Artifact 18: Josh's Dispiriting Discovery

We return to Josh on his cross-country trip in the near future to deliver the Artifact.

Artifact 18: Josh’s Dispiriting Discovery

 

            As you may recall, we last encountered Josh driving his hyper-powered car across a near-future Amerikan landscape. Josh possesses a priceless item we know only as “The Artifact,” and he had found an anonymous buyer for the Artifact on the BLACKNET.

The mysterious buyer specified that Josh deliver the Artifact to an undisclosed location on the west coast, adding a warning that others out there desire the Artifact and will do anything to acquire it. An old cigar box with “Marbles and Jacks” scribbled across it holds the Artifact and lies on Josh’s car floorboards concealed only by his jacket.

 

            Energized after his train misidentification incident, Josh ventured on toward his destination on the west coast. His hyper-powered car droned on, its noise suppression system operating normally with Josh maintaining his speed close to the limit. Moving through what used to be the American Midwest, here and there existed evidence of the intense warring that had occurred just a few years ago. What was once a great America would never return to its former glory.

            After a couple more hours, Josh found himself nodding off.  There were no self-driving features on his bare bones supercar and more than once his speed dropped below the posted limit with the car wandering either across the lane markers or off the shoulder. Fortunately, the lane markers under the tires vibrated the entire car like a machine gun or the shoulder’s gravel roar jolted Josh awake. The final time’s narrow escape convinced him that he needed to sleep.

   Quickly assessing his situation, he found his car straddling the shoulder lane markers heading off the shoulder’s gravel edge toward a concrete bridge barrier looming ahead.

 “Whoa, pay attention there!” He warned himself swerving the car back to the highway’s center between the flashing reflectors.

 His music player still played in his ears, but it was a late night to early morning program, a ‘leave it on ‘til morning’ show, which proved too mellow for someone trying to stay awake. He yanked his earbuds out and with a flick of the map light and a twist of the rear view mirror, Josh saw a face he hardly recognized. His beard had grown thick and dark and deep, dark bags lay below his eyes, and his hair strung down to his shoulders in knots.

“Got to pull off and catch some Z’s,” he whispered as he rubbed his eyes and his scratchy chin. 

            Pulling out the keypad, he typed in a request for a closer look at the local geography. He blinked his dry, scratchy eyes a few times in quick succession, as he scanned for a suitable pull off like abandoned gas stations or anywhere he could use to stay out of sight while he slept. After the program ran for a few seconds, he spotted what looked like a farmer’s field lane that was not located near any occupied structures. The lane ran along the highway about three miles ahead. Looked good, he thought and zoomed in on the area with a finger point. He saw a nice grove of trees to put under which appeared on the screen like a group of shrubs from above. 

            As Josh approached the area, he slowed somewhat with the map showing more detail revealing a slight problem. Josh recognized that the highway he was on didn’t actually connect with the lane he looked for. Fencing lined both sides of the highway, probably meant to keep stray animals off the road surface and crazy drivers from hopping on and off at any point they wanted back in the era when this highway was a toll road.

            Josh really didn’t know or care if this was ever a toll road, but he wondered what a toll road might have cost and how much of the collect money went to fixing roads or went to lining a politician’s pockets. It was the politicians’ fault for the last Great War. He imagined long lines of cars and frustrated drivers waiting in line to pay money at tolls to drive on the road. How bizarre! Shaking his head, he realized that his drowsy brain twisted through bizarre mental gyrations. He snapped out of it.

            According to what he saw on the screen, the lane just went by on the left not too far off the highway but apparently farther than Josh could see in the low light. He rubbed his eyes again. An overpass loomed up ahead, and as he went under he slowed almost to a stop to see if there was any way up around it to the access road. He didn’t see any possible way, so he slowly continued on. Another kilometer. Two more kilometers. He snapped up again when he dozed off.

 His tired eyes noticed black tire marks on the pavement from a 24-wheeler that had at one time diagonally slid across his lane from the other direction. In the glimpse of the dim moon light, he saw that the truck plowed off his side of the highway and took out the fence. Making a quick double-check on the heads-up, he confirmed there were no vehicles within at least forty kilometers. Josh braked quickly, eased the transmission into first, turned around in the two westbound lanes, and went east to the fence break. 

            Only a hundred meters or so, he carefully paralleled the skid marks as they went off the highway, across the gravel shoulder and down the grassy slope. His headlights shown down into a ravine that looked a little muddy from recent rains. He flicked on traction control just to make sure, plowed through the ravine, and started up the other side. The tachometer sped up a bit as the smart tires bit into and spun in the soft soil. Josh heard the soil spray up inside the fender wells as the mud flew out of the tire’s treads in short rooster tails.

  Josh spotted the break in the fence noticing that the truck must have not gone much farther than the fence because in his uphill shining headlight beams he could see brush and weeds standing upright beyond the downed fence. With good traction again, Josh slowed down and flicked down his lights to running lights to avoid undue attention if anyone was around. The going leveled off and the brush and weeds flew around and under the car snapping and swishing as he pressed on through. He quickly steered around a small tree and soon spotted the access road that lay parallel the highway. He sped up and turned up to the overpass he had just passed under a minute ago.

            The zoomed up display showed the farm lane intersected his access road barely off the slope of the overpass on the left. He slowed way down and spotting the tree-lined lane, he turned in. The lane was dirt with grass growing up between the two tracks with a couple mud puddles. Not much traffic out here, Josh assured himself. The tree cover thickened after about fifty meters. Josh pulled in between a couple of huge old oaks, shut off the lights, and the engine. He reset the computer proximity alarm for warm bodies or movement at 20 meters.  

