“Sorry,” Evelyn sighed, planting her face in her hands. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”
Darren checked Ray, who’d managed to sit up again so that he could stare out across the nothingness.
“Yeah,” he finally said. “What happened?”
“All of the lights got really bright, and then they just went out,” April said. “We watched it like it was coming toward us in a wave, hitting the other cars ahead of us first.”
“But the engine’s still running,” Darren said.
“I just can’t see to drive,” Evelyn said, shaking her head.
“Then we go slowly,” Darren said as calmly as he could, feeling the tension in the car like gunpowder awaiting the touch of a flame. “Line up the outside tires with the grooves in the shoulder, you know, those things that buzz if you drift onto the shoulder to keep the truckers awake? So long as you can hear that buzzing, you’ll know you’re on the road.”
“But how am I supposed to see well enough to keep from hitting any of the cars stalled out here?”
“Watch the lightning and keep your speed down. Hopefully, since this highway appears to be so straight, you ought to be able to see something in your way miles in advance. If not, so long as you aren’t going too fast, the collision shouldn’t be too bad.”
“You’re willing to take that chance?”
“Versus sitting out here in the dark doing nothing? Oh yeah.”
Evelyn ripped her eyes from the rear view mirror where she’d been watching Darren in time to see a dark shape knife across the road in front of them, followed quickly by another. All she’d been able to discern was two oblong shapes moving very quickly, mere shades darker than the night.
April let out a small shriek, cutting it off as she clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Okay,” Evelyn said, slowly easing her foot off the brake. The car began rolling forward. She gave it just a touch of gas and moved slowly to the right until she heard the first grinding sound beneath the right tires. She looked up at the speedometer, but the needle was useless. Going this slowly, the grooves on the shoulder sounded more like knuckles running down a washboard.
The window slammed shut behind her and the truck bounced as Darren and Ray bedded down for the ride.
“How fast do you think a man can run?” Evelyn asked.
“I don’t know, maybe fifteen miles an hour at a sprint?” Jill said, sitting up just a hair, but keeping her legs as a brace against the dash.
“Then we’ll do twenty.”
Evelyn pressed slightly on the gas, gauging the speed by feel, and sat as high as she could, leaning forward over the wheel to give her just that much more advance warning if she needed to stomp on the brake.
Chapter 10
I
Fort Collins, Colorado
THEY’D FLOWN OVER MOUNTAINS, BUT UNTIL THE ROCKIES rose into view on the western horizon, he hadn’t known the meaning of the word. The enormous peaks had appeared from the plains like giant teeth, as though some great thing had tried to take a monstrous bite out of the earth itself only to have them snapped free from its oversized mouth. In time the enamel had rotted from within to expose every shade of blue from the faintest powder to the deepest hue this side of purple. They were magnificent, though not nearly as much as the fact that the girl from his dreams was pressed up against him from behind without enough room for a fly to pass between them. Something prevented him from thoroughly enjoying it, however. A general sense of malaise, not unlike the beginning stages of the stomach flu, pumped through his veins. All at once he wanted to heave up the contents of his gut as if getting everything out of his system would be enough to cure him of the illness, but he knew there was more to it than that.
Somewhere, not so far away, he was sure, something was growing on the earth like a cancer, eating away at the very life force of the planet, killing it slowly. He could feel it simultaneously calling to him and repelling him.
He looked over his left shoulder to the south, surveying the distant remains of Denver. Overpasses had fallen, standing from the piles of smashed cars like nails driven from the sky. Deep black smoke churned up into the sky as the northern suburbs burned, fueled by the houses and their owners alike, obscuring the vague outline of the downtown buildings toppled against one another like dominoes. A black ring of scorched earth encircled the entire city like a scab upon the land. A haze of dust hung over the Front Range from the Rockies to the west all the way across the city to where the airport burned with flames stories high, consuming a seemingly limitless supply of fuel to the east.
Somewhere in there…somewhere beneath that cloud of ash and settling debris was the source of his turmoil, and he knew with complete certainly that his destiny also lay somewhere beneath in the shadows.
Phoenix shivered, the cold having snuck up on him and draped itself over him like a drenched shawl, and turned his attention back to the west, straight ahead, as they passed over a small town. He kept his eyes on the majestic mountains for fear of rationalizing the sights that were cruising by beneath. Houses burned at random. Cars were mangled in collision at every intersection. They passed over a college campus with corpses scattered across every available inch of land that they were like mites on a bird’s skin, where he could only imagine their hopes and dreams of a better future were every bit as dead as they.
He just kept his vision focused on the snowcapped peaks that stabbed into the bellies of the clouds, which roiled angrily and struck back with forks of lightning, trying to wrench free.
