THEY CAME TO a gas station with a bar out back, a motel—neon signs flashed WELCOME and BEER and CABLE TV—and a large parking lot. Emily’s dad parked the Ford in a far corner of the lot, and they got out. “Grab the bag too,” he said. “We’re switching trucks.”
Emily’s mom was walking down the rows. “Here,” she said.
Emily and Aidan went over. Emily’s mom was standing next to a dark blue pickup, dented and scratched.
“Why this one?” said Emily.
Her mom indicated the snow on the roof. “It’s been here awhile,” she said.
Emily’s dad did his trick with the screwdriver, and they were in the truck in under a minute, Emily sharing the back with Aidan this time. They pulled out of the lot and got back on the road, and no one followed them or shouted after them.
“Wait,” said Emily. “Stop.”
There was a pay phone outside a liquor store. There weren’t many of them anymore and it was beat up, covered in flyers. She got out and went over to it, and when she opened the door, there was a smell of urine, but she picked up the phone and got a dial tone. She called 911.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
“Mountain Rescue, please.”
“Connecting you now, ma’am.”
Mountain Rescue answered.
“Hi,” said Emily. “There’s an injured man at Upper Silver Lake. He’s in the cold-storage shed behind the cabin there. He…had an accident, on the mountain, and he can’t move. The cabin is…will be…burned down. He’ll need antibiotics. In fact, send paramedics.”
“OK, miss, can I just get your—”
She hung up and went back to the truck.
This one didn’t have satnav—it was an older model, and the seats were worn—but there was a map of Alaska in the document pocket behind the driver’s seat, and Emily traced their route to Gakona, the nearest town to the HAARP facility. She had only the dimmest idea of what they were going to do there—sending a message to space using state-of-the-art, ex-military, university equipment from a highly secretive research facility was one of those things that sounded easier than it probably would be.
And it didn’t sound easy.
“It’s basically one road, all the way,” she said.
Her dad nodded. He cranked up the heating and turned on the radio. Rihanna came on: “Diamonds.”
“Aidan always loved this song,” said Emily’s mom, as if he weren’t with them in the car. “He used to sing along when it came on in the kitchen. Except he couldn’t say d when he was little. So he sang, ‘Shine bright like a miamon.’ I always remember that.”
“But—”
“I know, I know,” said her mom. “It didn’t happen. But I remember it.”
Emily didn’t say anything.
“It doesn’t feel like we’re the lucky ones, is all,” said her mother.
Emily’s dad turned off the radio.
At the next store and gas station they reached, he stopped and handed cash to Emily’s mom. “Best you go in alone,” he said. “In case they’ve put out a missing persons alert for a teenage girl and a little boy.”
“You think they’d—”
“Yes. They sent men with guns after the plane. You think they can’t issue a police report?”
“True,” Emily’s mom said. She took the cash.
“Water,” he said. “Food. Whatever’s fresh, but get some dried stuff too, in case we can’t stop for a while. Grab a can of gas as well. Jackets, gloves—we’re fine in the car, but we didn’t have good enough clothing out there. I wouldn’t want to break down and the kids get frostbite.”
The word kids hung in the air for a moment, like smoke. The plurality of it.
“Or…any of us,” he said.
Emily’s mom sniffed, then took a breath. She opened the door. She headed in, and came out again ten minutes later with some of the gear, which she stashed behind the rear seats. Then she went back for more. She handed out bottles of water and hot dogs once she was in the car again.
Emily ate her hot dog quickly. It was the best thing she’d ever tasted, even with only mustard, because her mom never remembered that she liked ketchup and onions too.
Aidan ate his hot dog more slowly.
“You…eat?” said Emily’s mom. Tentatively. Sadly. Not turning to look at him.
“It’s not the most efficient energy source,” he said. “But yes.”
He chugged the water much more quickly—the whole bottle. Emily noticed—but her mom didn’t seem to—that he was looking tired; pale and weak. She didn’t know if it was the chase, the running, the last few days. The cold. Or if he just wasn’t made for this world.
She feared: she feared it was the last of those things.
“And you need water?” her mom continued, oblivious.
“Everything that lives needs water,” he said.
“And you have a…family?” she said.
Emily could see the effort the words were costing her. As if each one were a piece of her, cut away.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.”
A pause.
“And you need to get back to them?”
“Everything that lives needs family,” he said. He turned to Emily. “Everything that lives needs to be loved.”
Emily’s dad turned the radio back on and left it on. Nickelback. But no one complained.