             Probably paranoid, Josh thought in his tiredness, but just to be sure, he decided to cover the car. Josh held his head in his hands, elbows on knees for a few moments, but he determined that he’d better move now or he’d fall asleep in no time. He pulled out a penlight, turned it on, and sticking it in his mouth, he clamped it between his teeth. Getting out, the small penlight dimly lit the oak grove, casting large eerie shadows beyond his temporary parking space. After relieving himself, he opened the trunk and pulled out a small drawstring-tied canvas bag. Bracing himself on the trunk, Josh yawned or least tried to in the right side of his mouth opposite the left side that held the penlight. 

Stretching out the lightweight material that was woodland camouflage, he stretched one edge of the elastic around the car’s back bumper and pulled the camo-cover up over the top of the car. Going to the front, he could feel the tremendous heat billowing out from the engine as he kneeled down to stretch the camo down around the front spoiler. He smiled to himself in a promise of sleep as he pulled the camo up to open the driver’s side door and slowly got in pulling the camo down to the bottom the door as he pulled it shut. 

            Josh pulled the light out of his mouth and turned it off.  He rewetted his lips with his tongue and pushed the seat back into a reclining position. Josh fell asleep in moments.     

            Entering a long, dark corridor with a dim light shining from the far end, Josh stalked, carrying a small, white box in his up-turned hands held well out in front of his body ceremonial-like. His dream-self walked slowly and carefully, afraid of what may be on the floor or in the side corridors. Looking quickly right and left, he passed a side corridor. Someone was there, zombielike reaching out for him!

At the next corridor, he saw the dim light glint off the sunglasses this person wore as they slinked back into the dark recesses out of sight. He walked on past corridors, on the right and on the left and every time someone was there, men or women from eras of history or tales of terror who backed away out of sight as he moved along. The dim light at the corridor end grew closer and brighter with his every step. 

Josh looked right and left at the mysterious people who slid silently back away from him as he walked past holding his breath with fearful anticipation. At the end of the corridor, a single un-shaded light bulb hung from a wire in a small vestibule. The light shined on a massive, iron vaulted door. The door had a huge iron wheel and a lever on it.  Josh carefully set the box on the floor next to his feet and tried the wheel and lever but neither would budge.

 His dream-self stood there, apparently contemplating the situation. He felt someone was watching him"a zombie? A monster? A gruesome dictator? He turned quickly and saw a grizzly, twisted, bent man standing in the corner. Josh backed a step and bent down to pick up the box. He held it tightly to his side. He backed another step, surveying the old man. The man was dressed in tattered green army fatigues with torn yellow and brown name and service tags hanging over the pockets. A dented helmet with ripped netting sat back on his head. The man shuffled toward Josh a few dragging inches at a time. 

“It’s evil!” He spoke in a low, rattling voice. “It’ll consume you like it did me many years ago. You can’t destroy it, but it’ll surely destroy you,” he said inching toward Josh, his mangled hand reaching out…. 

             Josh’s back touched the wall. The old man reached up toward Josh, with those three-fingered hands, those terribly mangled, three-fingered hands. With the thumb and finger missing on each hand, he reached up, shaking violently while trying to grab Josh’s shirt, and making purchase, the three fingers on each hand curled around the shirt’s fabric. 

Josh looked down at the terrible hands, and the man’s body shook violently as he said, “Listen to me!  Listen to me! Get rid of it now while you still can! It’ll get you, control you, and then"they’ll take you”

             A shuffling scraping noise grew closer. Josh and the old man looked down the corridor and the strange people walked towards them. All of them were dressed in dark clothing, and they wore dark sunglasses. The hideous throng approached, getting closer and the old man loosened his grip, staggered back and dropped to his knees.

“No, no, nooo,” he sobbed…

            A soft, intermittent buzzing woke Josh from his dream. He shook his head in retrospect of his strange dream. He smiled at the cliché dream characters, but realized it had a disturbing realism going on that might apply to him. Refocusing, Josh realized the buzzing was the proximity alarm in his earplug speakers. He yawned and blinked his eyes three times as he flicked on the heads-up display. 

The display showed two hot bodies in the infrared that circled within his display’s range. Watching a few seconds, he saw that one of the bodies, longer than the other, zigged and zagged back and forth much quicker than the second body that followed a seemingly straight path. Josh watched as the faster body abruptly stopped at the base of a tree and a weak warm glow emulated that cooled, faded, and disappeared a few seconds later. 

            The faster body then took off again wandering back and forth for a minute until it reached the edge of the oak clearing. Josh knew what would happen next. The glowing body made a beeline right to his car. He could hear sniffing around his car door and under the edge of the camouflage cover.

            Josh slowly opened the door and reached out around the door’s bottom to push the cover up but felt a cold, wet nose on his hand.  He instinctively drew his hand back expecting teeth, but the nose followed his hand inside. Josh saw that the nose belonged to a friendly Golden Labrador. He lowered his hand, and the dog licked it. With a yawn, Josh smiled. He reached out over the dog to push the cover up over the top of the door to the car’s roof. He saw that the new day was getting light.

The Lab backed up as Josh pushed the door open wider and swung a leg out. He heard a whistle and the dog hesitated for a second before running off around the back of the car. The cool damp air of the morning then hit Josh, so he reached over and lifted his jacket from the floorboards. He did a double take, sleepily thought a second and did a triple take.

His stomach fell and his head dizzied. Josh’s precious cargo, the old cigar box with “Marbles and Jacks” scribbled across it was GONE!