Page 63 of Heart of the Sun

“Pittsburgh? Damn,” Emilio muttered, looking down for a moment as he obviously digested that. He glanced over at his friend. “We were hoping it was more contained…maybe a couple states. We’re double fucked.” He gave himself a small shake, obviously choosing to think more about that later too. “We’re headed to Nebraska but we could drop you near Topeka before we continue north. Hop in,” he said, nodding toward the bed of the truck and then winking at Charlie. “Any friends of Professor Tecton are friends of ours.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said, his posture and radiant expression speaking of his new lease on life, despite the additional bad news we’d just received. He paused at the driver’s side door, perhaps measuring whether or not there was room for him up there or whether he’d have to ride in the back with the second-class citizens.

Regardless of having to endure Charlie’s self-important smile for hours, or whether this was a stolen truck or not, I wasn’t going to turn down a lift by a couple of college kids who appeared trustworthy enough and could cut several hundred miles from our trip. “That’d be great,” I added.

We climbed up to the bed of the truck and sat down, Emily and Charlie on one side, me on the other, before the truck jolted forward, bumping along the road.

After about half an hour, Charlie’s smug smile drooped and his head landed on Emily’s shoulder, and I heard him let out a rattly snore. The man was constantly tired and wound up. And that could very well have to do with the situation at hand, but I was pretty sure it also had to do with the fact that he wanted a hit or a pill and could no longer get one. Maybe he hadn’t been enough of a user that he was going through withdrawal, but he was probably pretty darn antsy with not being able to take the edge off with his regular coping mechanism.

I stretched my legs out to the right of Emily and crossed them at the ankles. I’d have liked to get some shut-eye too. I’d tossed and turned the night before, still keyed up from hearing Isaac’s account, my mind churning with thoughts and horrible visions of what downtown St. Louis had looked like in the aftermath of the event. And now I could add the picture of colossal dams overflowing as trillions of tons of water washed out entire towns in their wake.

But beyond all that, I didn’t feel safe not keeping guard. By necessity the truck was moving pretty slowly and at certain points, if someone had wanted, they could have chased us down and waged an attack.

As we drove, we saw more broken-down vehicles, and also a few groups of people who lifted their arms and attempted to wave down the truck. But Emilio and Wells didn’t stop for them like they’d stopped for us. Perhaps the information we’d given about the extent of the outage had heightened their rush to get home, or maybe they realized if they pulled over for everyone trying to hitch a ride, they’d be filled up and weighed down in short order.

I saw Emily turn her head as a couple who’d shouted a plea, disappeared behind us. “I guess we got lucky that we have the professor with us,” Emily said, tipping her head toward Charlie with a wry, if slightly shaky, smile. I nodded. I had to give credit where credit was due. We were also lucky that Emilio and Wells had slowed down when we’d waved, enough to notice Charlie at all. Isaac had mentioned that he’d gotten a ride too, which meant drivers had responded to his obvious need, but I had to imagine that certain kindnesses were going to end rather quickly.

“Yes, it was fortunate in this case that Charlie is recognizable and considered safe. They’re perfectly justified in driving right past anyone trying to get them to stop,” I told her. “Not everyone on the road is going to be well-meaning.We’ve only gotten a small taste of it.”

“More Leonards and fake Amish?”

“Yes. But mostly it’s wise to remember that the worst sides of people come out when they get scared and desperate. People who might not be predators under normal circumstances will do really fucked up things to survive.”

She seemed to deflate a little. My eyes lingered on her. If she’d been bothered that Charlie’s stardom outshined hers with the two men in the front of the truck, she hadn’t shown it. I allowed my gaze to run over her now as she focused on the road ahead. Since we’d left the Goodfellows’ home, she’d been wearing jeans and a thick, quilted jacket over a flannel shirt and a pair of boots. The whole ensemble was warm and practical and made her look vaguely ridiculous and kind of sexy too. A few days ago, I would have blamed that unwanted—and inconvenient—reaction on the fact that I hadn’t had sex in over six years. But now… I could admit that it wasn’t just that Emily was beautiful, it was that she was fiery and spirited too and that was the quality—above all else—that had always drawn me to her and still did.

Her hair was braided this morning, loose strands framing her face. She raised her hand to scratch her cheek and I saw that the talons she’d had at the start of the journey were now mostly gone. Then Charlie sighed in his sleep and moved his head more snugly into the crook of her neck and I felt an unwelcome zap of jealousy. Ever since Em and I had worked together getting the horses under control, I couldn’t help thinking of her as more of a partner than an old friend I was doing a favor for. But Charlie kept reminding me exactly why that was ridiculous and foolhardy.

I looked away, off in the direction we were heading. That feeling of partnership had been brought on by the high emotions of what we’d experienced together—and the thrill of victory. It would wear off sooner rather than later and I could go back to—happily—being annoyed by her.

Next to her, Charlie stirred, blinked, and sat up. He bent his neck one way and then the other. “Are we there yet?”

The truck pulled over to the side of the road several hours later and we climbed down from its bed. Emilio leaned out the window and said, “This is our turnoff. You’ll probably want to stick to this road.” He extended a piece of paper and a pen. “Do you mind autographing this?” he asked Charlie. “No one’s ever going to believe we gave a movie star a ride.”

Charlie seemed all too delighted, signing with a flourish and then handing the pen and paper back over. We thanked them again and Charlie waved as they drove away, standing there even after their car had disappeared from view.

“You’re welcome,” Charlie said to me and Emily when he turned our way.

I resisted an eye roll, deciding to give Charlie his moment instead.

“My feet thank you kindly,” Emily offered.

Charlie smiled. “So… Kansas,” he said, looking around. “It really does exist.”

Emily laughed. “Did you think it didn’t?”

“Have you ever heard of anything that came out of Kansas?”

Emily chewed at her lip for a moment. “The Wizard of Oz,” she finally said.

Charlie grinned and I turned up the road to get a visual of what was ahead.

I could see the distant skyline of Topeka, smoke rising in the air from various points. There’d been fires here too. And likely more death than I wanted to think about as large groups of people in a small area of land fought over limited resources. I also noticed several clusters of people walking on the edge of the highway, away from the city. I’d have preferred Emilio and Wells drop us off near more wilderness,but beggars couldn’t be choosers and I also didn’t want to end up lost somewhere.

On the bright side, civilization did mean more chances to find food that didn’t have to be hunted and skinned and honestly, another cereal truck would be fucking fantastic.

“A highway,” Emily said as she joined me. “Is that bad?”

“It’s not ideal, but we might be able to score some snacks again from a broken-down car. And we can use one of them to sleep in again. It’s going to be dark soon enough and there’s nowhere around here I might hunt.”

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