Doomsday

6. Semper Pi

As the man raised his rifle, Ben Thomas thrust his arm out the open window of his truck. The Double Eagle boomed and bucked twice, and the man, still wearing a lunatic grin on his lunatic face, melted to the asphalt. The hollow points made a mess of his head.

Ben looked at the dead drivers again. “Jesus,” he said under his breath. He shouldn’t be shocked, but he was. If his hitch in the Marines had taught him anything, it was to never put any cruelty past his fellow man. When he had been stationed in the Middle East, in the war that wasn’t a war, he’d seen things that churned his gut and twisted his soul.

The other lesson Ben had learned was that there were no limits to hate. In the name of hatred all manner of atrocities were committed. Beheadings, mutilations, castrations, blowing children to bits and pieces. It had disgusted him. It had changed him. When he had gotten back, his wife kept saying he wasn’t the same man. Hell, no, of course he wasn’t. But how could he explain? What could he tell her that would help her see the horror? Words weren’t enough. So Ben had drifted deeper inside himself and they had drifted further apart, until one day he had come home and found a note saying that she couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take his dark silences, his lack of humor, and the cold front he put on. Little did she realize, it wasn’t a front. Now, placing his pistol on the seat, Ben chugged around the knot of vehicles. He would be damned if he were staying there until the cops showed up. They’d haul him in for questioning. Even if they eventually let him go, it could cost him days he couldn’t spare.

There was barely enough room for Semper Fi to squeeze through the cars. He almost scraped her trailer on a building. Then he was past and he rumbled down the block to the next intersection. Ben had a long way to go to get out of the city. He was down by the bay, near the aquarium and Waterfront Park. He needed to get to 90 east. Either he got on Interstate 5 and took 5 to where it merged with 90, or he stuck to the back streets. He figured the interstate would be jammed with people fleeing the city, so the back streets it was.

Not five blocks later he regretted his decision. Fourth Avenue was bumper to bumper and the overflow was spilling into the side arteries as everyone and their grandmother sought to bypass the jam. Since he didn’t care to be boxed in, he wheeled into an alley and barreled down it. A Dumpster blocked his way, but Semper Fi knocked it aside with careless ease.

At the next street Ben turned. He wasn’t sure which one he was on but he was heading in the right direction. Now and then he glimpsed the bridge.

Ben switched on the radio to the all-news station. The announcer was saying something about a nuclear strike on San Diego. Ben only caught the tail end of the story. Then came an account of the Vatican going up in radioactive dust. China supposedly had declared war on the West.

Ben shook his head. He’d known it would come to something like this. The human race was that stupid. He wouldn’t put it past homo sapiens to totally wipe themselves out.

A stop sign necessitated tromping on the brakes. Ben craned his neck to scan the next street—and his passenger door abruptly flung open. Instantly, Ben had a Double Eagle in his hand. He pointed it, but didn’t shoot. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The girl looked to be all of sixteen. She wore scruffy clothes—scruffy by Ben’s standards, but then he was old school—and had pink streaks in her black hair. She wore a nose ring and at least ten earrings in one ear. Her eyes weren’t blue and they weren’t green but some sort of in-between. “I need a lift.”

“Not with me.”

“Come on, mister. I don’t own wheels, and I want out before it gets really bad.”

“No. Slam the door on your way down.”

“No, yourself.” Incredibly, the girl climbed in. She shut the door and clasped her hands on her lap.

“Ready when you are.”

“The hell,” Ben said. He didn’t know whether to laugh or be mad. “Don’t your ears work? Get your scrawny white ass out of my rig, and I mean now.”

“You better get going or we’ll get stuck here when it hits the fan.” She smiled and held out a hand. “I’m Space, by the way.”

“Space?” Ben repeated, despite himself.

“Yeah, I know. My real name is Geraldine, but I hate it. It’s bogus. My great-grandmother or someone had it so my mom decided to honor her by giving me the name. Lame, lame, lame. Anyway, when I was little, I was into stars and stuff. You know, astronomy. I liked it so much, my dad used to tease me and called me Spacey and somehow that got shortened to Space and here I am and here we are and you’re wasting time.”

“The hell,” Ben said again.

“Are you catching flies? You really need to get your act together. If you want me out you’ll have to throw me out, and I promise I’ll scream and kick.” Space reached out and tapped the Double Eagle.

“And either use this or stop waving it in my face. You look silly.” To Ben’s amazement, he lowered the pistol. “Listen, girl. I’m serious. I can’t take you with me.”

“Why not?” Space gazed about the cab. “It’s not as if you don’t have the room. Hell, this is the Ritz compared to some of the boxes I’ve slept in.”

“Boxes?”

“Why do you repeat everything I say? Yeah, boxes. I live on the street a lot. And when you have no money and you don’t want to sleep in the gutter, you find a box and crawl in. Boxes are everywhere. The big ones are comfortable enough, but the small ones are cramped. And some stink. And when it rains, well, a box ain’t for shit, know what I mean?”

“Damn, girl.”

“Can you please get this monster going? If a missile hits we’ll be fried and I so don’t want to go out as a piece of toast.”

“Where are your parents?”

Space sighed in exasperation. “I just told you I live on the street. Do you think if I had parents they’d let me do that?”

“Everyone has parents,” Ben persisted. “Either they’re dead or you’re a runaway or they threw you out because they couldn’t take the motormouth.”

Space had a nice grin. “Okay. You got me there. I run off at the mouth a lot. But it’s me, you know? I start talking and I can’t stop. There are worse things. Like starting to drink and you can’t stop. Or taking drugs and you can’t stop. Not that I haven’t never drank or never taken drugs, but I can stop both of them with no problem.”

