Supervolcano: All Fall Down

She drove over and parked near the Denny’s. It wouldn’t be great, but it wouldn’t be terrible, either. She didn’t feel like surprises right now. Most of the business they did would be with truckers-there weren’t many ordinary cars here. She counted herself lucky that that officious asshole had finally deigned to let her travel the Interstate at all.

Men’s eyes pawed her when she walked into the joint. Any woman between fifteen and forty who wasn’t butt-ugly had to get used to that feeling. Vanessa wasn’t-nowhere near-and she had. Which didn’t mean she liked it. It always made her feel like a warm piece of meat with some convenient holes. And it was a lot stronger than usual here, because there were so many guys of the annoying age and so few other women to help defuse it.

A couple of soldiers were damn near salivating. She ignored them; to her, they were only horny puppies. They reminded her of Bryce, even though he was a year older than she was. He’d always be a puppy, no matter how old he got. Thank God she hadn’t gone and married him!

She sat down at the counter. Fewer guys would be bold enough to bother her here, right in front of the scurrying waitresses and the cooks. She could hope so, anyhow.

“What’ll it be, dear?” One of the waitresses paused in front of her, pad in hand. She was past fifty, wrinkled and tired-looking even if her eyes were friendly. Men wouldn’t bug her-not too often, anyhow.

“Cheeseburger and coffee, please.”

“Fries or coleslaw with your burger?”

“Uh, coleslaw.”

“You got it. I’ll bring the coffee right away. The other stuff is made from scratch, so it’ll take a few minutes.”

“Sure,” Vanessa said. The explanation had to be for people who’d never gone to anything fancier than a Burger King in their whole lives, people for whom Denny’s was a major step up. Were there really people like that? By the way the waitress delivered the warning, there were plenty of them. And what did that say? It said the country’d been fucked, or at least fucked up, long before the supervolcano blew.

When the food came, the patty in the cheeseburger looked like a patty. The bun. . The bun looked more like a hockey puck cut in half horizontally than anything else Vanessa could think of. She pointed at it. “What went into that?” she asked, distaste clotting her voice.

She didn’t faze the waitress a bit. “Rye flour, oat flour, a little bit of wheat flour so it rises some, anyhow. What we could get,” the middle-aged woman answered. “Try it, sweetie. It’s better’n it looks.”

“How could it miss?” But Vanessa did try it. She’d had worse. It was tastier than an MRE, no doubt of that. Talk about praising with faint damn! The coleslaw was nothing to write home about, either.

She was resignedly working through the meal when a man sat down beside her. She glared at him-it wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of other seats at the long counter. Christ, she hated testosterone and the way it made half the species stupid.

But the guy didn’t bother her. He was about forty, maybe a year or two past it. He had a long, pale face; he looked a little like Nicolas Cage, only rougher. Just how much he looked like the actor Vanessa couldn’t be sure-he wore the thickest beard she’d ever seen on a man. It might have been a pelt. Like his hair, it was black as shoe polish, only it had a few white threads on either side of his chin.

“Hallo, Yvonne,” he said to the waitress. “How are you today?” He had some kind of accent, not at all thick but noticeable.

“Hey, Bron. I’m okay. How’re you?” she said, so he was some kind of regular.

“I’ll do.” He shrugged. He had wide shoulders and a narrow waist. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, which in this weather was an invitation to pneumonia. Muscles slid smoothly under the skin of his arms. They were nearly as hairy as his cheeks, except for a big, pink, nasty-looking scar-a burn? — on his left forearm. On the back of his right hand, where the hair was thinner, he had a tattoo: a cross, with a C above and below the right bar and a backwards C above and below the left bar.

“What’ll it be?” the waitress-Yvonne-asked.

He pointed to Vanessa’s plate. “Give me what she’s having. It doesn’t look. . too bad.”

“Hey! This is a high-class joint!” the waitress said, for all the world as if she were really and truly affronted.

“Yes? And they let you work here even so?” Bron returned. That would have pissed Vanessa off, but the waitress just cackled. Bron paid attention to Vanessa for the first time: “How bad is it?”

“Could be worse,” she said-a line from a book she’d liked when she was a very small kid. You were supposed to sound like a little old man when you said it (that was how Dad had always read it, anyway), but she didn’t go that far.

He shrugged again. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it could be better, too.” He had a distinct odor. Vanessa hadn’t been used to noticing that before the eruption, except for slobs and the occasional unfortunates who couldn’t help it. Since. . Hot water was harder to come by now, especially in places like Camp Constitution. She’d inured herself to stinky people. But he wasn’t stinky, or not exactly. He smelled like. . himself, she supposed. To her surprise, she rather liked it.

That might have been what made her answer him instead of going back to pretending the seat beside her was still empty. “Everything could be better these days, you know?” she said.

“True.” He rolled the r when he said it. After a moment, he went on, “We could be in Minnesota or Maine or some other place where it gets really cold. This-this is nothing much.”

Not with that fur you’ve got to keep you warm. But Vanessa swallowed the crack, even if he practically invited it by coming in here with nothing over that T-shirt. She chose another tack: “I’ve got a brother up in Maine. I think he’s still up there, anyhow. I haven’t heard from him in quite a while.”

“If he is in such a place, he may not have power for his phone. Up there, many areas have had no power at all for a long time.”

In such a place. The phrase stuck in Vanessa’s ear as the waitress set a plate in front of Bron. Few English-speakers would say anything like that. You might write it, but you wouldn’t say it.

Bron fell to. He ate with wolfish directness. His teeth were very white, or that black, black beard and mustache made them seem so. He paused halfway through the burger to remark, “Yes, could be worse or better. In the middle.”

“Uh-huh.” What came out of Vanessa’s mouth next amazed her: “I like your beard.”

That got his complete attention. He looked her up and down. For once, it didn’t feel like a groping; she knew she’d invited it. His eyes were a lighter brown than she’d thought at first. A sniper’s eyes went through her mind-they had that careful but aggressive directness to them. He held back half a beat before answering, “I like your you.”

The little pause seemed to give the handful of ordinary words extra weight. Careful, something in Vanessa’s mind warned. But she didn’t feel like being careful. She’d been careful since the eruption, not that she’d come across anybody she gave a rat’s ass about since then. And how much trouble could you get into at a Denny’s Formica counter?

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m Vanessa-Vanessa Ferguson.”

“Hallo, Vanessa Ferguson,” he said gravely. “I am Bronislav Nedic.” Those watchful eyes flicked to find Yvonne. She was over by the register, talking with another, younger, waitress. Even so, he lowered his voice a little before going on, “People who have trouble pronouncing Bronislav call me Bron.”

“I can say Bronislav.” Vanessa had a good ear. Even so, she could tell her o wasn’t just like his. And she had as much trouble with his r as he did with an American one.

He smiled just the same. “You can,” he agreed. “Good for you. I am glad.”

“Where are you going?” she asked him. She assumed he had to be going somewhere. Not even lunatics would stay at this miserable truck stop. Only soldiers who had to follow orders got stuck doing that.

“I have outside a truck full of chicken legs,” Bronislav answered. “I take them to a freezing-no, a frozen- warehouse in Los Angeles.” He raised an eyebrow. His were dark and thick, like all of his hair. They didn’t quite meet above his long, sharp nose, but they came close. “And you?”

“I’m heading for L.A., too.” Vanessa surprised herself with how glad she was to hear he was westbound. If he’d been going the other way, they would have been passing ships. Now. . Well, who the hell knew about now? “I was born there. I lived there till a little before the eruption, so I’m heading home.”