'Til Death Do Us Part

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mike Journal Entry 9

“What the fuck is that?” I asked, but not really to John. He was sleeping, and hard if the line of drool extending down his chin was to be used as an indicator. Down off the highway was a truck rest area, replete with a service station and greasy spoon restaurant. That was not the interesting part. Had I known just how close I was to Eliza, I would have just whipped a U-turn and headed to parts unknown. The truck stop was full, I mean packed with trucks.

The owners of this particular spot had probably never seen so many customers at any one time, and my bet was they weren’t even around to enjoy it anymore. The place was bustling, and for some unfathomable reason I had to see why—never quite understood that need in me to be exposed to unnecessary risks. I pulled the car off the highway and down a slight embankment that was actually a little steeper than I had figured. I looked to my right and back up the incline wondering if the Gremlin was going to have enough power or traction to get us back on the roadway.

“One issue at a time,” I told my non-multitasking self. I then looked over at John, ‘take him?’ or ‘don’t take him?’ I ran through the question a good half dozen times, the majority of reasons why I would take him revolved around the fact of leaving someone sleeping by the side of the road was just kind of shitty. And if he awoke, would he know what was going on? Or where he was? If he started ambling around, I’d never find him. Taking him into a possible hostile situation was no bargain either.

“Fuck,” I moaned, there was no good answer unless I just started the car back up and drove off, no harm, no foul. I got out of the car quietly, making sure I pocketed the keys; John driving off without me would not be good. A gust of wind pulled the door from my hand, the door slammed shut. I silently cursed and peeked my head in through the window. John hadn’t stirred, if anything, it looked like he had settled down even more.

“Last chance, Talbot,” I said aloud. Although the moment I pulled over, I had made my mind up. “Why do you do this shit? Who else is gonna? Comforting,” I said, finishing my dialog off.

I walked down the rest of the embankment, then went through a couple of feet of sparse scrub brush and came to a six-foot high wooden fence. “I hate fences.” I said, thinking about the jump down from the top that was going to cause some serious pain in my football, Marine Corps damaged knees. I was pleasantly surprised when I landed on the other side and was not rewarded with the all familiar twinge of cartilage and ligaments past their prime. I attributed it to the lost weight, somehow subconsciously avoiding the fact that I was now enhanced. Not sure how I kept forgetting that, I guess it was a fail-safe system.

I came out behind the service station effectively blocked from all the truckers who were out front. Things sounded normal enough; there was laughter and banter among them, but I still was not feeling secure enough to just stroll on up, especially how I was dressed.

“Shit, I look like a male prostitute,” I said, looking down at my outfit. “Wonderful, a pair of roller skates and I’d be perfect.”

I thought about blending in, but not like this. Then I was dealt a hand that I had to take advantage of.

“I’ll be right back,” one of the men yelled. “I’m gonna take a piss.”

It sounded like he was coming up the far side of the building. I slowly moved along the length of the building to the side I heard the man calling from. I quickly peeked my head around the corner; luckily he had his head down as he was approaching me while diligently working on opening his fly.

“Must really have to go,” I said.

He was approaching a small blue dumpster about midway along the wall. He turned with his back to me so that he could urinate on the trash collector. It was twenty feet from me to him, then what? He hadn’t done anything that necessitated me killing him.

“Act first, think later,” I said as I started running towards him. He either had a sixth sense, or I wasn’t as stealthy as I had hoped. He turned when I was no more than a few feet away, as he turned warm urine traveled up my leg it was almost enough to stop me in my tracks.

“What the fuck, man?” he said, one hand still holding his penis, the other coming up in a defensive gesture.

I caught him with a right cross that I’m fairly certain cracked his jaw. His eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed. I swear I would have caught him as he was going down, but he was still pissing. Luckily he crumbled more than falling forward or backward so the impact as his head hit the ground wasn’t quite as traumatic. At this point I still felt like shit, the man hadn’t done anything more than need to relieve himself at an inopportune time. Who knew I might have just smacked the shit out of a sainted brain surgeon. Odds were that I hadn’t, but still.

He had one leg bent back behind him, but for the most part he was lying on his back. His penis was still doing what he had been in the act of before I so rudely interrupted. It looked like one of those old bubblers from my youth in school, the ones that were always running before we figured out that wasting a precious commodity like water wasn’t such a good idea. Although, even way back then, before the germ-a-phobia truly set in, I would never have drank anything that rusty looking. I wasn’t thrilled that he was getting all his clothes, which I needed, wet.

