He shook his head gently but didn"t argue the point.
"You could have at least stopped by to say h.e.l.lo. She probably still loves you too."
He reached over and laid his hand on her shoulder.
"One day I"ll explain it to you."
"But not today?"
"No, not today."
She shrugged. "Okay, but I won"t forget. I hardly ever forget anything."
"I know you won"t. You"re like an elephant."
"An elephant? That wasn"t very nice."
He laughed. "Elephants have really good memories. People say they never forget anything."
"How would people know that?" She paused. "For that matter, what would elephants have to remember? It"s not like they learn multiplication tables, or history, or science equations."
"I don"t know. What do I look like-an elephant doctor?"
She shrugged. "You could probably pa.s.s for an elephant doctor."
"What exactly does that mean?" he said, unconsciously sucking in his gut.
"Nothing," she said with grin. She turned to look out her window. "I guess we"re headed to my mom"s now, huh?"
"That"s right."
Without turning away from the window, she said, "I suppose you"re going to miss me."
"Not hardly."
"You"ll miss me. I know it. But it"s time, right?" There was a gentle questioning in her voice, as if she wasn"t quite sure of the answer.
"Yeah," he said, "it"s time."
The drive south skirted the eastern edge of the Allegany National Forest, pa.s.sing through a host of small Pennsylvania communities, including Bradford, Lewis Run, and Wilc.o.x. Each town or borough was essentially in the same shape, vacant and still, like a community sitting too close to a nuclear power plant after a meltdown.
The road was lined on both sides with a thick a.s.sortment of trees, including white pines, spruce, birch, and ash, beneath which lay a dense growth of hawthorn and wild blackberry. The last people to have traveled across much of the virgin ground had been the Shawnee Indians, some two hundred years earlier. Modern man"s influence was not entirely unseen, however, as Happy Meal boxes, beer bottles, and an a.s.sortment of other garbage tossed from car windows littered the shoulder.
As they neared the outskirts of Johnsonburg, Highway 219 became Wilc.o.x Road, snaking back and forth across the Clarion River as if the inhabitants couldn"t decide on which side to build the road. A set of train tracks paralleled the highway, but there was no sign of engines or boxcars, either abandoned or still in use.
A small sign hung on a thin metal pole, warning drivers that a school lay directly ahead. Tanner instinctively slowed, although he had no illusions about the school still being in operation. A few hundred feet further down the road, they came upon a single-story elementary school resting on a small hill. A huge cement truck had tipped in the center of the highway, blocking both lanes of traffic. Dark gray cement had spilled out the back, oozing across the asphalt like a gelatinous alien blob in search of its next meal. A splintered power pole leaned against the cab of the truck, and a tangle of heavy transmission lines lay draped across the wreckage.
Tanner eased to a stop a few feet from the spill, and Samantha stuck her head out the window.
"How are we going to get by that?" she asked.
"I don"t know that we are."
He swung his door open and stepped out with his Remington 1100 sawed-off shotgun at the ready. The air was warm, and birds chirped from within the dense green forest to his right. He walked slowly to the spilled concrete and touched it with the tip of his boot. It was hard and dry. Days or even weeks old, he thought.
Samantha came from behind him and stepped up onto the large spill, peering down the road past the overturned truck. Her Savage .22 rifle hung lazily over her shoulder with the muzzle pointed down.
"I don"t see any cars that way. Not even abandoned ones."
Tanner glanced up at the elementary school. The parking lot was empty. The whole setup was looking more and more intentional. Someone had gone out of their way to keep people from getting into Johnsonburg, probably to limit exposure to the virus. Whatever the reason, it put a serious wrinkle in his driving plans.
"Does this mean we"re back on foot?" she asked.
"Either that or we double back."
"How far do you think we"ve come?"
"Not far. Maybe fifty miles."
"And how much further is it to Mount Weather?" She turned and looked down Wilc.o.x Road as if expecting to see a sign for the emergency operations center.
"Another two hundred and fifty miles, give or take."
She stepped down off the concrete and walked back to the Acura. After a few seconds, she reappeared from behind the car door with her pack strapped across her back.
"Well? Are we hiking into town, or what?"
"You"re taking this awfully well for a girl who did nothing but complain the last time we had to hoof it."
"This time we have a road to follow and food to eat."
"What fun is that?" he said, slowly walking back to the car. As he readied his own pack, he tossed her a bottle of water. "Drink this as we walk. I don"t want you pa.s.sing out on me."
The sun was already beating down on their heads, and it was only going to get worse.
She unscrewed the cap and took a long swig.
"You should drink some too."
"You worried about me?"
"I"m worried what I"d do without you."
"I"m not sure that"s the same thing," he muttered as he swung his heavy pack over his shoulders.
She said nothing more, only staring up at him expectantly.
"Okay," he said, "let"s go see what Johnsonburg has in store for us."
