Michael Bunker - WICK

Calvin shrugged and smiled at the older man. “I have no doubt. I just hope I can find gas between here and there.”

“Well, that’s just the thing. Your man and me, we’re gonna set you up with a couple of stops along the way that’ll take care of your needs in that regard. This thing has been outfitted with a twenty-gallon tank, and I’m going to put as many gas cans as I can muster in the bed, covered by a tarp. That’ll get you as far as, maybe, Memphis.” He pointed to the running boards along the pickup’s short bed. “Now, those things there might get you into trouble. If you run into anyone on the road, don’t let ’em get close enough to jump in the back using those things. I’ve turned the rotors and replaced all the pads so the brakes shouldn’t give you any trouble, but you’ll have to be awful certain that you don’t get into any wrecks or stop too soon. If you do…,” he brought his hands up into fists and splayed his fingers and then his hands out in a slow-motion pantomime… “Poof.”

“I got ya.”

“Now look here, Calvin. You’re not gonna wanna to stop for nothin’, right? There are bad folks out there and they ain’t as nice as you are. You gotta get this package to your man’s folks up in P.A.” The way he said that made Calvin smile… peeyay . “There are people that’ll try to stop you just for something to divert themselves. Once you hit that road, you put your ears back and go. You hear what I’m tellin’ you?” Calvin nodded. He understood that it was an important mission that he’d been entrusted with, and he was glad to do it.

“Believe me, this truck is gonna be the fanciest thing on the road. Everything else out there… all those automobiles that were dependent on a centralized electric nervous system… they’ve recently met with their death—powered down for the last time. However, the ol’ dog here, she’s in her prime. Even with the springs pokin’ up through the seat cushions, you’re gonna be ridin’ on a gold mine. That’s the reason I’ve kept her around for all these years.” He ran his hand along the rusted fender as lovingly as a mother might stroke the hair of her child. “That, and the fact that my granddaddy drove it, and he didn’t leave my dad much besides it. Then my dad left it to me.” He paused, his mind gone elsewhere, and then came back to himself. “So anyhow, son, now I’m leaving it to you. You take care of her and she’ll take care of you.” The older man placed his hand on the young orphan’s shoulder, this boy whom he’d come to know and love as if he were his own son.

Calvin gulped. He didn’t much like displays of emotion, even if it was coming from the man who’d largely raised him. He was about to blush, and he could feel it, when he became aware of the sound of a screen door slamming over near the main house and the crunch of footsteps walking on the gravel across the yard toward the garage. He heard the radio wind down to the chorus, as a Tribe Called Quest rapped about how they were buggin’ out. He saw the pretty, young face of the girl he’d come to think of as his sister as it rounded the corner into the open doorway. She stood silhouetted in the frame of light, cleared her throat, and told him that Jonathan Wall was standing in the kitchen and wanted to talk to him.

Stephen sat in the dark and listened to his mother breathing. Ever since they’d heard someone try to break into their bunker early that morning, his mother had been a bundle of nerves, but he’d finally convinced her to lie down and take a nap while he continued to prepare things for their escape.

They would take a couple of bikes, some sets of the hazmat gear, and as much food and water as they could haul with them. They’d carry whatever they could load onto their backs and onto the bikes and still be able to ride safely and swiftly. The plan was to take their gear and flee southward, out of the city. They both admitted that it was a crazy gambit, but what else could they do?

While inspecting the place, Stephen’s mother had discovered that the bunker had an open airway at the back of the storeroom, a small pipe that lead somewhere that they couldn’t figure. That fact made their plan to shelter there as bad as being outside, because, who knew if that airway was filtered, or—even if it was—if the filtration system even worked?

“We need to get as far away from here as we can get,” she’d said. “This place won’t do us any good against what I fear is coming. And worse, if someone with a little more sense or a better tool than a shoulder tries to break down the door, we’re sitting ducks.”

“I understand,” Stephen had said, “but why isn’t this place built better? Why would somebody go to the trouble of building a bunker that doesn’t protect you from the very thing it’s supposed to?”

“Peace of mind, Stephen. Or marketing. Back during the cold war, there were people getting rich building facilities that they sold to people based on their fears. They’d weave a swell story, tell the people how only they could fix a problem, and then they’d come in and throw up some half-designed thing that would seem to the uninformed to suit their needs. Most people just want to think they are safe. That’s always true, Stephen. It doesn’t really matter whether they are actually safe or not. The same applies to a lot of the survival industry. Companies sell cheaply made goods that wouldn’t do what they were advertised to do even if the sellers had intended them to. A lot of them simply push products to make a buck. Castles in the air.” Veronica paused. She knew her rants sometimes disturbed the boy, so she got back to the point. “Of course, we don’t know if that happened here or not. Maybe that airway has a fallout filter on it and is perfectly fine. That’s just the point, boy, we don’t know. The airflow seems to be a bit too free for me to feel safe about it. Maybe it was just a design flaw, or a contingency plan, or something that, in all those years of lying dormant, got uncovered. Either way, this place is useless to us now because we can’t trus’ it. We’ll have to leave.”

Now they were just waiting for nightfall before venturing out, and his mother had finally drifted into a fitful sleep. Stephen had unpacked and repacked their bags, putting in the things his mother had laid out for him. He hummed to himself quietly while doing so, drumming his fingers on the tops of the boxes in the storeroom. He thought of his iPod and his CDs and his video games and wished he had a guitar and had learned to play it.

He listened to his mother breathing, and wondered how long it would be before he could live, once again, in a world of music like she lived in a world of art.

The campfire crackled when the log split open and tiny embers flew up into the air, rising on a small puff of wind and lifting toward heaven before burning themselves out and disappearing into small bits of ash.

Four men sat looking into the fire and calculating how much food they had left and how far it would take them. Three of the men had set out on their journey together, and they had a bond that seemed solidified by some past history, perhaps the commission of a crime, while the fourth had joined them by happenstance. It was clear from the tenor of the conversation that, despite their journey thus far, the fourth remained the odd man out.

“Mike, we need to pick up our pace if we are going to get out of these mountains before our food runs out,” Val said. Val was a hulking brute of a man, and gave off an air of one who ought not to be trifled with.

“Relax, Val. I know what I’m doing, and listen, try to use contractions more. For example, instead of ‘ifweare going to get out of these mountains,’ you’d say, “if we’re going to get out of these mountains.’ Americans use more contractions and speak more lazily and fluidly. You sound like a robot.” Mike looked at Val and didn’t quite smile. His eyes smiled, but did so with a hint of authority and superiority. He continued.