The Journey of St. Laurent, Chapter 31

Author’s Note:

Hey, look at this, a chapter posted on Friday. See, it CAN happen.

As always, thanks for all comments and typo alerts.

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 31 – The Long Hard Road

The first hour or so wasn’t so bad. The day hadn’t really heated up yet, I still had some water, and my legs had no wobble. Every few minutes, a semi truck followed by an armored Humvee or two would cruise by. Other than that, traffic was light. Traffic going into the city, that is.

Traffic going away from the city was a different story. It was looking more and more like a morning commute over there.

But where are all of those people going? What possible good is running going to do?

A Volkswagen bus came up behind me. It had rusty rims and had been spray painted in some kind of camouflage pattern. The furry bearded driver honked at me as he raced by. The tailgate was decorated with multiple Confederate flags.

I stopped sticking out my thumb after that. If that guy won’t pick me up, nobody will.

The sun heated up the blacktop first, and then the air. It was gearing up to be another toasty summer day.

I wondered if any semblance of normality would ever return for me. Most of my personal information was lost back in Oasis. I was probably officially presumed dead by the government. All of my accounts, medical credentials, everything would take forever to get a hold of again. That is if things ever settled to the point where I could track them down. I pushed it from my mind and kept walking.

When I heard the whine of a dirt bike behind me, I didn’t even bother to look back. Until it started slowing down. Then I turned to see why.

Riding the little dirt bike was a vision in short red hair and goggles.

I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped to about my knees. No way.

London pulled up beside me atop the dirt bike I had last seen strapped to the back of her father’s RV. Her big smile made the goggles look all the more ridiculous.

“Need a lift, big boy?”

“What about your stepmom?”

“I think she’s got her ride taken care of, you know, in the RV. Besides that, I’m not sure three would fit on this little bike.”

“Works for me. Even that thing has got to beat walking.”

London reached for her shirt, pulled out a pair of sunglasses, and handed them to me. “You’ll want these.”

“No goggles for me?”

“Sorry, only the coolest person on the bike gets to wear them.”

The bike did have a little set of saddlebags. London took my empty water bottle and jammed it in one side.

I hopped on back, put one arm around London and held the cooler with my other. It wasn’t exactly comfortable riding back there, but I tried to focus on the half of me that was holding on to a good looking girl and not the half that was gripping the bulky plastic box and going numb.

It’s about two hundred miles from Birmingham to Lindon. The little dirt bike we were on had a 2.2 gallon tank, and under normal conditions got a hint over one hundred miles to the gallon. That could have meant that we got to Linden on one tank with a minimum of hassle.

You never know, we might just have done it, too. If the gas tank had been full when we started. Which it wasn’t.

We got off an exit in the middle of Birmingham proper to find fuel.

Four filling stations, and not a one still had gas.

There were more people walking around on the streets than we had seen back in Texas. They walked in groups of at least three or four, and all of them looked nervous. Everywhere we drove there seemed to be a feeling of tension in the air, like a storm about to break.

A crowd around the front of a corner convenience store caught our attention and we stopped across the street to see what was happening.

The crowd was maybe thirty or so strong, and they were shouting and banging on the door and windows.

“Come on, my kid’s gotta eat.”

“It ain’t right for you to keep all that food locked up.”

“We gotta right to buy that stuff.”

Above the store was a second level that appeared to serve as an apartment.

A gray haired woman stuck her head out one of the upper windows. “Y’all get out of here. We’ll open when we open. We ain’t going to let you steal what little we got left.”

The exchange just became more heated.

Some punk kid appeared from around the corner with a big rock in hand.

My heart sank.

Th kid threw the rock through one of the front display windows. Four or five burly rednecks from the mob kicked away the shards of standing glass and climbed into the store.

I feared the violence was going to get worse, and there was nothing that could be done about it. “London, let’s get out of here.”

London eyes teared up and she stared on.

I gave her a little squeeze. “There’s nothing we can do. If we stay we’ll just get caught up in it. We need to go.”

London swallowed hard and cranked the throttle.

The jerk forward nearly left me behind.

I turned back over my shoulder.

The door to the shop was open and an older man was being pulled away by the crowd. They weren’t being gentle.

It made me sick and angry all over.

We’re already to this? Two days and it’s crisis enough to violate an elderly couple’s livelihood, maybe even their lives? Where the hell is the leadership in this town, or anywhere? Where rallying cry to stick together, to fight the bastards that attacked us? Why do we have to tear ourselves apart? All we hear from Washington is ‘be calm’ and all we see on TV is destruction. Is this all we are, a nation built up of cowards? Scenes like that are probably going on in every big city right now. The whole mess could boil over any-

It struck me then and there, speeding down the road on that little motorcycle. Alan Jex and his ilk were right. We had to fight. And if we didn’t fight the aliens, we’d end up fighting ourselves. Even if the virus I was carrying didn’t deal a knockout blow to the aliens, it might give hope to those willing to fight on.

But was there a chance that the aliens were really just like the president had said? Peaceful? No, not a chance. They were just playing a game. Why else had they blown up the neighborhood after I had called Jex? Why else had they chased and tried to kill me? There was no other possible answer.

The extraterrestrials are the enemy.

London got us back on the freeway. We drove another ten minutes before she stopped at the site of one of the many car crashes that had been abandoned by the side of the road.

I paced back and forth, still fuming about the state of things.

London pulled a siphon hose from the non-water saddlebag and went to work.

I probably would have felt guilty about stealing the gas if I didn’t have so many other feelings spinning me around.

The rest of the ride was long, exhausting, and uneventful. We stopped a couple of times to get water and stretch our legs, and twice again to siphon gas from wrecks. I wanted to hop off and push as the little bike grunted its way up many of the canyons and hills. My arm muscles got painfully tired before noon, and by afternoon my butt was sore from all the bouncing on the not-exactly-luxury motorcycle seat.

It took all day and the night was getting downright chilly before we saw the sign that read “Linden 5 miles.” It had to be about eleven o’clock when we pulled up to the camp just outside town.

We weren’t the only ones who had heeded Jex’s call.

A small line of cars was entering a makeshift gate into a large field. Each one stopped and showed something to the guards before going in. The field was filling with RVs, pickup trucks, SUVs, diesel generators, lights, tents, and all sorts of people from emo-looking kids to shotgun-toting business men in suits with loosened collars. At one end of the field was a hill, and on top of the hill was an honest-to-goodness giant machine gun. I couldn’t see much other than the outline in the moonlight, but it had to be fifty caliber.

Two guards carrying AK47s and wearing black fatigues stopped us at the gate.

One of them raised a hand. “Hold up. Have you two been vetted and received your assignment?”

London shook her head.

I creaked off the back of the bike. “Not yet.”

“Then you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get in here.”

“Do one of you have a way to get a hold of Mr. Jex?”

“In the morning I’m sure he’ll be happy to help you.”

London kicked down the stand and swung her leg over the top. “No, you need help us contact him now.”

“No we don’t.”

I saw London’s hand ball up into a fist. “Oh yes you do. I did not drive this piece of crap all day long to get turned away for the night. Where can we find him?”

The guard stepped closer and leaned in toward her face. “I’m not sure you understood me, miss. You’re not getting in here tonight, and I’m not sure I like your attitude.”

If the guard had ever seen London’s temper like I had, he might have not used that snotty tone of voice. He also might have known to dodge the oncoming fist.

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Keep Reading! Chapter 32 is here.