He’s standing just two steps away from me.

 

There’s snow all around. Fresh, glittering, virgin white. The snow never treaded upon. A huge, vast field of snow. There’s nothing but snow. No houses, no trees. No horizon. Just snow and sky.

 

And Ritchey standing two steps away from me.

 

So close he could reach out and touch me. But he doesn’t. He’s just standing there in his black coat, looking at me a little wistfully. I want to touch him. I want to hug him. Want to feel him under my fingers and make sure he’s really there, he’s alive, he’s himself.

 

But I’m afraid.

 

Silence. Dead silence, mute silence, as if there’s cotton in my ears.

 

Then he speaks up.

 

“You’re hiding from me, Dean.”

 

I shake my head, confused. I can’t understand what he’s talking about.

 

“No, Ritchey. No, I…”

 

“Why are you hiding from me? I’ve been looking… I came to look for you, but you weren’t there.”

 

“Ritchey…”

 

“You’re running from me, aren’t you, Dean?” There’s a weak smile on his lips. “You’re all grown up now. You don’t need me any more.”

 

“I do!” I shout at him, desperate. Still too afraid to touch him. “I need you! I’ve always needed you!”

 

“You’re hiding,” he repeats. “I can’t even see you. Why are you doing this to me, Dean? I love you.”

 

It hurts so much. I step forward. Ritchey doesn’t move. I take another step and put my hand on his shoulder. “Ritchey?” I look up to meet his eyes.

 

And suddenly his eyes are so cold. Suddenly, there are two ice tunnels where his eyes used to be. Huge pits, iced over, emanating deadening, murderous cold.

 

“I’ve been waiting for you, Dean,” the voice says, and it has Ritchey’s timbre and Ritchey’s intonations, but it’s not Ritchey’s. Ritchey never had a voice that could freeze you in your step. “I’ve been waiting for so long.”

 

His hands grab me by the shoulders, and they are icy.

 

“Welcome home.”

 

I scream.

 

And the earth trembles, and thunder rumbles over the snow field.

 

And I wake up.

 

Sit up straight, sweating, gasping for air. And before I even realize I’m not asleep anymore, there’s yet another rumble in the distance. A vibration runs through the walls.

 

Then everything is quiet again.

 

I wipe my forehead on the linen. The sweat is cold. It’s chilly in the room, but I don’t do anything, don’t try to cover up, I just sit there, reliving the dream again and again. The only dream I’ve had of Ritchey that I remember. The dream where he is my enemy.

 

I’m so shaken, I don’t even understand at once that there’s too much light in the room.

 

The nights haven’t been black for a while. Most of the time, they are dark dirty gray, white snow lacing through it like whitewash poured into a puddle of mud. At times, in July, they are almost white – dirty white, the sky a ghostly shade of dead blue.

 

But they’ve never yet been tinted with reddish gold.

 

I get up and walk over to the window. The night is clear, and far away, over the road, over the snow, over the distant line of the horizon, I see shimmering reddish glow.

 

Something is burning. Something big. There, behind the woods.

 

Where the City is.

---------------------------------

 

Jake isn’t in the Townhall, and I can’t even seem to find Lena. I don’t like it. I need to talk to Jake. And I’ve brought that damn cuckoo clock. He can have it. I can’t even look at it any more.

 

But he’s not there.

 

There are a lot of people there, and everyone is fussing, running around, like it always happens when there’s no-one to coordinate this mess. The whole Townhall reminds me of a huge beheaded chicken.

 

Finally I pull some girl aside – I think her name is Jean – and manage to keep her in one place long enough to ask her a couple of questions.

 

“Jake isn’t here! Of course he wouldn’t be here! Not after what happened to Lily!”

 

Say what?

 

“What happened to Lily?”

 

She looks at me and blinks. Then she finally recognizes me. It takes her yet another second to process the information and understand that I really could have missed the latest news in my asshole of the Universe, whole four miles away from the Town.

 

“You haven’t heard, have you? She went off on the very last night of the storm. Just walked out the door. It was already calming down, maybe she thought it was over, you know them kids…”

 

My heart skips a beat or two.

 

“She… is dead?”

 

That’s a senseless question, she can’t but be. Is it why they called Theo yesterday’s morning? His last job in town. They came back from the search raid at about three, Lena told me. A really fast raid. So they found her? Oh dear God. Lily, Jake’s pride and joy. Her parents, Jake’s daughter Ann and her husband Nat, died in the third year of snow. Some punks in the City stopped their car and threw them out of it. It was winter, and they didn’t make it home. That was when Jake decided he wanted to get away from the City. So that Lily could have a better place to live at. Lily’s only six… Jake’s going to go insane. He’s going to just kill himself. Because he wasn’t there when she opened the door and walked out…

 

“Of course not!”

 

Not… not?

 

Right, Lena was giggling when talking to me…

 

“How come?”

 

“The SP’s brought her in alive. She’s sick, down with a really bad cold, but she’ll be okay. Their main man said so.”

 

I let the girl go, and she vanished at once, diving back into the mad rat-race along the Townhall corridors. I think it over, then go down to my car and drive off, heading for Jake’s house. I don’t know if he’s in the condition to listen to me now. But it can’t wait.

 

The glow went down in the morning, but there still was smoke. It was rising over the deadwood forest and probably the only reason we couldn’t smell it yet was that the wind was blowing north. Away from us. I have my guesses about what happened, but I have to talk to Jake.

 

Theo’s already gone, so I’m keeping all the promises, ain’t I?

 

There’s too many people in Jake’s house, too. Lena, who opens the door and lets me in; Sally Hutchison in the kitchen, obviously busy cooking; Holly and her husband in the living-room, they’re doing something, too, but I can’t see what. Judging by all the footwear I’ve seen in the hall, there must be others. Theo was right about one thing – the Town is alive. Unlike the City, if something bad happens to someone here, people rush over to help.

 

If I were a little more cynical, I’d call it an atavism. Like looking at the fire. But I won’t.

 

Lena nods when I ask if I can go in to see Jake and Lily.

 

“Doc Thompson is in there, too,” she says, “and he told us not to make much noise… but you, Dean, you’ve never been a noisy guy.”

 

They’re there, in Lily’s room, all three of them. Lily’s in bed, Jake is sitting beside here in an old armchair, and Doc Thompson is over at the table, busy with the meds. It’s him who notices me.

