Broken Horizon 4

When the world is running down, You make the best of what's still around

The last of the fuel squeaked out of the nozzle and Maria threw it down in disgust. “Hijo de la Chingada!”

I measured the markers and let out a slow whistle. “Hey chica, that it?”

“Unless you can piss octane as good as you talk it, si. Nothin’ but vapors down there.”

Godammit. Third station this week, and from the well reserves beneath the pumps we only got a third of a tank. Looks like everyone else beat us to the punch weeks ago. I fucking hate being on the short bus.

Severs came out from behind the stationhouse. I looked up as he approached. “Anything?”

He shook his head. “Cleaned to the bone, even the cough medicine.”

“Any water?”

“Only the spigot, and I wouldn’t trust the shit coming out of that.”

I spat out the chew I had been working on for the past hour and walked over to the edge of the parking lot to light up. Severs followed me, leaving Maria with Evie. “This spell of bad luck don’t change soon, we’re gonna have to resort to means I don’t like to think about.” He said.

“Yeah, I hear you” I replied “Thing is, we got real limited options. Way I see it, this ready-fire-aim tactic is great for a quickie solution, but sucks ass for the long term. We need a better plan than just “Heading South””.

“I’m open to suggestions”

I looked around at the dense treeline “Where the fuck are we, exactly?”

Severs grabbed the military map from the Hummer and I retraced our route, trying to approximate our location. Things had really changed since the nuclear fuck up, and cartography was damn near impossible.

Severs studied the map over my shoulder for a few moments. “Nevada, still…Close to the Lunar Crater, I’m sure.”

“Anything there you can think of?”

“weellp, not at the crater, ‘zacktly…but, uh, there is Nellis Air Force Base. It’s not very big, but we might get lucky.”

“Shit man, I’ll take anything at this point” I replied. Airplanes had been virtually nonexistent since the big bang. There wasn’t enough supplies to keep those fuel-guzzling bastards in the sky, and most of the Air Force had been assimilated into the Navy, of all things. Most of the military installations were either abandoned or evacuated, depending on how close they were to the microwave oven that was Maryland.

Which made them excellent resupply stations. And so far, the rest of the world largely unaware of it.

Maria, whose careful watch was crucial to our travel plans, reported no activity on the road, so we got back on the main drag at our blistering 30 Mph. Why not faster? Because that’s how you get real dead, real quick.

Just traveling on open road was difficult, sometimes deadly. Every day brought new curveballs. Barricades were erected to reroute the unwary traveler into a snare. Roads had been hidden, or destroyed completely. Small communities, fearful of roving gangs, had laid booby traps along the highways and frontage roads. That’s not including the nomadic gangs that were growing exponentially every week. We had to travel at greatly reduced speeds, sometimes leaving the main highways altogether if we wanted to stay alive.

Christ himself didn’t endure this much shit on his way to Cavalry.

*************************************************************

“Hey there! I’m Charsi. I’m the ambassador for Brookhaven.”

About two miles from the base we had spotted her on the side of the road, a girl in a pair of shorts and a halter top. 14 years old, if she was a day. Okay. Just when I thought life could not possibly get weirder.

Thanks, God.

“Say what?” Even Severs was stunned “Listen kid, what the tango are you doing out here?”

“And what the fuck is a Brookhaven?” I interjected.

“Brookhaven is a trading post, not far from here. I’m the rep...rep’sentive of Brookhaven!” She beamed at getting this last part out. “You were heading to the base, right? Well, it’s empty. Nothin’ there now but old buildings and chairs. We got the last of it months ago.”

“And where is Brookhaven?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. But if you want to trade, we got gas.”

“You have gas??”

“Uh-huh. Lots of it.”

“Umm, no offense Charsi, but a little girl like yourself should be more careful about who she talks to these days. What’s to stop us from just keeping you in exchange for gas?”

Charsi smiled and held up her index finger. At first, I thought she was going to list the reasons in numerical order, when a red dot appeared on her head. The dot moved slowly, from Charsi to the window, window to my hand, hand to my crotch.

Charsi offered a sympathetic look, raising an eyebrow.