A lake appeared ahead, surrounded by pine trees now more reminiscent of the cones they once held aloft, sharpened spires that looked about as plush as broken glass, and stretches of meadows where the grass had been blown flat. With snapping sounds like flags on a stiff wind, the horse’s wings expanded, the sections billowing to slow the advance, and it started to drop from the sky, descending gracefully until it hit the ground in stride and trotted right up to the edge of the lake and thrust its muzzle down into the black water. Gray ash floated like a skein of pond scum in the middle where a small flock of ducks with peach heads and orange, asteroid-like streaks around their eyes floated with their green bills tucked beneath auburn wings.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful,” Missy said, unclasping her hands and swinging her legs over the side of the equine, unable to steal her eyes from where the Rockies held them entranced. Phoenix offered his hand to allow her leverage to hop down into the grass, which crackled beneath her weight.
“I have,” Phoenix whispered as he tugged a handful of mane and swung from the stallion’s back.
Missy planted her fists on her hips and rolled her torso in circles with audible grinding sounds.
To Phoenix, it appeared as though there was a glow about her, shining even in these dark circumstances.
There was more clomping of hooves behind him, and the next thing he knew, the other three animals were trotting past him to the bank to drink alongside their leader.
“This was home once upon a time,” Adam said, his voice hollow. “I grew up not far to the south of here… Always figured one day I’d come back to raise my family here.”
“I’m sorry,” Norman said, clapping Adam on the shoulder.
“Look at it now. Everything that was is gone.”
Phoenix looked into the man’s eyes, which shimmered with tears.
“Everything is not gone,” the boy said, walking right up to Adam and crouching at his feet. He ripped a handful of the withered grass from the dirt, roots and all. “It is merely in a state of rebirth.”
He cupped his left palm and set the ball of roots into the center, closing his eyes with a look on his face as though he was trying to pass a stone.
As they watched, the dried and crumpled straw stood slowly up, like hair on an electrical current. Roots struck like tiny serpents, lancing right into his palm. The color darkened from a bland gray-yellow to a shade of gold to shame the sun. The blades grew longer
and longer, until they stood nearly a foot tall, wavering on an unseen wind. From the middle arose a small globe atop a thin stalk. It was a sickly brown color with black thorns protruding from it like a mace.
Phoenix pinched his eyes shut as tightly as he could, his face turning turnip red, his hand beginning to tremble.
The sphere split like a baked potato, but rather than a pale colored filling, what looked like feathers redder than the richest arterial blood poked out, slowly folding outward until they tucked that unattractive husk beneath the long, leathery petals. From the center rose four long stamens that looked like horns trumpeting its creation. The petals were shaped almost like a snapdragon, as though the thing were animate and merely waiting for someone to try to sniff it before nipping his nose.
Phoenix opened his eyes and brought his free hand to the upper portion of the petals, stroking it like a pet. The plant’s mouth yawned wide, exposing a crimson buildup of fluid.
He pried the roots from beneath his skin and gently set the whole plant back on the ground. Carefully, he broke off the bloom, pouring the fluid onto the wound in his hand, which sucked it up like a floor drain.
“Here,” he said, turning and offering the flower to Missy.
She gently took the shortened stem from between his fingers, conscious of the black thorns that now poked downward beneath the guise of the petals. Bringing it right beneath her nose, she looked up to Phoenix, who simply smiled, and then drew in a deep breath.
“It smells like cinnamon,” she gushed. “How did you do that?”
“One day this field will be in full bloom as the earth heals itself…provided she’s given the chance.”
“What does that mean?” Mare asked, leaning over to sniff his sister’s flower.
“Before the spring can cleanse the planet’s wounds and bring about the process of healing, there must first be winter.”
They all watched Phoenix, as though waiting for him to elaborate. Sadness clouded his eyes. Winter would soon be upon them, the season when everything living must prepare to die.
“He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives,” Phoenix whispered, barely audible over the sloshing of the horses replenishing their spent reserves. “He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Mare asked.
“It is a verse The Woman read to me,” Phoenix said, a wan smile tracing his lips. “It means that we all must weather four seasons before our efforts will bring their reward. This dead grass will live again. As shall we.”
Snowflakes began to fall all around them, though rather than pristine white, they alighted the color of ash.
“I’ve never seen snow before,” Missy said, twirling in a slow circle with her head cocked back to the sky and her arms out to her side. Neither had Phoenix, yet still it was nothing compared to this beautiful girl and her sense of child-like wonder.
“That’s our cue to keep moving,” Peckham said, the only words he’d uttered in hours. “None of us are equipped to face a winter storm.”
Adam looked to the snowcapped mountains. On the other side was their goal, though Lord only knew what they would find when they arrived.
Missy held the flower back out to Phoenix, a drop of blood oozing from the pinched stem.
“It’s for you,” he said, and though there were a million thoughts racing through his mind, he had no idea how to even begin expressing them.
“Thank you,” she said, giving his hand a gentle squeeze before turning back to the horses.
Phoenix stared down at that hand, still feeling the warmth of their union.
“Aren’t you coming?” she called, already astride his stallion.
He smiled and jogged over beside the steed, which knelt nobly before him. With a tug and a leap he was straddling the animal’s back. Her arms wrapped immediately around him.
The horse galloped back toward the field, taking to flight and banking around a stand of pines before heading gracefully back toward the mountains.