 

“Hi, Dean,” he says. “I’d offer a hand, but mine should stay sterile for a while.” He’s tall, gangly, seemingly consisting of angles alone. Add a pair of spectacles to his shaggy grey hair, and you have the perfect man for the Mad Doctor role in some third-rate movie. But he doesn’t wear spectacles – his sight is, probably, better than mine. And he’s perfectly sane. He’s a very good doctor.

 

Jake looks up. He’s tired so much he looks almost dead, but he’s obviously happy. Lily is pale, breathing fast and shallow and looks very thin, but I’m willing to bet that after visions of her dead in the snow – I bet he spent most of yesterday’s morning having them – after those visions, this sight is definitely delightful.

 

“Hello, Dean,” he says. “What are you doing here? Something is wrong?”

 

And all of a sudden, I can’t force myself to talk of Theo, and his war theories, and fire over the forest. All of a sudden, it all seems so… unimportant.

 

I swallow hard. And tell him, “I brought a clock for Lily. You know, the cuckoo clock. She’s been saying she wants one.”

 

His stare drops to the bag in my hand. Then crawls up again to meet my eyes.

 

“You know, Dean,” he says, “I’ve always known you’re not really an asshole. But it’s great to finally see you admit it.”

 

I can’t speak. And he stands up. Lily opens her eyes, looking from her granddad to me and back. Her eyes are red. Maybe she has been crying. Or maybe it’s because she spent so much time out there, in the cold wind. The wind makes your eyes water; the cold freezes tears right where they come out. Not a good combination.

 

“Dean’s brought you a present, Lily,” Jake says. “I’ll go see how your eggnog is doing.” He goes out of the room. Eggnog. I bet Roy’s wife didn’t say one word about the money. And if Jake did – and he probably did – she must’ve shut him up.

 

Everyone loves Jake. I guess even I do. I’ve just never thought of it.

 

I sit down into his armchair. Lily smiles at me.

 

“Hi, Dean. Will you tell me I’m foolish? Because I went away, you know? Everyone does.”

 

“No,” I say. “No good telling someone something she already knows.”

 

She makes a grimace, then laughs. The laughter is weak. I really hope they all are right and she makes it. She looks really sick.

 

“I have something for you.”

 

Her eyes grow wide when I take the clock out of the bag.

 

“Does it have the birdie?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And he sings?”

 

“Let’s see.”

 

I get up and take her old clock off the wall. She watches me intensely, as I put the new one there.

 

“It’s ticking! So loudly!”

 

“It’s because it’s big. Now look here. It’s just half past eleven. But I’ll make this clock show twelve sharp. To fool the cuckoo. Because he only gets out when he thinks the hour is done.”

 

“It’s a tame trained cuckoo?”

 

“Oh, you could say so.”

 

I set the clock to one minute to twelve and stand back.

 

“Now wait.”

 

Neither me, nor Lily, nor Doc Thompson – whose eyes are laughing – say a word during this whole minute. The pendulum swings with the loud, dignified tick… tock… tick… tock… And then, as the minute hand finally joins the clock hand on the figure of twelve, the little door in the wooden case opens and the small red and black wooden bird jumps out with it’s mouth open.

 

Bomm, it says. Or the clock does, but it sure looks like this from the distance. The spring screw is new, and before each bomm the bird retreats back into the door completely and then jumps out again. Lily gives a small scream of delight and starts clapping her hands. I watch the result of my job pensively. Honest to God, I’ve never once seen a cuckoo. I don’t know what their real coloration is. I must have been having my very own thoughts when choosing the colors for re-painting this thing.

 

“Dean, he’s wonderful! And he does it every hour?”

 

“Yes,” I set the clock back to the correct time. “In half an hour, you’ll see him again.”

 

“Alright,” Doc says with a smile. “Since you’re such good friends now, can I ask you to stay with Lily a minute, Dean? I told Sally to do something for me, but she must have forgotten all about it.”

 

He doesn’t sound surprised. Knowing Sally, I’m not surprised either.

 

“Okay.”

 

There. I sometimes tell people there are just a few jobs I haven’t gone though in my life. Now I’ll have to cross ‘babysitter’ off the list.

 

Lily grimaces again, when the door behind Doc closes.

 

“They don’t live me alone for a second,” she complains. “Do they think I’m going to run away again? I’m not that foolish!”

 

“You scared your grandpa a lot.” I sigh. They probably don’t leave her alone because they think she might get worse any minute, but hell, if this has an unexpected pedagogical side-effect, I’m not going to dispel it.

 

Now she looks guilty. “I know. But I’m not foolish. I didn’t do it just… just because, okay? I thought I saw Beast.”

 

I try not to look away. Beast was their cat. With a nicely-fitting name, too. It really was a beast, big and beautiful, with a shaggy gray hide, strong legs and a torn ear. A fighter. Jake found him cold after a storm one morning. He didn’t believe Beast just froze to death, cats rarely do that. He thought that the cat caught the wrong rat – a lot of people around the Town try to get rid of them with rat poison, and Beast was a hunter type. He must have eaten a poisoned rat and gotten too weak to make it into the house in time. Jake told Lily that Beast got lost. It’d be hell, trying to explain it all to her. So she still thinks he’s alive.

 

“I thought I saw Beast,” she says sadly. “So I put on my coat and went out to look for him. It wasn’t as windy as it had been all week, you know? I really saw a cat there, even if it wasn’t Beast, and I just went after it, and then I suddenly wasn’t in the Town anymore – weird, isn’t it?”

 

“It is. Cats are weird. Lily, next time before you do it, think of this: if Beast came back, he wouldn’t walk off again. He’d try to get in. And if it’s someone else’s cat, then it’s someone else’s business to follow it out of town.”

 

“I know.”

 

“That’s good.”

 

“But I’m not sorry. I told Grandpa that I’m sorry, but I’m not. Because I saw mom and dad there.”

 

I wince. And take a better look at her. She doesn’t look as if she were fantasizing. She’s pensive, a bit sad and strangely serene.

 

“Lily. It can’t be.”

 

“They told me that.” She purses her lips. “They told me that mom and dad were dead, and I know it. And Sally said that I couldn’t really remember them. She thinks I didn’t hear her, but I did. You know what, Dean, I do remember them!”

 

I don’t answer, and, exasperated, she points to a picture on the wall. A wedding picture.

 

“Maybe I don’t remember seeing them when I was a little baby, but I know what they look like!”

 

“I believe you,” I say. It doesn’t matter if I do, but she shouldn’t get that nervous. Not when she’s so weak.

