Dec. 9, 2011

It was almost noon when I awoke from a frothing oddball dream. As soon as I fumbled from sleep, even with my eyes still closed, I knew it was later in the day. The light across my eyelids was too harsh to be morning light.

I sat up with a start and gazed around me. My hyperactive imagination had me believing someone was in the truck with me.

I kicked the blanket free, snapped the truck door open and rolled left. My feet thudded to the wet parking lot with a slap and the sharp, sudden slather of chill wrenched a yip from my dry throat. My brain snapped to and the ‘how did I get here and where am it?’ queries were knocked down. I jumped up back into the truck, which reeked of stale beer and roaches.

It took a few minutes of rooting about to find some dry goods and I had a throw-together breakfast of two granola bars and dry Corn Flakes, while staring vacantly to the vast rolling west, where dark storm clouds loomed. To make my throat-scratching meal more palpable, I had a couple of puffs on a joint and formulated my plan for the day. Once the weed kicked in my planning veered down numerous tangent-roads and I became lost in a jumbled rampage of momentary glimpses of brilliance only to end up scratching my nuts and contemplating more food. Puff. Think. Puff. Think.

And then she was there again; standing so close to the front of my mind that she treaded on my eyeballs. My head expanded 20 times its normal size and my neck gave out. When my head thudded into the steering wheel, I snapped out of my snitty dither. I was completely oblivious of where Carrie might be in the flesh, but she was lodged entirely and deeply in my every waking thought.

Finally focusing and moving beyond the giddy stoner flinches, I realized I was planning to head to Newport, where I had experienced some powerful moments of growth when I was in my 20s. From there — who knew? I thought I should head home, but that thought was boot-heeled into mush by the follow up thought that I would go mad if I did that. Too much Carrie at home. No, I would just follow the winds and go where I got to and hope that that would take me to Carrie. It still made too much sense to me that they would have come north rather than risk the more populated south.

Sunshine suddenly washed over me and truck cab immediately began to warm. To the west the storm clouds shifted southward and a bar of deep blue signaled that I was in for a rare late fall day on the Pacific Coast, where sunshine, glorious sunshine would rule. This added to  ‘ahh’ factor of the wake and bake.

Yet, despite the strong buzz, my heart’s ache could not be masked or mellowed — no matter how much dope I smoked.

However, my day’s objective was finalized there in highway-side parking lot looking out over the Pacific Ocean. “I am going to get shit faced” I said aloud, looking to the empty space In the passenger seat.  “I am gonna weave up the coast highway and get shriekingly gibbered!” I declared as I fired up the mother of all trucks. A turn of the key had her clacking and grunting to life and soon I was rolling north, Metallica pounding in my ears.

Just ahead of me up the highway six wary travelers led by a severe, hunched over dark figure, were approaching Yachats, where a cluster of sore, bad-headed cretins were preparing to leave the bar they had pretty much destroyed in one night of gun-firing and chair-lobbing madness.

And a tad farther up the highway, Ng and his crazies were also saddling up. Across the bay, Kenneth kept watch while Carrie and Stacy made lunch.

Kenneth was desperate to get moving but didn’t want to risk things. His gut was telling him to be extremely careful and he never challenged the findings of his gut. He’d waited a couple of millennia to carry out his ultimate duties. What’s a couple more days? Alas, yes indeed. A couple of days. That could be a couple of days too late and if Yellowstone should become overrun, the resulting loss of balance would possibly create vast problems in the new world.

The fact that Long Valley was threatened had his leathery, ancient skin crawling.

“God does not play dice with the universe,” he quoted under his breath. “How apropos Albert. I can’t let the mechanics of all this to become buggered.”

