He concentrates, then sucks a deep breath through his teeth.
“It’s not that bad. We’ll be fine.”
“How . . . do you know?” M squeaks with tight, overfilled lungs. “Never flown before.”
“Maybe I flew in another life.”
“Maybe I . . . crashed in another life.”
Nora smiles and slaps his knee. “It’s nice to see such a big man act like such a little bitch.”
M glares at her.
“Really! It’s endearing.”
He closes his eyes and releases his lungful of air in a slow, meditative sigh.
“There you go,” Nora says. “Maybe just keep them closed.”
The freeway spreads out in front of us, cutting through miles of fields whose only crops are brambles and dust. Most freeways in America are permanent traffic jams, but this one runs between a sealed nation and an ancient ruin, a road from nothing to nowhere. It hasn’t been traveled in a very long time, so other than a few patches of blackberry vines creeping in at the edges, our runway is clear.
We come in fast and hard, and a little squeal escapes M when we hit. The wheels dig grooves into the thin asphalt with a continuous crunch, joining the engines and the broken windows in the chorus of noise. The cabin rattles so violently I expect the whole plane to dissolve into a pile of rivets. But then it calms, the engines rev down, and we roll to a stop. An “I Love NY” mug falls out of an overhead bin and breaks on the floor. Then silence.
I feel that fluttering again. I feel a chill through the wall of the plane, like clammy fingers pulling at my skin. That lonely necropolis that we avoided from above is suddenly uncomfortably close.
THE OUTSKIRTS OF DETROIT loom on the hazy horizon, and in every other direction: nothing. A scrubby empty plain on its way to becoming a desert. Abram stands on a ladder propped against the nose cone and digs around inside. The entire fuselage is sooty with smoke, but other than the broken windows, there is no visible damage.
“Well?” Nora says.
Abram slams the cone shut and descends the ladder. His eyes move across the ragged group assembled in front of him and I see despair. How did I end up here? With them?
“We need a part,” he says, sounding like he can barely muster the words. “We’ll head to the airport, salvage it from a wreck.” His eyes narrow on Julie. “You always get your way, don’t you?”
Julie is silent.
“So you can fix it?” Nora asks. “We can keep going?”
“Yes, we can keep going,” he says with a drop of venom. “We can keep going and going and going.”
He grabs Sprout’s hand, glances briefly at the cut on her forehead, then pulls her back into the plane. A moment later, he rolls down the ramp on his motorcycle, his tool bag stuffed in the cargo box, his daughter clinging to his back.
“I could use his help,” he says, nodding toward M. “The rest of you can stay here.”
“No thanks,” Nora says, already on her way up the ramp.
“There’s nothing to see. Detroit is dry bones.”
“Never know where lost treasure might turn up. I’m coming.”
Abram throws up his hands. “Well someone has to stay with the plane. Whoever shot us down is probably on their way here to loot the wreckage.”
Nora stops at the top of the ramp and scans the dusty horizon. “Assuming that was actual people shooting at us and not just automation, they’re at least two hours away by land. And if they do decide to come after us, we probably don’t want to be here to greet them.”
She disappears into the plane.
“We’re staying together, Abram,” Julie says, following Nora up the ramp.
Abram gazes skyward as if praying for patience, but he doesn’t argue further. Nora and Julie roll down the ramp on the remaining two bikes, Abram clicks his key fob, and the ramp rises. Do my kids have any grasp of what’s happening around them? Will they feel abandoned, or are they too busy navigating the multidimensional mazes in their minds? Either way, they’re safer here than with me. No one is getting into the plane without a tall ladder and a cutting torch.
“No offense, R,” Julie says, stopping the bike in front of me, “but I should drive.”
I sigh and climb on behind her, wondering if Abram might have left the other two bikes in Helena just to see how we’d handle the awkwardness.
Nora looks at M. “Hop on, beefsteak.”
He chuckles. “Not happening.”
She straightens up indignantly. “Really? The man’s gotta ride in front? What is this, the 2020s?”
“Not that,” he says, shaking his head. “It just . . . it won’t work.”
“Why not?”
He shrugs and climbs on behind her. His girth pushes her onto the gas tank and his chest looms over her head, forcing her to hunch down into the handlebars.
“Okay, okay!” she laughs breathlessly, jabbing an elbow into his ribs. “Get off!”
He gets off and Nora does likewise, still chuckling. She sweeps some hair out of her face and aims an after you palm at the bike. It’s still too small for this duo, but Nora’s slender frame clinging to M’s mountainous bulk works better than the reverse.