They must have been close to the stop, because Zakk hung up abruptly, leaving Tripp to do as he was told and throw a day’s worth of clothes and his notebook into the green backpack he kept at the foot of his bunk. He was probably forgetting something, given the hour. His brain was mush with random threads of thought slogging through it as he made his way to the front of the bus. George was driving, his brother Gus was asleep in the passenger’s seat. An audio book played at a speed the chipmunks would envy. After all these years, Tripp still couldn’t figure out how George could follow the story when it went that fast.
“They’re going to pull into the next rest stop and switch drivers,” Tripp whispered. “I’m going over there when they do.”
“Would be a good time for Gus and I swap spots too,” George said. “This is a damned dead stretch of road, not a lot but the audio book to keep me awake out here.”
If the view out the front window was any indication of the terrain George had faced all night, it was a hell of a boring trip so far. The desert road, with its shadow-clumps of brush along the edges and little shoulder, looked bleak and forlorn through the bug-splattered window.
“I know you haven’t been listening to the radio,” Tripp said, still keeping his voice low. “But there was an accident earlier tonight, and three members of Shriveled Rose were killed.”
George turned away from the window to look at him for a moment, then snapped his head back when they hit a rut in the road. “Son of a bitch what happened?”
“Helicopter crash, there aren’t many more details than that.”
George’s response was to turn off the audio book and dial in a radio station, even as the sign for the upcoming rest stop came into view.
Three miles.
One of Shriveled Rose’s songs poured from the speakers, its haunting guitar solo low and mournful. Tripp knew the song well, he’d sung along with it many times, which got him thinking about Dez, that green guitar, and their first joint show just two days away. Would be nice to do a tribute to a band that had motivated them to pursue their dreams. Maybe after he got over the shock Dez might be willing to consider the possibility.
The rest stop was an old school affair. Two picnic tables under a concrete awning, a couple trash barrels chained to the ground. The restrooms were a concrete square with a slanted roof, no doubt with cracked porcelain sinks and toilets with more spider webs than tissue. Tripp was grateful that he wouldn’t have to use one.
The moment James parked Tattered Angel’s RV beside Bleeding Dawn’s, Tripp was out the door as quietly as he could manage, while George gave Gus a little shake to get him moving. On Tattered Angel’s bus, Damien shoved aside the curtained doorway separating the front from the rest of the RV as Tripp stepped onboard. Zakk was already in the driver’s seat, but the moment Tripp took the seat beside him he leaned in to give him a quick hug. They hadn’t even turned the engine off.
“Dez still asleep?”
“Fortunately.”
“We’d better get rolling then.”
Nodding, Tripp put his seatbelt on and got comfortable, then nudged Zakk when he noticed he didn’t bother with the safety feature before putting the vehicle in gear.
“What?” Zakk asked, casting a quick glance over at him.
“Seatbelt,” Tripp cautioned, gesturing to it. “Don’t need anything happening to you.”
Zakk paused a moment, like he wouldn’t comply, before finally putting the seatbelt on. The moment he clicked it in place, Tripp slid his hand over Zakk’s.
“Thank you.”
Zakk flashed him the ghost of a smile, put the RV in gear, and within moments, they were leaving the rest stop behind them.
“Do you ever wonder if it’s truly final or if there’s more in some beyond somewhere?”
“Do you mean reincarnation?”
“No, though I wouldn’t mind coming back as a pigeon, there are some car windows I could amuse myself by crapping on.”
“Okay, so what did you mean?”
“Just….always wondered if there were layers to life. Like this is a layer, and when we die we go to the next layer and it’s different but we’re still us and all the people we lost, we get back. We get all the second and third chances we ever dreamed of. We get to make wrongs right.”
“So rebirth?”
“No, not exactly, more like a new reality. Like a multi-verse.”
“So, what, we die and shift over to another verse and pick up there?” Tripp mused. “Does that mean another version of us slides into this reality at some point in time?”
“Pretty much,” Zakk said. “What if all those gut feelings we get are because somewhere, at some point, we were in that moment before and chose wrong so now we know not to do it again. What if in another reality, that chopper lands safely, and nothing changes for the guys onboard.”