by Tarah Benner
Positioning himself between Lark and the entrance, Soren cracked the door open and peered inside.
“Hello?” he called.
Nobody answered. He pushed the door wide open and raised the revolver.
It was much worse than he’d imagined. The stench of raw sewage and animal urine almost bowled him over, and he and Lark yanked their shirts up over their noses.
The floor was covered in dirt and debris. The cooler doors were propped open, but there were no drinks left inside. The tan metal shelves were nearly bare, and there was a trail of animal scat across the counter.
Lark let out an audible sigh. Denali sniffed the floor. Soren stepped over a shredded cardboard box and headed for the door marked “employees only.”
He was looking for a gas can to collect some fuel and found one tucked between two metal shelves. The convenience store was a total bust, but he hadn’t given up on Loving yet.
Coughing from the dust he’d disturbed, Soren felt his way back to the front room. He found Lark kneeling behind the counter, rifling through a junk drawer.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he bent down to open the cabinet under the soda fountain.
“Looking for this,” he muttered, yanking on a length of plastic tubing that connected the syrup to the pumps. It was brittle and sticky, but it would have to do.
He straightened up, and Lark followed him back outside.
“You really think there’s gas in those pumps?” she asked.
“No. But there might be some gas up there.” Soren pointed to a dilapidated mobile home about a third of a mile from where they stood.
Lark hesitated, shifting her weight from one foot to another. He knew she was thinking about the trail of trash they’d followed to the gas station. Loving, New Mexico, looked like an abandoned gold-rush town or the sort of place that had gone belly-up following a major highway bypass. There was no guarantee there’d be gas left anywhere.
Lark followed Soren up a narrow dirt footpath toward the sad-looking trailer parked all on its own. A shredded American flag was sticking out from the rusty yellow siding, and the area in front of the trailer was occupied by a lumpy blue couch and a broken-down stroller.
By the looks of things, no one had been home for at least a few months. A thick layer of foreclosure notices were taped to the door, and a handful of religious flyers were stuffed in the crack.
Behind the trailer, Soren could see a rusted-out Mercury Villager and a slightly less abused Ford Ranger. With a little luck, the trailer’s last occupant might have left a few gallons of gas in one of his vehicles.
“Hello?” Soren called, setting one foot on the cinder-block step and rapping on the flimsy door.
Nobody answered. He hadn’t expected that anyone would, but he wanted to make sure they were alone before he started siphoning gas.
After a minute of silence, Soren walked around to the back of the trailer, swinging the gas can with measured optimism.
Lark hesitated.
“What?” he asked. “You think the owners are coming back?”
Lark didn’t answer. Soren could tell from her body language that she was on high alert, but at the moment they had bigger worries than someone who might be squatting in a foreclosed mobile home.
Since the Villager looked as though it hadn’t been driven in at least fifteen or twenty years, Soren started toward the pickup. The passenger-side door had been rammed in — either by a car or a very large elk — but Soren had a feeling that the truck would run.
Abandoning the empty gas can, he went back to the mobile home and yanked the door wide open.
If the outside of the trailer was bad, it was nothing compared to the inside. Empty canned goods littered the pull-down laminate table, and nearly every usable surface was covered in junk.
He searched the kitchen for a good five minutes before unearthing a small wooden bowl filled with loose change and spare sets of keys. He grabbed the Ford keys with a surge of triumph and ran back outside to the vehicles.
Lark had opened the driver-side door and was standing in a puddle of fast-food containers that had spilled out of the Ranger. Denali was pawing at an empty Funyuns bag.
“Cake,” said Soren, twisting around Lark to stick the key in the ignition.
“Why did you —”
“Your chariot, m’lady,” he said in a mock medieval accent, stepping aside so Lark could climb in.
“What?”
“How often is a fine automobile like this one dropped in your lap?” he asked. “They’ll be looking for the Suburban, but this hunk of junk . . .”
“You think it’ll run?”
“It should. We might have to push-start it, though. Can you drive stick?”
Lark nodded and hopped in the driver’s seat. Denali jumped in behind her and climbed over Lark’s lap to reach the backseat.
Lark looked so small sitting there behind the wheel, her shoulders slumped in misery and her eyes fixed on the run-down trailer. She put her foot on the clutch and turned the key, but the truck didn’t start. She swore under her breath and tried again, but nothing happened.
“We’re gonna have to pop the clutch,” said Soren.
He closed Lark’s door and moved around to the back of the truck.
“Put it in second,” he called. “I’m gonna get you rolling down the hill.”
“Okay . . .”
Soren lowered his center of gravity and pushed against the rear bumper. It was slow going, but within a couple seconds, the truck began to roll forward. It was moving at a snail’s pace, but all he had to do was reach the crest of the hill and then —
“Give it some gas!” he yelled after Lark as the truck began to pick up speed.
In an instant, the engine roared to life, and Soren let out an excited whoop. He jogged down the hill to catch up with the truck, and Lark slowed down enough for him to jump up on the running board and catapult himself inside.
