They rested for an hour by a road sign, refueled the vehicle, had a simple late-night snack, and then set off again.
Whirlwind Highway was covered in tumbleweeds. The wind picked up as they set off, sending the tumbleweeds rolling. In the early morning hours, Evelyn Ford took over driving. After putting on her night-vision goggles and telling everyone to hold on tight, she slowly started the vehicle.
Quincy was pressed against the window, looking outside. "I hear the young leaves of these tumbleweeds are edible."
"Is food all you think about?" Officer Graham couldn’t help but tease him.
"Daddy’s a foodie."
Everyone laughed at Zoe’s comment.
"It’s my only real hobby. Besides, these tumbleweeds aren’t completely useless. You can eat the young leaves, and they can probably act as a windbreak against the sand. They’re highly resilient, don’t need water, and they drop their seeds wherever the wind carries them."
Quincy had a point. There were so many tumbleweeds on the road that they sometimes had to get out to clear them, tossing them into the desert beside the highway.
The wire mesh fences on both sides of the highway were rusted. Every kilometer or so, they would see a road sign bearing the four words: "Drive Carefully, Stay Safe."
Occasionally, they would also see roadside public restrooms, but they were no longer usable.
As the morning light slowly rose from the horizon, a new day began.
"Evelyn, let me take over for you."
Quincy yawned and patted Evelyn Ford’s shoulder. It was 9:30 in the morning. He had just woken up, his hair was a total bird’s nest, and he still had sleep in the corners of his eyes.
"Go wash your face and wake yourself up first."
Quincy yawned again. "Alright. The weather’s nice today. I feel like the sun’s going to come out."
When he returned after washing his face, Evelyn Ford stopped the vehicle, got up, and took off her night-vision goggles.
Quincy had only been driving for half an hour when their path was blocked by a dozen or so burnt-out cars.
"There are so many wrecked cars. Evelyn, we can’t get through."
Evelyn Ford took out a pair of binoculars and studied the scene for a long while before telling Quincy to open the vehicle’s door.
"Let’s go. We’ll get out and take a look."
Everyone got out of the vehicle and walked toward the wrecked cars up ahead. Evelyn Ford noticed many reddish-brown, fist-sized stones scattered on the ground.
The wrecked cars blocking the road were burned pitch-black, leaving little more than their shells. Evelyn Ford picked up a reddish-brown stone from the ground, her gaze pensive as she studied the vehicles.
"These cars were burned, and there are charred bodies inside. It looks like they were all people trying to escape. But how could they have been burned so badly?"
Evelyn Ford held up the stone. "Because of this. They encountered fireballs."
"So it’s a type of meteorite, then."
"Judging by the deterioration of the cars, this probably happened three or four years ago." Evelyn Ford picked up a few more stones, walked around the vehicles, and examined the corpses inside.
There were more than a dozen vehicles, each containing four or five people. The two trucks at the front still had numerous packages, and their cargo holds were filled with charred corpses, all carbonized and burned beyond human recognition.
Evelyn Ford glanced up at the hazy gray sky, then walked back to the others.
"Let’s go. We’ll find a way around."
Back in the vehicle, Evelyn Ford took out a magnifying glass and began studying the stones. To test if they were combustible, she used a lighter to heat one until it ignited. The stone grew hot, but after burning once, it crumbled into something like wood ash and could not be lit again.
"They’re the same as the fireballs we encountered at Broken Cloud Mountain, but the ones here were smaller. I looked around earlier—the largest one was only palm-sized."
Ronan Kendrick took one of the stones and sniffed it. "It smells similar to coal."
"The fireballs always fall in a localized area. As long as you get out of the impact zone, there’s no danger. Their cars are all jammed together. The two trucks at the front must have been hit, causing the drivers to panic and block the escape route for the dozen or so vehicles behind them."
Several desiccated eagles hung from the wire safety fences along the sides of the highway. As the RV made a detour through the adjacent desert, Quincy stared at the dozen or so pitch-black vehicle wrecks and sighed nonstop.
"In the apocalypse, what comes before tomorrow is always some new, sudden disaster."
Evelyn Ford put the stones away, went into the bathroom to wash her face, and climbed into an upper bunk to catch up on sleep. ’No one knows what Frelia has become, or what’s waiting for us there. Until then, we have to conserve our strength and build up our energy.’
"Eat something before you sleep." Ronan Kendrick came over. He was so tall that standing on the floor, his head was higher than the upper bunk.
"I don’t want to move."
Ronan Kendrick chuckled and reached out to ruffle Evelyn Ford’s short hair. "Come on, get up. I’ll feed you."
’Well, fine.’ If someone was going to wait on her, Evelyn Ford was happy enough to eat.
"We still have a two-day journey ahead of us. Yesterday and today have been too peaceful. Before, we’d run into all sorts of trouble in a single day. Something feels off. I’m worried this is the calm before the storm. We’d better be careful."
"Evelyn, don’t jinx it!" Quincy cried out when he heard her, immediately making a "ptooey, ptooey, ptooey" sound.
"Once we’re out of this desert and into Frelia, a peaceful and stable life will be waiting for us. I’ve already thought it all out. We’ll do just like we did before—set up a small farm, grow some vegetables, raise some chickens and ducks."
"Frelia must be full of people. I’m sure it’s as bustling and prosperous as Corinth used to be. Zoe can go to preschool, and since Wendy has kept up with her studies all these years, we can send her to a proper school, too. I need to think about what kind of job I’ll look for..."
Wyatt Vaughn’s brow furrowed. "But won’t it be hard to get into Frelia? We’ll probably have to turn over some of our supplies, right? When we get there, we should change into ragged clothes and not drive the RV inside. I’m worried it’ll be confiscated."
"Good point. We need to keep a low profile. Lay low to survive, you know?"
"I wonder if we’ll run into anyone we know in Frelia. Sigh. Even if we did, I wonder if they’d recognize me. Have I changed much over the years?"
Quincy glanced in the rearview mirror. He’d grown a few more wrinkles and sprouted some white hairs. The signs of aging were there, but his eyes hadn’t changed—their clear depths still held a hint of foolishness.
Wyatt Vaughn sighed. "You haven’t changed at all. But me, I’m getting wrinkles."
Quincy immediately objected. "No way! You’re still as gorgeous as ever. You haven’t changed a bit! If anything, you’re getting more beautiful and younger-looking every day."
Quincy’s words successfully cheered Wyatt Vaughn up. The two began to flirt shamelessly, completely oblivious to the other people in the vehicle.
Evelyn Ford shot a glance at Ronan Kendrick. He leaned in close and whispered, "You’re the most beautiful one, Felicity."
Evelyn Ford let out a playful scoff, but the smile tugging at the corners of her lips gave her away.
They continued to encounter abandoned vehicles from time to time, and saw numerous skeletons lying exposed on the highway and out in the desert.
Tattered clothing and bags were also snagged on the wire fences, likely blown there by the wind and caught on the barbs.
The fragments of clothing swayed gently in the breeze. Quincy hadn’t been wrong—the weather really was nice today. At one in the afternoon, the temperature suddenly rose by three degrees, and the hazy, gray sky slowly began to clear.