 

She catches her breath and is suddenly all serene again.

 

“It’s good. Because I really saw them. There, after Beast… that cat, after that cat ran away from me. There, in the snow. I was getting cold, and I was crying. And then I heard them laughing.”

 

It’s as if someone shoots me with a shocker. A bolt of electricity going through my whole body.

 

“What happened then?”

 

She’s obviously happy that someone finally wants to listen to her. “I walked towards them! I thought that people who were laughing would take me home if I asked them.” She pauses. “They were Mom and Dad. I swear.”

 

“I believe you.” And this time I really do. And it’s not good at all.

 

“But they were strange.” She frowns. “They called me, and I ran towards them, but I stumbled and fell. Don’t laugh. I’m not awkward.”

 

“I’m not laughing. I often stumble in the snow myself.”

 

“Because Al – you know, Al Comfrey, he says that I fall all the time because I’m a girl. He says girls are not as strong as boys.” She sighs. “He’s a fool, that Al. I fell because I was hurrying. I wanted to see them. And when I fell, they came over and bent to me, and it was them alright. Only they looked a little older, and Mom had short hair.”

 

I feel goosebumps breaking out all over my skin. In the wedding photo, Ann has long hair, falling down on her shoulders in shiny locks from under the white hat she’s wearing. Four years after the wedding, shortly before she died, she had it cut just below her ears. She had it soft and curly, it was always going wild when she took off her fur cap and Nat would laughingly call her ‘cloudhead’.

 

Lily has no way of remembering that.

 

“They said they’d take me home. And it felt so good. Good, but very, very cold. And I couldn’t see all of their faces. It’s weird, because I recognized them, and I knew it was them, but it wasn’t quite day yet, because the sun was only going to go up. And it was snowing. I wanted to see them better, and I took out my flashlight.”

 

“You had a flashlight?”

 

“I told you I wasn’t stupid! How would I find Beast outside at night if I didn’t have the flashlight? Of course I took it with me!”

 

“What did you do then?”

 

She smiles. She’s pleased to see me so interested. Because I’m so very interested indeed. I’m desperate to hear the end of it.

 

“I turned it on. The light. You know, it’s really strong, my flashlight. Grandpa bought it in the City last year, because lights kept going out. Because of the storms. So I turned it on and looked at them. And you know… they jumped back from me. They were this close to me, their faces…” She shows how close, raising her hand about ten inches above her face. “… and when I shone my flashlight at them, they jumped away. But Dean… I don’t want to tell anyone, because they’ll think I don’t love my mom and dad, and I do! But they… you won’t tell I talked bad of them?”

 

“No. I won’t tell.”

 

“They had bad eyes,” she says, looking rather confused. “Just before they jumped back, I saw them. And they had really, really bad eyes. Strange eyes. They were… not okay.”

 

“Ice,” I say before I can stop myself. “They had ice for eyes.”

 

“Yes.” And she stares at me, and her own eyes get all wide again. “How do you know?”

 

I give her the most banal explanation you could give to a kid.

 

“I don’t know… I read about something like this in some book.”

 

To my surprise, she relaxes. If anything, she looks relieved.

 

“Maybe it was a book about dead people,” she says. “I don’t know. I can’t read yet. But you see, Dean, I was afraid. When I saw their eyes I suddenly thought they didn’t love me at all. Thought badly of them. Thought they were going to do something bad to me. I thought badly about my mom and dad.”

 

“It’s okay,” I say and my voice is croaky.

 

“I know.” She nods. “Because… I think I understand now. They couldn’t love me, because they were dead, right? Dead people, they can’t love those who are alive, right? So maybe they just wanted me to die. So they could love me.”

 

Eerie. Almost unbearably eerie – to sit here and listen a six-year-old girl tell me that in a serene soft voice.

 

“I’m not mad at them. It’s just because I’m alive and they are dead, right? It’s not their fault.”

 

“Right,” I manage.

 

“But then, I was afraid, and I screamed, and I left my flashlight on, and I was running around screaming, because I thought they might jump me from behind. So I kept turning around, and I never turned my flashlight off.”

 

I look at her, and what I’m thinking is that she was right about herself earlier. She’s not a fool. She’s not foolish at all. She isn’t just smart for her age – she’s a genius.

 

“I think I saw them once or twice, but I shone my flashlight that way, and they weren’t there. And then it was day, and it stopped snowing. And it was sunny. But I didn’t know where I was, because there was snow all around me. And I was very cold and I really, really wanted to sleep, but I knew I mustn’t. Grandpa says that if you fall asleep in the snow, you’ll never wake up. So I just walked some more. I thought that maybe I’ll get back to the Town. I was very-very tired when I saw a car.”

 

“Black and red.”

 

“Yes.” She suddenly grins. “Like the birdie in my clock! And I started shouting, and then people came for me, but I don’t remember anything else, because I think I finally fell asleep. And when I woke up I was sick. Ugh.”

 

“You know, little ladies tend to get sick when they run around in the snow for too long,” Doc says, opening the door. “And then they have to suffer injections. It’s time for the shot, Lily.”

 

“Oh no,” she shuts her eyes tight. “I’m sleeping. I heard you tell Grandpa you can’t give me a shot when I’m sleeping. Because I can jerk and break a needle. And I’m sleeping, so go away and shoot someone else.”

 

“Good ear and sly mind,” says Doc with a smile. “Well, we’ll have to risk it.”

 

“See you, Lily,” I say hastily and head for the door. “Get well soon!”

 

There’s a heavy sigh behind my back. And just as I close the door, there comes a loud “Ouch!” Poor kiddo. Jake is already here. He tells me, “Wait for me in the living-room, won’t you, Dean?” and marches in with eggnog at the ready.

 

I go to the living-room and talk to Holly and Randy for a while, trying to get Lily’s face, sad and serene, out of my mind. Then Doc Thompson joins us, plopping into a chair and throwing his head back.

 

“Do you know if I could get a cup of tea?” he asks rather hopelessly.

 

“I’ll go make it,” Holly says. “Sally is cooking soup. Best not distract her if we don’t want extra stuff in it.”

 

“Is she really okay?” I ask Doc. “I mean Lily. She doesn’t look well to me.”

 

“You know,” he drawls, his eyes closed, “she could be in real trouble. When they brought her in I thought that maybe it would have been better if they hadn’t found her. She was delirious. And she was burning. Fever, you know. Really bad. Inflammation. I don’t have enough equipment and it’s too early to say for sure, but I suspect at least one-sided pneumonia. And we’re rather short of stuff. I thought I wouldn’t be able to get her out of it.”