“Fuck, dude, when’s the last time you took a pit stop?” I asked him as he just kept going and going. It was looking like he had downed two huge Slurpees and a carafe of coffee. I couldn’t wait any longer or he would completely soak his clothes. I quickly pulled his shirt over his head, undid his boots, and pulled his pants down, thankful that he had already done the majority of the work.

I took a couple of deep breaths as I assessed just how sopped his clothes were. And still he was going, I was wondering if he had somehow sprung a leak. I knew I was stalling, how much of a rush would you be in to put on someone else’s piss soaked clothes? Yeah didn’t think so. I still had to get moving, a dumpster pretty much screamed, PEE HERE, to a man. Soon, someone else would come, and for a second that sounded like a good idea, but this time I would knock his ass out before he started to go.

“Shit,” I mumbled. I could hear voices, I couldn’t tell if they were getting closer but I couldn’t risk it. My snake-draining buddy seemed to finally be closing in on empty. I waited a few seconds more as the normally shaken droplets made their way down his side, then I unceremoniously picked him up under his shoulders and dumped him into the trash. I was happy there were at least a few bags at the bottom; somewhat so he wouldn’t get hurt further, but mostly so his body wouldn’t make a large ‘bonging’ sound as he hit bottom.

The man’s shirt was the traditional gas station attendant blue button down, it even had his name embroidered on it—that was actually not a good thing for me. What were the odds that there were two ‘Horatios’ in this convoy? And I’m sorry, but who the fuck names their kid Horatio? His childhood must have been a blast. I put his shirt on, not buttoning it for exactly three reasons. First, because I hoped that leaving it open would obscure his name; second, because the bottom front of it was soaked and this way I could keep it mostly off myself; and third, but far from least, I was betting that Horatio’s nickname was ‘Stretch.’ I couldn’t have buttoned the thing up if I had wanted to.

There was a good four inches of gap between button hole and button. I looked down at the pants; my guess was they were going to be as equally ill-fitting. It was sort of a blessing, because as long as they stayed unbuttoned it kept the majority of wet material off of me, but what were the fucking odds that I would waylay a six-foot-two man that had the waist and chest of a twelve-year-old girl? I thought about pulling him out of the dumpster so I could smack him one more time. He was actually making me regret giving up my jean shorts. I was as low on body fat as I had ever been in my life, yet this man’s pants still made me feel like I needed to join Jenny Craig. I knew I was in for a world class struggle when I felt them tugging on my calves.

By the time I pulled them up over my ass, I had lost enough circulation in my lower extremities to be of concern. I could only take air in small, measured doses. The zipper moved maybe one or two teeth up and that was it, the gap between the button and button hole for the pants could not be bridged. I had a couple of things going for me, apparently ‘Stretch’ had also been losing weight and these pants were ‘pre’ zombie invasion. He had, at some point, needed to get a belt and luckily it was more my sized as opposed to his. The belt would hide a fair amount of my skin showing, plus, his shirt had that front part that hangs down so you can tuck them in. I have no idea what that’s called but as long as no Marilyn Monroe-type breezes started, I might be alright. Although running was out of the question, I felt like Morticia from the Addams Family.

You want to know what the kicker was? This was how I figured out that God has a sense of humor. The guy had a baseball cap which was great, I didn’t dare take off my Eliza-screening tin foil hat, but I couldn’t imagine walking out in the midst of all those truckers wearing it either. I grabbed the guy’s cap, even more reluctant to put it on than the urine-infused clothes—the familiar, dreaded, loathed, hated ‘NY’ logo of the New York Yankees stared back at me with contempt. This was about the last straw; I almost said ‘fuck it.’ There ain’t nothing worth donning that thing. The only thing that wasn’t small on Stretch was his damn hat, the guy had a head the size of a watermelon, and of course he had a non-adjustable, fitted hat, why wouldn’t he? At least it would safely cover the foil, and the foil would act as a barrier to whatever diseases a Yankee fan was apt to carry.

