnie.” I’m beginning to think we made a big mistake leaving our house.”

Pete looked at her and turned his head to watch the road. He wanted to be careful in how he formed his response to Bonnie’s statement. “Staying home might have worked for a week or two, but after that we most likely would have been trapped. From that point forward, Fort Hood would have been our only option.”

“Is that so bad? You used to like being on Fort Hood.”

“Bonnie, I didn’t have a choice, it was my place of duty. It’s not like that anymore. Look, from here on out every unexplored option is going to look really good to you. You’re going to question every possibility. Practically everything you imagine will seem better than what you’re currently doing, but I assure you . . . no, I promise you, that I will always have your best interests at heart. You may not be happy right now, but I’m looking down range. What seems like a good and safe location today doesn’t mean it will be that way tomorrow. It’s the same for the Turner’s. It’s the same for everyone. Sometimes staying put is a good idea, but sometimes moving is better. It just depends on how things present themselves.” Pete glanced at her and saw that she was looking out the passenger window. “Bonnie, my love, I know you think I’m talking down to you, but I’m not. This is hard for me too, but it’s harder when I think you don’t trust me.”

“You’re wrong, Pete, I do trust you. I’m just scared.”

“I’m scared too, but we can make it if we stick together. I’ll be honest with you though, things will probably get worse before they get better.”

“I’m beginning to see that,” answered Bonnie, as she continued to stare out the window.

Pete reached over and put his hand on her thigh. “I love you my sweet potato,” he cooed.

“Stop it, Pete. That’s retarded.”

“Really? I think it’s kind of cute. You really don’t like it?”

“Not when you use it to distract me,” replied Bonnie. “And it reminds me of the Turner’s. I still feel bad for them.”

“You shouldn’t, Bon. You can’t feel responsible for everyone, not now, not in these conditions. It will give you a nervous break-down. And I need you, Bonnie, more than you know. You’re the only one that really matters to me. Everyone else . . . everything else is only a means to an end.”

She turned to him with wet eyes, “Why now, Pete. Why’d all this happen now?”

“I don’t know, but I have a feeling John will know,” answered Pete, in a very matter-of-fact tone.

Pete decided to avoid the interstate split altogether, but he also didn’t want to deal with the potential chaos that was likely taking place in downtown Hillsboro, so he jumped back onto I-35 with a plan to exit as soon as they passed through to the north. The trip was only two exits, or about three miles of interstate driving, but it was the most tense and riveting portion of the drive thus far.

When Pete drove through Hillsboro, or at least the part of town that catered specifically to passing interstate motorists, he saw a madhouse. The power was out and everything dark, but the area was still very much alive. Several buildings were freely burning, with no sign of any firefighting effort. All but one of the gas stations was either burning, or had already been completely destroyed by fire. Several of the stores in the popular retail outlet mall, were also burning.