Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
Why did their van stop in the middle of the road? Why are three men traveling in a minivan? Surely they would have found something better. Why can’t one of them change a flat tire? Why are they well fed? Why are they uninjured? What the fuck are they doing all the way out here? I look at the man approaching me. No, I’m not having this. Fool me once. I’ve been a sucker one too many times. I put the truck in gear and feel the vehicle launch forward.
The man tries to step out of the way, but I smash the front of the truck right into him, plowing him over and charging at the other two who quickly flee the area, but only after I take out the minivan, crumpling it and throwing it aside as I press the truck to its limits. I can hear knocking on the back of the truck where bullets are hitting the sides. I don’t care, it doesn’t mean a thing to me. I keep driving, putting this tiny little speck on the map behind me. They can bury their friends and think about that sucker they almost had. As for me, I keep pushing toward that Promised Land.
I only stop when I pass over a bridge and look at the glorious sign that reads: A1A.
I pass by a place that looks like dolphins have thrown up all over it, or a giant loveable dolphin exploded into a billion different dolphins and plastered its little pieces all over the displays, signs, and attractions. In great big words, it has MARINELAND written over the entrance, but I barely notice it. The parking lot is mostly empty and there’s not a single person to be seen in the dilapidated, abandoned place. This place has seen a year of hurricanes, storms, and hell that hasn’t been touched by the concerned hands of men. It all looks like it’s gone to hell. I want to just drive past it, but I have to stop. I pull over toward the side of the road, smashing into a convertible that is brimming with trash and debris that has been caught in it over the year.
Throwing open the door, I stumble onto the sidewalk, past a tipped over shopping cart, and tangle my fingers into the chain link fence before I bend over and vomit all over the pale brown sidewalk. Long, gooey strands of blood and phlegm hang from my lips as I look at the rest of it pooling at my feet. I’m breathing heavily, coughing and choking on the phlegmy blood, trying to get it all out before I strangle myself on it. I look at the blood, the red veil of death. I’m not going to make it. This is the end. I know that I’ve thought this a million times, but I don’t see myself surviving this one. This one is the genuine article. This one is the final hurrah. This is the grand finale.
Looking up, I stare at the amusement park where a blue dolphin is jumping into the air with a grin so large that it makes me want to punch it off of his bottle-nosed face. I never liked dolphins or the stupid boardwalk resorts that plague the east coast. I could handle the west coast. The west coast has a little more decency for their beaches, none of this attraction crap.
Tiffany and I went to Cannon Beach in Oregon a long time ago, driving from Seattle down to San Diego. It had been a fantastic trip. We rented a car in Seattle after flying in. It had been a red convertible, more money that we should have spent on it, but I had just published my first book and it was time to enjoy each other for a while. I remember stopping in Cannon Beach and the two of us ate clam chowder on the deck of this beautiful little restaurant overlooking the sterling beach and the deep, royal waters of the Pacific. The Oregon waters were freezing, but damn they were beautiful. I remember wanting to buy a house there so that we could eat saltwater taffy and clam chowder for the rest of our days, watching tourists and laughing at how annoying they were.
“Those were good days,” I whisper to the abandoned dolphin. He looks at me with his ridiculous fiberglass eyes. He doesn’t give a shit. Just like me, everyone has abandoned him. The only difference is that he can’t move.
Behind him, the gray, dark waters of the Atlantic roll. It’s poisoned. It’s dying just like the rest of the world. I see what I think is a whole pod of whales on the shore, their skin hanging over the bones, everything else rotting away. But the water, that is still there. No matter what happens to us, the waters still endure. They will always endure. I look at the waters and feel a sense of envy for them, eternal and emotionless, the aquatic stoic. Lindsay got me thinking, or
I
got me thinking, not sure what it is. But if God is real, I hope that he’s like the ocean. I hope that he doesn’t hate us and he doesn’t love us. I hope that he just is. Like the ocean, I hope that he ebbs and flows, letting us do our little thing, ignoring us because we are insignificant.
I turn around and head for the truck, passing Tiffany, reaching out for her ghost but not feeling her. My God, I want to feel her embrace again. I want to hug her and cry into her shoulder, gleeful and so happy to finally get the rest that I so desperately want. She looks at me with her emotional eyes, pleading with me to give in. I want to, so badly. I want to give in, but not yet. I can’t give in. If there’s a chance that I can survive, then I’m going to have to take it, for the girls. Always for the girls.
