Armored Bulletproof Animal
excerpt from novel in progress
Hand scrambling in her pocket, Casey had two foil wrappers, one crumpled tissue, a penny she couldn’t part with, and a loose thread. She pulled one of the wrappers to her nostril. It smelled like wintergreen. She licked off the remnants of a flavor. With each step, her joints ached more, lips and mouth felt like sandpaper, and that heat was oppressive, the kind of heat her grandmother said burnt from the inside. The road rose up ahead in the distance, hiding the potential outcome from her. She shook her canteen. Probably just a couple swishes of water left.
Getting out of the city meant shit. It was dangerous as hell there, but she managed. What she hadn’t expected was that no one would be out here at all, that there would be this long ass stretch without supplies or water. Casey was ready to die. If she could find Father Paul the Widowmaker that would change.
The pulse of the explosion throbbed from the distance behind her. She saw the city burning with two wings of fire, like a burning angel on the horizon. Someone had the good sense to say this wasn’t worth surviving. More sense than her. Everything must have collapsed at once because there was no helicopters, no army, no help. It was like the entire city of Reno had been abandoned. The last transmission she heard was that something major was happening in LA. And she needed to avoid Colorado. Going towards the Canadian border was the only way through.
In just two days hell catapulted itself into life. She sifted through her pocket again, feeling a thread, the wrappers, then a new find. A small strip of mint Dentyne gum somehow was there, maybe slipped from a wrapper. The pulse of the wintergreen flavor reminded her of every time she drove along the highway, window down, singing stupid to n’Sync with Sarah or Char or Emily, faded recollections of a time that was lost to a dead and aimless wind.
Dust beat Casey’s face, stung her eyes. An armadillo up ahead shuffled along the road. Something. Casey didn’t know where her will to survive came from, but if she could just get past the horizon where the road dipped, there might be something on the other side. But for now she had to eat. She grabbed the switchblade from the sweaty pocket. It had the eyes of scurrilous fear, but it had to know this was the name of the game. Hunter seeks the hunted, this was the new world. She curved around and readied her foot to stomp it from behind. Decisive and quick, Casey moved to plunge the blade into the armadillo’s heart. The animal scurried away. But left behind were two small mice. Casey suppressed the thought and revulsion. She sat down on the dusty ground and started putting desert brush together. She grabbed the mice by the tails and grabbed her Bic lighter.