Page 143 of The End of the World As We Know It

“This train don’t carry no gamblers, this train…”

Two hundred yards away… one hundred and fifty…

The Corvid smoked and snarled. It rode their back end, bumping and bullying. Through the dust and darkness, Elise glimpsed two hands clasping the wheel. They had hooked, black fingernails and prison tattoos.

“This train don’t carry no gamblers, this train…”

Eighty yards… seventy… sixty…

Above their singing and the frantic engine noise, Elise heard the train rocking on its track. It blew its whistle, coming on fast. She looked away from the rearview mirror and concentrated on the locomotive. It had a swooping, plow-like frame fixed to the front (a cowcatcher, Elise remembered it was called, although in her mind she thought of it as acrowcatcher) that looked for all the world like a big silver smile. She made a slight adjustment to her line and aimed for the section of track just ahead of it.

“This train don’t carry no gamblers. No loose sinners, no midnight ramblers. Lord oh Lord, talking about this train.”

Ruby covered her eyes. Elise gripped the wheel and the last line she sang turned into a determined cry.

She crossed the track one sweet second ahead of the train.

The track was laid on a shallow embankment. Elise hit the incline at close to fifty miles per hour and took off—all four wheels off the ground. The train bore down on them, larger and brighter than everything, even the sun. It missed them by a heartbeat. The Chevette soared thirty feet and landed on the other side of the track with a monstrouscrunchthat blew out the rear windshield and flattened two tires.

They had made it, though.

The Corvid was not so fortunate. The locomotive—thecrowcatcher—hit it with the force of a meteorite. A tremendous thunderclap-likeboomshook the air as the muscle car was savagely T-boned. It was knocked along the track like a toy, rolling and flipping, breaking apart in ugly black pieces. Sparking metal caught the ruptured fuel line and the gas tank went up with an intense thud, throwing more pieces across the desert. Black smoke ballooned into the sky. It was thick and oily, textured like feathers.

The train did not derail, and it did not stop. It shook righteouslyon its track, sounding its whistle, as sweet and uplifting as gospel. Elise and Ruby watched through the dusty windshield as it continued north and eventually blended with the horizon.

Elise turned to look back out the driver’s side window. The wreckage from the Corvid was scattered all over. Some of it burned. Elise was reminded of newspaper photographs of crashed airplanes. There was no sign of the driver, although she didn’t look too hard.

She and Ruby spilled from the Chevette and stood hugging each other for a long time. Afterward, they took a few moments to gather the provisions that had been ejected from the open trunk. Not everything was salvageable. Most of the cans were, though, and the bottled water. They took the good stuff and left the rest for the coyotes.

The Chevette still ran, but only just. It limped across the desert, wheezing and dripping fluids. The speedometer needle swayed brokenly from side to side. Elise guessed they were going ten miles per hour.Maybe.After fifteen minutes of hobbling along on two flats, the Chevette finally gave up the ghost. Something wentbangbeneath the hood, then it lurched once and died.

“What now?” Ruby asked.

Elise got out of the car. She looked around and pointed at something way off to the east. A barn. A windmill.

“There,” she said.

“Is that a farm?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

They left most of their belongings in the car. They took a bottle of water each and wore their hats and sunglasses. It was hot and they were exhausted. They stopped often. It took almost an hour to reach the farm.

Cattle ripped hay from near-empty feeders and plodded happily enough. There was no other sign of life, but Elise and Ruby proceeded with caution. They entered the farmhouse and found five dead: the farmer, his wife, and three adult men, probably sons. One of the younger men had died recently, maybe only hours before. The farmer and his wife were in bed, curled into each other’s arms. Someone had placed a red rose on the comforter. It would have been beautiful if not for the smell and the flies.

The refrigerator was dark and warm. Most of the food had spoiled. The pantry was in better shape. Elise and Ruby didn’t take much, just enough for their journey: canned fruits and soups, a box of Ho Hos, three packets of Lay’s Crunch Tators, and a six-pack of Dr Pepper. Elise found a Smith & Wesson revolver in a kitchen drawer, along with a box of .38-caliber ammunition. She threw the ammo in with their food and tucked the wheel gun into her jeans.

Truck keys hung from a hook by the front door.

The truck—a clean white Silverado—was in the barn. Its tank was one-eighth full. There was a diamondback in the bed. Elise hooked it out with a stick, then they loaded up their farmhouse haul and got moving. They returned to the Chevette, siphoned its tank dry, and grabbed their belongings. Ruby peeled the three remaining California Raisins from the dash and adopted them as her own.

They drove back to the farm, past the cattle and the barn, and followed a long, dusty driveway to Ocotillo Road. Elise referenced the map she’d marked up back in El Centro and they headed out.

Ruby fell asleep after an hour, clutching the California Raisins figures to her chest. She snored sweetly. Elise kept checking the rearviewmirror, but saw nothing back there. The Silverado ran smoothly. She followed U.S. 89 for forty miles, then took another rural road—the delightfully named Hoppy Toad Pass—that cut east toward the Tonto National Forest. She saw no people, no cars. At one point, a herd of white tail deer ran alongside her, as beautiful as they were purposeful. Elise matched their speed for half a mile, wiping tears from her eyes. She almost woke Ruby to show her, but decided to take this moment to herself. She’d earned it.

The sun inched west and the sky purpled. Ruby woke up and stretched, extending her legs into the footwell, arching her back. She wiped her eyes and looked around.

“We still in Arizona?”