The Journey of St. Laurent, Chapter 30

Author’s note:

I have a million valid excuses for this being so late, but you don’t want to hear them. I’ll just say I’m terribly sorry.

For those of you who haven’t read any of the Journey Of St. Laurent before: You are now reading an online serial pulp novel. If you didn’t start at the beginning, you may want to do so. Chapter 1:  Down By The Bay. This serial is the sequel to my first novel, Oasis.

Chapter 30 – Not Much of a Plan

The gear had all been tossed into a bin underneath the back bench. We fished out the radio and flipped it on.

I didn’t think it was time for Alan’s show yet, and I had no idea what station he’d be on out here anyway so I just crawled the AM, FM, and shortwave bands on the little emergency radio my dad had given me.

After two trips through the dials I found something promising. And by promising I mean “likely to point me in the right direction,” not promising as in “destined to become one of my favorite shows.”

Anyway, the host said something about the only way to stop the aliens is to follow Alan Jex’s lead right now. He then shamed the president for being such a weakling, made some rude remarks about the president’s mother, berated the police and military for following orders and imposing martial law in the bigger cities, then went to a commercial break.

London winked at me. “Well, that guy’s a lot of fun. Tell me what you find out, I’m going to shower.”

After a spot for a gold buying company and one for a dehydrated food packet seller, the host tiraded back onto the air. It took a full twenty minutes before he got to the part I wanted to hear.

“Now is your chance to stand up with Alan Jex, that great American, against these sons of bitches aliens. He has issued a call to arms, and the first rally point is a tiny town called Linden, Tennessee. If you don’t do your best to get there, and soon, then you might as well just go to Virginia and piss on the graves of the founding fathers, because…”

Linden, Tennessee? I clicked off the radio. I’ve never even heard of Linden, Tennessee.

I sat back and stared out the window.

Trees and signs and the occasional cars whizzed by. The RV bounced, shook, and rattled its way down the road.

Was finding Jex and his sure-to-be-motley army the right thing to do? I couldn’t be sure. I did know that going into hiding was the wrong thing. The government had apparently made it clear they weren’t going to do anything to stop the aliens.

Jex’s group was sure to be outclassed in every way by the green men, but they were sure to be survivalists and militiamen who would fight down to the last man.

And I had possession of the thing that could equalize the playing field. It sat in a very messy cooler taken from a burning car.

A man made virus. One that spreads itself by killing the host’s brain and seizing control of its body. The virus controlled body would then go to any length to bite other living beings. The virus controlled body didn’t feel pain and didn’t rest. It was a relentless virus propagation machine. And Major Glover had assured me it works just as well on the aliens as on humans.

The problem is: once you have a weapon of such magnitude, do you use it?

What if the virus got out in the open? It could destroy human life on this continent, just like it wiped out pretty much everybody back in Oasis. Would I be willing to risk that?

A nagging voice in my head said that doing nothing would be the greater risk.

And there was the cure. Or maybe you could call it a sort of vaccination. A bacteria anyway, engineered to envelop and digest the virus. I had been injected by the bacteria back in Oasis before being infected and it had saved my life.

The problem with this bacterial cure is that I had no idea where any of it was, or what had happened to it. All of it had been left with the military.

I wondered how long the bacteria would survive inside my body.

My mind jumped around between these and about a dozen other points.

I must have drifted off again, because the next thing I knew the sun was much higher, I was drooling with my head on the backrest of the bench, and London was mussing up my hair.

“Wake up sleepyhead.”

“Where are we?” At least, that’s I thought I said. It may have come out more in mumbles.

London plopped down next to me. “What?”

I sat up straight, rubbed my eyes, and tried again. “Where are we?”

“Almost to lunch. There’s a campground just off the freeway up ahead. Dad thinks we can fill up the RV’s water tanks and stuff.”

London was wearing a torn up loose fitting pair of jeans and a black Styx t-shirt that looked like it might have been purchased on their very first tour.

“What are you staring at?”

I shook my head and looked around. “Nothing. Don’t you get the stares after waking up?”

“Whatever, so what did the crazy guy on the radio say?”

“Oh, apparently Alan Jex is rounding up anybody he can get in some dinky town I’ve never heard of. Does your dad have a road atlas?”

“So you are going to try to meet up?” London bit her lip and I could tell she was making an effort to keep her voice down. “Is everybody there going to be nuts like the guy you were listening to? And wasn’t Alan Jex the jerk that drove you off his radio show?”

“Yeah, he is-”

“So what are you going to do when you get there? Explain to me why it’s a good idea for you to go.”

“Well, I told you about the cooler.”

She folded her arms. “And are they going to know how to use it safely?”

“Probably no- I mean, I’m not really sure.”

“So if you’re not even sure it’s going to help, why are you going?”

“I’m not really sure where else to go.”

