“Very well,” the guard finally said to Blaise. “You folks are free to pass.”
When they were out of earshot of the road, Thomas waited for someone to comment on what had happened. But no one said anything. Even when he looked at Skylar, she would barely make eye contact with him. None of them seemed to know what to say or do.
For hours the landscape had remained unchanged, mile after mile of the same flat, dead pasture broken here and there by stands of trees. But now the road divided itself into multiple east and westbound lanes separated by a grass median. The surface changed to newly-poured black asphalt bordered by bright white concrete curbs. Soon they saw a 7-Eleven on the north side of the road, where a large group of people was gathered in the shade of the covered fueling area. Across the road, on the south side, Thomas saw a sizeable pond that until then had been hidden by trees. Several hundred people were gathered around it, all of them white or Hispanic.
As they walked past this gathering place, Thomas heard snatches of conversation.
“…entire area north of the George Bush turnpike between the tollway and 75…”
“…Brett told me there may be a thousand bodies at Preston and Frankford…”
“…I don’t understand where the army is…”
Indeed, Thomas had been wondering the same thing. The military had surely been hit hard, but some of their equipment was built to withstand a pulse. He knew from research that the Army had even developed plans to deploy small-scale EMPs for warfare use. So where was the military now? Called into action elsewhere? Waiting on orders? Or was the lack of presence its own kind of strategy?
By now the heat and smoke felt like a solid physical presence. At Colt Road they encountered another large group of northbound walkers, and Thomas was dismayed to see every single one of them was either white or Hispanics that were nearly white. What was the point of reaching the warehouse, of surviving the apocalypse, if the leftover world was a blasted landscape where armed idiots divided themselves by color like a box of crayons?
“We’re not that far from 75,” said Blaise a little while later. “Maybe two or three miles. Maybe I can make it after all. I feel a bit better.”
“How much farther to the warehouse after we reach the highway?” Seth asked.
“Maybe ten more miles.”
Considering their modest progress, this distance seemed to Thomas like an insurmountable obstacle. They stopped occasionally to drink water, but even so all of them were suffering in the heat. Brandon had cried off and on for the duration of the trip, while Ben walked stoically, as if the experience had matured him. Natalie spoke to the boys occasionally but was otherwise quiet. Larry was also quiet and lurked behind Skylar, presumably waiting for Thomas to disappear so he could finally make his move. Skylar herself seemed bemused by everything around her, as if she had experienced a psychotic break.
Eventually Blaise began to slow his pace again, and Thomas could see him wincing with every other step.
“How are you doing?” Larry asked.
“Been better.”
“Are you going to make it?”
“Fuck if I know!”
Natalie took in a hitch of breath, as if offended by Blaise’s language. But it was the first time he’d cursed in front of the children, and Thomas assumed he was in serious pain.
At Lake Forest Drive they encountered yet another group of northbound walkers, where a short man wearing a camouflage golf shirt thought Blaise had pushed him.
“Fuck you, Yankee!” yelled the man.
“Watch your mouth around these children,” growled Blaise.
“This is the Republic of Texas,” said the man. “Who’s crying now, bitch?”
“You’re gonna be the one crying if you don’t step off!”
Thomas could see Blaise paid a high physical cost for raising his voice, and so, it seemed, could the angry man.
“Is the bitch Yankee not feeling well? Why don’t you go back home where the bland food suits you better!”
Now, Seth raised his gun a little higher and leveled his eyes at the man.
“Why don’t you move on, sir?”
The man looked at Seth’s gun and walked away.
“That asshole punched me,” Blaise said a few minutes later. “When we were in close. Right where it hurts.”
“Are you feeling worse?” Larry asked.
Before he could answer, Blaise turned away from them and vomited into the grass. Brandon began to cry again, and Natalie picked him up to console him. Blaise’s vomit was mainly bile, yellow and stringy, and there wasn’t much of it. But that didn’t stop him from dry heaving another four or five times.
“A lot worse,” he finally croaked. “Don’t think I’m going to make it.”
“Yeah, you will,” said Larry. “75 is just ahead, and after that we’re in the home stretch.”
“It’s ten more miles after that. I don’t know if I can walk ten more feet.”
“We didn’t come all this way to lose you, Blaise. These are your weapons. This was your idea. Don’t stop believing now.”
“Belief doesn’t mean anything. Thomas, come over here with your map.”
Blaise seemed to be sweating heavier than ever. His hands shook as he took the map from Thomas.
“The warehouse is on the other side of Melissa,” Blaise said, pointing. “When you get here, you’re gonna take 121 up this way. Tim’s house is over here. You’ll want to turn off the road here, on a street called Milrany, and just head straight north.”
“As bad as the tollway was,” Thomas said, “I’m not sure about taking 75. Might be a bad scene.”
“Good point. If you don’t like 75, just cross and take this road here. Looks like a state road.”
Thomas nodded.
“Now, listen here. When you show up without me, Tim won’t like it. He’s not as reasonable as I am.”
Blaise cracked a smile in spite of himself.
“So when you see him, say ‘Ask the lonely.’ It’s a private joke and he’ll know I trusted you.”
“Okay,” said Thomas.
“Okay. Let’s get moving again. I feel a little better.”
Twenty or so minutes later, as they approached Highway 75, Thomas could see a large crowd of people gathered near the intersection. He heard loud voices and the sound of an automobile engine. The crowd appeared to be yelling at walkers who were going by on the overpass. Eventually he could hear what was being said.
“No more tyranny!”
“This is a constitutional Republic, not a democracy!”
“Keep walking, niggers! Keep walking, gooks!”
Thomas had no clue how long they’d been walking. Eight or nine hours at least. They had trudged across the outer reaches of a city that looked like America but had devolved into a warped facsimile of her. Had the concept of a cultural melting pot always been fallacy? An uncomfortable arrangement forced on hostile tribes by naïve intellectuals who never understood the fear that lived in the hearts of their human brethren?
When they finally reached the intersection, Thomas could see the noise and movement of the crowd was primarily theater. The walkers themselves, as they traversed the overpass, were little more than disembodied heads and shoulders floating behind a vertical concrete barrier. Thomas saw no evidence of the automobile engine.
“I thought the refugees on 75 would be the problem,” said Blaise in a voice that was somewhere between a rasp and a whisper. “But really it’s these turkeys and their showboating.”
“They’re frightened,” Thomas said. “They’re grasping at whatever seems like order and strength. But it won’t last.”