“Whoohoo!” he cried, grinning over at Lark.
“We just stole a truck,” she said in shock.
“We just stole a truck!”
The fuel gauge showed that the Ranger had a quarter tank of gas, which was at least enough to get them to the nearest town.
Lark’s limbs were jerky and uncoordinated as she worked the clutch, but she managed to steer them onto the bumpy gravel road without stalling. Soren fiddled with the radio, but they couldn’t find a station that worked.
With the sun beating down through the dusty windows and the endless white noise blaring through the speakers, Soren could no longer keep his dark, desperate thoughts at bay.
Finn and Bernie were dead, and it was all his fault. Axel and Simjay were stranded on the side of the road, and Lark had lost her best friend. The prison’s private security guards were hot on their heels. They had less than a quarter tank of gas and only a few pounds of food in their bags.
He didn’t know how long they’d be able to stay ahead of the manhunt or how they were going to get to Mexico, but Soren couldn’t stop to think. If he stopped, his entire world would come crashing down, and he couldn’t afford to fall apart.
People were counting on him, he told himself. He’d convinced them all to go along with his plan, and he’d led them all to where they were now. He couldn’t afford to lose it. They couldn’t go back to prison.
Jolted by this last thought, Soren settled back in his seat and shook himself mentally.
Lark was with him. They’d escaped San Judas, and they were three hundred miles closer to Micah. He’d get to see his brother soon, and he was a free man.
Those thoughts, more than anything, were what kept Soren going. He had Lark and his brother to think about. He couldn’t let them down.
He just had to keep moving and stay one step ahead of San Judas. Somehow, he told himself, he would get them all to Mexico. He had to find a way.
twenty-three
Lark
As they drove down the road toward town, a bitter ache of sadnes
s started in the pit of Lark’s stomach. It grew and grew the farther they drove, but she clenched her jaw and focused on the road.
She didn’t want to give up on Bernie, but she didn’t have a choice. Bernie was dead, she was alive, and Bernie would want her to keep going.
Just before they turned onto another road, a shadow flickered over the pavement. Lark looked up in time to see a red-shouldered hawk soaring overhead, magnificent with its steely black eyes and checkered wings.
She watched it soar over the road and cleared her throat as it disappeared from view. There was no turning back now.
They had to get to Mexico and start a new life. Just the other day, nothing had sounded more appealing, but the thought of continuing on without Bernie was almost more than she could bear.
As they passed the main residential area of Loving, Lark’s heart sank. There wasn’t a single person in sight, and whoever had lived there seemed to have left in a hurry. The door of one home had been left wide open, its broken screen door flapping in the breeze.
Their drive through town lasted all of three minutes. They passed a post office that had shuttered its doors, a sad little market, and a liquor store that had been looted several times over.
“What happened here?” Soren whispered.
Lark just shook her head. It felt as though they were driving through the set of an old Western movie. She half expected an enormous tumbleweed to roll across the road.
“No place to get gas here,” said Soren.
“Maybe there’s another station on the other side of town,” Lark offered, though she didn’t feel hopeful. “Let’s see if there’s anything left at the market first.”
Soren nodded, and Lark pulled the truck up to the curb. They got out and approached the storefront with a growing sense of unease.
If the market was anything like the gas station, there would be nothing left but bare shelves and rusty nails. But even if there were no provisions, there might be something inside that offered a clue as to what had happened to Loving.
Lark tried the door, but it was locked. She and Soren exchanged hopeful looks. If the store hadn’t been broken into, it might mean there was something of value left inside.
Soren walked around to the side of the building and returned with a crumbling cinder block he’d found in the alley. He heaved it into the large picture window, and the glass panel shattered.
Shards of glass rained down all over the sidewalk, causing Denali to take several furtive steps back. Soren climbed over the low sill, and Lark followed him inside.
As soon as she stepped into the dark, stuffy market, she knew this place had nothing left to offer. The dusty shelves were nearly bare, and empty wood pallets littered the aisles. Broken bottles and sheets of plastic covered the dusty floor, and when she walked around to the counter, Lark saw a note taped over the back of the cash register.
BEHOLD, THE DAY OF THE LORD COMES — CRUEL, WITH WRATH AND FIERCE ANGER — TO MAKE THE LAND A DESOLATION AND TO DESTROY ITS SINNERS FROM IT.
And below that was another message:
Take what you need and God bless.
Lark shivered and frowned at the note. It didn’t tell them much — only that something horrible had happened.
Soren gave a loud sigh, and Lark jumped. He was standing directly behind her, reading the note over her shoulder.
“Well, that’s cheerful,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“What does it mean . . . ‘To make the land a desolation and destroy its sinners’?”
Lark shrugged. “Just a bunch of Biblical crap. There must have been some kind of natural disaster that made everybody leave.”
Soren frowned, his eyebrows scrunching in concern. “You don’t think . . . You don’t think it’s like this everywhere, do you?”
“How could it be?”
“It’s not like we would have heard about it,” he said. “We haven’t had a new inmate in a year and a half.”
