Richard Cox - House of the Rising Sun

The only way to survive an extinction-level event was to make decisions others would not. You had to be ruthless even if you were anything but. Still, the look on Skylar’s face when she proposed the trip left no room for negotiation. If Thomas had refused, her opinion of him would have never recovered. And he wanted her to like him. Partly because of who she was and partly because they might be stuck together for a very long time.

Now he was loading a cooler of food and drinks into the back seat of his Mustang. He’d already placed four plastic containers of gasoline in the trunk and tossed a Rand McNally North American street atlas onto the dash. The atlas was dated 1997. Its cover was falling off.

He kept thinking about Seth’s email and the address included at the bottom. 7702 S. Braden. Or 7720 S. Brandon. Or maybe some combination of the two. He couldn’t be sure and now there was no way to check. There was a Tulsa city map in the atlas, but it was too small to resolve residential streets and basically useless.

“You stocked up on everything except maps?” asked Skylar, who stood nearby, overseeing the operation.

“The atlas seemed good enough at the time. I didn’t think I’d be going anywhere for a while. And certainly nowhere specific.”

When he opened the garage door (manually, with an emergency release) the two of them walked outside to look at the southern sky. The smoke was a black and billowing mountain range on the horizon. He could smell the acrid odor of fire and even this far away there was a curtain of haze in the air. He wondered when he would wake up and realize all this was a terrible nightmare.

Finally, Thomas started the car and pulled into the driveway. Skylar had suggested driving with the top closed, but he wanted as much visibility as possible. He wondered if someone would hear the engine and walk outside to look, but no one did. Eventually Skylar climbed into the car and shut the door.

“This route looks the most direct,” he said, pointing at the atlas. “121 to 75, which goes straight north.”

He flipped pages from Texas to Oklahoma.

“But we’ll want to avoid towns as much as possible, so we should maybe take this turnpike.”

“Sounds good to me,” Skylar said.

They worked their way out of the neighborhood, toward State Route 121, navigating the same intersections as before. An increasing number of the stalled cars were abandoned, and the sidewalks were becoming crowded, as if people had given up on immediate rescue and were migrating toward permanent destinations. On the freeway they found rivers of more stranded drivers walking on shoulders and the median. Vehicle carcasses dotted the highway like slain buffalo. Thomas navigated them with care, gradually picking up speed. On the other side of the road, a couple of small motorcycles sped by in the opposite direction. People in the median craned their necks to watch. Others stared at Thomas and his own working vehicle. Once again Skylar had hidden herself behind sunglasses.

“I feel like I’m living in your screenplay,” she said. “This is exactly how you described it. It’s fucking weird.”

During every minute since the new star appeared, as it became more and more likely a real-life pulse had occurred, Thomas ignored any relationship the event bore to his screenplay… partly because he’d been consumed with getting them home safely, but also because conflating such a horrific event with his own work felt wildly self-indulgent. Still, it was impossible not to see a connection between today’s events and the plot of Thomas World, in which his fictional doppelgänger had written a story that became reality. Even spookier was the presence of Skylar herself, an actress who was here to discuss The Pulse, who landed minutes before a real pulse paralyzed the world.

But weird as that all was, how much did it matter right now? Whatever had caused the pulse seemed less important than how they chose to react to it.

“Pretty strange,” he eventually said.

Ahead, a highway interchanged loomed. According to a big green sign, the entrance to Highway 75 was gained by driving onto a high, curving access ramp. But from here it looked like cars were stalled directly in front of the ramp’s entrance.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it,” Skylar said.

“Sure we will. See that gap on the left?”

There had been an accident between a white BMW SUV and a silver Honda Accord. From what Thomas could tell, the BMW had abruptly veered away from the ramp and collided with the Accord. Both cars appeared empty.

“I don’t think you’re going to make it,” said Skylar.

“Yes, there’s plenty of—”

“No, there isn’t!”

“Jesus Christ, would you please—”

He interrupted himself by slamming on the brakes. A man, muscled arms raised, had emerged from behind the BMW and stepped directly into their path. His eyes were wild and panicked.

“Help!” he yelled. “Can you help us?”

“What’s the problem?” Thomas replied.

“We were on our way to Durant,” the man said, “when our car broke down.”

He gestured to his wife, a petite blonde who emerged slowly from behind the SUV.

“We tried to call Triple-A but our phones don’t work, either. What the hell is going on?”

“I’m not sure,” Thomas said, and gestured toward the new star. “But it probably has to do with that.”

“We live in Frisco,” the man said. “We have no way of getting back. It’s hot and my wife is pregnant and we need to get home. Will you take us?”

The man was moving slowly toward them and continued to block their path. His wife wasn’t following, though, and didn’t look very pregnant.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “We have an emergency. Frisco is the other way and we don’t have time to go back.”

“No one else has come along! You can’t leave us stranded here!”

“Everyone is in the same boat,” Thomas said, and made a sweeping gesture toward the road. “None of these cars are working.”

“Yours is! Why is yours working?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because it’s old?”

“You’re going to help us,” the man said. His voice was so distraught it was nearly a moan. “Or I’m not letting you pass.”

“So you want me to run you over?”

“Kevin!” the wife said. “Get out of their way!”

“He won’t run me over. It would leave a big dent in his fancy car.”

“You’re right,” Thomas agreed. He reached beneath the seat and retrieved a handgun he’d stowed for this very reason. “I’ll shoot you instead.”

At the sight of the gun, Kevin’s face drained of color and his hands shot back into the air.

“Kevin!” the wife yelled. “For the love of god get out of their way!”

“All I want is a ride for my wife and you’d rather shoot me?”

“All we want is to be left alone,” Thomas replied.

Kevin stood there for a moment longer, his hands still in the air, and then moved aside.

“Farther,” Thomas said, and motioned with the gun. “Give us plenty of room to pass.”

Kevin obliged, and when he was a safe distance away, his wife rushed to his side and put her arms around him.

“You’re horrible!” Kevin yelled as they slid past. Despite Skylar’s prediction, they squeezed through the opening with several inches to spare.

“Just an awful human being! You should be ashamed of yourself!”

Thomas ignored this and pushed his car forward, climbing the long, curving entrance ramp toward Highway 75 and beyond.

The new road was many lanes wide and offered more room to steer between stalled vehicles, which meant Thomas could drive faster. Some of the cars were still occupied, but by now most people seemed to have given up hope of immediate rescue. The Mustang’s engine could surely be heard approaching from far away, and everyone watched them closely as they drove past. Thomas couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with anyone.