Desolation

“Ándale, Señor Max,” bellowed one of Gordo’s men. “It is time to go now.”

Max got up from the table, nodded in El Gordo’s direction and took his leave to be witness to another day of horrors. With any luck, this will be the last day of this. I’ll either win my freedom—or if I’m not careful, my death.

8. Carrington Reid Gets Held Up

Rawlins, Wyoming

Dr. Carrington Reid, the foreteller of the apocalypse that would eventually kill most of the world’s population, was riding his tricycle like never before. With a slight wind at his back, he was attempting to add seventy more miles to his total today.

His recumbent trike had barely twenty miles on its frame before the Event. When he bought it everyone was going green. But his purchase was not some ode to the environment, knowing how silly that movement was—as if you could save the earth by not driving your car as much or recycling a few cans, he would often point out to those shit-eating-grin-wearing idiots with their Birkenstocks who boasted to him of their efforts. His motives were much more selfish. His doctor had told him he needed to lose some weight and that he wasn’t getting any younger. So, Carrington vowed to eat a little better—avoid the late-night binge on junk food—and to exercise. The recumbent trike was his answer to exercise; he would use it to commute¸ so its utility would be doubly justified. That had been over five years ago. He had thought that he would use it to go everywhere during the summer, especially since his office was less than two miles from his home and everything else he needed was close by. The first week, he pedaled every day. Then an occasional burst of rain, or a new pain in his body, or any one of a myriad of other excuses caused him to stop using it a month after its purchase. Every day, as he hurried off to work or to a meeting off-campus, he looked at the trike accumulating dust in the corner of his garage rather than mileage outside and always found an excuse for not using it. Perhaps he would use it purely for exercise, but there was just too much to do. So, his tricycling would be nothing more than a mental game. Before the Event, he even argued to himself that working out was a luxury for those with idle hands and minds, neither of which he possessed.

Now, every long mile on this journey was accompanied with ample amounts of self-loathing for his not having made trike riding a habit. Ever since the second day, his legs were cramping and he was sore everywhere. The 560-mile journey was taking its toll on him. The first leg should have been the most difficult—through the Wasatch Mountains outside of Salt Lake City—but the joy of hitting the road and the anticipation of his destination provided the adrenaline rush that eased his way. He made thirty-five miles, getting him well clear of the mountains, on the first day and then seventy each the second and third. Then the trike riding caught up with him, slowing him down to about twenty to thirty miles per day, because he had to stop and take extended rests. In spite of its difficulty, he was already more than halfway to Cicada, near Boulder. He was starting to feel much better, stronger, purging the impurities of his life from his system. And in ten days he knew he had already lost a lot of weight.

He chose a route that had minimal mountains and towns, avoiding people at first as he wasn’t sure if they would be hostile or friendly. Strangely, he had only seen a few people on the roads and no one in the last few days. More strange were all the fires. He knew the induced currents from the CMEs would cause fires in many places, but he was flabbergasted by the level of destruction they had wrought. Between the fires and potential for hostile people, Carrington steered clear of towns when he could.

The first big town, Rock Springs, he had purposely biked around. Today, when he approached Rawlins, Wyoming, he hoped to stop and check in to see how they were faring as it had been a few days since he talked to another person, and despite his assumptions he already missed human contact. He and his wife had once stopped in Rawlins on their only road trip together some years ago, and loved the few people they met there. Sadly, it looked like the whole town had burned to the ground. Lifetimes of memories were now just smoldering ashes tossed around by the warm winds.

As flakes of Rawlins landed on him, Carrington reminisced about that day with his wife, when she was so full of life and their future together full of promise. She was the most beautiful woman in his world. She was the only one who found his acerbic humor amusing. “I miss you, darling, and so wish you were with me on this journ—”