Gavin Blaire's Interview

PARNELL AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE: MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, USA

 [Gavin Blaire pilots one of the D-17 combat dirigibles that make up the
 core of America’s Civil Air Patrol. It is a task well suited to him. In
 civilian life, he piloted a Fujifilm blimp.]

 It stretched to the horizon: sedans, trucks, buses, RVs, anything that
could drive. I saw tractors, I saw a cement mixer. Seriously, I even saw
 a flatbed with nothing but a giant sign on it, a billboard advertising a
 “Gentlemen’s Club.” People were sitting on top of it. People were
riding on top of everything, on roofs, in between luggage racks. It
reminded me of some old picture of trains in India with people hanging
on them like monkeys.

 All kinds of crap lined the road—suitcases, boxes, even pieces of
expensive furniture. I saw a grand piano, I’m not kidding, just smashed
like it was thrown off the top of a truck. There were also a lot of
abandoned cars. Some had been pushed over, some were stripped, some
looked burned out. I saw a lot of people on foot, walking across the
plains or alongside the road. Some were knocking on windows, holding up
all kinds of stuff. A few women were exposing themselves. They must have
 been looking to trade, probably gas. They couldn’t have been looking
for rides, they were moving faster than cars. It wouldn’t make sense,
but…[shrugs].

 Back down the road, about thirty miles, traffic was moving a little
better. You’d think the mood would be calmer. It wasn’t. People were
flashing their lights, bumping the cars in front of them, getting out
and throwing down. I saw a few people lying by the side of the road,
barely moving or not at all. People were running past them, carrying
stuff, carrying children, or just running, all in the same direction of
the traffic. A few miles later, I saw why.

 Those creatures were swarming among the cars. Drivers on the outer
lanes tried to veer off the road, sticking in the mud, trapping the
inner lanes. People couldn’t open their doors. The cars were too tightly
 packed. I saw those things reach in open windows, pulling people out or
 pulling themselves in. A lot of drivers were trapped inside. Their
doors were shut and, I’m assuming, locked. Their windows were rolled up,
 it was safety tempered glass. The dead couldn’t get in, but the living
couldn’t get out. I saw a few people panic, try to shoot through their
windshields, destroying the only protection they had. Stupid. They might
 have bought themselves a few hours in there, maybe even a chance to
escape. Maybe there was no escape, just a quicker end. There was a horse
 trailer, hitched to a pickup in the center lane. It was rocking crazily
 back and forth. The horses were still inside.

 The swarm continued among the cars, literally eating its way up the
stalled lines, all those poor bastards just trying to get away. And
that’s what haunts me most about it, they weren’t headed anywhere. This
was the I-80, a strip of highway between Lincoln and North Platte. Both
places were heavily infested, as well as all those little towns in
between. What did they think they were doing? Who organized this exodus?
 Did anyone? Did people see a line of cars and join them without asking?
 I tried to imagine what it must have been like, stuck bumper to bumper,
 crying kids, barking dog, knowing what was coming just a few miles
back, and hoping, praying that someone up ahead knows where he’s going.

 You ever hear about that experiment an American journalist did in
Moscow in the 1970s? He just lined up at some building, nothing special
about it, just a random door. Sure enough, someone got in line behind
him, then a couple more, and before you knew it, they were backed up
around the block. No one asked what the line was for. They just assumed
it was worth it. I can’t say if that story was true. Maybe it’s an urban
 legend, or a cold war myth. Who knows?