Ryan Westfield - Getting Out

Max felt better with the caffeine, and he felt better getting out of the densely populated suburban areas. He congratulated himself again for not taking a job in the city. Who knew what kind of hellish fate awaited the people stuck in the cities. Maybe they’d already turned into one huge angry chaotic mob, fighting each other to the death. And in a week or two? They might be eating each other. It wasn’t a joke. Max had read about the Donner party, and that rugby team that had crashed landed. Sooner or later, when humans ran out of food, they started eating each other. Usually they had the decency to wait until they were dead, but not always. Sometimes necessity dictated that someone be killed, or a lot of people be killed.

The road was in good condition. Max was able to easily swerve around the occasional pothole. The trees were thick and tall, creating a blanket of intense darkness on either side of them. The road was straight in parts for long stretches, with an occasional section of dense curves. At another time, Max would relish this type of driving. He still loved the feeling of shifting gears in the Jeep, his foot on the clutch applying just the right amount of force. He loved the feeling of the engine connected directly to the wheels as he downshifted into a curve.

“Does he just smoke pot?” said Mandy, breaking the silence.

“Huh?” said Max.

Chad snored on in the backseat.

“I mean does he do other drugs?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“If he does harder stuff, he might go into withdrawal… I’ve seen it before at work. One of the girls was sniffing coke in the bathroom. Then once on one shift, the manager had some stomach problems and was in the bathroom the whole time. It was busy, and she couldn’t sneak off anywhere else. By the end of the shift, she was going nuts, screaming at customers and everything. I guess she was addicted pretty badly…”

“Where did you work?” said Max.

“It was at some Thai restaurant,” said Mandy.

“Well,” said Max. “I don’t know, honestly. I haven’t talked to him in years. In the past, it was mostly pot and alcohol, with the occasional pill. I think he was pretty into ecstasy for a while.”

“Oh, well that’s not addictive.”

“You sound like you know from personal experience.”

“Maybe,” said Mandy. “That’s all in my past now. I mean… yeah… in my past.”

“Good,” said Max, simply. The truth was, her past didn’t matter to him now. Most of the past didn’t matter. This was a new start. Everything would be new. The future was what mattered now, if there was a future to be had, that is.

“Anyway,” said Mandy. “Even if he’s just a really heavy drinker, he’s going to go into withdrawal.”

Max shrugged, even though Mandy couldn’t see his gesture in the darkness. “He’ll just have to deal with it,” said Max.

“It might not be that easy.”

They continued to drive in silence. Mandy turned her flashlight on, and Max had to tell her to put it on the lowest setting. It was just one candlepower, but it was enough that she could study the map. She was poring over it, really trying to understand it.

“Now we have a choice coming up,” said Mandy. “There’s a town about ten miles up ahead. A small town. Population 1,200, if the back of the atlas is right.”

“Probably about right,” said Max.

“We can go through the town,” said Mandy. “Or we can go around it.”

“Around it,” said Max.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. I mean, like you’re always saying… the less populated an area, the safer we’ll be, right?”

“Yup,” said Max. “We’re going around it.”

“OK, but here’s the thing,” said Mandy. “If we go around it, we’re adding at least three hours to our trip.”

“Three hours? Are you sure.”

“Something like that,” said Mandy. “Maybe more, actually.”

“Damnit,” said Max. “We can’t afford to lose that much fuel.”

“I thought you had the extra gas in the back.”

“I do, but that’s just about enough to get us there. We can’t count on the gas stations working.”

“That’s what I figured, but I thought you had enough.”

“I do… But we’ve got all this gear. We’ve got two more people than I’d counted on. And that takes up gas. And Chad counts as two. If we have to take another detour later on… No, we can’t do it. We’re going through the town.”

“But what about that mob we rescued Chad from?”

“We?” said Max.

Mandy didn’t answer.

“I thought it sounded like you were trying to convince me to go around the town.”

“I don’t know what to do,” said Mandy. “You make the decision. It’s your car.”

“We’re going through it,” said Max. “Maybe everyone will be asleep.”

“It’s probably just a couple buildings off of the road anyway,” said Mandy. “I bet we’ll just drive right through it.”

“What’s this town named anyway?” said Max.

“Marxburg,” said Mandy.

“Never heard of it,” said Max.

They drove on. The ten miles went quickly. They only had the sound of Chad’s intense snoring to keep them company.

Max rolled his window down partially and let the cool air flow over him. It felt good and kept him awake. He wasn’t exactly anxious, but perhaps a little preoccupied with what might happen in the town.

They’d climbed up one of those short Pennsylvania “mountains” which in other areas of the country would be considered nothing more than large hills.

They were on the descent when they spotted the town. Max had the car in neutral, and they were gaining momentum on the straight downward stretch of road. He put the car into fourth to engine brake, and then third, and then second. He didn’t want to be going too fast through the town.

“Shit,” said Max.

“What’s happening?” said Chad, suddenly waking up and sounding startled.

“They’ve got something in the road,” said Mandy.

Indeed they did. There was something in the road all right, but Max didn’t have any idea what it was. From this distance, it just looked like a pile of crap stacked up in the road.

“What the hell?” said Max.

He applied the brakes and slowed the Jeep down even more.

As they got closer, they could see more clearly what was in front of them. It really was a huge pile of junk that had been piled in the middle of the road. It looked like a rudimentary road block, or a shield behind which soldiers would hide in battle. It was made of old couches, chairs, dining room tables, cardboard boxes, all manner of things.

“Can we go through it?” said Mandy.

Max stopped the car about a hundred meters in front of the big pile of junk.

“Just blast through it, man,” said Chad, who immediately started coughing intensely after he spoke.

“I don’t think we can go through it,” said Max. He studied the pile carefully. It turned out that it wasn’t just made of furniture. There were some steel rods that ran through the structure. Max couldn’t tell how it was constructed, but he figured the thing had a steel skeleton. “Whoever made this didn’t want cars to go through it. If we try, I think they’ll already have some kind of plan in place for that.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Don’t move a muscle, or I won’t hesitate to put one right through your skull,” came a stranger’s voice from outside the car.

Max moved only his eyes. In his peripheral vision, he could just barely make out a man standing next to the driver’s side door.

Slowly, the man moved closer. He moved his gun until the cold metal muzzle was pressed again the side of Max’s head.

Max didn’t dare even open his mouth to speak.