Kenneth often quoted Albert Einstein, who had been a close friend of his for a period before the start of the Second World War — before he had to become chummy with Franklin D. Roosevelt in order to offer sage advice about the use of the power Einstein and company were uncovering. It was easy to become friends with FDR. He had been great friends with his fifth cousin Teddy. And it was easy to become pals with Teddy because Kenneth had ties with that family stemming back to The Mayflower and fellow passengers Richard Warren and Francis Cooke, from whom they descended, via maternal grandfather Warren Delano II. His style and intelligence always appealed to the Roosevelts. Kenneth paused to be grateful for his important and powerful friends, who never knew his secret but always expected he was more than he let on. He wouldn’t admit it, because pride was something Kenneth could not feel, but he played a paramount role in the path that Einstein followed, so he felt responsible with how atomic energy would be used. His fellow keepers demanded of him to be more careful with his knowledge, as humans could not be trusted to harness it with the care and respect it needed. The others tended to live in the shadows of carefully constructed lives that flowed just below the surface of human awareness, only stepping out now and then to secure one of the 1,111. Kenneth trusted his instincts and his gut, and didn’t have the patience to wait for humans to sort things out, when he could correct trajectories that favoured his work days being shorter and less aggravating.

Porter Vender was realizing he hadn’t heard any seagulls — in a long time. Not the most sparkling can of soda in the bar fridge, he hadn’t even realized that most species of the animal kind had disappeared, along with most people. He’d seen cats a-plenty back in Sacramento and crows were being a pain in the ass, too. Digesting this thought, he shouted, “All right, let’s get rolling!”

A bottle smashed in the back of the bar as a fumbling hand sought leverage for a slouched, badly hung-over body and one of his men moaned, “What’s the rush? Fuck my head hurts. More sleep. Need more sleep!”

Several others grumbled in agreement.

“Fuck you then, the rest of us will roll on and you lazy drunks can stay here. Fuck off.”

He clomped out of the trashed bar and one by one the rest of the gang followed him, emerging into a beautiful sunny mid-day with groans and protestations. Porter didn’t know how lucky he was to ride off up the Coast Highway on such a gorgeous December day, either. All that went through his mind as he rode toward his death that day was ‘what happened to the seagulls?’ and ‘gotta get to Portland.’

The Sacramento boys grumbled north out of Waldport and zigzagged their way toward Newport.

In a more lavish environment, Ng’s boys were taking longer to get moving — much to Kenneth’s chagrin. He knew he heard something ominous the day before and he spent a sleepless night keeping watch. Kenneth could go days without sleep, but it didn’t do a damned thing for his demeanor, which was normally raspy and terse.

Ng was in no hurry. He didn’t want to rush his boys because they weren’t really his boys. They were Perry’s crew. Perry let Ng into the mix because of the so-called legend of this well-known murderer. A vanilla killer if there ever was one, Perry enjoyed the thought of running a crew with such a guest star along for the ride. How cool was it to have Ng riding next to him? His jail pals in San Quentin would never believe it.

Besides, Perry was scared shitless of Ng. Hard as nails and fitter than a fiddle, the former Marine presented a formidable image, in a psycho Bruce Lee kind of way.

As a result of this drunken pirate lollygagging, the Sacramento boys and Ng’s Frisco freaks — entirely comprised of murderers, rapists, arsonists and sundry other savage violent thugs and evil scum — had a testy run in on the southern side of the Yaquina Bay Bridge.

Half of Ng’s 25 maniacs were on Highway 101 and the remains were rolling up to it from the trashed brewpub when Porter Vender and his sundry sub-humans rumbled upon them.

Just a few miles ahead of me, as I crept through the twisted metal carnage that the curving coast highway had become at Cape Perpetua, the small band of six buzzed forward, their dirt bikes a tremulous contrast to the Harleys about to unleash hell’s fire at one another a few miles ahead.

Leading the small band, the tall, dark haired man noticed a pasta-noodle-thin trickle of smoke rising from the bay-front bar just recently vacated by the Sacramento bunch. The sight of smoke and carnage at the Sea Lion Caves had him throttling back and his tightly wound band of complex mortal demons sensed his concern and they let up on their throttles.

I was also worried about what I saw at the Sea Lion Caves and was creeping along — the Dodge’s give-‘em-smoke Cummins clacking perfectly. The 10 gauge was across my lap and the Glock was resting in the centre panel. I’d been listening to CSN&Y’s American Dream. It seemed the perfect music for the glorious day and suited the early buzz I was building.

I was regretting having smoked the half joint when I rolled onto the highway. I had grown soft and silly since Carrie was taken from me. I didn’t care, I thought in my anger and despair, if I came upon anyone. But a few days of head pounding and screaming at the gods had re-established some sense of self worth and I was on full, jittery alert now.

A thin column of motorcycles weaved onto the Alsea Bay Bridge leading to Waldport.

