“Off this reality,” she told him. “I wouldn’t have come this way at all if your family hadn’t been brought here.”
“Then how do we get back on the right line?”
“You know, I was a cook.” Flucca ignored the threatening surroundings. “Best damn cook in Las Cruces, New Mexico.”
“Really?” said Alicia. “I’m something of an amateur chef myself. Maybe you and I could do some cooking together.” She eyed the now fuelless stove and sighed. “When we get home.”
“I’d enjoy that a lot.” Flucca sounded wistful. “I miss working with real pots and pans.”
“I know a few people in the restaurant business. When we get back I’ll help you find an opening. If you’re as good as you say you are, that is.”
“Better. All I want to drive again are the controls of a gas range.”
“It is good to have goals.” Burnfingers Begay’s eyes scanned the darkness. “However, we should concentrate on the immediate ones for now. Let us begin by leaving behind this city of the dead. Any suggestions?”
Standing on tiptoes, Flucca pointed to his left. “If we go past the pit, I don’t think anyone will try to follow us. The highway out that direction’s still pretty intact.” Frank glanced at Mouse, who nodded her approval.
“It feels right. Or at least, it does not feel wrong.”
They found the impact crater, gave it a wide berth as Frank maneuvered the motor home through the damaged intersection and onto the avenue Flucca indicated. As soon as they were sure they were on the right road, Burnfingers and Mouse took Flucca back to introduce him to the Sonderberg children. That left Frank and Alicia alone up front.
“I wonder if it’s good for Steven to be spending so much time with Burnfingers?”
His wife frowned. “Why? They seem to enjoy each other’s company.”
“I know, but Burnfingers keeps showing him how to sharpen knives and handle weapons and things. You know how impressionable Steven is.”
“Considering where we are, maybe we could all do with that kind of instruction,” she replied surprisingly. “When I was back in that cage wondering if I’d ever see you again, wondering what those awful people were going to do to us, I wished I’d known a little more about fighting myself.”
What she said made sense but still left him troubled. He divided his attention between the conversation and the road ahead, which was leading them northward out of the city.
“We’re just your average family. We shouldn’t have to know how to use knives and homemade bombs.”
“We shouldn’t be traveling through alternate realities, either, but we are.”
“Well, I think you’re coping wonderfully.”
“That’s me.” She slid down in the seat, put her feet up on the dash. “I’m fine during a crisis. It’s when I’m safely back home soaking in the tub that I’ll crack up and get hysterical and throw things. Can’t afford the time for that right now.”
A new voice joined the conversation. Mouse was staring straight ahead.
“We are back on the right path once more. The little man knew the way better than he himself knows.”
“Is there any chance this Anarchis will give up and leave us alone?” Alicia asked plaintively.
“No, but we have successfully slipped its grasp again. It may take it some time to gather its forces for another assault. Chaos is not suited to planning. Forethought pains it.”
“Good! I hope it suffers a cosmic migraine,” Frank muttered.
Beyond the city limits the road stretched straight and relatively unbroken. Weeds pushed through cracks in the concrete, but there were few impact craters or potholes to slow their progress. As they cruised northward they saw no other vehicles, no wandering humans, hardly anything ambulatory.
Once something that might in a healthier time have been a bat glided through their headlight beams, a distorted lump with wings. Frank didn’t try to follow its progress because he might have succeeded, and he didn’t want a better look. Except for the isolated flier, the motor home was all that advanced through the devastated night.
“We’re drawing near.” Mouse frowned at the road. “Yet something feels not right.”
“What a surprise,” Frank murmured sardonically as he slowed and tried to see farther into the darkness. “Tell our fellow travelers,” he told his wife, “to get their butts up here. We’re getting close to something.”
“Close to what?” Alicia rose from the chair.
“I dunno, but if it concerns Mouse it concerns me. I’ve learned that much.”
Alicia returned a moment later with Burnfingers and Flucca in tow. Frank let their speed fall below forty, then thirty. It was fortunate he did so. Otherwise he might not have been able to stop in time.
Ten yards ahead, the road vanished. So did the ground. Off to the right, the silhouettes of high mountains paralleled the road as far as the same point. There they also came to an abrupt end. To the west the northern reaches of the Great Salt Lake ended in a distant roaring. Frank cracked his window a few inches and the noise filled the motor home. It was the sound of water falling without striking bottom.
The sky remained, along with the stars. Too many stars too close.
“I think I know where we are,” Frank muttered. He edged a little nearer the brink, set the emergency brake. There was just enough light for everyone to see the lake waters where they tumbled into nothingness, forming a salty waterfall miles in length.
“The edge of the world. I’ve seen it before.”
Alicia gave him a funny look. “When did you ever see anything like this before?”
“I was out walking when you and the kids were kidnapped. That’s when I saw it. There was some of it behind the motel.” He didn’t add that he’d seen it and understood it in Mouse’s company any more than he went on to explain why he and their guest had been wandering through the woods together early in the morning. For once he was grateful for Alicia’s lack of persistence.
“So what do we do now?” she mused aloud.
Mouse wore a dreamy expression, her eyes half-closed as she concentrated. “This is the right way. The only way. The road is here. Our eyes are deceived.”