 

“But you did?”

 

“The SP’s,” he says. “The SP’s, bless them. Their main man left his whole medical set to us. You know, they have them. Anti-inflammatory shots. And others. His was almost untouched. And he didn’t take anything for it. Just shoved it into my hands and left.”

 

Theo. Yeah, maybe he had bad flashbacks when Doc said the little girl had pneumonia.

 

Was born a do-gooder, will die a do-gooder.

 

I hope he burns in hell anyway.

 

“I’m still not saying anything certain, but as it is now, she has ninety-eight chances out of hundred to make it. And I’m going to see to it that she does. I was afraid she had damaged her head, too, because she apparently had hallucinations… but her head seems okay. Maybe it was just hunger and sleep deprivation. She is a very strong child, resisting the sleep for as long as she did. I think she’ll be okay.”

 

Holly brings the tea, and almost immediately Jake calls him into the room. Doc goes there, still sipping from his cup. And in a minute Jake walks into the living-room.

 

“Come, Dean,” he says. “Let’s go to my study.”

 

And once we get there, he turns to me and says, “I like you. I really, really like you, but I know you, too. You wouldn’t have come just to give Lily her clock. Which was really nice of you, but it wasn’t what brought you here. Now, what was it? Tell me.”

 

Yes, he’s tired. Exhausted. And has a lot of worries on his mind. But he’s the Alderman. The one who is responsible for the well-being of his Town and its people. Of course he wants to know at once if something is wrong.

 

And so I tell him.

-------------------------

 

“If you’re not ready in five minutes, we might as well wait for tomorrow.”

 

“Don’t play a smartass, Dean!”

 

Now I’m a smartass. I wonder if that’s up or down from the Asshole level. Then again, I have more important things to worry about.

 

Like having Larry for a companion. That’s a problem if I’ve ever seen one.

 

“Shut your mouth and hurry up, Larry,” Jake says. His eyes are dark, shadowed with concern. “Dean, what did I just tell you?”

 

“If there’s a storm, don’t try to go on,” I repeat earnestly.

 

“I mean it.”

 

“Sure.”

 

“Listen to me.” Íe lowers his voice. “I don’t doubt your monster can make it through to the City in an average snowstorm. But Larry’s car won’t. Don’t leave him behind. You can be cross at me all you want, but he is not going because he wants to. He is going because we’re sending him. And if you leave him behind, he might never make it.”

 

I sigh.

 

“I won’t leave him behind. Now you can leave me alone. Really.”

 

He is still not sure of it, but he knows there’s just so much he can do when I’m in a bad mood.

 

It was probably the most exciting meeting of the Town Council ever. Not that anyone was enjoying it. After I repeated my story for the fifth time, my head started aching. And they were still arguing. The idea that Theo could be lying was dismissed in the first half-hour. I’m not coy by nature. I told them how it had come to us sharing secrets. Another hour was wasted on discussing the City people’s plan and our own possibilities. To me, it was a waste of time. We didn’t have many possibilities. We could submit to them. Or we could leave the Town and go into hiding – this option was very unlikely. We didn’t have anywhere to go. The least likely one was to fight. The very suggestion was idiotic. The City would never start to bring their plan into effect unless they had at least four loyal SP squads to back them up. And if they did, then we had no chance.

 

However, all of these things could wait.

 

The fires over the forest couldn’t.

 

I told them what I thought. There was a lot of noise while everyone who didn’t believe it was possible tried their best to tell me so. Then, when Jake restored relative order, they discussed it. And discussed it. And discussed it.

 

No-one had heard the rumble or felt vibrations, but I wasn’t the only one who’d seen the fires. Some said it could be the deadwood forest burning. I laughed the idea off. Redwood, dead or not, isn’t prone to forest fires. Never was, even in summer, its bark is too thick and there’s too much water in its wood. Now, when there’s snow all over it, the very idea is indeed laughable. They finally agreed to it. Finally admitted, that so far my idea was the only more or less logical explanation.

 

I thought the City guys had fucked up with their weapons.

 

They didn’t know how to use them, Theo said. And if Reeds was their best bet, odds were high they’d never really know it. Maybe they were trying to transport the weapons somewhere. Maybe something went wrong.

 

Or maybe they wanted to test them and something went right.

 

The Council argued and argued and argued. And in the end, they came to one decision. There wasn’t any way of knowing for sure other than going there. They wanted someone to go and see how the things were. Try to find out as much as possible. Someone whose car could make it along the road after the recent storm.

 

That didn’t leave them much choice.

 

I was cool with that. A little uneasy – I haven’t been to the City ever since Ritchey died. But quite cool. I had expected them to do just that.

 

What I hadn’t expected – and what I wasn’t cool with at all – was Larry Kibbler.

 

You need a companion, they said. It’s not because we don’t trust you, they said. It’s because it could be dangerous. What if one of the cars gets stuck? What if one of you gets into trouble in the City? One of you should be able to get back with the news. So that we could help the other.

 

Yeah, like it isn’t obvious whose car is going to get stuck.

 

Larry is twenty-one, like me. And his car is the same modification of Landrover my own babe is based on. That’s where the likeness ends. Because he’s useless. Useless, with a capital U. I know they chose him because his car is second best in town and because he won’t let anyone touch it. If they had to tow his car back to the Town as many times as Ritchey had to in our very first year here – back then it was Larry’s dad driving it, and all I can say is some things do run in the family – maybe then they wouldn’t think as much of him.

 

Then again, he’s the only one besides me who is of age and doesn’t have a family to support.

 

We were supposed to take off today, at midday. It’s half past three now, and we’re still in Town. And the weathermen have warned us that after two days of clear sky, the storm is very likely. Lovely, isn’t it?

 

By the time we finally make it out of the Town, it’s four p.m. and I’m ready to tear Larry’s head off with my very own hands. If we don’t make it to the wood before the storm hits, it’s going to be really nasty.

 

My car goes first. Theo thought it wasn’t good enough to go through the snow. He was wrong. Ritchey did a lot to it, and yesterday I changed the wheels on it and dressed them in snow chains. The snow has sank down a bit and is now almost solid. But Larry’s Landrover would still have troubles, weren’t it following my wheel track.

 

We both have walkie-talkies in our cars. But my dislike must be more or less reciprocated, because I drive in blissful silence for an hour before my walkie-talkie, crackling, comes to life.

