“How’s it going back there?” she said into the radio.
“It’s going,” Carly answered. “I wish Danny was a better driver, though. It’s like being stuck in a car with an eighty-year-old man with arthritis who refuses to admit he has arthritis. It’s annoying.”
“I drive fine,” they heard Danny say through the radio. “In fact, I drive great. They used to call me Danny the Driver because I drove so well.”
Lara smiled. She could picture Carly rolling her eyes. “Let us know if you need to stop or if something happens.”
“Will do,” Carly said.
Will leaned over and said into the radio, “Stay frosty.”
“Oh, I’m frosty,” Danny said. “I’m so frosty, they used to call me Danny the Frosty Snowman.”
This time Lara actually rolled her eyes.
Using the map, they were able to abandon the feeder road system and start using smaller streets, eventually returning to the main highway when US 287 became I-10 and they began moving east instead of south. It was still slow going on the interstate until they broke through near the edge of town.
By 11:11 a.m., they left the city of Beaumont behind.
Not long after, they were driving through a thickly forested area, with towering trees on both sides of the highway. Will estimated they would cross the Texas-Louisiana border in about forty-five kilometers, or klicks as he put it.
“What’s that in miles?” Gaby asked.
Lara smiled. She was glad she wasn’t the only one having trouble with Will’s kilometers.
“Twenty-eight miles,” Will said. “Give or take.”
“You could have just said that in the first place,” Lara teased.
He gave her a mildly annoyed look, which made her grin. She liked needling him whenever the opportunity presented itself, because there were so few opportunities with Will.
“Road looks pretty clear,” he said, already moving past the topic. “It gets tricky once we’re across the state line. Beaufont Lake isn’t exactly easy to get to, and we’ll have to leave the interstate, take a small road farther down south. And from there, find a spot to launch to Song Island. Hopefully there will be a marina or two nearby that we can use.”
“Hopefully?” Gaby asked worriedly.
“There has to be,” Lara said. “How else did the people already on Song Island get to the island in the first place?”
“Makes sense,” Gaby said.
I hope so.
When they finally drove across the Texas-Louisiana border, Lara felt great relief. It occurred to her that she hadn’t thought they would ever actually get out of Texas alive, and the simple act of crossing an imaginary line on a map was like a great big weight lifting from her chest.
There was no celebration or fanfare in the truck as she watched Texas recede in her side mirror. Not that you could really tell where the Lone Star State ended and the Bayou State began. The sun-drenched stretch of interstate concrete looked the same here as it had for the last thirty miles.
The road ahead of them thinned out noticeably, and it became a rare thing to see cars on the road. Which made sense, since they were now moving through flat farming country. Sometimes they went for whole chunks of minutes without seeing another sign of civilization, though she caught sight of the occasional farmhouse or barn in the distance, swamped by overgrown grass, or a garden overcome by weeds.
After a while, the monotonous sight of vast farmland got the better of her, and, lulled by the cold air conditioner blasting away against the bright sun outside, her eyelids started getting heavy.
She didn’t remember when she closed her eyes, but when she opened them again, it was almost two hours later and the Ridgeline was exiting I-10, having slowed down almost to a crawl in order to maneuver around a big pile-up between a couple of trucks and a big rig in front of them.
She sat up in her seat, rubbing at her eyes. She saw buildings, stores, and gas stations around her again. “Where are we?”
“A town called Salvani in Beaufont Parish,” Will said.
She glanced up at the review mirror and saw Josh and Gaby sleeping in the back, Gaby’s head resting on Josh’s shoulder. They looked comfortable, like a couple.
“Will, you should have woken me up,” she said, slightly annoyed with him.
“Maybe next time.”
Lara heard stirring behind her as Josh and Gaby were woken by their voices. Josh stretched and yawned, while Gaby rubbed her eyes and looked out the window.
“Wow, civilization,” Gaby said. “I didn’t think I’d ever see it again.”
Lara caught sight of the reddish-tinted rooftops of a La Quinta to their right as Will took the feeder loop. He turned into the right exit, passing a Shell gas station, before turning onto Ruth Street. She glanced at her side mirror and saw Danny in the Frontier following closely behind.
“Waffles,” Gaby said longingly in the back seat. “It’s been ages since I’ve had waffles. I would absolutely kill for waffles right about now.”
Josh nodded in agreement, but apparently still didn’t trust himself to speak. He had become even more bruised and purple in the hours since his encounter with the man in the hazmat suit back in Beaumont. The swelling was worse, and it would probably take a day for everything to start going down.
They passed the Waffle House sign, letters spelling out the restaurant’s name in yellow square blocks hoisted high in the air. Passed a Conoco gas station, a Sonic fast food restaurant, and an Archer Sports and Outdoors warehouse. Lara glanced at a big billboard ad for teeth cleaning along the side of the road, and suddenly the stores and buildings gave way to homes and open, undeveloped land.
“Are we close?” Lara asked.
“We’re almost there,” Will said. “Ruth Street becomes Route 27 and keeps going until we’re alongside Beaufont Lake. Sixty klicks, give or take.” He added quickly, “About forty miles.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
“People actually live out here?” Gaby asked. “What do they do for fun?”
“People can get used to a lot of things when there aren’t any other options,” Lara said. “Adapt or perish.”
They were up to forty miles per hour now, traveling down a two-lane road with nothing but farmland and sun-bleached acres to one side — occasionally broken up with more dying, brown foliage — and a string of ancient-looking telephone poles on the other. She thought the poles made for a strangely poetic sight, stretching into what seemed like infinity in an almost perfect line.
She looked up at the wide-open sky. “How are we for time?”
“Three-fifteen,” Will said. “We’re doing good.”
After a while, Route 27 curved slightly left before straightening back out again. They drove in silence for another thirty minutes, and Lara started to see bayous below them whenever they drove over a bridge.
We’re getting closer…
She saw a big body of water to their left, on Will’s side of the truck. Josh and Gaby saw it, too, and they moved anxiously toward the driver’s side to look out their window.
Beaufont Lake was big and visible from Route 27, and it looked like it went on endlessly. The water had a nice blue tint to it, not the brown of the Texas lakes she was used to. Lara felt her heart quickening in her chest, the anticipation and exhilaration returning after lying dormant for so long.
“Beaufont Lake,” Gaby said, almost as if she couldn’t quite believe it.
They drove past a massive power station with huge, domed towers sparkling under the hot sun. Maybe a hydro power station, like the kind Harold Campbell built into his underground facility. It was right next to the lake, so that was a possibility. There were no signs of people, but the fencing and entrance gate looked intact. Lara wondered if there were people hiding in there. It was certainly big enough. She decided there probably weren’t. Sanctuary was only as good as the supplies you had, and she didn’t think anyone could survive with the supplies scattered around this mostly deserted area of the world.