22
Now
Will likes to talk. He goes on and on about everything under the sun. She thinks it’s because it chases away the memories that are always queued up, ready to remind him exactly what he’s already lost and what might yet be lost to him in Kirkland. He doesn’t mind that she’s quiet. Perhaps he’s used to it, used to meeting people who have had everything ripped away from them, who don’t have anything left to give, not even words. He tells her about his life before everything went sideways, about his job as an advocate for victims of violence, about his friend Jake who wasn’t his boyfriend, “Just to be clear,” though his eyes get misty whenever Jake’s on his mind. He talks about his mother and father and little sister. He talks about so many things until he stumbles onto something that reminds him of the mobs that hit the school in Colorado, the mobs that ate his not boyfriend Jake alive, the mobs that almost killed him and then he goes quiet.
He doesn’t cry though. She hasn’t yet seen him shed a tear, though they’ve certainly threatened.
She wants to tell him it’s okay to cry, but who is she to say such things? Maybe those are words of comfort from a time now lost to biting, rending teeth.
They drive on, hopeful they’ll make it to the mountains and then through the pass today. Before everything went to shit it would have been an easy trip. Now, she expects there to be trouble, but no guesses on what form it will take other than awful. After everything else that’s happened, she doesn’t know why she can’t catch a break.
Maybe Will will be her good luck charm, though from his stories and his haunted gaze, she doesn’t think so.
“Do you have extra gas?” Will asks as they near Ellensburg.
“Yes. We don’t need to stop. We have plenty in the tank and if that’s not enough, I have a couple five-gallon containers in the back.”
“Good.” He rolls his head around on his neck and wiggles his fingers on the steering wheel.
“You need a break? Want me to drive for a while?”
“Yeah, would you? I have to pee and I need to stretch.”
It isn’t the best place to stretch, not near a city, but when nature calls and all that. He pulls over on the overpass and walks to the rail to pee after they spend a bit of time making sure there aren’t any of them nearby. He calls out that he’s peeing on one of their heads, but she doesn’t respond. They terrify her, not only because of what they can do, but because of who they once were. Someone’s brother, mother, friend, lover. She’s been tempted to do terrible things to them, but in the end she’s refrained because they were once people just like Lana. Just like Jackson and Tucker.
Will gets back in with an apology on his lips, but she ignores that too and gets them moving. A few of them are up ahead, spilling onto the entrance ramp, but she puts on a burst of speed and passes them before they can clog the road.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Will asks. “How quiet everything is? I mean, not the nutters, obviously, but how there’s just no sound anymore? Of people? Used be cars going all the time, electricity humming. Now there’s just … silence.”
She has noticed. It can eat at you, that kind of silence. It lets all the things in you don’t want to think about and there’s nothing to distract you. She never realized how modern conveniences had sheltered her from the way the world used to be. Now it’s all up in her face all day, every day, and she can’t escape the enormity of it. Everything is bigger now. Distances. Mountains. Oceans. How many times since all this started had she slapped her hand to her pocket, ready to call the boys or text them or take a picture only to remember that her cell was dead? How many times had she flipped a light switch in a house even though electricity had long since sputtered by the wayside?
How may times had she reached for Lana only to find her gone?
“You okay?” Will asks and she realizes she’s crying again.
“Yeah,” she says, her voice rough. She doesn’t want to talk about it but steals herself for his questions.
He stays quiet except to say, “I hear ya.”
He’s not the companion she wanted to roll into Seattle with, but she’s glad he’s here, nonetheless. He provides noise and a confirmation that there are survivors of this horror. He’s her hope that Tucker and Jackson are both okay, safely ensconced with her parents who are also okay.
Please let them be okay.
The sign just outside Ellensburg says 109 miles. So close. She wants to push down on the gas and go eighty, ninety, hell, a hundred, why not? But she stays at an even sixty, telling the boys she’ll be there soon. Soon.
She starts worrying when the mountains come into view and she sees snow topping the peaks. When the roads get bad, she slows down even more, cursing the loss of snow removal trucks and the people who once drove them.
“Think we should stop for the night?” Will asks, his hands propped on the dashboard from the last time they fishtailed.
“Yeah. Damn it. We’re so close.”
He nods, amiable enough, and she wonders if he ever gets angry. She wants to