 

“You’re speeding,” it tells me in Larry’s voice, grumpy and whiny at the same time. “You’re fucking speeding. I can’t follow that fast.”

 

“I’m trying to make up for the delay. Last time I checked, Landrovers didn’t have problems with speed.”

 

We’re crawling, what is he talking about?

 

“It takes too much gasoline.”

 

Yeah, and if I know you well enough, you’re burning twice as much heating up the car, Larry-boy.

 

Gasoline. The Town Council could only provide enough for us both to make it to the City. So that we’d have to buy the fuel for the ride home right there. Now, I have some in stock and I didn’t like the way it sounded. In its All-Terrain mode, my car eats up a lot. So I’m using my own one, and I have some more in my trunk. But I’ll die before I sponsor Larry’s. They gave it to him. There’s barely enough for the ride there and back. But if he goes on wasting it on heating the way he usually does, I’ll still have to tow his car back. Fucking wuss, that’s what he is. I haven’t turned on the heating yet and I’m still alive.

 

“Maybe you could put on your parka. And maybe then you could turn off the heating system. And maybe – just maybe – then you could stop worrying about the gasoline.”

 

“Just slow down, will you?” he growls. “Or I’m going right back!”

 

“Thanks!” I say and speed up. Slightly. There’s not much I can do in the snow. But I hear him curse before he breaks off the connection. I don’t know whether he stopped wasting his gas, but he does go a bit faster.

 

We go along the almost non-existent road in the middle of the snowfield. There’s a dark line at the end of it – the grove of redwoods. The City is right behind it. Right now, this line seems too far-off to me. Makes me think of mirages. Of fata-morgana. I know why. It’s the snow that’s unnerving me. The snow field that seems so vast right now, so huge… almost endless. I have to remind myself that there is the Town behind me, that the redwoods are real, that they really are there and in a couple of hours we’ll make it to them.

 

It’s unexpectedly hard to do.

 

I flip on the car radio, going through stations, but there’s only white noise everywhere. The surf-and-sca guy from the city is off the air. It makes me wonder again. What did they do in the City last night? How bad was it? What are we going to see?

 

By the end of the second hour the snow begins to fall. My walkie-talkie squeaks up again.

 

“Dean! Goddamn it, don’t drive off!”

 

“Just shut up, Larry.”

 

“Oh God. Dean, my wipers are fucking up. I can’t see shit. Dean, please, don’t drive off!”

 

He sounds really scared. I look at my speedometer and find out with some surprise that I have gone from twenty to thirty miles per hour in the last five minutes. Must have been pressing the accelerator a little too hard all this time. I know why. Snow made me nervous.

 

That’s really a little too fast for poor Larry.

 

I take a deep breath.

 

“Okay. You don’t panic, Larry. Snow is white. My car is black. Even if half your windscreen gets blocked, you’ll still see it. Just drive.”

 

I slow down a bit and the walkie-talkie goes dead again.

 

I almost manage to persuade myself we’ll make it to the wood in time when the storm begins.

 

And the storm is bad.

 

“Dean!” Larry shrieks over the radio. “Dean, I can’t go on! This wind is throwing the snow all over me!”

 

I look back at him, and it’s true. The wind doesn’t just mess up the snowfall. It takes up whole layers of old snow, together with pieces of hardened crust, and throws at us. My windscreen is armored, but Larry is having hard time driving, because blow after blow is rattling the glass. Another minute, and it will crack. Or break. Shit, that’s just what I needed…

 

“Dean!”

 

“Larry, take it easy. Get dressed and get over to my car. Faster.”

 

He doesn’t even protest, and I was sure he would. In a couple of minutes he’s knocking on my window. I open the door to let him in. He’s hardly spent a minute outside, but he’s shivering and covered in snow. His red parka seems almost white under it all.

 

“It’s hell!” he stutters, his teeth clattering.

 

“So that’s what they mean when they say the hell freezes over.” I sigh. “We’ll need to tag your car to mine.”

 

“We can’t go on in the storm,” he says, not looking at me. “That’s what old Jake said.”

 

“If we stay here, we’ll get buried,” I explain patiently. “We have to get to the forest. Then we can try to wait out the storm.

 

He nods. I know I’ll have to do all the work myself. He won’t get out of the car unless I put my gun to his head.

 

I wouldn’t either. But someone just has to do all the dirty job.

 

I look back at his car uncertainly. It’s a big fucker. My babe is strong. Strong new wheels, and Ritchey gave it a new heart – a motor that could probably fit for any tow-car. But here, in the snow and against the wind…

 

“Someone will have to drive your jeep. I won’t drag it to the forest all by myself. I won’t be able to.”

 

Larry doesn’t reply. He sits still, staring in front of him. I sigh again.

 

“Okay. You’ll drive the prime mover. I’ll tell you how. And don’t turn off the walkie-talkie. Now give me your keys.”

 

He shoots me a distrustful look.

 

“You… will let me drive it?”

 

Yes, because if I have to choose between leaving my baby at your mercy and staying here in the open plain where the storm will bury us up in another half an hour, I’ll have to pick the lesser evil.

 

I show him how to do everything. Tell him how the towing is done – the idiot has always been on the other end of it. Then I wrap myself in my parka a little bit tighter and reach for the door.

 

“Dean… thanks.”

 

“If you end transmission just once, I swear I’ll kill you,” I tell him, get out of the car and slam the door shut.

 

The wind goes at me at once, trying its best to squash me against the car. “Fuck,” I whisper under my breath. “Fuck-fuck-fucking-fuckety-fuck!” This is like a mantra. As I keep swearing, I make myself part from the car and take step after step towards the Landrover. I’ve done it before. And it’s not the worst storm I’ve been through. So fuck that. I’ll do it.

 

The hardest thing is to breath and keep your eyes open. Because the snow that the wind keeps throwing in my face isn’t soft. It’s not wet. It’s fine and hard, as if I were caught in an impossibly cold sandstorm. It’s stinging. I pull my hood as low over my face as I can, while my hands are doing the same old business, fastening the cord first to my car than to his. Larry, that shit-for-brains, hasn’t been keeping distance, but now it saves me at least two minutes, because I only have to walk around my own car, and there’s his ‘Rover, its muzzle almost kissing my jeep’s backside. When we get to the City, I’ll have to keep him away from me. They clean the roads there, shovel away the snow. And over the night the asphalt gets iced over. He’ll keep bumping into me all the time if he doesn’t keep the fucking distance…

 

… Has something just moved to my left?