“Forgive me, Ted,” I said, alluding to the Great One, Ted Williams, as I pulled the damn thing over my head. Odds were, if I looked hard enough, Bucky ‘Fucking’ Dent probably signed it. The only thing that saved the whole thing was his boots; I could finally rid myself of Stephanie-the-Amazonian woman’s shoes. He had boots that, while a little bigger than I needed at ten-and-a-half, would still suit me nicely.

“Here goes nothing,” I said as I stepped out from behind the dumpster. A big man easily double my size was heading my way, his clothes would have made it look like I was swimming in them. It still would have been preferable. He did not look at me as he walked past, that’s a traditional male custom, if we are within a few moments of grasping our members we do not make eye contact with males of our species. Not entirely sure why; maybe it has something to do with a small dose of homophobia or, more than likely, it’s just an intimate moment of sweet release that we do not wish to share with others.

I rounded the corner of the gas station and realized that I’d never had need to worry. There were so many truckers that it was easy to get lost in the crowd. Now what genius? I berated myself. I was there for some reason. I just had no clue what for. I circled around, catching snippets of conversations, but never really joining any of them.

“...then she said that it smelled like shit on Astroturf and I....”

“...hauling nuclear waste and dumping it on the south side of the Grand C...”

“...some eyeliner and panty hose it feels great...”

What? The guy looked like a professional wrestler and he was telling a group of five other men. I must have missed a fair amount of that conversation. I was glad I had slowed down enough to listen a little bit to the Randy Savage lookalike. I had changed direction just enough until I came upon what had to be Horatio’s rig. I’d love to say that it was because of my extraordinary detective skills, but the giant, red rig had Horatio’s Highway Haulers emblazoned in two-foot high lettering across the entire trailer—even I couldn’t have missed it. I walked up to it as if I owned it, which according to the keys that were jabbing me through my front pocket only confirmed that suspicion.

“What are the odds his last name, MY last name is Hornblower?” I asked. It was worse: Heimerdinger. “You’re kidding right?” I asked as I ran my hand over the pin striping. Horatio ‘Slight’ Heimerdinger. How many times can a kid get beat up? I hoped he didn’t have a riding partner as I stepped up on to the running board and opened the door. Well, I had to give it to ‘Slight’, he ran a tidy ship. I looked around the entire cab. It was gorgeous, then it dawned on me that I really should take it…Horatio would want me to.

“Who are you?” a voice asked tremulously, I almost fell backwards out the door.

“Department of Transportation,” I said, recovering quickly. “Doing a vehicle inspection, I’ll only be a moment.”

“Where’s Slight?” the female voice asked.

“Umm cursory dumpster inspection,” I answered. It was all I could think of on short notice.

“Why are you wearing his clothes?”

I was starting to get a little flustered that I had been so blatantly caught. I did the only thing I knew how to do, I went on the offensive. I was turning towards the sleeper portion of the cab as I was talking. “Is there a reason why you feel the need to ask so many damn questions?” Then I gasped. A young woman, more like a girl was handcuffed to a handhold. “Shit…are you alright?” I asked going back towards her. I stopped when she flinched.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“I guess I’m the guy that’s coming to save you. Do you know where the key is for those things?” I asked, pointing to her restrictive jewelry.

She was eyeing me distrustfully. “How do I know that?”

“Do you think I would be willingly wearing clothes that were three full sizes too small?”

“The cuff key is on his key ring,” she told me.

“This key ring?” I said as I tried to fish them out of my pocket, but the pants were so tight that I couldn’t even fit two fingers in to try and pull them out.

“You might want to hurry.”

“I’m trying, it’s like they’re super glued in place.”

“Horatio is on his way back.”

“Are you precognitive?” I asked.

“What? No.” She thrust her chin towards the front windshield. Horatio was surrounded by three or four other truckers. He was trying to talk, but his shattered jaw was making it difficult. However, his slender legs seemed to work just fine as a growing throng was heading our way.

“Turn away,” I told the girl, she again eyed me suspiciously but did as I asked. I undid my belt and rolled the top of my pants down so that I could get to the pocket. I ripped the pocket completely free and the keys plopped into my hand. I quickly rolled the pants back up as best I could and fumbled around until I got her cuffs off.

She rubbed her raw wrists. I saw her looking at the passenger door.

“I won’t stop you. Would you have a chance out there?”

She shook her head ‘no’. “You a trucker?” she asked.

“I’ve driven before.”

