The Great Wreck by Jack Stewart

“Ah,
nothing like a family road trip,” I said to Nicky and put the Bronco into gear
but Nicky was looking out ahead of the Ford up the street, “What’s up?”
                “Look at
those people,” she said pointing down the road.
                I looked
to where she was pointing and saw a group of people about a quarter mile away coming
around the corner.
                Behind
me, Tony pulled himself up to take a look, “What is that? Some type of protest
maybe?”
                I
watched as they slowly walked around the street and towards us spilling over
the road onto the sidewalks and lawns, “I don’t   think that’s a protest,” I said watching the way they shuffled along,
almost as if they were drugged or something. Suddenly, they all stopped en
masse and turned to our right looking at something off to the east.
                “Whoa,
that’s wired,” I said then nearly jumped out of my skin as a few of them began
screaming at the top of their lungs and racing off down the street away from
us. The others followed and soon the whole crowd of people went running away
leaving the street empty again.
                “Do you
think they were infected?” Tony said.
                “I don’t
know. Maybe. Why would they act like that?”
                “I don’t
know, Casey, but it’s time to go,” Tony said. I nodded, put the Bronco in gear,
and headed west.
                We
followed Unser boulevard south along the western outskirts of the city avoiding
the highway as long as we could. We drove slowly along turning right and left
making our way west until we hit 98 th street and had no choice but
to get on I-40 to get out of the city. I drove up the onramp and onto the
freeway right into a large military checkpoint. Fuck. I had been hoping to
avoid any of these until we were out of the city but it looked like the
military had other ideas.
                “Just
stay cool everybody,” I heard Tony say form the back seat, “It’s not like
they’re looking for drugs, right?”
                Given
the nervous tone in his voice, I wondered how many bags of dope Tony had
stashed in his back pack as I rolled down my window to talk to a kid only a few
years out of his teens holding a very large, fully automatic weapon, and
looking very nervous. I spotted the officer insignia on his lapels and said,
“Hi Officer, how can I help you?”
                “You can
get me the fuck out of here, mister,” he said with a jittery laugh and twitched
his gun up and down. He must be hopped up on something, I thought and hoped the
safety of his rifle was on.
                “I’d ask
you to join us, but we are crammed full,” I said knowing everyone in the car
was glaring at me.
                “I
appreciate it mister, but deserters are being shot on site and without
question. See that gentleman sitting on top of the tank, behind that big old
.50 caliber machine gun?” he said pointing back behind him, “He sees me get in
this here care and he puts one, two, maybe ten big old bullets into me and
probably into a few of your friends too, so I’ll take my chances here. Where
you folks headed?” he said looking in the windows of the Bronco.
                “Heading
for the hills. Mount Taylor to be exact.”
                “The
hills, huh? Good choice, the city won’t last much longer. Mount Taylor in
state? They’re not letting anyone cross state boarders until the epidemic is
contained.”
                “Yep.
Just two hours from here, just outside of Grants,” I said and pulled out a map
showing him where Grants was.
                “Grants,
yeah, OK,” he said looking over my map. It was then I realized he wasn’t hopped
up on anything, he was just scared shitless, literally shaking in his boots,
“Any of you infected in there?”