II
Utah
THE NIGHT HAD COME AND GONE, THOUGH WITH THE CLOUD COVER, THE world took on the dreary grayness of evening. Granted, she could see well enough to push the car up past what she assumed to be thirty-five and still have enough time to swerve or brake before ramming into anything, but the road had become more difficult. She missed the straight shot through the desert where she could see every detail of the highway until it terminated against the foothills, but now she was winding up through them. They’d only barely started up the increasing slope into the low-lying mountains when the sun had arisen behind the claustrophobic ceiling of clouds, but it had offered enough light for her to be able to come up over hills and around bends without panicking and slowing to five miles an hour. There were more cars through this section of the highway, though the majority of them were off the road, crashed into embankments at the start of the graceful curves as though they’d been headed straight and just kept on going, one hitting another until there was a small snarl just around every curve.
The traffic through Wendover, just across the state line into Utah, had been the worst they’d encountered since having to circumnavigate the cities on the western border of Nevada, but was easily enough avoided via small detours down some of the side streets through residential neighborhoods and a small business district. There were many bodies where they had fallen along the sidewalks and in the park, black piles of humanity waiting for their eventual reclamation by the earth. It was as they were finally merging back onto the highway that they saw the most unsettling thing of all. A young man dangled from a noose strapped to a streetlight, twirling gently on the breeze, the words “MORE MAN TEARS” painted onto the asphalt beneath him.
That had been enough to kill the forced conversation as each had to deal with their own inner demons and guilt. The thought in and of itself was not so unappealing, but the manner in which the boy had taken his own life was the troubling part, as though he’d gone out of his way to make sure that any survivors to pass through would see his body when he could have just climbed into his own bed and taken enough sleeping pills to pass into a dream. They’d been fortunate to find one another. Jill could only imagine the despair this young man must have felt. No one else left around him. No hope but a cryptic string of nonsense words. Had their roles been reversed, she could easily imagine walking across the street from Ray’s house to her sorority and tying her own rope beneath the front awning and kicking away a stool.
All of the unavoidable death was indeed tragic, but to take one’s own life after surviving the holocaust was more than her mind could bear. She couldn’t close her eyes for fear that the image of that poor corpse would be there, waiting for her just behind her closed lids, so she alternated energy drinks with Pepsis until she felt as though her bladder would explode. The nervous twitching of her hands and feet at the whim of the caffeine certainly wasn’t helping matters.
“Would you mind pulling over?” she whispered so as not to wake April, who had fallen asleep against her shoulder.
Evelyn looked over at her with weary eyes, the sclera now more red than white. Her lip bled from where she’d been nipping it to keep herself awake, her own caffeine-induced jitters playing out on her white knuckles atop the wheel. She could only nod, her eyes scanning lazily to either side of the road until she came to a reasonably wide shoulder on the other side of the highway between two large rock formations that looked like two children facing each other on their knees, resting their chins on hands clasped in prayer.
She didn’t dare kill the engine for fear that it wouldn’t start again. The lights never had returned, though April had been able to check in the fuse box without them having to stop and give up any more driving time. All of the fuses had been popped, which explained why about the only
thing the car would do was drive. The gas gauge wasn’t working, nor was the heat gauge. There was no radio. No nothing. She could only imagine how much trouble they would have been in if they’d been driving one of those newer cars with all of the computerized gizmos. They would still be sitting in the middle of nowhere waiting for either someone to come along and pick them up or for the desert heat to slowly bake them.
Gravel crunched under the tires, the suddenly uneven road rousing the boys in the back, who’d been huddled together for warmth.
“What’re…we d-doing?” Darren asked after drawing back the window with a shivering hand. “Are we h-here?”
Now that the car was no longer moving, it felt as though the warmth was finally catching up with him. The absence of the wind of passage left only the blessedly warm still air to permeate through his goosebump-prickled skin.
“Bathroom break,” Evelyn said, dropping the gear into park and throwing open the door. She hopped down onto the gravel. The ground felt somehow harder than it had before, or maybe it was just because she’d been sitting there in that truck for the last ten hours.
Jill scurried past Evelyn, who raised her arms to the sky and stretched out a yawn. She went just past the stone tower to the left and quickly squatted, staring out toward the northeast as she felt the pressure stream away. The foothills leveled off to desert, interspersed with rock formations that rose from nothing but sand and small clusters of thorny briars. Even farther, just before the amber sands met with a jagged horizon formed by distant mountains, it looked as though the sand became bleached, like snow covering the ground.
Her eyelids dripped closed, and for one wonderful moment, with the warmth on her skin and the discomfort abating, she almost felt normal again. When she opened her eyes again, there were car tracks through the desert as though someone had driven straight between the twin stands of rock on the side of the road like some kind of gateway. It wasn’t just a single set of tracks, but many sets atop one another. There were wide tire tracks and thin tire tracks like a bike would leave. How could she not have noticed them before? Surely no matter how badly she had to go to the bathroom she couldn’t have been so preoccupied as to miss all of the tracks through the coarse sand.
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