 

I freeze, clutching the cord in my hands like a drowning man would clutch the saving rope. I know if I look around there won’t be anything there. And not because there wasn’t anything there in the first place.

 

But because they move so incredibly fast.

 

The wind is wailing in my ears. I slowly look around. And see a figure in the distance. To the right from me.

 

It’s not wearing white. It’s wearing something looking too much like a black coat.

 

I fish in my pocket, grab Larry’s keys and try to open the door hurriedly. It’s not easy, the keys are small, my fingers are getting numb from cold even in gloves and I don’t see shit. And I feel presence. Feel it with my whole back. I want to scream.

 

The key slips into the keyhole and turns, and I’m in the car, and I slam the door with rage that only fear could bring about.

 

He’s closer, when I glance in the window. He’s, maybe, twenty yards away. I can see his hair, dirty blond, blown off his face by the wind. His face I just don’t want to see. I grab the walkie-talkie.

 

“Start away,” I tell Larry, and I don’t care how my voice might sound. “Start away. Do as I told you. Now. And don’t you dare fuck-up!”

 

Past the storm, I hardly hear my own engine as I start the ‘Rover. For an awful second I think it’s not going to work at all. Motor roars and coughs, the ‘Rover shudders and trembles and shakes, but doesn’t make it even an inch forward. I can’t believe it. He hasn’t changed the old suspension bracket? What will I find out next? That his wheels are still wearing summer rubber?

 

And the next moment, the cord tenses. There’s a pull… another pull… and the car begins to move.

 

I close my eyes for a second. I don’t really believe in God, I don’t know who to thank, but the need to thank someone is almost overwhelming. Then I glance out the window again.

 

Nothing. Whoever was there is gone.

 

You’re running from me, aren’t you, Dean? Why are you doing this to me?

 

I bite my lip and press down the accelerator.

 

And even though it seems an eternity to me, we make it to the wood in twenty minutes.

----------------

 

“I don’t like this place.” Larry sighs. “I never liked this place. It creeps the shit out of me.”

 

“Not in my car, please.”

 

He stares at me blankly, then gives a short laugh.

 

“Always joking, huh? Who was it that sent the word around you were Mister Gloom? You’re all laughs, Dean.”

 

No shit, brother.

 

“Do you happen to have some snack? I have some, but I left it in my car…”

 

I want to tell him that if I made it to his car and back in the field, then he sure can pull the same trick here, in the forest, where the trees, however creepy they might be, keep some of the wind and the snow away. I want to tell him that it’s so not my problem if he can’t.

 

Instead I tell him, “There’s a bag on the back seat. If you can reach it, you can have some.”

 

He beams at me and starts squirming, obviously ready to crawl right over the back of the seat. I groan and push the ‘unfold’ button. Larry gives a surprised “Ow!” as his seat tilts back.

 

“Wow, thanks!”

 

“Don’t tell me you don’t have folding seats in your car.”

 

“Well, but that’s in my car.”

 

Okay. Whatever.

 

“Speaking of my car, did you leave the heating off there?”

 

I guess it was too much to hope he’d shut up at least while eating my supper.

 

“Of course I did. You towed your car along for less than half an hour today, did you like it? I don’t want to do it the whole way home.”

 

“My windows. I won’t see anything in the morning.”

 

“Larry. You ever heard of the cabin warming trick?”

 

No. He hasn’t, I see it at once. The living and graphic disproof to the theory of evolution, that’s what he is.

 

“You are going to hear of it in the morning. Now forget about it and don’t talk with your mouth full.”

 

He snickers but doesn’t talk for a while, so it’s all good. Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever.

 

“A tough guy, aren’t you, Dean?”

 

“Depends on what you call tough. If you spend the night outdoors, I bet you’ll be much tougher than me in the morning.”

 

“I wonder who gave you your idea of funny.”

 

“I was born with it.”

 

“No wonder you never get any chicks.”

 

For whole two seconds I actually wonder if I would be able to get me a woman in the Town if I wanted to. That’s how bored I am. Finally, I decide that if I were really desperate, I could talk Lena in because she’s curious. That would be a start.

 

“I leave them to you. No brain, no luck, no skill… you have to get at least something, otherwise it would have been unfair, wouldn’t it?”

 

“I don’t know, Dean, what kind of person are you? There’s no-one here, just me and you, no living soul around, and you don’t even want to chat. Are you even human?”

 

“No. I’m your hallucination. You’re imagining me. Some of us hallucinations aren’t very talkative.”

 

“Not funny.”

 

“Well, I’m not a comic hallucination.”

 

Larry suddenly smiles.

 

“You know, it’s better to have a snappy hallucination beside me than nothing at all. If I were alone in this place, I’d go insane.”

 

Maybe he’s right.

 

The place is rather creepy if you’re not used to it. Our cars are parked into narrow gaps between thick, darkened trunks. They were hard enough to find. All between the old redwoods, there are young sprouts, maybe ten or fifteen feet high. They are everywhere, growing in seemingly unnatural straight rows and impeccably symmetrical ‘fairy rings’. Huge old trees going so far into the sky you think you can’t see their tops. Young growth surrounding them, looking almost lacy in comparison.

 

All of them dead.

 

The redwood forest wasn’t always that thick. In the last year of summer, as it grew slightly colder through all twelve months, redwoods suddenly started reproducing like crazy. Every fallen tree sprouted new trees seemingly in no time, and they grew unusually fast, reaching up to thirty feet in their first and last season of growing. That’s what Ritchey told me. Maybe the redwoods sensed the death coming. They withstood the first winter, but the May frosts killed them dead.

 

They stand there, huge, blackened and covered in snow, and if you walk amongst them, it feels as if you were in an old scary tale. Of the ‘enchanted forest’ kind. But somehow you don’t believe in fairies at all.

 

Yes, Larry is right, it’s not the nicest place for being alone.

 

“How long do you think the storm is going to last?”

 

“I’d say, till dawn. Somehow they almost always go away at dawn. Storms.”

 

Larry sighs.

 

“And it’s what… seven in the evening now? That’s a shitload of time.”

 

“There are old papers in the back of the car. Read something. Or make origami.”

 

“Wha?..”

 

“Nevermind.”

 

Some more silence. Larry looks back uncertainly, then turns away. Apparently, he isn’t fond of reading. In fact, I wouldn’t bet my last dollar that he can read at all. In a few minutes he speaks up again, picking up right where he left off.

 

“A lot of time to kill. We might as well do something.”