Lark rolled her eyes. “All these people had to have gone somewhere.”
But Soren was shaking his head. “I don’t like this.”
“Me neither.”
“What if every town south of Albuquerque is like this?”
“We don’t even know what happened here,” said Lark. “Maybe a pipeline exploded, or —”
“No,” said Soren. “People migrated out of here. They had time to pack up their things and . . .” He trailed off, looking worried.
“I’m sure we’ll find someone soon,” said Lark. “They’ll be able to tell us why everyone left.”
Soren nodded, but Lark could tell that the note had left him on edge. Despite her cavalier response, she was disturbed by the state of the town, too. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something crazy had happened — something that hadn’t been contained in Loving, New Mexico.
Without a word, Lark and Soren climbed out the broken window, got back in the Ranger, and continued down the deserted street. The empty buildings gave Lark the creeps, leering down at them with their dark, boarded windows.
By the time they emerged from the gloom of downtown, the morning sun was beating down hot and strong. Lark couldn’t see a gas station anywhere, but there was an old diner perched along the outskirts of town. At the end of the barren parking lot was a bright-purple Ford F-150.
“Bingo,” said Soren, staring down the purple monstrosity as if it were his dream car.
“It could belong to somebody,” murmured Lark. “The owner could be inside.”
“I doubt it.”
He had a point. Like everything else in Loving, the diner looked as though it had sat untouched for months. The building was dark, the dumpster overflowing. The decorative steel bands that wrapped around the exterior gleamed in the sunlight, and Lark could just make out the words “Shelley’s Diner” in red neon lights.
Lark parked the truck, and they walked slowly toward the entrance. The windows weren’t boarded up, but Lark noticed that the glass on the door was completely smudge free — almost as if it had been cleaned recently.
Next to the front door was a newspaper stand that tilted a little to the right, and behind the yellowing plastic cover was a faded copy of USA Today. It was dated from almost a year before.
Lark stopped dead and read the headlines: “Famine Claims 50 Million,” “California Drought Decimates Crops,” and below that, “Flash Flooding Along Mississippi Displaces 3 Million.”
Lark bent down to examine the paper more closely, sure it had to be a hoax. “Are you seeing this?”
But Soren was already reading the front page over her shoulder.
“This can’t be right,” he whispered. “Famine in the U.S.? What the hell is going on?”
Lark didn’t answer. In that moment, she forgot that she was a fugitive from the law. She forgot that Bernie and Finn were dead and that Simjay and Axel were waiting for them along the side of the road. All she could think about was what she might have missed in the five years she’d been locked away in San Judas.
Denali was pacing the top step leading to the diner in erratic figure eights. That, more than anything, set her on edge. Denali always seemed to be the first to know when something was amiss.
Soren drew his revolver as Lark tried the door. To her surprise, it swung open easily. A bell clanged against the glass, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
They were standing inside an old-fashioned trolley car that had been converted into a diner. It had a long counter that spanned the entire length of the room and ten padded stools whose cushions were held together with duct tape. The black-and-white tile floor was still sticky with syrup, and their shoes made audible squelching noises as they passed the receptionist’s podium.
To Lark’s left, five or six booths were squished against the windows. Their cracked seats were covered in dust, but the tables could have been wiped down that morning.
Denali barked loudly, which caused every hair on Lark’s body to stand on end. She glanced down at him and fol
lowed his gaze to the door leading back to the kitchens.
“Hello?” Soren called, raising the revolver to shoulder level.
Nothing.
Lark took another step toward the kitchen, her stomach growling at the stale smell of French fries.
Suddenly, she heard a loud click, and someone shifted behind the counter.
“Don’t move,” said a low female voice.
Denali barked wildly, and out of nowhere, the barrel of a shotgun appeared over the counter.
Lark’s mouth went dry. She grabbed Denali by the scruff of the neck and dragged him back toward the door.
“Hey, hey, hey,” said Soren, his voice urgent but composed. “We don’t want any trouble, all right?”
“Is that why you have a weapon?”
Denali let out a vicious growl, and Lark glanced at Soren.
“This is just for our protection,” he said. “We don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Then drop the weapon, put your hands where I can see ’em, and get the hell outta my diner.”
A million questions flared through Lark’s mind. Who was this person? Did she really plan to let them go? What was she guarding? And, more importantly, why was she still there when the rest of the town had fled?
“What the fuck are you waitin’ for?” barked the woman.
Lark jumped. Soren hadn’t put down the revolver, and the woman was glaring at them with two piercing green eyes.
“Go easy,” said Soren as she swiveled the gun in Lark’s direction. “We don’t mean any harm. We ran out of gas a couple miles north of here, and we were looking for directions to the nearest station.”
The woman let out a harsh bark of laughter. “You expect me to believe that? You think I was born yesterday?”
Neither of them answered. Denali was still glowering.
“Get the fuck out before I blow both your heads off.”
Lark took another step back, but her mind was still working furiously. This woman was the only living soul they’d seen since they left San Judas. Shotgun or no shotgun, they couldn’t walk away without learning what she knew.