Tales of the Derry Plague by Anselmo, Ray (most inspirational books of all time TXT) 📗

22

TRAVEL

Kelly got a surprise when she went outside to load up the truck – it had rained during the night. Not a lot, just enough to dampen the pavement and bring a little green back to the browning lawns, but it was the first rain of the coming winter. And the bed of the truck had water in it, which was darned inconvenient, as she’d been planning to put most of the food bags in the bed. Well, good thing she had the Mega Cab. They’d fit in the cab extension with her suitcase. The Mizuno and the bag with the ammo went in front where they’d be in easy reach.

“Well,” she said as she looked at the puddles in the back, “most of it will drain off as I go over hills.” And there were a lot of hills between her and her destination.

After loading everything up, she pulled out the state map and refolded it to show her route. Or rather, her several potential routes. For starters, she’d be taking the Shoreline across Marin to Tam Valley Junction, where it merged with 101. Go south on 101, the same route she’d used to get to Sausalito, but keep going through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Presidio in San Francisco.

From there, the options branched out. In the City, as natives called S.F., 101 slithered through the Presidio, became Lombard Street (not the one twisty block – that was farther east), cut right and became Van Ness, then rose up on its hind legs, became a real highway again and raced south to clash with US-280 near Bernal Heights. She could follow the 101 signs or take side streets – so long as she reached that interchange.

And then … well, she could continue on 101 to 85 South to 17 South, or 101 to the Lawrence Expressway to 9 to 17, or 101 to 880 to 17, or 280 to 85 (or the Lawrence Expressway, or the San Tomas Expressway) to 17, or 280 directly to 17, or 82 to most of those same connections, or a half-dozen other way through the spider web of highways, freeways and other ways in the South Bay. The Santa Clara Valley didn’t have mountains like Marin and San Mateo did – you could build roads anywhere, and they had.

But if you wanted to get to Santa Cruz, there was one direct route from there: State Highway 17 south, twenty-some miles through the coastal mountains to the north side of Monterey Bay. So from San Francisco to Los Gatos, choices on choices on choices, which she might need if any of the choices were blocked and there was nowhere or no way for her to shove the blocks aside. But at the beginning and end there was one way and one way only – and if she hit a block she couldn’t shift …

… well, she hoped the truck had the off-roading ability it looked like it had. Because if the path couldn’t be taken, she’d have to make one. She laughed at the thought as she loaded up her luggage.

She thought about it further as she drove, and decided she had prepared herself physically and mentally as well as she could. If everything worked out as she hoped it would, she might be in Santa Cruz by early afternoon. From Sayler Beach it was about ninety miles – a two-hour drive under ideal circumstances. Before the world ended, it would’ve been three due to traffic. She was taking it slow – these days you didn’t know what was around the next bend, and definitely didn’t want to hit it at high speed – and allotting two days. She’d sleep in the truck if she had to.

It was only when she merged onto 101, twenty minutes after leaving home, that it occurred to her she might never get back again. She might die on this journey into the unknown. She might be abducted and kept in Santa Cruz or taken elsewhere. Perhaps she’d never again raid the root cellar or return to the store or watch DVDs at the farm or feed the doggos or …

“Gah, Kel, do you have to spoil things?” she growled at herself. “You will get home. You will find what you find, and if there’s nothing to find, you’ll go back, and if what you find is unsafe, you’ll run away, and if you find good people, you can tell them all about it, but you will come back unless you have good reasons not to, so stop being so negative or God help me, I’ll hug you and give you a lamotrigine to cheer you up, is that clear?!” The she laughed. She could get mad at herself, but what would honestly be the benefit in staying mad at herself?

Rolling down 101 at a careful twenty-five miles an hour, she passed Sausalito on her left and entered the National Rec Area. The advantage of taking a major highway like this was that she didn’t have to sweat all the tight turns like she did on the state roads. It wasn’t quite straight as a string, but it was close. It was wide enough to get around the accidents, and at her current speed she had plenty of time to react. It was easy, relaxing and, surrounded by trees and quiet, peaceful.

As she passed the Golden Gate Bridge View Vista Point, she slowed down even more – was that what she thought it was? She pulled over as she reached it and, sure enough, another sign, the same size as the other, the same colors, with the same message – COME TO SANTA CRUZ. The only difference was that at the bottom, instead of Sept 24, it said Sept 22. Still recent – or recent enough that it was well after the plague swept