 

Beg your pardon?

 

I turn to face him. He’s sitting there, right next to me, leaning his elbow against the car seat casually, grinning widely. I’ve never seen a face more smug. And this grin is downright lewd.

 

Hell. I don’t believe it.

 

“Don’t tell me you mean what I think you mean.”

 

“Can you think of anything better to do?”

 

God, yes. I could, like, sleep.

 

“I don’t think so, Larry. All those girls of yours will kill me.”

 

“They don’t need to know.”

 

Shit, he’s serious, right? You gotta be kidding me…

 

“How are you going to do it, anyway?” I ask, more for fun than really wanting to know. “You’re going to undress? Here? Now? And what is it going to be like, us jammed between the seat and the steering wheel?” That’s one position those Kamasutra guys haven’t thought of.

 

“There are ways. I’ll show you.”

 

What, is that a trend in the Town now? Some kind of extreme sports? Whatever keeps the kids happy…

 

“Actually, you won’t. Don’t get overexcited.”

 

“Oh come on, Dean.”

 

“I’m sorry, Larry. You’re not my kind.”

 

It’s priceless – seeing that unbelieving, genuinely offended expression on his face. Oh, he’s such a stud, our Larry. A really good-looking young guy. Girls really think the world of him, or so I’ve heard around Roy’s bar. Young girls, who fall for strong arms, and muscled chest, and long legs, and big blue eyes, and straight nose, and thick honey-blond hair, and such a dazzling white, toothy grin. Older ones already begin to look at other things. That must be why he prefers to fuck them in the car and not to take them home. I bet what they could see there would be a real turn-off. There are nice bums and nasty bums, and Larry is the second type.

 

He can’t believe that he, His Mighty Sexiness, has just been turned down by a scrawny freak like me.

 

“Cut that shit, Dean. What’s up with you? Playing the shrinking violet?”

 

“Larry, I don’t know if you can even imagine it, but there are people who don’t want to fuck all the time. Also, there are people who don’t want to fuck you. I happen to be both kinds combined.”

 

The funniest thing is, I’m not even bullshitting him. He isn’t my kind. My men have always been older. Theo is over thirty, and Ritchey was thirty-five when we first met. He’d be forty now…

 

Larry grabs me by the coat. Ooh. Action.

 

“Listen, who are you fooling here?” And he’s really pissed now. For him, the poor Golden Kid, it must be a matter of honor. Funny, I’d never have thought he swings this way. “That old queer of yours was doing you for how many years… five? Six? And now everyone in Town knows that this SP guy has been getting a piece of your ass. And now you’re going to tell me…”

 

He’s touching me without permission. And he’s talking bad of Ritchey. Just one of these things would have been enough.

 

He lets go of my coat and becomes very silent. All of a sudden. And keeps trying to squint down.

 

“You want to know what is under your chin, don’t you, Larry?”

 

He looks at me. Big, frightened eyes.

 

“It’s what you think it is, Larry. It’s a gun muzzle.”

 

He swallows.

 

“Processed that? Fine. Now try to get the following, too: if you as much as touch me another time, I won’t even need it to end your useless life. Believe it or not. But better believe. Better believe, Larry.”

 

“Okay,” he croaks. “Dean, I… I didn’t really mean it.”

 

Oh, they never mean it. They only mean it if you’re fifteen, unarmed and can’t fight back. Then they mean it alright.

 

I push him away and he shrinks back from me, almost pressing into the door.

 

“Get yourself together,” I tell him, trying to sound as indifferent as I can. “You can also get out and cool off a bit. I think that’ll help. And then I don’t want to even hear you until tomorrow’s morning. I’m going to sleep. I strongly advise you to do that same. And not to get silly ideas. I’m a light sleeper.”

 

“As if I wanted it so badly,” he mutters, regaining his composure a little.

 

“Larry?”

 

“What?”

 

“I hear you.”

 

It takes him a minute to understand what I mean. Then he goes pale again.

 

“Good night,” I tell him.

 

At least ten hours of almost total immobility. I couldn’t think of a better punishment for him if I tried to.

-----------------

 

“Shit. These trees creep me out.”

 

“Then get into your car so that we could get out of here.”

 

“Right. Right. I just…”

 

Larry breaks off and stomps to his car. Afraid even in daylight. I don’t relate. Larry fears dead trees and dark shades… I fear the field. The field we’ve just crossed, where there are no trees and no shades – only snow, snow and sky, and white whirls… where there are no sounds heard above the wind. Where you can scream, and there’ll be no echo…

 

But I have to admit the forest does look a little more creepy than usual this morning. The storm ended before the dawn, and then, suddenly, cold fog crept over from the coast. Deadwood in fog – even I feel a little uneasy.

 

But at least it’s not snowing.

 

Me and Larry are on talking terms this morning. He knows full well that soon he’s going to whine over the walkie-talkie again, begging me not to ‘drive off’, especially in the mist. I know full well that if the recent Mega Storm broke any roadside trees, I’ll need his help.

 

So we’re both pretending yesterday’s evening never happened.

 

It’s quiet in the wood. No wind. It’s half past eight in the morning when we take off again, and the ride goes smoothly. There is less snow here, under the trees, so even Larry’s poor ‘Rover is doing okay. My walkie-talkie is silent – I’m going slowly enough for him to keep up, and we don’t have anything else to talk about. I bet he’s started wasting his gas on heating again, but I’ve decided I don’t care. Maybe he really can’t do without it. There’s a lot he can’t do. I showed him how to clear off the windscreen earlier this morning. It’s an easy trick: you just turn on the engine and roll down one window a bit, and then you keep switching engine modes for some time. After a while, warm air starts circulating around the car, and snow and frostwork melt off the glass as it heats up. No big deal. But he looked at me as if I were doing magic.

 

We’re lucky. Most of roadside redwoods are too old for any wind to even sway them, as thick in the trunk as both our cars put together. A couple of times we do run into broken trees blocking the road, but all of them are young sprouts, so we just get out of the cars and drag them aside – it’s easy to do together.

 

It takes us a little more than half an hour to get through the grove. And when we drive out of the redwoods’ shade, we see the City.

 

For the first time today, my walkie-talkie goes live.

 

“Dean… what is this?”

 

I haven’t heard a voice like this for a long time. A low, horror-stricken voice, fear, awe and denial, almost total refusal to believe combined in it. But I understand him. If I spoke up right now, I’d sound the same.

 

“Dean… what the fuck is this?”