The engine is still rumbling and I step on the gas, shoving the convertible along for a little while before hitting another car and letting it rip off and slide down the side of the truck. I keep on the A1A for a while, driving slower and taking in the sights. I’m shaking. I’m not sure if it’s from the shock or the excitement that I’m finally so close. Maybe it’s both, and I’m fine with that. I’m going to see my girls and I am so ready for it. I am so ready to hold them again and to kiss them. I’m ready to have my moment of victory. I’m ready to have my Promised Land.
It isn’t long until I see the house I’m looking for. It’s tucked back off the road, perched atop a sandy hill that was probably green with long grass once upon a time. It’s blocky and built three stories high. At first I’m not sure that it’s a house. It looks like a very modern, futuristic conglomeration of buildings stuffed together. All the blocks are painted a different color. One is dark brown, another is red, and the third is dark blue. It’s such a strange configuration, but the first floor looks like it’s entirely surrounded by windows. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. All around the building, there are fortifications that I can see from the road. They’ve been hard at work in their time out here. It looks like they’ve built an entire palisade around the hill. There are bodies speared on some of the wooden and metal poles. Zombies.
I pull in on the gravel and sandy path that leads up toward the hill and beyond it, the water, looking to see if there is anyone there. The long grass surrounding the overlook and the hill has withered and died a long time ago. Nothing decorates the lawn but rock, sand, and trash. There’s a gate that they’ve built to keep outsiders at bay, but it’s open, which makes me nervous. Are they still here?
Continuing through the gate, I pass a Jeep and two pickups before I stop on an overlook that stares directly out over the ocean, and I feel a sense of pride. I’m here. I made it. My hand is trembling on the steering wheel before I kill the engine and watch the ocean for a second. My girls are just a few more steps away. Reaching up, I wipe the blood from my lips. God, I hope that there’s a doctor. I want to see them, to be with them, I want to have them for a little while longer. I want to survive and see what they do in the coming world. For the first time, I have the opportunity to really live, rather than just survive, and I want it so badly. I look up the concrete and wooden steps hewn into the hill and feel a sense of terror.
It’s now or never. I slowly reach for the door handle and push open the gate to the fence, feeling the cold air washing off the ocean. The house is up on a hill that looks mostly like a sand dune, but obviously it isn’t. It’s something that looks incredibly modern, but given the current circumstances of the world falling apart and the beach being cluttered with debris and muck, it looks pretty terrible. But I do have confidence that once upon a time, this house was a very fancy, well to do place. Most of the walls look like windows and there’s nothing cozy about it, like all the other houses that I’ve been passing. I step out onto the gravel and sand, looking out at the ocean.
Even as it is right now, a dingy gray and brown, it’s still one of the most beautiful things that I’ve ever seen. A ship has run aground up the beach, but there’s something open and pristine about this area. It makes me want to stop and watch the sun rise tomorrow. It makes me want to have faith that the good old days might come back. For all its murky hideousness, it makes me think of Jason and his beautiful fiancée. They were the people to trust in. Not them specifically, since I murdered them, but people like them. There was hope in tomorrow and the ocean reminds me of that. It has been here for hundreds of millions of years, yet it endures. This is just a sad chapter in our history, but brighter days will come. The ocean gives me faith in that. I know that there’s hope to still be had. My hand is trembling and I can feel my head quivering from the shock.
My body is a mess. I’ve really done it now. I slowly close the door and take in a deep breath of sea air. There are footprints everywhere and the house looks pretty heavily fortified. They’re still here, or at least they were a while ago. I’m not sure that there’s anyone here at the moment. I was expecting the house to look so different. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around it.
“Stop right there,” the watchman shouts. The steps wind back and forth up the hill to the wooden deck where the man is standing with his rifle pointed straight at me, center mass. It’s the kind of shot that will put another bullet in me that I won’t get up from. I won’t be able to pull that one out of me with some pliers and a spoon. Whoever he is, he’s armed well. He’s got riot gear that he must have stripped from one of the military outfits, either a convoy or at one of the refugee encampments. I suppose it doesn’t matter where he got the gear, all that matters is that he has it and I’m not sure he’s the kind of guy that my girls would be associating themselves with, especially now.
I hold up my hand and stump. “My name is Charles Duwain,” I shout up at the watchman.
“I don’t give a shit, asshole!” the watchman shouts back.
