If you haven’t read the first half of the story, check it out here first. This is a deleted scene from the middle of my upcoming book, coming out in September.
Before long, the road-like path curled and hid itself between the toes of the mountain. We followed it inside.
The trail was marvelously horrible. It was the type of path that leads to a monster’s lair—the kind of monster who is so vicious that he crunches the bones of any hiker who ventures to visit. Oily-grey rocks stabbed out of the ground, shedding flakes the shape of razorblades onto the surrounding dirt.
The sky was a dark scowl, and the wind blew us relentlessly deeper into the canyon. I searched the heavy, dark clouds for flying monkeys large enough to steal someone’s horse—or a dog and his Mom in a pinch—but all I saw was a mountain wearing sky-colored camouflage squatting mominously behind the near peaks. I might have doubted that I saw it at all, except for a few speckles where its rocky thorns sliced through its invisibility cloak. I sniffed the wind for the scents of horse, or buffalo, or monkey, but all I smelled were carrion and predators. I had never felt such exciting suspense in real life, so I ditched Mom and ran up the trail, listening for a “Fe-fi-fo-fum” rumbling down the canyon.
The trail skulked over slate and through winter-dead trees, crossing back and forth through a dreary stream. I expected to find something that would spook Mom around every turn, but after a few miles, we still hadn’t found any cyclopses, orcs, or horse-chomping monsters to turn us around. I crossed the forlorn stream yet again to the first real pile of white dirt big enough to roll in. When I stood up again, Mom was still on the far side of the stream, looking like a sharp rock had let all the air out of her.
“Come on, this way.” I ran in an encouraging circle around the white dirt to show how the trail didn’t go through it.
“I’ve had enough. I don’t want to run anymore.” She paused to show me what not-running anymore looked like.
“We can slow down. I don’t mind hiking,” I said agreeably.
“I’m just tired, and this wind is getting to me.” Mom looked like she’d been carrying a very heavy burden around her neck, and no longer cared about finding a way into Mordor. “As much fun as it is to explore, sometimes I wonder if being on top of something is really the best way to see it. You know?”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. The best way to see a thing is to smell it, and you can’t smell it unless you’re practically on top of it.”
“I don’t mean seeing with your eyes. Until you know how it’s going to end, you’re constantly collecting clues about what kind of story you’re in. It’s hard to appreciate an experience while you’re having it because you’re too absorbed and distracted by what’s going on around you.”
“The part where you don’t know how it’s going to end is the funnest part of any story,” I agreed.
“Yeah, but even if it turns into a nursery rhyme with meaningless threats and a happy ending, you’re still picking up hints of danger and suspense, just in case. It’s only when you get home, put all the pieces together, and throw out the ones that don’t fit that you find out what kind of story it was, and whether the anxiety was foreshadowing or just a red herring.”
“Wait, you mean you relive our adventures after they’re over?”
“Yeah. Memories are why we come out here. It certainly isn’t for comfort.”
“Maybe the boogeyvirus will turn out to be an epic story that we love to tell when it’s all over,” I suggested. “When you share my pictures from this trip, no one will see any of the wind or boogeyvirus swirling around, and from far away it will all look like a grand adventure.”
“Maybe,” she said like a goodbye. She did an about-face without announcing it and walked stiffly away like she does when she’s determined to be alone, no matter who else is around.
Her head never lifted to check that I was following, so I called, “I’m coming!” and knocked her out of the way as I rumbled like a gutterball back toward the Wagon.
Now that the wind was to my nose, I caught the scent of a flying monkey. I followed it, leaving Mom alone inside her head. I ran until Mom screamed for me not to leave her here alone. As soon as she scuttled back into sight, I took off after the monkey again. She’d be too proud to be angry once I caught him red-pawed trying to scoop up a horse.
The valley ended before I caught that rascal. The clouds fled back to the hunking mountaintop the moment I popped out of the canyon, and the sun smiled like I’d stepped into a scene from a different movie. I rolled in the scratchy grass, enjoying the feeling of sun on my belly until Mom popped out behind me and unlocked The Wagon.
Slower than a sundial, the Wagon made a turn with a thousand spurs to point itself back toward Winnemucca¹¹. It groaned and squealed, lurched and heaved over the bushes and rocks until we were back at the gate. Once Mom had tied the gate locked behind us, she pulled out the Witch for a meeting.
“Looking for more trails in the Outback of Nevada?” I asked.
“I just want to check one thing…” She ordered the Wagon onto the highway in the wrong direction from Winnemucca¹², or California beyond.