“Andy what do you make of that? That’s chimney smoke… a fire from last night,” jabbered Hex, a devient from Modesto who’d drifted north from L.A., where he’d been working as a night clerk at a scuz motel and smoked and sold meth. His favourite hobby was jacking his monkey to child porn, which he constantly downloaded. It riled him to no end that his hobby was brutally interrupted when the LA power grid went offline. That bothered him more than the fact that he was left alone in a suddenly hyper dangerous world. So he hit the road and came upon Andy in Modesto, shortly after he realized he was alone. His mother was gone. His sister was gone.

Andy was the first person Hex came upon who didn’t try to either kill him or fuck him, or both. He had a freakish power, too, that Hex couldn’t pin point. He was afraid of him but also felt fantastically safe with him and for some weird reason, he trusted the dark, mysterious guy.

So Hex willingly became Andy’s Igor and he felt great pride when he called him his “tip of the spear.” That meant he went in first while everyone else waited outside. Hex knew he was going to have to check out the old bar where the smoke was coming from.

The remainder of the small band lined up behind Andy and kickstanded their bikes. Hex scuffed down the final 100 feet of bridge and carefully worked his way toward the nearby bar. He disappeared inside and a second later reemerged, waving at his travel companions.

Nine miles away, I pulled over to have a good think and to enjoy the awesome sights of Cape Perpetua. It was another of countless surreal moments I had experienced in the past month. Had it really only been a month?

I’d spent many hours wandering around this place before, exploring the tidal pools, dodging wave spray and hiking in the nearby hills. Even here, the death of the world was obvious.

It was uncertain who opened fire first. Ng was near the back of the line of bikes filing onto the highway, so he and Perry were able to secure a firing position.

When Porter saw the gang ahead, his first thought was to turn around and beat it but his reckless heart always overruled his head and with a scream he pulled his sawed off shotgun from the holster on his back and gunned his bike. With a whoop he raced toward the Frisco crew and with peer pressure firmly ruling their actions, Porter’s lads sped forward firing on the move.

Porter struggled to level his shotgun and found that it is much harder to push a Harley forward in a hurry with one hand and fire a weapon at the same time. He looked at his gun and without realizing what he was doing, he let up on the throttle. The first of about a dozen machine gun bullets found their mark in Porter Vender’s damned body, causing him to think again about seagulls. His helmetless head burst open as it slammed sideways into the pavement and his lifeless, bullet-riddled body slid to its final resting place. All around him, his men screamed and fired and motorcycles criss-crossed and crashed.

At the south end of the bridge, Ng’s crew had dismounted their bikes and had formed a skirmish line. Along the highway edge, Ng, Perry and several surviving or unhurt monsters took cover and blazed away at the frightening, chaotic advance coming their way.

Kenneth yelled at Carrie and Stacy to “shut the bloody hell up. Shhhh. Listen!”

The scampered to the front window and pushed it to its fullest extent. It sounded like a Day of the Dead Carnival from a distance. The air was filled with popping sounds.

“Gunfire,” Stacy exclaimed. “That’s gunfire!.”

Carrie felt a pang of worry for Rob and never gave pause to her own potential danger.

“What should we do?” Stacy asked.

Kenneth replied, “Nothing. Sit still for now.” The popping continued but after 30 seconds it became less frequent and then there was silence, save a small murder of crows that angrily hopped about on a lifeless waterfront.

Ng talked Perry into taking a couple of men along the highway’s edge to try and get a bead at who attacked them. Without thinking, Perry tapped the two nearest men and they began to make their way south along the east side of the highway.

Only seven Sacramento gang members were left unhurt, and they had taken cover, scattered over a 40 yard area, on the west side of the road.

“What the fuck just happened?” One yelled. Another screamed that he’d been shot. And then another. And then another.

Gunsmoke gave the sea air an acrid taste and blood continued to spill onto the highway.

Only seven of Ng’s and Perry’s crew had been hit or killed. Being hit was as good as being killed, though. There was no compassion for the injured in this dead world — even for friends and lovers.

After crawling and elbow/knee scuffling about 50 yards south, Perry inched up to take a peek across the road. His first glance told him a bunch of bikes and bikers were strewn across the highway. Several more were in the ditch just ahead of where he was laying. His second glimpse nearly cost him his head. Gunfire exploded again and voices shouted “there, there, they’re right there!”