Another man appears next to him. This man looks like he’s wearing SWAT tactical equipment and I’m afraid that I have stumbled into the wrong compound. Part of me wants to call up and ask them if there’s a house full of college students just down the beach a little ways, maybe they’re neighbors. I decide that remaining silent is probably the best move I can make right now.
“Where are the others?” the Second Man shouts down.
“I don’t know, I’m alone,” I shout up at him. “Are Lexi and Val Duwain here? I’m their father.”
“Say one more god damn word and you’re dead, mother fucker,” the Watchman shouts at me at the top of his lungs. “What don’t you get about that, shit bird?”
Shit bird? That’s one that I haven’t heard for a while. I look at the two men, who strike me as the kind of men who shoot first and ask questions later. Maybe they need a sign of good favor. I listen as they mutter and mumble to each other. The ocean breeze picks up and there’s no way I can make out a single thing that they’re saying. The Second Man disappears and I’m left with Captain Trigger-Happy.
“I’ve got water, gas, and a truck full of MREs if you’re interested,” I say to the man. “I’m just looking for my daughters and I was told that they’re here.”
“I don’t give a shit who your daughters are,” the Watchman shouts again at me. “You say another god damn word and I’m going to put a bullet in your chest. You understand, asshole? Or do I need to speak slower?”
So close. I look at the man and feel what little blood I still have in my body start to boil. I’m so close my girls and I can’t get to them because this son of a bitch won’t listen to me. I wish I had my flare gun. I should have taken it out of the glove box. Then I could have shot this asshole in the face and found my girls later.
Truthfully, I can see why he’s so nervous. I’ve been through my own fair share of adversity and trials over the past months. I’ve seen things that have made me paranoid, hateful, and cruel. I ran over a man because I thought he might be trying to trick me and rob me. I’ve burnt an entire city down all around my enemies, killing an unknown number of innocents. Well, innocents might have been the wrong word for them, but if anyone understands, it’s that guy. I know the fear that plagues the hearts of men.
Suddenly, I can hear footsteps up on the deck and know that there are a lot of people out of sight. The Second Man approaches the railing with the Watchman. He’s taken off his helmet and is sporting a very messy comb-over. He looks down at me for a second.
“What did you say your name was, old man?” the Second Man shouts at me, climbing back down from the deck.
Old man? Fuck you, kid. I’m not old
. I can feel my blood boiling even more. If I was sweating, steam would be coming off my skin right now.
“Moses,” I shout with a sarcastic grin on my face. They’re not here. I understand now. I understand completely. I’ve made a mistake. Somewhere I made a mistake. The girls aren’t here. They’re at another house, but it looks like I’m not getting out of here. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll pass out and wake up again with this whole place infested with Zombies. “Look, I have food and water. Clearly, I’m at the wrong house. I’ll give you some of my supplies and I’ll be on my way. Just get that gun off of me.” I take a step toward the back of the truck, giving the Watchman an excellent opportunity to open fire on me. Grabbing the bullet-shredded flap, I throw it back to show them just how much I have and can share with them. That’s when I hear the gunshot.
The bullet knocks me against the truck with a loud bang and I feel the warmth spilling out over my chest. Fuck. It’s all I can think of right now as I slowly slide down the truck, feeling the warmth of the blood on my back as well. The asshole shot me. He really fucking shot me. My ass hits the sandy gravel and I look up at the deck. The Second Man is shoving the Watchman, shouting at him while a dozen people rush down the stairs. I can hear screams all around me and I hold up my hand.
I’m unarmed. Don’t hurt me. I’m unarmed, you assholes.
I can feel hands clawing all over me and I’m suddenly on my back, but I’m not lying on the ground. They’re carrying me. I look up and see that Tiffany is one of the people carrying me. No, not Tiffany. I’m dying. I’m imagining things.
“Lexi?” I mumble.
“I’m here, Daddy.” I feel her hand on my face and my heart fills with warmth. I can feel the tears burning in my eyelids, welling up, and my whole body shakes. I reach up and take her wrist, holding her and crying like the day she was born, sobbing in joy and absolute delight. Fuck it. Fuck it all. I made it. I made it to my Promised Land. I look at Lexi and feel them carrying me up the stairs. “Daddy, stay with us,” she orders me with a stern voice. There are tears in her eyes. “Make some room, damn it!” she screams angrily at everyone around her.