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six
THE LAST TIME I SPENTmore than a day away from New Haven, I was sixteen. Ever since Impact, life has been limited to about a hundred miles surrounding the farm.
I used to like road trips. Sitting in a car and looking at the scenery pass us by. Letting my mind wander. Waiting to see what might appear around the next bend in the road.
Traveling is too dangerous now, so I couldn’t have taken a road trip just for fun even if I had space in my life to fit one in. But I get a faint hit of the same feeling at about midday as Jackson and I make our way east.
We’ve studied the old paper map of Kentucky that belonged to my parents to find the safest route. We’re staying off the roads for the most part, sticking to trails and pastureland. There are inhabited towns in this part of the state—all barricaded and defended—but we can avoid them since we’ve got most of them already marked on the map. Some we used to know about have been abandoned in the past couple of years. As resources run out or too many people die off, whole towns have had to migrate.
In the height of the drove threat, people would run toward military bases, many of which were still being defended. But since the droves are breaking up, nearly everyone now heads toward the middle of the country since it’s been less damaged by natural disasters and evidently has more food and supplies and infrastructure available.
There’s not another soul in sight right now—just acres of overgrown pastureland and some wooded hills in the distance. Jackson and I took the side-by-side ATV instead of the truck so we could handle different terrains off-road, and the wind is blowing hair into my face that has escaped my ponytail.
I push it back impatiently and glance over at Jackson, who has been driving in silence now for almost an hour. We stopped for lunch a while back and chatted a little then about our route, but Jackson isn’t a talkative person, so I know better than to expect casual conversation.
But the silence is starting to get to me. The emptiness of the landscape surrounding us even though that means we’re safe. I have no idea what Jackson is thinking. What he’s been thinking all day.
“It’s really empty out here,” I say at last. Just one of those substanceless comments people use as filler.
He glances over, his eyes searching my face quickly before turning back to the dirt road we picked up a while back. “Yeah. That’s good.”
“It didn’t use to be this empty, did it? I mean, before. I don’t remember even rural areas feeling like this.”
“It wasn’t this empty. People have left. Or died. It gets emptier every month now.”
“We’re in the wilds now, I guess. The fringes. Since the coasts have been completely abandoned.” No one who stayed on either of the coasts survived past the first two years. The succession of hurricanes on the east and the constant earthquakes on the west made life there nearly impossible. “Everyone’s gone toward the middle.”
“Yep.”
I’m silent for a moment, thinking. Feeling better now that Jackson is talking to me. “Do you ever think about it?”
“Think about what?”
“Migrating. Heading toward the middle. We keep hearing about the cities that are reorganizing and rebuilding. They supposedly have power and water now in Houston and Chicago—and pretty soon in Saint Louis. Especially now that the droves have broken up, they’ll probably be able to expand and build out. Open hospitals and schools and churches.”
“All run by militarized leadership,” Jackson mutters.
I glance at his face and am surprised to see it’s darkened. “It might not be that bad. I’m sure there are some places where it’s not dictatorial.”
“So you want to leave?” he asks thickly with another quick glance toward me. “That’s what you want?”
“I didn’t say that! I was just asking the question. We’ve got it pretty good at New Haven, but most people around here don’t have our resources, so I understand why they’d want to migrate and search for something safer and closer to... normal.”
“The old normal doesn’t exist anymore. And I’m not going to give up what we have for the flimsy dream of the world we used to know. For some of us, the old world wasn’t all that great to begin with.”
My eyes widen at the comment. At what it reveals. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.” I pause for a few moments, something in my gut twisting at my reflections. Then I finally continue, “But the old world wasn’t... wasn’t that bad to you, was it? I mean, I thought you were okay. With my parents. Being on the farm. I’m sure it wasn’t a dream come true for you, but I thought it was... okay.”
“I didn’t mean New Haven. I meant before that.” He’s relaxed a little now. Doesn’t look quite so angsty. “When I was a kid. The world pretty much sucked for me until your folks took me in.” He clears his throat. Shifts in his seat a little. Doesn’t meet my eyes. “It was kind of a dream come true for me. Coming to New Haven.”
I’ve never heard him reveal something so personal. So earnest. Not in all the years I’ve known him. My chest hurts so much I have to raise a hand to my breast, like I can somehow hold all the feelings inside. My lips part, since it feels like I should say something, but no words come out.
He shoots me a few quick looks. “Didn’t you know that?” he asks at last.
I shake my head. “I figured it was better, but I didn’t know you...”
Loved it. That’s what I was going to say.
The words feel forbidden. Like it refuses to be uttered.
