Read Online From the Fire V by Kent David Kelly - Free Book Online
Authors: Kent David Kelly
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they were, not precisely. But she knew she
was somewhere near to Highway 60, near to US Route 34 or what was left of it.
Even at a five to ten mile an hour crawl, Pearson’s was very
close. And after all, there was very little choice.
V-5
THE TOMB
OF MANY CIRCLES
With Silas’ guidance, a crossing of the median and the chance
revelation of a downed and fire-bleached highway sign (“… TTRACTION – EXIT 255
– MARIANA GOLF COUR …”), Sophie slowly found her way toward the sheltered ruin
of Pearson’s Corner Truck Stop, Café and Bakery.
They made their way off the interstate and four-wheeled onto the
trash-strewn frontage road, where the wrecks were fewer and the land a little
lower. In some places, there were even identifiable remnants of the dead: skulls
with faces, shoes, briefcases, leather jackets which had only blackened instead
of melted. Bone piles and tire chains littered the byway, festooning the
drifts of wind-trapped gravel. Almost-identifiable cars emerged from the
blinding smog and the dunes of asphalt, garish silhouettes at the edge of
sight. Trash and pieces of debris, aluminum siding and shreds of tire, blew
overhead in tumbling gouts, buffeted by black wind.
Once the interstate was left behind, the lower ground gave way to
decipherable vestiges and slaughter, the playthings of a recently exhausted
Armageddon. After the first impacts over Colorado Springs and NORAD and
Denver, survivors had fled along the interstate, bogged down, and taken to the
frontage roads and even the fields in a desperate and futile attempt to flee.
And then the second-wave missile impact at Loveland, and the end of everything.
There were lines of blackened RVs and burned-out buses, semi
trailers, multiple lines of a never-ending traffic jam. “Lanes” through the
labyrinth were nothing more than sizable gaps where later fires had gorged
their way through, where gas tanks or coal trailers or even entire tankers had
exploded. But some of the bigger trucks were almost whole, even readable as
effigies of yesterday’s mundanity.
Home Depot, read one truck’s side, Wal Mart said another. United Parcel, Con-Way Transportation, North
American Van Lines, Thompson School District …
As Sophie drove, ash-stained trucks loomed up on either side, gray
monoliths, pillars in the wasteland tumbled over end.
Silas was sitting up in the back seat, panting, scratching at an
open sore over his left knee where the bandage joints had opened. “There,” he
said. He scrabbled at the shoulder of Sophie’s suit. “That say?”
Sophie edged the H4 nearer to the half-toppled steel of the
highway sign. One panel read “POSTILLON RV PARK,” the other “CAMPION, 60
WEST.” Further back in the gloom shone the pathetic remains of a splintered
Sinclair gasoline sign, its green sauropod logo still discernible on the blistered
slab of its crackled porcelain face.
“Yeah, down there,” said Silas. His voice was edged with hope,
with fervency. “No. Back on. Turn back a little.”
“Back the way we came?”
“Some little, yeah.”
Sophie backed the H4 around in an awkward circle, rounding the
collision of an upended Lexus and some kind of blown-out station wagon. And
looming out of the darkness there rose a pile of split-open sandbags, tilted in
a haphazard cascade like the remnants of a pyramid wreathed in sand. Still
standing amidst the drifting ash, a huge tilted sign proclaimed in a jaunty
hand-painted font:
~
WELCOME ROAD LOVERS
1,300 FEET TO PARADISE
FREE WIFI
GRAB AND GO
CHAPEL — SHOWERS — SOUVENIRS
REFUEL IN SECURITY
BEST CINNAMON ROLLS IN 700 MILES
GOD BLESS AMERICA
~
The scoured face of the sign was streaked with black plastic
tears. A huge plastic tarp had constricted around the pole, and was blowing up
in tatters up across its throat like a necklace of shadowy tentacles.
And sandbags. Sophie’s
tongue poked out at the corner of her mouth in
was somewhere near to Highway 60, near to US Route 34 or what was left of it.
Even at a five to ten mile an hour crawl, Pearson’s was very
close. And after all, there was very little choice.
V-5
THE TOMB
OF MANY CIRCLES
With Silas’ guidance, a crossing of the median and the chance
revelation of a downed and fire-bleached highway sign (“… TTRACTION – EXIT 255
– MARIANA GOLF COUR …”), Sophie slowly found her way toward the sheltered ruin
of Pearson’s Corner Truck Stop, Café and Bakery.
They made their way off the interstate and four-wheeled onto the
trash-strewn frontage road, where the wrecks were fewer and the land a little
lower. In some places, there were even identifiable remnants of the dead: skulls
with faces, shoes, briefcases, leather jackets which had only blackened instead
of melted. Bone piles and tire chains littered the byway, festooning the
drifts of wind-trapped gravel. Almost-identifiable cars emerged from the
blinding smog and the dunes of asphalt, garish silhouettes at the edge of
sight. Trash and pieces of debris, aluminum siding and shreds of tire, blew
overhead in tumbling gouts, buffeted by black wind.
Once the interstate was left behind, the lower ground gave way to
decipherable vestiges and slaughter, the playthings of a recently exhausted
Armageddon. After the first impacts over Colorado Springs and NORAD and
Denver, survivors had fled along the interstate, bogged down, and taken to the
frontage roads and even the fields in a desperate and futile attempt to flee.
And then the second-wave missile impact at Loveland, and the end of everything.
There were lines of blackened RVs and burned-out buses, semi
trailers, multiple lines of a never-ending traffic jam. “Lanes” through the
labyrinth were nothing more than sizable gaps where later fires had gorged
their way through, where gas tanks or coal trailers or even entire tankers had
exploded. But some of the bigger trucks were almost whole, even readable as
effigies of yesterday’s mundanity.
Home Depot, read one truck’s side, Wal Mart said another. United Parcel, Con-Way Transportation, North
American Van Lines, Thompson School District …
As Sophie drove, ash-stained trucks loomed up on either side, gray
monoliths, pillars in the wasteland tumbled over end.
Silas was sitting up in the back seat, panting, scratching at an
open sore over his left knee where the bandage joints had opened. “There,” he
said. He scrabbled at the shoulder of Sophie’s suit. “That say?”
Sophie edged the H4 nearer to the half-toppled steel of the
highway sign. One panel read “POSTILLON RV PARK,” the other “CAMPION, 60
WEST.” Further back in the gloom shone the pathetic remains of a splintered
Sinclair gasoline sign, its green sauropod logo still discernible on the blistered
slab of its crackled porcelain face.
“Yeah, down there,” said Silas. His voice was edged with hope,
with fervency. “No. Back on. Turn back a little.”
“Back the way we came?”
“Some little, yeah.”
Sophie backed the H4 around in an awkward circle, rounding the
collision of an upended Lexus and some kind of blown-out station wagon. And
looming out of the darkness there rose a pile of split-open sandbags, tilted in
a haphazard cascade like the remnants of a pyramid wreathed in sand. Still
standing amidst the drifting ash, a huge tilted sign proclaimed in a jaunty
hand-painted font:
~
WELCOME ROAD LOVERS
1,300 FEET TO PARADISE
FREE WIFI
GRAB AND GO
CHAPEL — SHOWERS — SOUVENIRS
REFUEL IN SECURITY
BEST CINNAMON ROLLS IN 700 MILES
GOD BLESS AMERICA
~
The scoured face of the sign was streaked with black plastic
tears. A huge plastic tarp had constricted around the pole, and was blowing up
in tatters up across its throat like a necklace of shadowy tentacles.
And sandbags. Sophie’s
tongue poked out at the corner of her mouth in
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