Tales of the Derry Plague , Anselmo, Ray [fun to read txt] 📗

around Merced Lake and rejoined 1 south of Daly City. She could take either 1 or 35 down, and keep right on going.

And of course, 1 went right down the coast to Santa Cruz and beyond.

She finished her salami and cheese and got going again. West on Chavez until it dead-ended at a park. Around the park, pick up another street, and soon she was heading southwest on Portola. Soon enough, she was where Sloat met 19th. She decided to stay on Sloat, theorizing that driving closer to the ocean would mean less chance of fires getting in her way. Sloat turned into Skyline Boulevard (she’d never figure out all the road-name changes in San Francisco, but hopefully would never have to).

Kelly smiled at the green expanses of the golf courses, the windswept trees hugging the cliffs, and the prevailing west wind blowing all the smoke from the fires away from her. She winced at all the parked cars, many with mummy-like objects inside. She rolled her eyes at a billboard advertising houses “in the low $500,000s” – it would be a long time before houses cost more than “you move in and fix it up yourself,” she suspected. Even before, there were more houses than people to put in them. Now … hey, she’d had a hundred or so to herself since August.

She reached the interchange with Highway 1 and faced another obstacle, but this one was just a PT Cruiser that had stopped across a lane. It was the work of a minute to bull it aside and continue south. Easily solved problems – yeah, she needed more of that kind. She pulled over and flipped open the pocket watch as she got another idea, and reset the clock on the Dodge’s dashboard. 1:40, if the watch was still accurate. Either way, it gave her a better idea of how much daylight she had before she needed to either reach Santa Cruz or stop for the night.

A little before three, she reached Half Moon Bay and got a pleasant surprise – another COME TO SANTA CRUZ sign, this one two-sided, where 1 met State Highway 92. This one was dated September 12. Half an hour later, she spotted another one at San Gregorio, at the intersection of Highways 1 and 84, with Sept 11 sprayed at the bottom. She was seeing a pattern here – someone from Santa Cruz had been working their way north, probably starting in early September, about a month after the plague swept through.

Odd that she hadn’t seen any such signs in San Francisco itself. But maybe she’d just missed them, or hadn’t driven down the right streets. Or maybe they’d burnt up. Well, not something she needed to worry about now. Onward.

The coast south of Half Moon Bay was a lot like the coast north of Sayler Beach – a lot of place names that were only names, or names and two or three buildings. It was warmer, though, fewer trees and more sun. The highway was built right onto the cliffs in many places – nothing but rock going straight up on her left and straight down to rocks and the ocean on her right. She slowed down to twenty, feeling a little vertiginous, and understood why people usually took the inland route via the South Bay to get to Santa Cruz.

It didn’t help that a few miles south of Año Nuevo State Park, she found the remains of yet another big rig, shoved not only to the side but through the guard rail, halfway off the ocean side of the cliff. It was teetering there, looking very unsafe for anyone going past. Whoever had gone north and put up the signs probably just wanted to get by and didn’t worry about anything else. But just looking at it made her feel queasy. She flashed back to the trailer on the Golden Gate Bridge that almost collapsed on her cab, and shuddered.

No, she wasn’t going to leave it like this. She slowly pulled the Ram up to the far end of the trailer, the tires about two feet above the road but rocking up and down a few inches. She made contact with the grille guard, stopping the rocking, then slowly pressed on the accelerator. It didn’t give for a few seconds, then all at once broke loose and began sliding away, off the road bed, off the cliff. A few seconds later she heard the crash as it hit the rocks below.

“Not exactly environmentally friendly,” she commented, “but the road is much safer.” Except for the big hole in the guard rail. She thought about tying her rope across it, but she only had the one rope and thought she might need it. Instead she straightened out and drove on. Maybe when she came back up, she’d bring something to put across it.

At 5:32 she reached Majors, which wasn’t major at all, just a few country roads leading into the hills and down to the beach. Maybe a couple dozen houses and some small farms. No activity to be seen except for a cow wandering around, looking for its herd or someone. But it seemed like a nice enough place to stop for dinner. She grabbed the day’s food bag, her front-seat bag and the Mizuno, locked up the Ram and strolled down a dry creek bed to a swath of sand with a sign that said Red, White and Blue Beach.

As she ate, she pondered her next steps. She was only a few miles from Santa Cruz, and she was nervous as a cat in a rocking-chair showroom. What would she find when she got there? Good people trying to make the best of a frightening new world? A hellscape of wasteland warriors seeking fresh slaves or fresh meat? Some tin-pot military dictatorship? Maybe tons of dead bodies due to the plague mutating or coming around for another