H2O (9 page)

The truck
rolled forward and when I saw water flowing on the lane beneath us, I knew we
were passing the scene of the crash and close to exiting the facility.

Two minutes
later, the truck picked up speed. We were out.

The sound of the truck’s engine
was thunderous, so we couldn’t talk. After a couple of miles, the truck slowed
and I said, “I turned you into a fugitive.”

“I
volunteered,” Lily said.

I smiled. In
the midst of our near disastrous escape, she still had a sense of humor. “I
won’t be able to give you that ride to Clearview,” I said.

“I kind of
figured that.”

“If we stay on
this truck, we’re going south,” I said, almost as an afterthought, maybe to
assure myself that we were still in control somehow.

“How do you
know?”

“It’s a triple
tank and I didn’t see any triples or doubles when I came in from the north.”

“Then they’re
headed east,” she said.

“That’s
impossible.”

“Well, I came
up from the south and I didn’t see any triple and double tank trucks either,”
she said. “And we know they’re not going west into the ocean. That leaves east,
right?”

I didn’t
respond. Why would trucks go east? The Territory’s eastern border was thirty
miles inland from the coast and past that border were two thousand miles of
dead land. I went back to the thought I’d had many years ago – that the extra
water was being shipped to small towns that had survived on the east coast. But
just as I had concluded back then, hauling water across two thousand miles of
dead land didn’t make any sense. Lily had to be wrong. The water
had
to
be heading south.

A minute
later, the truck started rolling over a patch of rough road and we were
suddenly bounced around in the rigging. It was painful. “Do like this,” Lily
said, putting her hands up against the bottom of the tank and pressing her back
against the rigging. “Hold yourself in place, not too rigid, like your arms are
shock absorbers.”

I put my hands
on the bottom of the tank and secured myself against the rigging. The tank felt
cool from the water inside. We bumped along for a couple hundred yards until
the road turned smooth again.

As the trucker
neared the center of Yachats, he slowed down and stopped a number of times as
he maneuvered through the various intersections. During this stretch, we
could’ve climbed out, but we didn’t. And neither of us brought up the next
move. Instead, we rearranged some of the sacks so pedestrians couldn’t see us
and I complained about the smell of diesel. Lily said she had learned to ignore
it.

The trucker ground
to another stop when he hit the town’s major north-south artery. We were about
to get the first clue to the water’s ultimate destination.

The trucker turned south. But
this didn’t mean that he’d definitely continue south, and I wondered if Lily
knew that. It didn’t take long for me to find out.

“If he’s going
east, he’s going to take the 126,” she said.

That meant she
knew the Territory well. The 126 led inland to the 5, a highway that connected
Portland, Salem, and Eugene. The 5 was a dead highway leading to dead cities.
As a teen, I’d dug up an old and barely legible map of the Western states.
There were no detailed maps of the Territory and I’d thought I’d discovered a
rare treasure. A useful treasure. Back then, Benny and I still dreamt of
exploring the Territory so I memorized this map. But unlike Lily, we never
found the courage to pursue our dream.

“You want to
follow the water?” she said.

“By staying
under the truck?” I asked.

“That’d be the
plan. For now.”

I didn’t
answer.

We were closing in on the 126 and
I still doubted the trucker would turn east. But regardless of whether he was
headed east or south, he was headed into the wilderness. “What about food?” I
asked.

“We steal a
little of the trucker’s food when he’s sleeping,” Lily said. “He’ll think it’s
a marauder.”

“Sounds like
you know the drill.”

“Yeah. And
sometimes it even works.”

“And what
happens when it doesn’t?”

“You go
hungry.”

The trucker
slowed down, then started to execute a wide turn.

No doubt about
it.

“East,” Lily
said.

The next stretch on the 126 would
give us time to reconsider our decision. Not that I’d officially made a
decision. I still hadn’t really answered Lily, and I knew that there’d be
opportunities up ahead to scramble out from under the truck. The trucker would
be navigating the inland hills of the 126, and he’d have to slow down a bunch
of times. Each time would be a chance to climb out and cut this trip short. But
when the trucker hit the long flat stretch east of the border, we’d be stuck.
Of course, that assumed that long flat stretch still existed. I’d never heard
of anyone venturing past the border and coming back.

The trucker navigated the hills
and neither Lily nor I said anything. The unwieldy water tanks weaved back and
forth and, on the sharper curves, the trucker came to an almost complete stop.

“What do you
want to do?” Lily asked.

I knew what
she wanted to do. She didn’t have to tell me. Lily, the fierce, would always go
forward even if that meant going into uncharted territory. But I wanted more
information first. Information that would ease my fear about going into
uncharted territory. Information that I wasn’t going to get. And she must’ve
known what was going through my mind because, before I could answer her, she
said, “If we don’t like what we see out there, we can always hitch a ride back
on an incoming truck.”

She was right.
I’d caught glimpses of trucks heading in the other direction, but I hadn’t
thought of them as a way back. I’d been too uneasy about the road ahead to plan
ahead.

“Okay,” I
said. “Let’s stay put.” I didn’t say this with any conviction. I was full of
doubts. But I was willing to stick to it for now.

As we moved closer to the border,
the flat stretches became longer. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go beyond the
border, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I thought about the two thousand
miles of dead land ahead. Inland, the Virus hadn’t shown any mercy. It had
killed everyone in Eugene, Boise, Phoenix, Kansas City, Denver, Santa Fe,
Austin, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Chicago, Madison, and every city in between.

But the more I
thought about it, the more I wondered if this could be a lie, too. Like the lie
that Yachats was a fishing town. Could there be towns inland? The extra water
sure pointed to it.

After twenty
minutes or so, the trucker picked up speed and I knew we’d passed the border.
From here, the road quickly became monotonous and Lily and I didn’t talk. At
this speed, the din of the engine, the whip of the wheels, the rushing wind,
they all added up to a dulling numbness.

