{"id":482,"date":"2009-11-03T09:37:56","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T14:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=482"},"modified":"2018-10-30T19:57:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T23:57:17","slug":"finzel-part-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=482","title":{"rendered":"Finzel, part five"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part One<\/a><\/p>\n

Part Two<\/a><\/p>\n

Part Three<\/a><\/p>\n

Part Four<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

National Road<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

He was on the Oregon Trail.\u00a0 He was on Zane\u2019s Trace.\u00a0 He was on the Victory Highway, the National Road.\u00a0\u00a0 It was once the Mingo Path, cut by Indians.\u00a0 It was the soldier\u2019s road blazed by George Washington, General Braddock, Colonel Zane, and signed into life by Thomas Jefferson.\u00a0\u00a0 US Route 40.\u00a0 Once going from Atlantic City to San Francisco.\u00a0 The true Mother Road.<\/p>\n

Jacob had read all about it.\u00a0 He\u2019d grown up with the books in Parker\u2019s library, but it was the history of his private little world that most fascinated him.\u00a0 Western Maryland, and US 40.\u00a0 Until The Fall, his tenth birthday, he was a city boy.\u00a0 Now there was nothing but the farming settlement outside Finzel, the ghost town of Finzel itself, the cold and humid woods creeping through the low mountains, and the National Road.\u00a0 Still a road \u2013 still stretching into the hills, leading east and west.\u00a0 The Interstate was a graveyard.\u00a0 Good for foot traffic once upon a time, and now good for nothing.\u00a0 But old 40 could still take cars.\u00a0 Ten years since technology died, so it wasn\u2019t a nice trip.\u00a0 Not like when he was a kid.\u00a0 Between the pock-marked apocalyptic road and the cantankerous Land Rover, he was starting to wonder if he\u2019d lose his teeth before they made the train tracks.<\/p>\n

He liked to think about all the people who had used the natural path through the mountains \u2013 how many generations had passed through the Cumberland Gap on a journey west?\u00a0 The old roadbed itself was steeped in history.\u00a0 It had seen the slap of tires since the 1920\u2019s.\u00a0 It had grown, divided, shifted slightly, cut back on itself in some places and straightened out in others, and been bypassed.\u00a0 The river of America, meandering in old age through the worn valleys.\u00a0 The river of commerce\u2026 Go West, Young Man!\u00a0 Or sit still in Finzel and fade away.<\/p>\n

Parker put a great weight on him.\u00a0 Eyes and ears.\u00a0 But even he saw what the train meant.\u00a0 Parker came all the way up here because she wanted to fade away.\u00a0 Remove herself from the world that rose from the ashes of the end times.\u00a0 That\u2019s not why her people followed her, though.\u00a0 They were running from something, Parker was running to something.\u00a0 That was clear even to a child, ten years ago.\u00a0 Parker had found her goal, but everyone else wanted their world back.\u00a0 Jacob, himself, wanted to see cars on US 40 again.\u00a0 He wanted to follow 40 all the way to the west coast.\u00a0 Gates said it was impossible.\u00a0 He said 40 was consumed by interstates along the way, bopping and twisting around them like some long parasite.<\/p>\n

Gates talked about how 40 came to a crumbling end just outside St. Clairesville, Ohio.\u00a0 You had to get on I-70 if you wanted to follow it, picking up the old roadbed miles later.\u00a0 He said it did this throughout.\u00a0 The old road wasn\u2019t, truly, coast to coast anymore.\u00a0 It was a shell, a ghost, a memory.<\/p>\n

But Jacob could feel the draw.\u00a0 Even now, driving east on a road that would destroy a normal car, he felt the nagging, gnawing pull\u2026 Go west.\u00a0 Or east, even.\u00a0 Sea to shining sea\u2026 a world out there.\u00a0 Probably full of survivors\u2026 People who could come together and use the old roads.\u00a0 Or the old rails\u2026 He\u2019d been under Parker\u2019s wing, and under the shadow of an old mountain, for the parts of his life that counted\u2026 Yet he knew that the future must be about rebuilding, not hiding.<\/p>\n