Ng was enjoying the tussle. He scampered along the cover afforded by the bank leading to the south end of the bridge and raced up the stairs to the deck. By the time he got to the top, the firing had ceased again.”

“How many are there?” he asked one of the men crouching behind the crumpled wreckage of a head-on collision between a mini-van and a four-door sedan of some flavour.

“Not really sure,” came the unsteady reply.

Ng shouted at the man to grab a couple more men and make their way south along the road’s edge.

“Go fuck yourself,” came the reply.

Ng shrugged. “Okay, never mind,” he said cheerfully.

“Okay, you men get on your bikes and get across the bridge,” he shouted and then whistled loudly. “Scary, c’mon, let’s get out of here.”

After a short pause, he shouted again: “You men down there. You leave us alone, we’ll let you live. Okay?”

There was no response. The remains of the Sacramento crew were too frightened and too leaderless to respond. They hugged the road’s edge, taking occasional peeks and contemplating escape.

“What’d he say?” One whispered.

“Can’t hear him,” another said. “Shhhh,” a third urged.

Perry caught sight of Ng waving and waved at his two pals to follow him back to the bridge.

The Sacramento boys could hear the thud of feet racing on the other side of the highway but they kept their heads down, until they heard the sound of Harleys firing up. A couple lifted their heads and saw Ng’s Frisco crew disappearing behind the vehicular carnage on the bridge.

“They’re going,” he shouted. When the last bike, Perry’s sidecar number, was past the first bit of wreckage on the bridge, seven shaken and battered assholes stood among the remains of their once entirely shameful group of assorted nasty.

The rumble of Harleys weaving over Yaquina Bay growled below the whining and moans of the seven men laying on the road and in the ditch.

Ng started when he heard the loud popping and spun his head. He smiled knowingly. He knew his unknown assailants had just finished off their own and he also knew they’d knock off those pleading things from his own crew, who foolishly let themselves be shot. He smiled again and felt a great surge of love for his new life. It sure beat the living crap out of rotting in a small death row cell, having to converse with, or worse, listen to other doomed bastards converse. The warmth of the strange late autumn sun filled him with even more good feelings. He looked at Perry, who was making a strange facial contortion as he carefully squeezed his bike past a brown UPS van that was knocked onto its side by the out-of-control tanker truck now dangling one-third off the bridge, held up only by jagged arms of ripped bridge railing and side cable.

Three more pops. Ng turned again, but couldn’t see past all the wreckage on the bridge. They were a bit over half way to the north side of the 3,223-foot-long bridge.

Kenneth had already warned the ladies that there was movement on the bridge.

“There’s a lot of them,” he said. “There, they’re coming out from behind tha’ tanker truck. One, two, three, four,” he counted, squinting through binoculars. He stopped counting at 18.

Stacy was next to him, looking concerned. Carrie stood behind them, feeling useless. She hated not being able to do anything to help or provide any form of expertise. She was used to being in charge, in her old life.

The Sacramento crew carefully picked their way to the south end of the bridge, to try and get a glimpse of the fierce band of mothers who’d torn them to shreds. All they could see was carnage and beyond it, Harley’s rumbled away from them. Across the bay, Newport’s quay area looked inviting in the bright midday sun.

Ng had the same feeling and he didn’t feel like having to watch his back.

“Stop,” he yelled at Perry, who brought his bike to such a quick halt that Ng’s knees banged into the front of the sidecar. Grimacing, he stepped onto the bridge decking and pulled a satchel from the sidecar.

Perry’s eyes widened and then his mouth widened in a grin when Ng walked to the dangling tanker, unscrewed a gas cap and placed a stick of dynamite into its mouth.

“Get across the bridge, boys!” He shouted and watched as the line of Harleys weaved to the north end of the bridge.

“You get moving, too,” he said to Perry. “That fat thing won’t get across as quickly as the single bikes. Get to safety.”

Perry grinned at him. “Serious? What, you gonna just blow yourself up?”

Ng told him the fuse was good for “30 or so seconds” and he could run to the other side in time.

Shaking his head and chuckling, Perry’s bike squealed and then rumbled to life and he growled away.

Part Two next week

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

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