“On a scale of one to ten, ten meaning you could qualify as an Ice Road Trucker and one meaning you like to pull on the horn, how would you rate your skill level?”

“Six maybe seven,” I stretched.

She looked at me long and hard.

“Four.”

“Really?”

“Three and a half.”

“Move over,” she told me.

“What are you like fifteen?”

“Twenty and I’ve had my CDL for two years.”

I moved over.

Horatio and his growing throng started moving a little quicker when they noticed the twin stacks on his rig begin to blow smoke as my new traveling partner started the engine. I had no clue how she was going to get the truck out of the massive parking lot. I would have had a hard time with my jeep. There were people, gear, and trucks all over the place. She really didn’t care as she turned the big wheel and began to navigate us out of there taking out the occasional cooler or grill, a tent or two and maybe a few small cars, it was too difficult to tell as I kept my hand over my face a fair amount of the time.

“Well I could have done that,” I told her as she smashed a small Geo against the front of one of the trucks.

She gave me the finger.

I heard a shot or two and ducked down accordingly. My driver never did.

“Warning shots,” she sneered. “They wouldn’t dare shoot me.”

“And me?” I asked.

“You’d probably be better off ducking.”

“Who are you?”

“I don’t think you want to know.”

“Are you an IRS agent?” I asked her.

“What? What’s the matter with you?” she asked. The cab was bouncing around with the truck hitting its fair share of things as we approached the exit.

“Are they going to chase us?” I asked as I looked in the side mirror.

“Oh, I would imagine to the ends of the earth.”

I turned to look at her.

“Glad you got involved?” she asked, looking over quickly and smiling.

I smiled back weakly.

“Oh they’ll chase me, mister.”

“Mike,” I told her.

She paused for a moment and stole a quick glance at me before she spoke again. “Okay, Mike, they’ll chase me…but not yet. You’re safe for the moment. I’ll drop you off when it’s safe and you can go about your merry little way.”

“Who will chase you exactly?” I asked, a pit of suspicion beginning to form in my stomach.

“Listen, the less you know, the better off you are,” she said to me.

“Wow, that’s usually my line.”

She again looked over at me—this time a little longer as we had finally found our way out of the station. She was right; we did not have any company…at least for the time being.

“Listen, I came here with someone, I left him sleeping by the side of the road.”

She looked at me incredulously. “He’s sleeping while you’re navigating your way through enemy territory looking like your blind momma dressed you?”

“Once you meet him you’ll understand.”

I directed her to where John was. He was still snoozing deeply when we pulled up. The girl—I guess young woman—helped me to put him up in the cab and finally the sleeper in the back. The truckers at the rest stop were watching us but none were in pursuit. I could only think of one person (I mean thing) that could put that much fear into people that they wouldn’t even act.

I went with the direct approach. “What’s your involvement with Eliza?”

The truck which had just started rolling came to a quick halt. “Did you hear the trucker’s talking about her?”

So my suspicion was confirmed. I could have done without that little affirmation. “Let’s just say I’ve had my own encounters with her.”

“Mike…as in Michael Talbot?” she asked. “Well, I can see by your reaction I got that right. She believes you’re dead.”

“Oh, if I had a nickel for every time someone thought I was dead, I’d have a quarter.”

“You really are Mike?”

“One and the same.”

She looked disappointed. “I expected more,” she said as she got the truck rolling again.

‘Well fuck you, too!’ I wanted to say. “Who just got your ass out of that jam?” I asked in defense.

“Me.”

“Okay, you drove. Who gave you the ability to do that?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry, let’s start over. My name is Azile,” she said as she stuck her hand out for me to shake. I gave it a couple of pumps before she had to use it to shift gears. “We heading to Maine?”

“Are all those trucks heading there?”

She nodded tersely.

“Shit, Philly first.”

“Are you sure?”

“I promised John back there that I’d look for his wife.”

“You love your family?” she asked.

“What kind of question is that?” I asked hotly.

“Eliza and her band of idiots are heading there soon. I would think that you would want to do all in your power to get there first and help them.”

“I promised John. Philly is on the way, she’s there or she isn’t.”

“You know what the odds of her being alive are.”

“I do, that still doesn’t negate the promise I made to him.”

“Is your moral compass always stuck tight in the upright position?”

“Yeah, it’s a character flaw for sure.”