She filled her lungs, widened her eyes and shrugged. “Stay with us.”

I looked up at the cabin, but I couldn’t see her dad. Just her stepmother in the passenger’s seat nursing a bottle of beer.

She looked back at me, belched, and waved.

I faced London again.

“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think I’m going to fit in with your Dad and your stepmom.”

“And you are going to fit in with a pack of loner survivalist weirdos. Corbin, they’re a bunch of lunatics.”

“Okay, so that’s true, but still-”

“But still, what? You’d rather just be one of the first to go if the aliens attack again? I don’t see a reason why they wouldn’t.”

“I know things have gone off the deep end, but if they do keep going like this, it’s not going to be safe anywhere for long. And if I can do something to help, then-”

“Help? What are you going to help to do? Call down fire from a UFO like the last time you spoke with Alan?”

Ouch. That was below the belt. I gave myself a minute to respond.

“London, I don’t have a home to go home to anymore. I don’t have a job anymore. Pretty much everything I own has been stolen or destroyed. The only thing I really have right now is a way to hurt the aliens, and hurt them bad. That’s it. I don’t have anything else. What else-”

“You could have me.” A tear welled up and trickled down London’s face.

I didn’t have a response. Oh, great. What is she getting at? I was pretty sure she was just trying to play my emotions for the win. Knowing didn’t matter. It still took the fight out of most of my arguments. Even the good ones. “Really?”

London scrunched up her lips, turned her head, and shrugged.

I reached over and put my hand on hers. I had to play it carefully. If I was right and she was faking, I didn’t want to give her any more ammo to use against me by being too mushy. If I was wrong, though, and she really was opening herself up like that, well, if I wasn’t gentle she’d probably just throw me from the moving RV.

“London, of course I’d rather be with you. That isn’t even a question. It isn’t a matter of what I’d prefer to do. It’s a matter of doing what I believe is my duty.”

She pulled out her hand from under mine, spun, and slugged me in the arm. “Jackass. You really are that stubborn, aren’t you.”

“Pretty much.”

London looked up front and lowered her voice again. “Well, I can’t come with you. It’s too dangerous. Besides, Turleen’s already getting sloshed up there. Who knows where she even got the booze? Somebody has to trade off driving with my dad eventually.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to come and-”

“And why not? You don’t think I can be useful? I’ve already saved your butt-”

“No, that has nothing to do with- It’ because you’re with your- oh, forget it. Let’s just skip to the end and say you deserve to win the discussion, but I’m just too thick headed to see reason.”

She folded her arms again and bunched up her mouth. “Fine.”

We just stared at each other for a bit, unsure of what to do next.

She broke first. “I’ll see if dad’s got a road atlas.”

When we stopped to have our lunch of water and junk food snacks, I went over the map with Dan. He seemed relieved that he’d be dropping me off, rather than taking me for a longer time.

He’d drop me somewhere outside of Birmingham, which was as far out of his way as he was willing to go. I’d have to make my way North from there. If we pushed it, we’d be there by nightfall, and he’d stop to let everyone sleep before we parted ways.

And that’s exactly what we did. We found a rural gas station on the way that wouldn’t sell us any food, but they would sell us gas at reasonable ripoff prices. The further along we got, the more cars we started seeing. Sure enough, by the time the sun set, a sign read “Birmingham 20 Miles.”

We pulled over at the next rest stop to make camp. Across the freeway, we could see a full parking lot of people who were headed away from the city.

Once again, I got the floor as my bed. At least London gave me some rinsed out and dried clothes to use as a pillow this time.

Morning came too quickly, and like the day before, the old cowboy was up long before everybody else getting things ready.

I woke up, shaved with a borrowed razor, and brushed my teeth with my finger. Then I gathered up everything I was going to take with me, which included most of the money I had left, the cooler and a little bottle of water that London’s father gave me. I was going to be hitchhiking, and so I needed to be traveling light. I didn’t want to look like a scary vagrant. In that same vein, I couldn’t very well take the rifle with me. Who in their right mind would pick up a man that had a gun strapped to his back?

As soon as I had my things together, it was time to go. London was the only one to step outside and say goodbye.

We’d been through a lot in just a couple of days, and it felt like I was saying goodbye to a lifelong friend. I didn’t know what to say, so I just apologized for the hard things I dragged her into and said thanks for saving my life.

She looked for a moment like she would say something, but stopped. Instead, she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me full on the mouth.

Without another word and before I knew it, she was back inside and the rusty old RV was rattling down the road.

You get used to having people around. After a couple days of constant companionship, I was back to being alone. I didn’t like the thought.

It didn’t really matter that I didn’t like it. I had been through it in my head a hundred times by now. I had a job to do.

And so I walked alone by the freeway with a heavy heart and meager supplies. I wondered how long it was going to take me to get there.

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Keep reading! Chapter 31 is here.