Dead Town Bakersfield

As soon as the group is back on the road, Mal puts the foot down – at least until the crossing, the route seems to be safe enough for some speeding and the day is growing shorter. Zed is on his street bike, a hundred meters ahead, his black duster flapping in the wind. After they leave the route to Good Water they become much more careful. Some call it “exploration pace” – driving no faster than twenty klicks per hour, a scout on bike ahead, constant radio contact and frequent stops to check the surroundings. They are in the wastes now, flat land to the west, the Appalachians rising in the east. Only few things live in these places, and there are few signs of the Long Ago apart from the ancient blacktop and a rusted hulk now and then, serving as a windbreak for hardy shrubs. Dan Hawking finds tracks of the other group’s jumper at one of those stops. “Three days, may be two. Hard to say, tracks age fast here.” They drive on, towards the afternoon sun. Soon, they get a first glimpse of Bakersfield. “Quite sizable” is the first thought in Mal’s head when he scans the ruins with his binoculars. “Twenty thousand souls. Bad shape.” The road seems to run right through the ruins, with another blacktop coming in from the south, forming a T-crossing in the middle of the ruins. Lots of red brick buildings, two or even three stories – sadly, their roofs have mostly caved in long ago. Some old billboards on the walls, long bleached white. There seem to have been some fires in the days of the Fall. A church at the crossing, still a fine-looking structure with its white bell tower. Apart from the big roads, the streets are choked with sand and brambles. No signs of human habitation or recent visitors. The binoculars change hands. “It seems quiet enough.” Rod says “Probably the others are somewhere in a building, trying to fix their jumper. Shall we go for a look?” “Yes, but let’s be very careful. They could also be in a slaver’s cage or rotting in shallow graves. A hundred men could hide in these ruins. We go very slow, and always keep an eye on a way out.”
Dan nods, and Zed goes back on his bike, his unspoken, unenviable duty being to scout the road in the ruins ahead and being the first to be shot at. The Conquistador creeps up to the edge of the ruins, then halts, as Zed makes a run up to the crossing and back. He goes in with some speed – if you have to be a target, at least be a target that’s swiftly moving, that’s what Judge Boyd said at times like these. Zed roars in, his head low between the handlebars. Empty ruins flash by, mostly burnt out shells now filled with underbrush, car wrecks nearly covered by the shifting sands. Rusted streetlamps and road signs, partly obscured by some kind of creeping vines. He mostly runs on sand: the blacktop is only visible in some spots. He reaches the mid-town crossing and stops the bike. A short look around: Not a living soul, not even animals, just lots of sand and brambles. At the western edge is a big whitish structure, a large building. It seems to be in better shape than the rest of town. A school, maybe. He guns the engine and races back. A bit breathless, he reports. Mal nods “Okay, we go in. Zed, please go fifty ahead. We stop at the crossing and then think about further action.” He looks at the sky. “Maybe two more hours of good light. I’d like to return to Refugium before it gets real dark. At least back to the route where it’s safe and cozy.” Dan makes his hang-dog face “I don’t like it.” “Of course you don’t.”
The small convoy goes in, no faster than a wanderer on foot. Zed reaches the crossing, the Conquistador fifty meters behind, just at the old church and its looming tower, when the heavy vehicle breaks through the sandy surface and drops a yard into a large pitfall. Mal, Rod and Dan Hawking are jolted around. Mal screams “Ambush!” and draws two of his MACs. He bursts from the hatch in the roof like a ludicrously well armed jack-in-the-box. At the crossing, Zed has realized the predicament of the others. At the same moment, a bottle thrown from above bursts on the roof of the jeep, a clear, honey-like fluid spattering everywhere. Rod gets a whiff of the stuff and turns pale. He shouts “Nerve poison! Everybody out out out!” Everywhere, the sand seems to boil – black stingers and pincers rise from the dust, shaking the sand off pitted carapaces…
Bakersfield is one of ten thousand dead towns. Year after year, it lies silent under moon and sun, rotting away, sanded down by the soft wind coming from the mountains. In two generations, only a few mounds of brick will be left and maybe some name in maps which are becoming obsolescent fast. From a mile away, the town already starts to look more like a patch of vegetation than a human artifact. But this afternoon, the silence is broken by the roar of a motorcycle accelerating deep in the ruins, and, at first, short bursts of automatic gunfire and disciplined rifle shots. But after a moment, the shooting becomes frantic – long, barrel-melting bursts, rifles fired as fast as the trigger will go, interrupted by one, then another hollow explosion. As suddenly as the shooting began, it stops. A final, long burst from a submachine gun, then silence returns to Bakersfield.