“Fine, we’ll do it your way.”

“Are we going as fast as this rig can go?” I asked Azile.

“As much as I want to push it.”

“That’ll have to do.” I held the offending Yankees hat out my window. I was hoping the wind would shred it, no such luck. Now I had to hope that, as I released it into the wild, that a pack of hyenas would stumble across it, tear it up and eat it and then crap it out over an active geyser, or volcano—either would work in this scenario. Then I pulled my hand with the cap back in. As much as I dreaded the hat, it still beat out the tin-foil, not by much mind you, but it was close. “Shit,” I muttered as I put the damn thing back on.

We had been driving a couple of hours. Azile and I had not spoken at all. The concern I felt for my family was placing a giant pit in my stomach. I was delaying getting to them on nothing more than the pipedream of a man who had long ago lost the majority of his reasoning abilities to a wide variety of recreational drug use. We were passing a fair number of abandoned cars, and more than once, I thought about telling Azile to let me off so that I could get one and go.

I kept turning around to the slumbering form of John. He may have tried to kill me a couple of times, but he saved me a couple of times too. I owed it to him to keep the promise I had given. And I didn’t trust Azile to do it, there was something about the woman I could not put my finger on. She played a part in the drama for sure, but whether it was a cameo, supporting, or starring role was yet to be determined. I thought I had enough of a bead on her that if I left her to her own devices she would kick John out shortly after I left and would then be on her own merry little way to parts unknown.

I could hear John moving about behind us. He sat up and stretched. “When’d we put a bed in the Gremlin, Mike?” he asked, looking over at me. “And who’s the girl?” he stage-whispered.

“Her name is Azile and we’re in a tractor trailer now,” I told him. I was concerned it might freak him out a little, I needn’t have been. He scooted up so that he was sitting at the edge of the bed almost between me and Azile.

“This is much better than the car,” he said, never once asking how our driver came into the picture or how we came to be in the truck.

“We’re about an hour out of Philadelphia,” I told him. He didn’t say anything, but his hands wrapped tight around the lip of the bed. “It’ll be alright, Trip, we’ll find her.”

Azile chose that very moment to let loose with a heavy sigh as if the whole event was an exercise in futility.

I shot her a glance that she completely ignored.

“What are we hauling?” John asked, possibly as a way to avoid Azile’s negativity if he noticed at all.

“I honestly don’t know,” I said, looking over to Azile.

“Don’t look at me, I’ve been a prisoner for longer than I can remember.”

I thought that was a strange response but I didn’t ask for her to elaborate. Now I was really curious as to what we were hauling also.

The truck began to slow down and finally came to a halt.

“Go check,” Azile said to me.

I had my hand on the door and had just opened it, I could hear John coming up behind me, he was curious too.

“Relax, I won’t leave without you.” She said smiling.

“That really doesn’t make me feel any better. If you were the type of person to leave us stranded, you sure wouldn’t care about a little lie to make it happen,” I told her.

“You’re probably right,” she said as she looked at her side view mirror. “Why don’t you go check before someone decides to see who we are?”

“Wow, man, she’s a mean one. Where’d you find her?” John asked me as he stepped down.

“You do know you’re less than six feet from her,” I told him.

“Do you think she heard me?” John asked in all seriousness; in response, Azile bleated the horn.

“Probably not,” I told him.

“Good,” he said as we walked to the back of the rig.

I kept looking for something to hold onto if she did decide to leave. There wasn’t anything I would trust life or limb to. I stared long and hard at those rear doors. I was remembering what Eliza liked to put in her trucks.

“What’re we doing out here?” John asked.

That was about all the catalyst I needed to get moving. I placed my hand on the latch, John had moved closer. “Hey, Trip, why don’t you move back a little. If any of the funky people are in here, run back up to the cab.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked as he took a couple of steps backwards.

“I’ll be right behind you.” I was thinking we were safe, I didn’t hear anything moving back there…unless they were packed so tightly that they couldn’t move which meant they would start spilling out the moment I opened the door. But the bigger piece that had me pretty convinced we were safe was I didn’t smell anything either. If there were that many zombies this close, the stink would have had a physical presence.

“Ready?” I asked John.

“Hurry up back there, will you!” Azile shouted.

I pulled the latch upwards and pulled the door back.

“Holy shit!” I yelled.