Page 73 of Ash Fall

I climb up into the motorhome and start the engine.

Gramp’s voice crackles over the walkie. "Everybody ready? We've got company on the tail. Keep it tight."

I key the mic. "Ready."

The convoy rolls out of the rest stop and back onto the empty highway with the dirty smear on the western horizon a little darker than it was an hour ago. I hope Sorensen's people are what they look like, that Tanner's crew works as hard as he says, and that Torrin's gut is only tired. With any luck, Jules is only being Jules, and the reason Mars let his shadows go is that he saw something in those people worth trusting.

Mostly, I hope this isn't a mistake.

Chapter 27 - Reid

An hour after leaving the rest stop the prairie quits being flat. The land splits open on both sides of the highway, falling away into canyons. Bands of rust red, grey, and pale yellow stripe the canyon walls. Hoodoos stand in loose clusters out on the floor of the valley, some capped with a wide flat stone balanced on a narrow neck of stone. Nothing out here belongs in the same province as the wheat fields and grasslands we drove through today. It’s stunning.

Jules is driving with one wrist hooked over the top of the wheel and his other hand tapping an unknown rhythm restlessly against his thigh. Elenor claimed a seat in the motorhome right before we rolled out and took Briar with her so lucky Gage has them both talking at him for the rest of the run. Kara made a last second jump into Torrin's truck so he'd have somebody keeping him awake so it’s just me and Jules in the Escalade.

My head is quiet. Whatever lives out in this country is spread thin across a lot of ground. The little that reaches me comes in faint, and it’s easy to ignore. I let my shoulder settle into the door and watch the badlands go by, and for a good long while that is all there is.

The first vehicle we pass is a grey pickup running the other direction. Its driver lifts two fingers off the top of his wheel at us, the way rural people out here have done forever. Two more cars come after him, then a minivan with a mattress strapped to the roof, then four in a row off a side road. Every kilometre closer to Drumheller puts more of them on the pavement.

"People," I say.

Jules glances over. "People."

"I was starting to think it was only us." I keep my eyes on the oncoming lane. "Like the whole province got swallowed and nobody thought to mention it."

"Not swallowed." His hand goes still on his thigh. "Just hunkering down."

We take the bypass around the outside of town, which puts us up on the high side looking down into it. Fire has been through part of it. There's a black scar four or five blocks wide on the north end that looks to have been hit bad, and fairly recently. Most of the roofs are caved in and there is still smoke sitting over the wreckage from smoldering hot spots that no-one is bothering to put out. Everything else is standing. I can see a water tower with the town name painted on the side, a church steeple, the arena, block after block of houses with their yards still green.

There are also dinosaurs everywhere.

They're on street corners and in front of gas stations, cartoon ones painted in colours no animal has ever been. One green fellow wears a bow tie. A purple one has its arm up, waving at traffic. The Royal Tyrrell museum out here pulls people in from all over the world to look at real dinosaur fossils. In answer to that, the town decorated itself with the goofiest possible version of the same idea. It’s cheesy and corny but I like the it.

"Are you smiling at the dinosaurs?" Jules asks.

"They're cute."

"If they weren’t extinct, you’d absolutely be trying to have a conversation with one, wouldn’t you?"

"Yes. I’d start by asking how much they got paid for the Jurassic Park movies. Then I’d ask if they all hate that purple Barney asshole."

A commercial strip comes up on our right as we swing wide around the last of the town. There's a big box hardware store with its lot half full of contractor trucks that nobody has moved in a week. Next to it sits a sprawling Save Mart. Past that runs a whole row of RV dealerships, lot after lot of trailers and motorhomes parked in rows behind chain link.

I sit up straighter and twist in my seat to keep them in view as they slide past. "Jules. Look at that."

"I see it." He takes his eyes off Torrin's tailgate long enough to look. "Lumber, groceries, and whatever else we can carry, all within a short drive of where we're going to be living. That’ll help a lot."

Drumheller drops behind us and the road goes empty again. My eyes catch on the dash clock, and I stare at it long enough that the numbers start blurring. It’s only three in the afternoon. This day feels like it’s been four days long and it isn't finished with us yet.

What I really want is a couch. It would be soft and deep, with a movie on that nobody has to pay attention to. Luna would be tucked up against my side, her cold feet shoved under my leg the way she does when she thinks I won't notice. Being bored with her for two hours is the entire fantasy. Not one piece of it is happening tonight or any night soon. The thought segues into the other one I've been avoiding since we left the farm.

"Can I ask you something," I say. "About that thing you said to Luna and Gage?"

Jules's lips curve in a faint smile. "You may."

"Was it a good idea?" I turn in the seat to face him. "Not because it isn't true. I just worry that if we come at her with all of it at once we'll scare her off, and then we've lost the thing we were trying to keep."

He takes his eyes off the road for a second to look at me, then shakes his head and puts them back on Torrin's truck ahead of us.