Uh. Yeah. Got it. Question answered.

I put on my best smile while Severs scanned the treeline as best he could with both hands on the wheel. “I’m very happy to meet you Charsi, and would be delighted to hear your negotiations for fuel.”

“Nego-what?” Charsi was clearly the product of a backwoods education.

“Nebbermind. Take me to your leader. We need some gas.”

Charsi smiled again and held up all five fingers in the air.

*************************************************************

The trade center was a few hundred yards into the base, and Charsi had been right: It was stripped clean. We stopped the Hummer in the middle of a large garage converted to handle various sized vehicles, with oil drums, hand pumps and a pump house across the quad. There were signs of recent activity, tire tracks from motorcycles, boxes stacked against the north wall. Several men loitered around various strategic positions in the garage. All were heavily armed.

“Hey there. Name’s Dillon, these are my boys. Where you palefaces from?” A lanky Mexican with an easy smile attached to what looked like a Browning 16-gauge approached us.

“Colorado, the hard way. Looking for clear skies and big waves.” Severs swung from the drivers seat and rounded the front of the Hummer. I backed him up from the left, one hand on the Baretta on my hip and the other on my HK barrel slung around my back. Maria stayed put in the Hummer, a brace of small handguns directly in front of her, mounted beneath the dash.

Dillon laughed and shook his head. “It’s a long way to surf city from here, but we can trade you the boards for when you get there.”

“Just getting there would be good.” Severs said. “I was led to believe you could lend a hand with that.”

“You need fuels? Sure, man. Got some of the finest in high grade octane here.”

“I find that a tad strange, considering most of America has no way of producing gasoline anymore.” I said.

“Walp, that’s as may be, but as any ‘shine runner will tell you: Alcohol is alcohol, son. It runs a lotta things in a lotta ways.”

I suddenly realized what he was saying.

“You mean…We can drink it?”

Dillon laughed at this “I sure as hell wouldn’t recommend it, the alcohol level is lethal. But your truck can.”

Well, fuck me for a grapefruit. Backwoods stills were now our chief source of fuel. The white lightning of irony.

“Whyn’t you folks take a look at our trade list, and then we can talk.” One of the men nearby produced a clipboard with handwritten notes describing surplus, prices and availability.

We considered the list. Gas, obviously. Some dried food preserves looked good. Certain vegetables we could cook a few days later. Smokes. Ammo kits. Military surplus. They even had some honest-to-God baby food. We made a grocery list and presented it to one of the guys assigned to us. Three hours of haggling later, and it was bad news all around: We were broke. All we could offer was weaponry.

Dillon scratched his head at this. “I’m sorry boys and girls, but we got us plenty of guns. What we need is medical supplies, antibiotics, shit like that.”

“We don’t have it” I replied “Haven’t seen anything like that in a weeks.”

Dillon shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I would suppose our trade is done then. You can’t afford our gas.”

Severs tilted his head slightly, so only I would catch it: This won’t do.

I rolled the dice a bit. “I suppose we could just take it.”

“I suppose you could just try.” They weren’t cowed by our hardware, which meant they had something in reserve we couldn’t see. They looked confident, but the ace of fully automatic weapons was too good a card not to play. I got ready to give Dillon a little test, see how far he was willing to take this charade.

“Hey, wait a second.”

Maria, who never spoke in the presence of others & only rarely to us, sidled up to Dillon, to the obvious leader of the group. “You been out here a spell on your own, huh?” She leaned her rifle against a drum barrel and took off her shirt, letting her dark brown breasts jut out in the open air. Dillon’s eyes popped wide, and several jaws hit the ground, mine included. “I have something we can offer in trade. Fill our tanks and reserves, and you and I will have a little chat. Maybe you bring a friend, what do you say?”

Just like that. I mean, she had no shame at all about it. None. I couldn’t believe it.

“Fuck a bunch of that” I shouted, bringing the group back on alert, raising their weapons. I ratcheted a round into my HK UMP to show I meant business. “Get your asses out of my way, before you die of lead poisoning.” I heard Severs heat up the M-80 mounted on the Hummer & knew he had my back.