They walked south on Wilc.o.x Road for a good half a mile before seeing their first house. It was an old country home with a flat metal roof that looked like it had been dipped in a bucket of Army green paint. Its only redeeming qualities were a large wraparound porch and a bright green and yellow John Deere tractor sitting in the front yard. The tractor had a for sale sign taped to the front of the grille.
Tanner led them up to the house, eyeing several partially opened windows for any clue that someone might still be inside. No heads bobbed out from behind swaying curtains, and the only sound was that of the wind blowing a set of chimes hanging from the eaves. The porch had a thick cobweb stretching between the wooden pillars, and Samantha pointed to a giant spider sitting quietly in the center.
"Yuck," she said, wrinkling her nose.
"What"s wrong with him?"
"Are you kidding? He"s so big and hairy."
Tanner raised his eyebrows, leaving the obvious unstated.
She grinned. "Oh, sorry."
He snorted, giving the bottom of the door a solid b.u.mp with his boot. No one answered. He peeked in through a small living room window. There were couches, tables, and the usual furnishings but no obvious signs of people, alive or dead. He tried the doork.n.o.b, and it turned with a slight squeak.
He leaned in and shouted, "Relief supplies. Anyone here?"
No reply.
"Well?" he said, looking to Samantha. "Shall we check it out?"
She shrugged. "We could, but what"s the point? They don"t have a car, and our packs are already stuffed with as much as we can carry."
Tanner tended to agree. They had a pretty good stockpile of food, water, and ammunition, and he wasn"t sure what else they hoped to find. He turned and studied the tractor sitting in the yard.
"Do you think it still runs?" she asked.
"Who sells a tractor that doesn"t run? Besides, it looks brand new."
They walked over to the tractor and gave it a quick onceover. Samantha laid her hand on one of the giant wheels as if checking the air pressure.
"Do you know how to drive one of these things?"
"How hard can it be? Besides, you"ll be the one doing the driving."
"Me?" She stared up at the levers and oversized steering wheel. "Why would I be driving?"
Tanner draped his pack over the hood and climbed up onto the seat.
"Because," he said, "there"s only room for one. You"ll need to sit on my lap and steer while I work the gears."
Samantha looked back at the road.
"Maybe we should just walk."
"Suit yourself. I"m riding in John Deere luxury."
Tanner turned the ignition switch, and the heavy motor came to life. He pressed the throttle slightly and listened as the diesel"s valves opened and closed.
"Well?" he said, shouting over the engine"s noise.
Samantha set her pack next to his and squeezed up in front of him.
"This thing is huge," she said, grabbing the steering wheel.
"Its size gives you leverage."
She tried to turn it counterclockwise, but it wouldn"t budge.
"It"s stuck."
Tanner let the clutch out, and the tractor started forward. Samantha immediately felt the wheel loosen up. She rotated it to the left and guided the tractor across the lawn and down onto Wilc.o.x Road. Tanner kept it in low gear, and they never got over five miles an hour. Still, it beat walking.
Ten minutes later, they arrived at a huge trucking distribution center. Several box trailers sat against the loading dock, but the heavy diesel trucks were nowhere to be seen. There was also no indication of what types of supplies were handled by the facility, and given its enormous size, it could easily take a full day to make that determination.
Across the street was a second building, much smaller in size. A white flatbed truck sat parked in the gravel lot. He pointed toward the building, and Samantha nodded, steering the tractor in its direction. As they got closer, they saw a nondescript door at the front of the building and a sliding high bay door centered along the side. A corpse lay directly in front of the high bay door, but neither Samantha nor Tanner gave it a second look.
The flatbed truck looked to be in good shape, and on the back rested a burnt orange Harley Davidson CVO Limited motorcycle. The huge touring bike was held securely in place with a crisscross of thick chains.
"That looks promising," he said over the rattle of the tractor.
"The truck or the motorcycle?" she shouted.
"Neither." He killed the engine and pointed to a sign hanging in front of the building. Beer, Drive-Thru.
"They have a drive-thru for beer?"
"G.o.d bless America."
Before she could object, he squeezed by her and climbed down from the tractor. Samantha quickly followed.
"We already have enough supplies," she reminded him, hurrying to catch up.
He stopped and turned to face her.
"Sam, how long have you known me?"
She shrugged. "I don"t know. Seems like forever. Why?"
"And after all that time, do you really think I"d pa.s.s by a beer distribution center without at least sampling the goods?" Without waiting for an answer, he spun back around and continued toward the door. "Besides, we"re going to need keys to the truck."
"Fine," she said with a sigh, "but if we have to fight a five-hundred-pound beer monster, that"s on you."
"Fair enough."
They carefully approached the front door. It was metal and heavy, and locked up as tight as a nuclear submarine. Tanner thumped on the door with the b.u.t.t of his shotgun.
No one answered.