Lily stared
blankly at the countryside. I didn’t know if she was hypnotized by the scenery
or lost in her own thoughts, but she looked to be a thousand miles away. I
wasn’t. I was stuck right here and was now worrying about the Virus. In the
Territory, truckers used roads that they knew were free of the Virus and stuck
to those roads until the Virus reared its ugly head. I was trying to convince
myself that our trucker was doing just that even though he was outside the
Territory.

After about
ninety minutes, most of which I spent thinking that I was pushing my luck with
this whole excursion, the scenery changed. We were on a six-lane freeway and
the wilderness was gone. I also spotted other trucks on the freeway. Then, in
the distance, when the angle was right, I caught glimpses of tall buildings,
city buildings, and I realized we were approaching Eugene. I was seeing a city
for the first time. I’d seen them in photos and DVDs, but never in person.

I began to
wonder if Eugene was the destination for all the extra water. Were people still
alive there?

The answer
came quickly. Our truck skirted Eugene, and minutes later, we were back on the
open road.

The miles passed and I hoped our
trucker would pull over. I needed a break, to stretch my legs, to eat, to go to
the bathroom. I wondered if Lily needed a break as badly as I did. Her eyes
were closed, but it didn’t look like she was sleeping. It looked like she’d
transported herself even farther away than before, and definitely far away from
doubt.

She looked
serene.

I didn’t have
the discipline to turn off my surroundings.

More miles passed and I could
tell from the shadows on the road that we were heading southeast. We were no
longer on the 5, and the truck was now using two-lane rural highways.

My back was
sore from the metal rigging and the diesel fumes were short-circuiting my
senses. I was more than ready for the trucker to pull over. I looked over at
Lily and her eyes were still closed. She was somehow able to ignore her
discomfort and keep her fierceness in check, now that it was unnecessary.

Then she
suddenly opened her eyes, found mine, and smiled. That was all I needed to keep
going.

The sun was setting, the air was
cold, and the shadows on the road were long. My body felt numb.

The truck
finally started to slow down and I saw Lily go on full alert. From my limited
vantage point, I could see that we were still in the middle of nowhere, so I
figured the trucker was slowing down to execute a turn or to pull over. I hoped
he was pulling over, but I was quickly disappointed. He was segueing onto a
small transition road which probably led to another rural highway.

But suddenly,
out of nowhere, he was passing other trucks.
Parked
trucks. The
transition road had led into a parking lot. Was this where the trucker was
going to unload the water? He pulled into a slot between two parked trucks and
cut the engine. I immediately noticed the loud ringing in my ears. The sound of
the road was seared into my head.

Lily’s voice
cut through the ringing. “What a fun way to ride, huh?”

“You looked
like you could’ve gone for another thousand miles.”

“It’s just
practice. The first time I did this, I felt like you do now. Like my brain and
body had been pummeled by a concrete block.”

“Let’s get the
hell out of this thing.”

“Let’s wait
for the driver to get out first.”

I couldn’t
argue with that. We’d made it this far without getting caught, no reason to get
impatient now.

“I’d say we’ve
gone about three hundred fifty miles southeast,” she said. “Any idea what towns
might be out here?”

She was asking
out of politeness. She’d kept track of the mileage and the direction, so my bet
was that she knew exactly where we were, somewhere in what used to be southern
Oregon or northern California or northwest Nevada. This area was once federal
land and there were
never
any towns here. This was where the Winema
National Forest, the Fremont National Forest, and the Modoc National Forest all
met.

“There aren’t
any
towns out here,” I said.

“So you think
it’s some kind of rest stop?”

“Never heard
of rest stops in the Territory so it’s hard to believe there’d be any out here.
What about a new town, one that came together after the Virus?”

Just then, we
heard the driver’s door open, and that ended our conversation. A few seconds
later, we heard the door shut, and we waited until the driver’s footsteps faded
away. Then Lily said, “Let’s get some answers.”

We climbed out of the rigging and
checked up and down the aisle between our truck and the one next to it. There
was another row of parked trucks in front of us and behind us was the forest.
More importantly, we were alone, so before anyone could spot us, we headed into
the forest. I was stiff and sore and the ringing in my ears wouldn’t let up. I
also couldn’t escape the odor of diesel, but in the forest, I detected another
odor, faint, hovering under the diesel. I couldn’t tell what it was.

When we were
about thirty yards into the woods, we turned back and surveyed the parking lot.
Our view was blocked by the trucks. There were dozens of them. All double and
triple tank trucks. Why were they here?

We circled through the woods,
following the border of the parking lot. The rows of trucks gave way to a
large, low-slung building. Steam was pouring out of exhaust fans on its roof,
and I finally recognized the odor lingering under the diesel fumes. Fried food.

We moved
closer to the building and through its windows, we saw truckers eating. This
was a diner. The Territory didn’t have diners. Of course, this wasn’t the
Territory, but this
was
the middle of nowhere. Then I realized that this
wasn’t just a diner. It was part of the infrastructure for the transportation
of that extra water. Just as Yachats was.

“So it
is
a rest stop,” Lily said.

“On the way to
where?” I said.

“Let’s ask one
of the workers,” she said, as she watched a waitress bringing food to a table.
“Where do you think they live?”

I moved back a
couple of yards and motioned for her to take a look. She stepped back and saw
what I’d seen a few minutes ago when we were approaching the diner – a series
of rundown trailers which ran along the edge of the woods.

We stationed ourselves so that we
had a direct view of the diner’s back entrance. Our plan was to approach one of
the diner’s workers and ask him or her about the rest stop and the water. How
we’d know who’d be willing to talk to us wasn’t clear, but we set up shop and
waited.