McGavin drove.\u00a0 Gates sat in the passenger seat with his lunatic rifle stuck out the window, cold air roiling in and clutching at all of them.\u00a0 Gates liked his guns\u2026 But there was no real use for the big bad artillery anymore.\u00a0\u00a0 Still, Gates and McGavin hoarded ammo, and made their own.\u00a0 Parker let them slide because they always shared their hoard.\u00a0 That seemed to be the Great Compromise from ten years ago.\u00a0 Parker let them live by their own rules as long as they shared the wealth.\u00a0 Though there must have been something else.\u00a0 They were sitting on a fortress back in DC, and now they had thrown in with a commune that was, collectively, afraid of them.\u00a0 What hold did Parker have over them?\u00a0\u00a0 Or maybe it just made sense to leave the city.\u00a0 That\u2019s why people followed Parker.\u00a0 The dream of the woods.\u00a0 No bodies, no raiders, no disease.\u00a0 No need to have a fortress and live in fear.\u00a0 Though that\u2019s exactly what Parker had created.\u00a0 Her fortress without walls.\u00a0 Why had they remained hidden when it had been years since human contact?\u00a0 What kind of leader didn\u2019t try to gather other survivors, to strengthen her position?\u00a0 Had Parker simply condemned them to some sad rural death?\u00a0 Broken bones\u2026fevers.<\/p>\n

Jacob\u2019s mind drifted to his gran.\u00a0 Diabetes.\u00a0 Of course, they all died out fast.\u00a0 They were gone in a matter of months.\u00a0 That whole ritual fading into legend\u2026 The insulin, the shots.\u00a0 How many diabetics survived the Fall?\u00a0 What was that like?\u00a0 To live through hell with a death sentence hanging over your head?\u00a0 All the people who needed doctors to live\u2026 How many people choked to death in their apartments after the Fall?\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s why Gates and McGavin gave up their fortress\u2026 When Jacob thought of DC, he shivered.\u00a0 How many corpses hiding behind all those windows?\u00a0 How much suffering in the final days of the dead city?\u00a0 How many people stuck underground in the subway?\u00a0 All those Metro tunnels were probably filled with water now\u2026 An average of 100 commuters per car, dead and underwater.\u00a0 Like a lost submarine.\u00a0 How many people died at their desks?<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think people still live in DC?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Gates answered immediately.\u00a0 \u201cI think people are everywhere, and they\u2019re all like us.\u00a0 Hiding in the trees like scared monkeys.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we know if they\u2019re good or if they\u2019re bad?\u201d Jacob asked, thinking now about their destination.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be able to tell from the blood spatter patterns after they blow our heads off from 500 yards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time to stop talking to Gates.\u00a0 Hint taken.\u00a0 Jacob looked back out the window down at the shattered pavement of US 40.\u00a0 McGavin swerved wildly around a pothole, cursed under his breath, then got back to running down the center of the road.\u00a0 They dipped and swayed, the forest eating away at the road, creating tunnels of branches.\u00a0 Jacob focused ahead, and noticed something not quite right.<\/p>\n

\u201cHas the road been cleared?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s us.\u201d Gates said.<\/p>\n

\u201cKind of points people right to us, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKind of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if raiders came up 40?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d find us and kill us and rape our corpses and eat our brains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacob muttered an apology, suddenly self-conscious.<\/p>\n

Walter Murray put a hand on his shoulder, \u201cDon\u2019t let them fuck with you kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray grinned, then closed his eyes and pressed uncomfortably back into his seat.<\/p>\n

There was no way to go over 25 on the decaying road.\u00a0 Frostburg seemed far away, and Jacob wasn\u2019t looking forward to cruising through the dead town anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think there are people still alive in Frostburg?\u201d he asked the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are, they\u2019re very, very quiet.\u201d Gates put on his Elmer Fudd voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re bypassing.\u201d McGavin said tersely, his eyes wide and focused on the road.\u00a0 \u201cJockeying onto 68.\u00a0 Main street Frostburg looks like a bomb went off.\u201d<\/p>\n

They had bypassed when they all first journeyed to Finzel, too.\u00a0 Camping out in the Days Inn lot but never going down towards the town of Frostburg itself.\u00a0 Jacob lived a few miles from a town \u2013 dead or not —\u00a0 and had never been there.\u00a0 Of course, that meant little these days.\u00a0 Why go to the towns?\u00a0 Anything useful that had been in Frostburg had been consumed by Parker\u2019s people, or passing raiders.\u00a0 Or time.<\/p>\n