 

“I think it’s the City,” I tell him. “What’s left of it. Let’s see.”

 

I speed up a bit and go down the road. He curses and goes off air. I don’t have to go slow anymore, the sky is clear, and the fog has lifted off, so the day is bright and there’s no fear he’d lose sight of me. Visibility is perfect.

 

Maybe a little better than I’d want it to be.

 

I slow down and stop only when I reach what used to be City Gates – two new-growth redwoods with a banner stretched between them.

 

That is, there used to be a banner stretched between them.

 

When there used to be two new-growth redwoods.

 

I get out of the car and just stand there and stare. In a few seconds, Larry pulls up nearby and joins me.

 

“What the hell happened here?”

 

How did I put it when I was telling Theo about Roanoke? The houses lay in ruins, everything was overgrown in grass, and there was no-one left to find there.

 

The City is lying in ruins, everything is covered in snow, and there’s no-one left to find here.

 

As far as the eye can see.

 

“Oh my God,” Larry moans beside me. “Oh my dear God, I don’t believe it!”

 

It’s hard to believe. There used to be houses. There used to be tall buildings and small huts, and streets, and streetlamps, and trees, and cars, and garbage cans… and people. Lots and lots of people, maybe not as much as cities used to have before the snow, but much more than in the Town.

 

Now all that is left there is a field of blackened, charred remains. Tree stumps. Half-destroyed brick foundations. Twisted metal. Black ashes mixed with snow – greasy, far too greasy to be left from wood. A field full of the most terrible harvest a man has ever reaped. It’s spread out before us, stretching into the distance, over to the horizon. A limitless, unbounded field of death.

 

I hear a groan and turn to see Larry bump his back into his car and slide down to the snow beside it.

 

“They are all dead,” he says weakly. “They are all dead, and I don’t have the gas for my way home, and where am I going to get it now? Oh my God, Dean, what happened here?”

 

“Easy,” I tell him, trying to calm myself down as much as him. “Easy. We’ll work it out.”

 

“What the bloody hell happened here?” he wails.

 

“I don’t know. Larry, get up. Get up before you freeze your ass off. Sit in the car and wait for me, I’ll go look around a little. Maybe there’s something to find here.”

 

He nods, scrambles back to his feet and opens the door of his jeep.

 

I turn to face the death field again. And then, slowly, bracing myself, I enter it.

 

It doesn’t look any better when I see it close. It doesn’t look any different, either. A small-scale model of the world after the Apocalypse. I walk on, and all I see is ruins – no part of them rising higher than three feet above the ground. And as I keep walking, a new, stomach-turning sensation creeps all over me.

 

What happened here, Larry asked me, and I told him, I don’t know. But it’s a lie. Because I know. I can feel it. As I look around, as I see what has been done to the City, I begin to feel the nature of this force. The dynamics and mechanics of it. The same way I feel the nature of the things that I fix. No-one ever told me how it was done – I do everything I do because I feel that if you turn this screw… or fix this joint… or add a spring here… I’ve always felt it, and I can feel it now. And as the feeling gets stronger and stronger, I can almost see how it happened.

 

There was a blast… then the blast wave… and the heat wave… there was fire. Fire, but of enormous, unimaginable temperature. It rolled around and brought down everything in its way… yes, but how was it possible? Open fires can’t be that hot. They can’t burn people to ashes in a single wave. And no fires could burn stone.

 

But here they are, the results. I see them.

 

It’s cold, it must be at least twenty degrees below zero, but I feel sweat breaking out under my clothes.

 

What the fuck were they working on here? What the fuck were they going to give to our military if even a few experimental samples are able to do this?

 

For the first time in seven years I think that maybe the coming of the snow was not a curse but a blessing.

 

The fire was strong, fast, impossibly hot… and localized? It didn’t reach the deadwood grove. By every logic, it should have… localized, and auto-extinguishing. It didn’t spread, it retreated unto itself… what was the wave like? I look around. Concentric… of course…  But something isn’t right. The spread. If it was concentric, where was its seat, its hotbed? Where did this bomb go off? The lines I see in my mind’s eye don’t compute, they don’t fit the theoretical picture…

 

… until I realize one simple thing. There was more than one hotbed. There were several bombs in several parts of the City and they detonated almost immediately… maybe seconds apart… I don’t get it. How?..

 

And then it hits me, and I suppress the urge to laugh out loud. I don’t feel quite sane.

 

The City Council guys are fighting among themselves, Theo told me. There’s a lot of things they are fighting about.

 

Idiots. Crazy, gone, motherfucking idiots.

 

Sick minds think alike.

 

There’s nothing for me here. Nothing for any of us. Only death, and I can smell it. It’s here, lurking. Waiting. It’ll be here for a long time. We’ll have to find some other place to buy stuff from. Maybe we should brave the Outwards Road down south and talk to the mine people Theo talked about. Maybe there are other Cities out there. This one is gone.

 

I turn to leave.

 

And hear the roar of the car speeding away.

 

I run back through the snow, shallow, one-night snow mixed with dust and ashes. I make it to my car in time to see Larry’s ‘Rover disappear between redwoods. For a moment I just stand there, not understanding a thing. And then I see that my trunk suddenly has a lot more room in it.

 

Gasoline canisters. The fucker stole my fuel. I climb into the driver’s seat and check the tank.

 

One fifth left.

 

He took all he could fit into his own, smaller one.

 

I grab the walkie-talkie.

 

“Larry! Larry, motherfucker, you’re dead, you hear me? You’re deader than fucking dead!”

 

I don’t expect him to answer, jabbing my keys in, but he responds at once.

 

“You’re tough, Dean. You can make it. And I’ll die here if I don’t make it home tonight. I’ll tell the guys to pick you up when I get home. I promise.” And with that he ends transmission. I don’t try to talk to him again.

 

I slowly unclench my fingers and take them off the key. No. If I speed after him now, I’ll have to use the Supercharger mode – Speed and All-Terrain combined. Then I’ll be out of gas in fifteen minutes. His car is lighter, and he’s going back by our own tracks now. I won’t get him.

 

If I go in normal mode, I might make it through the forest. That’ll make me a little closer to the Town.

 

Not that it matters. But it’s better than to sit here and wait. Even if Larry does tell them the truth when he gets home, I doubt anyone will go and save me. They’ll know they won’t be able to recharge. They’ll be afraid. They are no heroes. They are even no Snow Patrol.

 

There won’t be any more Snow Patrol around for a long time.

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