“Go as slow as you need to,” Mercury reassured her. “You’re doing a great job.”
“And we need this truck to stay in one piece,” said Karen.
“Good point,” Stella said. She had to leave the two-lane again and bump up the side of the road to avoid a big black Dodge Ram diesel truck that had flipped onto its back like a helpless turtle. The cab was crushed, and a dead man had projected through the windshield and come to an awkward final rest on the pavement. “Y’all see anyone else around that wreck?”
“No, no one,” Karen said. She shivered as they passed the truck. Her voice was soft and filled with despair. “So many dead people. I just—I don’t know how we’ll go on.”
“One step at a time—one minute and then the next,” Mercury said. “We’re alive, Karen. That’s what’s most important right now. Let’s just concentrate on staying that way.”
Timberline Highway was only a little over five miles long, but it took them almost an hour to navigate it and finally get to the lodge. As they pulled from the highway onto the property, Mercury at first breathed a long sigh of relief. Past the mounds of snow that had been plowed from the parking lot, she could see the central spire of the hotel—and then Stella drove around an especially large pile of muddy snow to see that the parking lot looked like a giant puzzle someone had upended. Huge cracks in the asphalt had swallowed vehicles whole. Others had been thrown together to form strange piles of metal, some of which were still smoldering. There were bloody bodies everywhere.
“Are any of them moving?” Mercury asked.
“I don’t think so.” Karen’s voice was raw.
“Yeah, all those dead people are men. They’re, um, like Mr. Hale and Coach Davis,” added Jenny. She’d gone pale and gripped Mercury’s hand.
The truck crawled slowly forward, past one of the smoking piles, and finally the entire lodge came into view.
“What the—?” Mercury began.
Stella braked. “At least part of it’s still standing.”
Jenny’s voice was thick with tears she was trying not to shed. “And there are people. Living people.”
Karen bowed her head, clasped her hands, and began to whisper a prayer of thanks.
Stella put the truck into reverse and tucked it behind the last mound of snow so that their view of the lodge was blocked. Then she turned to Mercury. “The three of you should get the wounded people out of the bed of the truck right away. Then I’ll park at the far side of the lot, out of sight behind those wrecks.”
“But it’s going to be really hard to get Marge and Nathan and Jason to the lodge,” Jenny said. “They can’t walk.”
Mercury shook her head. “No, Stella’s right. As far as we know this truck is the only working vehicle for miles and miles. If we want to be sure we keep it, we need to hide it.”
Karen took a break in her praying to say, “But that doesn’t seem honest.”
Mercury met her gaze. “Remember Al? Do you really think he’s the only man left alive who thinks he’s entitled to take whatever he wants from us?”
Karen sighed and looked away, but didn’t answer.
“I’m not willing to chance some asshole bullying us out of this truck,” said Stella firmly. “We have no idea if what’s left of the lodge is even habitable. It’s cold up here. There’s fucking snow everywhere. If we can’t shelter inside, I’m damn sure not going to freeze because our only option is to try to hike off this mountain.” She shifted in her seat so she could face the three women. “Did y’all see those pockets of green smoke or fog or mist or what-the-hell-ever it is as we drove here?”
“I saw it,” Karen said. “Most of it drifted with the avalanche debris.”
“Yeah, I caught glimpses of it,” Mercury said.
“Me too,” said Jenny.
“So, real talk here—we know the green stuff came with the bombs. We know that after it swept over us, people died. Horribly. Most of those people seem to be men. And they keep dying—like Todd,” Stella continued. “What we don’t know is what it is or what it can do to us. So, if we have to get out of here, I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew we could drive out and not have to walk through any patches of green crap.”
“You’re right.” Mercury nodded. “Let’s unload Sadie and the rest of the group here. We can put Marge, Nathan, and Jason on top of the tarps and drag them the rest of the way to the lodge while you hide the truck.”
Karen put her hand on the door latch, but Stella’s voice made her pause. “I don’t think we should say anything about Rutland and his group—and I’m pretty sure they’ll agree with us.” Stella gestured over her shoulder at the bed of the truck.
Karen nodded slowly. “That man is local. He’ll know how to find shelter.”
“Sadie said his farm wasn’t far from Government Camp,” Jenny added.
“I agree. Definitely. Let’s get this done. I’ll bet they’re freezing back there,” said Mercury.
It was a lot easier to get the wounded from the truck than it had been to heft them up into the bed, though obviously not any less painful for them. The conscious passengers all agreed to say nothing about the truck or about Alvin Rutland and his group.
“He’s a jerk. He didn’t care about helping us.” Gemma narrowed her green eyes and tossed back her long hair. “Neither did anyone in that group. They just walked away and left us there. I hope we never see them again.”
“As my grandma would say, ‘From your lips to God’s ears,’” said Jenny.
Each woman grabbed an edge of the tarp, and while Stella backed the truck away and then headed for the far corner of the parking lot, they trudged toward what remained standing of Timberline Lodge.