The exit onto 68 was a water-logged meadow, but McGavin followed ruts and joined the once mighty interstate.\u00a0 Traffic was thin through this section, and, again, Jacob saw how clumsy Gates and McGavin had been about clearing the road.\u00a0 Cars were pushed aside to clear a path to the meadow, and the cleared section of 40.\u00a0 Though they were now pretty much overgrown and reclaimed by the forest, Jacob wondered how it was possible for anyone to miss this wide avenue leading right to Finzel. Were they truly the only survivors left?<\/p>\n

Then he realized that the threat was long over.\u00a0 Gates and McGavin had spent a decade ranging over the land.\u00a0 They knew more about the outside world than any of Parker\u2019s people.\u00a0 How it must be for them to not see signs of other survivors all these years.\u00a0 What must be going through their confident minds now that they were confronted by new signs of life?\u00a0 Jacob craned his neck to see their faces, but they were both intently watching the road.\u00a0 They were all routine.\u00a0 McGavin looking for potholes and obstructions, Gates looking for trouble.<\/p>\n

The interstate rose, spreading broad, and then turning towards the main Frostburg exit.\u00a0 Braddock Road, nearly blocked by two trucks.\u00a0 The same two trucks were there ten years ago, and Parker\u2019s people drove around them and mounted the long rise up a bald hill towards the island of convenience just outside of town.\u00a0 Burger King, BP, and the Days Inn parking lot where Parker\u2019s people had rested after the horrific journey through Cumberland.\u00a0 McGavin now pulled into that same parking lot, shifted the Land Rover into neutral, and sat with his head cocked towards the dashboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould we be getting out and running?\u201d Murray asked, opening one eye.<\/p>\n

McGavin turned off the engine.\u00a0 \u201cHot,\u201d he muttered.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gates turned and looked at Murray, \u201cShe gets hot.\u00a0 We let her cool down.\u00a0 Sit tight, cowboy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFuck,\u201d Murray whistled.\u00a0 \u201cHaven\u2019t thought about this place in a decade.\u00a0 This fucking parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStayed here in 2004,\u201d Gates said.\u00a0 \u201cground floor room.\u00a0 I had a fight with the wife, so I drove all the fucking way up here, bought a trunk full of cheap beer, checked in.\u00a0 It was snowing like a bitch and they didn\u2019t have fridges in the rooms or any of that shit, so I just dumped the beer outside the window, settled down with HBO, and had myself a booze up.\u00a0 It was great.\u00a0 Open the window to winter, grab a freezing beer from the snow drift, drink it down.\u00a0 I think I fell in love with that room.\u00a0 Those stupid hotel easy chairs that are harder than wood slats, the ubiquitous table with the light hanging over it.\u00a0 Drifting silently to one of the two beds each night, full of snow-cold beer.\u201d\u00a0 He turned to stare out the window towards the hotel, sitting ominously against the grey dawn sky.\u00a0 \u201cThat lonely bathroom with the harsh lights.\u00a0 Telling the maid to fuck off.\u00a0 Slinking out at night for a burger.\u00a0 I always liked being alone.\u00a0\u00a0 I liked the anonymity of the hotel room.\u00a0 Since I was a kid, I mean.\u00a0 Always.\u00a0 That whole life\u2019s nameless passenger thing.\u00a0 Is that a poem?\u00a0 Something.\u00a0 Passing through these places where nobody knew you, nobody remembered you, nobody cared about you.\u00a0 Lose yourself in your little cell.\u00a0 Overpriced can of coke over ice in a plastic cup, flipping through the channels, lying on a comforter on a bed that\u2019s seen a thousand stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease, God,\u201d Murray said, \u201ctell me we can start the car now.<\/p>\n

McGavin smirked, then turned the engine over smoothly.\u00a0 Jacob turned to watch the black smoke cough out of the exhaust.\u00a0 God knows what Gates and McGavin were using as fuel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[126,129],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-serials","tag-finzel","tag-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions\/777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}