Dillon didn’t move, but the other six guns suddenly went from holstered to pointed directly at me. I aimed straight at Dillon’s forehead, the unspoken promise that HE would die first, no matter what else happened here.

“Robbie!” Maria shot me a look that said I better be listening “Lower the guns, si? We are doing business with these people. We gonna do some trade and take off.”

I couldn’t believe everyone was just so nonchalant about it. “You don’t have to do this, Maria.”

“I know. I want to. We got something better to trade? We need the gas.” She took Dillon’s hand and started off towards the house. “Get the pumps going. I assume I can trust you vatos to handle that, at least.”

Most of the assembled congregation looked nervously from one side to the other, apprehensive of a fight.

Severs broke the ice and pulled me away. “She knows what she’s doin’ boy. Let’s get to work.” He pushed me in the direction of the Hummer while Maria and Dillon walked away. I glanced nervously at them, but Severs grabbed the back of my neck and twisted my head forward. “That way, troop. We gotta get some fuels”.

Did I mention he was built like a brick shithouse yet?

We filled the tanks and the reserve cans under armed guard. I’ll admit, I hadn’t gone very far in making myself appear trustworthy, so I don’t blame them for the twitchyness. It took us a little under 30 minutes to cap off, with Maria nowhere in sight when we were done. I was starting to get antsy.

“Should we do something?” I murmured.

“Nope. They’re gonna finish up, and Maria will join us shortly.” Severs still had a slight smile on his face “Look around, fagboy: You see any pussy here? It’s just Dillon and his swinging dick patrol. Maybe they have some women back at wherever Brookhaven is, but I bet they’re in real short supply. Likely kept for whoever the current El Jefe’ is.”

Sev pulled out a smoke from our newly bargained stash, lit up and took a long pull. “Right now, they’re probably so desperate for some ass they’d give us twice what we got. Real shame we ain’t got the pull to haul it.”

Maria rounded the pump shed and approached the Hummer, fully clothed. At first I thought she was being held at gunpoint from somewhere, but as she got closer I realized she was just tying her hair back.

Her face looked red and slightly swollen. The gossamer outline of a palm print on her cheeks. She had taken some hits. I stood directly in front of her, forcing her to stop and look at me. She glanced into my eyes briefly, and smiled. “Bien. Nothing I can’t handle” she whispered. Maria peered around me at Severs “How’s things?” she called.

“Ready when you are, Mamacita.” He replied.

*************************************************************

Two hours later and I still couldn’t let it go for some reason. Don’t ask me why, but I felt…Responsible, somehow. Like it was my fault Maria had to whore herself out for a tank of gas. Severs had to listen to use fight for several miles.

“…where you get off passing judgment on ME, asshole!” Maria was livid “I’ve seen you put a casual bullet into a few people the past two weeks and not lose any sleep about it!”

“Is that what you’re going to tell your daughter when she gets older?” I temporized.

Maria looked at me with her jaw agape. “Evie’s not my kid. Why would you think she is? I don’t want to accuse you of being real big on brains, but didn’t you notice her blond hair? What the fuck you thinking, gringo?”

I blinked at her. “Well, I just figured…”

“You figured wrong, pendejo” she laughed, “That bastardo degenerado who took me had Evie with him already when I arrived. He was using her for sex until he got me. He was going to kill her soon anyway, since food was becoming scarce. That’s when I met you vatos.” Maria shook her head and laughed. “Man, it’s so hard for me to tell who’s the brains of this outfit.”

I started to retort something equally scathing and racist, when a small hole plinked open in the Hummer’s windshield and Severs’ right shoulder jinked back against the seat. Blood began to pour out of the hole in his shirt, and his right arm fell limp into his lap. The Hummer careened off the path and into a small rock formation about half it’s height, slamming all of us into the dashboard or steering column, since none of us wore seatbelts.

I opened the door and fell to the ground in a red haze, snorting dust for a few seconds while trying to get my bearings. I could vaguely hear Maria trying moving around in the Hummer, the report of an M4 Carbine in a short burst, and then glass showering around my face.

Who the fuck was shooting at us?