Ben set the pistol down, close to his leg. “I must be nuts.”

“You’re taking me, then?” Space beamed and clapped and bounced up and down. “Super. I wasn’t sure if you’d be nice or if you’d be a perv. But I had to take the chance, you know.” Ben shifted into motion. He kept telling himself that if he had any sense he would throw her out. “Listen. I’ll take you as far as the city limits. After that you’re on your own.”

“Where are you headed?”

“I’m on a run. I have a delivery to make in Minnesota.”

“Isn’t that a city somewhere?”

“It’s a state. You’re thinking of Minneapolis, which is a city in Minnesota. Right next to St. Paul. They call them the Twin Cities.”

“Minnesota?” Space rolled it on her tongue as if tasting it. “Are the people there nice?”

“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you can forget it.” Space looked at him. “You’re nice. You’re trying to act all tough, but you’re giving me a lift out of Seattle out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Girl, I don’t know why in hell I’m doing this.” Ben was sincere. Ordinarily, he would open the door and give her a push. “I don’t like people much.”

“All people? Or just white folks?”

Ben and Semper Fi’s gears growled at the same time. “Don’t even try to lay that on me. I’m no bigot. I don’t hate whites just because they’re white. Although a lot of them hate me because I’m not.” He came to another intersection and wheeled to the left. “When I say I don’t like people, I mean all people. Black, white, red, yellow, polka-dot, you name it.”

“That’s harsh. You got a reason or is it you were born a grump and just got worse as you turned antique?”

“I’m thirty-four, girl. That’s hardly antique.”

“It’s more than twice as old as me,” Space said. Suddenly she pointed. “Look out!” Ben had taken his eyes off the street. He glanced ahead, swore, and hit the brakes, hard. Another traffic jam took up most of the next block. A policeman was moving among the vehicles, gesturing and giving orders, apparently trying to get everything moving.

“Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.”

“Not if I can help it.”

Another alley offered a way out. When the cop turned and started back the other way, Ben wasted no time in taking advantage of it. But he had barely nosed the truck in when he had to hit the brakes again. This time there wasn’t just one Dumpster; there were five.

“God doesn’t like you.”

Ben didn’t care if there were twenty. “God helps those who help themselves,” he retorted, and gave her a demonstration of why Semper Fi was the next best thing to a bulldozer. All the Dumpsters were on wheels, so it was easy enough. The first pushed the second and they pushed the third, but the fourth spun and lodged against a wall. An extra tamp on the gas pedal, a loud crunch, and Semper Fi was out of the alley with Dumpsters rolling every which way.

A horn blared, and a compact car went flying past, the driver shaking a fist in fury. “You made a friend there.”

“Hush.” Ben had traffic to contend with. He turned up the radio, hoping for a traffic report. Instead, there was a bulletin; Israel had unleashed more nukes on her enemies.

“Just like in the Bible,” Space said.

“Read it, have you?”

“Ouch. Is your middle name Sarcastic? That reminds me. What is your name?” Ben told her.

“Well, you got it right. I hardly ever read, period. But I had grandparents. And Grandmom never went anywhere without her Good Book. She read parts to me every night when she tucked me in. And one of the books, I think that’s what they call them, is about the stuff that’s going down right now. About the end of the world.”

“Not going to happen,” Ben said, checking his rearview mirrors.

“What isn’t?”

“What are we talking about? The end of the world, dope. It’ll be bad, but the world will go on.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you were an expert.”

“Two words, smartass. Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

“Who?”

“Don’t you know anything? World War Two? The cities we bombed. With atom bombs?”

“Oh.” Space nodded. “I’ve heard of them. I just didn’t remember what they were called.”

“I guess you didn’t hear that fifty years after the bombs were dropped, both cities were fine. The people were healthy, the parks had flowers and trees, the water was safe to drink.”

“So what are you saying? That we can bomb the hell out of the planet and fifty years from now things will be peachy?”

“Fifty. A hundred. I can’t say how long it’ll take.” Ben shrugged. “Look at the past. Look at all the volcanoes, all the earthquakes, all the wars. You name it. The world will recover. The world always recovers.”

“I wish I had your confidence.”

Ben concentrated on driving. He wanted to get on the Greenway as close to where it crossed to Mercer Island as possible, on the theory that he’d have less congestion to deal with. To the best of his memory, that meant taking 167 and merging. He worried that he would find one or the other impassable, but for once things went smoothly.

Space pressed her nose to her window. “Is that Lake Washington down there?”

“What else would it be? The Pacific Ocean?”

“I only asked, smartass, because water makes me nervous. I can’t swim.” Space tore her gaze from the scenic splendor and shuddered. “I’ve always had this secret fear that one day I’ll drown.” She held up a hand. “I know. I know. But I can’t help how I feel.”

“You can breathe easy. I’m not about to drive through the guardrail. My truck can’t swim, either.”

“Funny.”

Ben didn’t let himself relax until they were past Lake Sammamish. By then they were rolling along at the speed limit. The traffic was heavy but not as bad as in the city.

“Don’t we have mountains to go over?”

“There are a lot of mountains between here and Minnesota,” Ben answered. They had seventeen hundred miles to cover, give or take, across some of the most rugged terrain on the continent. World War Three was raging across the globe and all sorts of lunacy and mayhem were breaking out from one end of the United States to the other.

“You have a strange look on your face,” Space said. “What are you thinking about?”

“How much fun this is going to be.”