“Okay?”
“It calculates the route based on what? Maybe it starts with the speed limits of the roads and then that information is improved by using the actual speeds that people drive on the roads. Maybe it gets that data back from the GPS, or maybe it collects it from peoples’ phones. Regardless, it takes all that as fact and it comes up with a time for each route. When everything is calculated, it tells you the best route.”
“Perfect,” Amber said. “That’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
“But what about you?”
“Sorry?”
“Is that data based on you or based on other people?”
“I’m the one driving,” Amber said. She glanced at George’s eyes in the mirror. He was completely engaged and excited. Amber almost laughed.
“Yes, but have you taken any of the side roads we passed?”
“Nope. I just told you that. I’ve done this trip—or trips to this area, at least—a dozen times and I always follow the directions. Gets me there right when it says it will.”
“We just crossed Cottle Hill Road. The GPS, based on everyone else’s journey down that road, thinks it would take longer, but those people weren’t you. Their facts aren’t your knowledge. For you, that road might have cut ten minutes off of the total time. You could save ten minutes here and five there. If you really knew every single possibility, you might get to the destination an hour earlier than the way the GPS told you to go.”
“It’s a certain number of miles, George,” Amber said. “As long as we’re driving in a car on a road, there’s a limit to how fast we’re going to get there.”
“Is that a fact, or your knowledge? Do you know how many miles it is because you’ve measured it with a straight line?”
“Of course not.”
“Then it’s not knowledge. And knowledge is conditional.”
Amber leaned over to Ricky. “Does he have an off switch?”
“I tried to warn you. You were the one who thought that talking to him would make the trip less boring. Have you changed your mind yet?”
# # #
“This is it,” Amber said as she slowed down.
They hadn’t reached the point on the GPS yet—that marked the location of Jan’s house. She stopped the car near the overgrown road that led out towards the hills where the graves were located. The snow had melted even more and the road almost looked passable. Amber remembered how soft the dirt was though. She wasn’t going to risk it.
The brothers were both half asleep from the ride. George got out first and walked around the car to investigate the path.
“Should we announce ourselves to the owner?” Ricky asked.
Amber shook her head. “She gave us permission. No need to involve her at this point.”
He nodded.
Around the back, everything was divided into packs except for the mirrors. Those would have to be carried by hand. Amber tucked hers under her arm at first but it was too big to carry comfortably that way. George had two of them. He stacked them and mostly carried them over his head.
They stayed quiet as they walked up the dirt road along the stream.
Amber kept her voice low and said, “They can’t cross running water, according to Jan.”
“Yeah,” George said. “Most lore says that, but it’s not to be taken as a hard and fast rule. There are circumstances where they can get across. If we’re on the run, don’t slow down just because you cross a stream.”
Ricky was looking off to their right. He spotted one of the remaining apple trees.
“That’s where it happened?” Ricky asked. “That’s where Prescott found his dog after it came back to life?”
“I think so,” Amber said. “It’s also where the townspeople found a gruesome graveyard of all their livestock and pets. It sounds like a lot of those poor animals suffered the same fate.”
“Might be a chicken and egg type thing,” George said. “He found the salamanders and maybe that’s where this all came from, right?”
“Okay?” Amber said.
“But what if his direct actions—basically, like ritual sacrifice in the name of science—was the thing that brought about his own demise. He thought he was experimenting, but he was really amplifying the underlying evil.”
“Where did that evil start though?” Ricky asked.
“The mill,” George said. “They brought something unnatural to that river and it spawned more mutations.”
“For someone who is on his phone or laptop all the time, you certainly have a chip on your shoulder against technology,” Ricky said.
“Can you blame me?” George asked.
Amber didn’t understand the look that passed between the brothers. She decided the question could wait. Their path led them away from the river, through a stand of dark pines, and then out into a patch of woods where more light made it through the trees. George and Ricky fell silent and walked fast to keep up with Amber. She shifted the mirror over to her other hand and slowed when she finally saw the headstone.
George came up on one side and Ricky on the other.
“So many,” George whispered.
Amber had been focused only on the larger headstones. The one that blended into the tree belonged to the “Devoted Wife and Mother,” if she remembered correctly. The ones around her stone were for the kids. George pointed out other little rocks that were standing up out of the leaves. They didn’t look like headstones to her until she followed George’s finger to see that they were arranged in a giant circle. They were right at the near edge. Ricky moved to one of them and lifted it in a hand after he set down the mirror. He ran a finger over it and then said, “Judy.”
“Scout’s sister,” George said.
Ricky put the stone back where he had found it.
“Where’s Prescott?” George asked.
Amber pointed and led the way. Now that she saw the circle of rocks, she skirted around the circumference until she could see the place where the ground was disturbed. It looked like someone had made an effort to push leaves back
