In the greater mountain region, every local agrees on one thing: the lakes, no matter how toxic, and the fires, no matter how rampant, and the shaking of the earth, no matter how frequent, will not be the thing to kill them. Beyond that, the prediction is up in the air.
Some– the majority– say it will be the wrath of God. Some– the minority– say it will be the wrath of God’s followers, who dabble in blood sacrifice needlessly. To be clear, one is more correct than the other.
That doesn’t negate the other issues, of course. The large mountains in the area weren’t caused by nothing– their height is a testament to the strength of the earth in years past, and its strength is nothing to be laughed at now, either. Sometimes, the earth shakes, and every citizen will hold still and ride it out. They’re all keenly aware of the varying severity of quakes. They’re all ready to duck and find cover should it feel stronger than the everyday kind.
Then there are the fires. Sometimes, they’ll rage on the other side of the mountains, and all that’s seen from the valley is the smoke. Large amounts of it. At night, the sky is tinged red. By day, children are discouraged from playing outside. Particularly imaginative ones will spend car rides through the city staring up at the mountains, imagine fire cresting up and over before creeping down the sides. It’s all in a mockery of how in autumn, the orange starts at the peaks before cascading through the weeks.
And then there are the lakes. Two, though one is worse than the other. One is consumed by growing things, fed by an overabundance of decaying things. The other is chemically poisonous down to the lake bed, which is riddled with a ticking time bomb. As the lake dries, the wind picks up the sand and spreads it across the valley. Someday, every inhabitant will have breathed too much of the poison-laced earth. It will have replaced too much of their skeleton and organ linings with itself, and they’ll die. It’s a preventable death. It’s an artificial death. Just as artificial as the clean bisection of the lake by the train track. One side is a rainbow of colors, while the other is forever murky. The train track marries the city and the dunes on the other side. It’s not worth it. In the modern age, the only transport is things stolen from the earth– things that should have been left.
People don’t ride the train. People don’t need them to live. Maybe once, but that time is past. People think they need cars to live, even if the smog suffocates the valley just as any fire would. The air suffers for it. The people suffer for the air. People think they need cold metal things. Cold metal things don’t need people. To be clear, one statement is more correct than the other.
But let me reiterate– it will be none of this that kills the locals.
–
“We’re going to need to pull over eventually, K.”
“Ah, just a few more hours. I’m not all that tired, yet.”
“Yeah? Well I am.”
“Good thing you’re not driving, then. Take a nap. I’ll wake you once I decide to find a hotel or something.”
“And how long will that be? You know it isn’t smart to drive too far past I-70. Not at this time of night, and not without a few extra eyes.”
“Eh. I’ve done it before. You worry too much.”
Someone has to, El thinks. She almost says as much, too, but lets it die before she bothers to open her mouth. I’m too tired for this.
She can think of a few other arguments to make– stories she’s heard of midnight travelers and empty roadside vehicles found at dawn. Stories she’s heard of eyes in the sky and stories she’s heard of siren calls in the mountains. Stories she’s heard of what happens when the driver doesn’t stop willingly. Stories of shambling men and dying engines. Of bloody deaths, a long way’s away from the car.
Maybe someone should make an argument here and demand to find someplace in some town inhabited by real people to sleep in. But then El realizes she doesn’t care all that much.
Whatever. She leans back in the leather seat, head finding the strap of the seatbelt that runs across her from the side of the car. She stares out the dark window at the passing scenery. Mountains. Forever mountains. They aren’t far south enough to have escaped them. Hardly south at all of where they started, actually. It was only a few hours ago that they closed the trunk of the old beat-up van, praying that the sound of metal on metal was quiet. The fewer people that think to look for them immediately, the better.
It feels like it’s been longer. It feels like it just happened.
The road is long. An endless stream of asphalt, cleanly divided by a dotted yellow line. Trees appear on the side, birthed from between tall grasses, only to quickly die. The tall grasses also die, she supposes, but it’s harder to feel that. There’s never a break in the sea of light yellow-green-turned-gray-in-car-headlight-shine. A veritable ocean that blankets the whole floor between mountains.
Not that El has ever seen an ocean. She doesn’t feel much about the fact. It’s a quiet recognition, as quiet as she is as she lets the scenery roll past a bug-splattered window.
She’s idle. She’s still. Nothing like her companion.
K’s dancing ever so much, even as she drives. Not enough to be unsafe, thankfully, but enough to satisfy her ever-present hatred of stillness. She’s got some song going. Something that sounds more like a daytime adventure’s theme than a night-time exodus’s. There’s guitar– electric and acoustic– an organ, a flute, some droning string thing, and a singer who dances around each note, never happy to settle. The melodies are all too active for the mood. Or at least, El’s mood.
Leave it to K to make something else of the whole thing.
The promise of the song blends with the life and death of trees and occasional building and farm fence and plowed field. The world is beautiful, the song promises. Just dance with me. Just leave with me. We’ll find something great and wonderful. We’ll make something of it. We have time.
El’s heart was left somewhere else, she thinks. Or maybe not. If she leans this way, she thinks she can hear it beating.
God is she tired, though.
There’s a sign coming up. One other than the mile markers that dot the gravel and grasses every so often. It’s green. Big letters and a shield symbol with a number on it.
“EXIT 55, INTERSTATE 70, 15 MILES.”
The song changes. It sounds the same.
“EXIT 56, GAS MOTEL RESTAURANT, 2 MILES.”
The exit comes and goes.
“THRU TRAFFIC MERGE LEFT.”
They do.
That was the intersection with 70, gone and passed. Maybe she should bother to hope everything turns out alright.
El lets her eyes close.
–
I love you.
It’s an unspoken thought.
I love you. God, I love you. It hurts. It burns. But it’s good. But it’s not, because I’m not sharing that. But it’s not, because I’m not speaking it into existence. You’re loved. You deserve to know.
You never will.
I won’t remember this. It was something I thought in one moment. It will live and die like everything else.
Nothing really lasts.
–
They’re saved by someone. El has blood on her hands. For some reason, that doesn’t feel new.
But even as she stands over the corpse of some beast, its blood on her hands, she knows. She couldn’t have defeated it alone.
There’s someone speaking. To K, El thinks, who’s sitting on the hood of the van. It’s closed now, El thinks idly. She wonders if that means the engine’s fixed now. Maybe not. Not that it’s important now.
K’s got a blanket around her shoulders, and the stranger’s saying something to her. But K’s just gesturing at El.
But El is ok. Just tired.
She says as much when the stranger reaches her. She brushes away their hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t need the comfort. She doesn’t need the questions, either. All she voices is a question. Two, actually.
“You got some wipes or something? Also, I forgot my pillow at home. Could I borrow one?”
She gets a long stare from a blank face. Maybe there’s some mild concern, but El doesn’t care to try to find it.
God, she’s tired.
–
This story is finished. This story isn’t. Let me be clear– one of the statements is more correct than the other.
All things are temporary, true, but love is also true, and that continues.
It just has to be found first. It has been. It was found. It wasn’t found. It will be. It’s here.
We’ll deal with it in the morning.
THE STORY HAS NOW ENDED. Would you like to go back home?