As we rolled through the Outback, I watched through the front window for the one thing that Mom needed to check, but all I found was a whole lotta nothing. Finally, I spotted another sign marking another car trail. Except this time with no gate.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“Horse Canyon,” Mom said in a flat voice like she was too tired to say more.
“Oh good! The horse came home after all. I knew we’d find a happy ending.”
The Wagon rolled over the cattle rattle and onto the glassy-smooth dirt road. It turned in a wide circle around the roomy, hard-packed dirt of the car kennel.
Mom looked bewildered. “We just turned too soon. If I’d just been more patient…” she said like a dog trying to reason out something beyond his understanding. She looked up for answers, but the hills just shrugged against the sky.
“This is nice.” I sucked a satisfying lungful of wind through my nose. “Should we stay another night here?”
“Nah, let’s just get somewhere safe. I’ve had the heebie jeebies all day with those clouds and the wind. Every time I open the door, I’m afraid I won’t be strong enough to pull it shut again. It feels like something out of a movie, don’t you think?” she asked, as if movies weren’t usually about real life.
“I thought that was the point. Not to get shut in, I mean.”
From the way she didn’t answer, I couldn’t tell whether she’d heard me or not.
The Wagon turned into the wind and continued its lunge westward, toward Winnemucca¹³, and the Sierras behind it, and California behind that. Each hill that shrunk in The Wagon’s back window felt like a closing door that Mom might not be strong enough to open again.
Usually I get a thrill when I see the Sierras crushing together in the front window, but this time I got a funny emptiness in my tummy when the ground started to rumple and turn white.
“Welcome to California,” the Witch said. Her tone said, Where you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
We were in the most perilous spot on the old Oregon Trail, suspended in the sky between wilder-ness and settlement. The Oregon-bound wagoneers knew they were home free if they survived this pass. From here on, they would be plunging headlong into a humdrum life of orderly fields, organic supermarkets, and sleeping in. Did any of them think about turning back, or like me did they wish they could hit paws before facing the music?
Downward momentum set in and we dropped out of the sky toward our Stuck House at the End of the World.
It sounded nice to have a home larger than a mattress again that wasn’t always swaying this way and that. I could nap while Mom made cups of tea, because she wouldn’t need to open all the doors to the wind and cold every time she wanted warm, milky comfort. Mom would have electricity coming from the walls and wifi coming from the air. Even the Witch would have the sky to talk to all the time. Too late I realized that those things were just bait for the stuck to suck us in. To have those comforts, we would need to leave the Outside behind. Before I realized what was happening, the freeway flattened and the trap snapped shut behind us.
“Is life going to be like it was when I was a puppy?” I asked as Sacramento whizzed by. “You know, back before I was a busy-ness dog and I sat at home all day staring at my paws?”
“From what everyone’s saying on the internet, I don’t think that we’ll even be allowed out of the house. Except maybe when you go to the bathroom.”
“But how will we get food? I won’t have to survive on kibble alone, will I?”
“I think I’m allowed to go to the supermarket, but I’m not sure if there are restrictions on how often.”
We drove until water softened the air, and the smell of a green filled the spaces between buildings. We drove until there was no nature between one city and the next. The buildings marched one behind the other in a nonstop parade for the last hunerd miles to welcome us home. Even though a deep sigh filled me with ever-more air, it still felt harder to breathe the closer we got to home.
“I forgot how many people live around us,” I said. I’d never thought of that as a bad thing before, but now that anyone could be a murderer, I understood why Mom feels so trapped around people.
“Yeah. A virus trying to catch on in one of those small towns in Utah or Wyoming would be like trying to light a fire on a wet log. Around here it can’t help but spread.” We both looked at the pavement and buildings covering the hills like a rash. “Around here, it could go viral like a brushfire on a windy day.”
When we reached the Grey Bridge, something felt horribly wrong. “Holy crow! Slow down, Mom,” I whimpered.
“What do you mean? I’m only going a little over the speed limit.”
“But you haven’t stopped even once. You’re going to hit something.”
“What are you talking about? The lane is clear,” she said, like I was the one talking crazy.
When I looked through the front window, I was astonished to not see tail lights. We had a clear path all the way to the City without a single conga line to wait in. I’d never seen it like that before, even in the middle of the night.
To my relief, The City still lit the darkness on the far side, but a creepy stillness filled the air when we got there. We rolled through the dark skyscrapers like we were sailing past a ghost ship, as the smell on the air faded from bay to Ocean.
At long, long last, the Wagon rolled over the final hill and came to rest outside the Stuck House.
¹¹ Eleven Winnemuccas! Ah, ah, ah!
¹² Twelve Winnemuccas! Ah, ah, ah!
¹³ Thirteen Winnemuccas! Ah, ah, ah!
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