CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ari almost drove into the ditch. She’d fallen asleep again without being aware of it. The rattle of loose gravel and earth clods woke her and at the last minute she was able to wrench the steering wheel over enough to avoid taking a nosedive. The engine shuddered and died. She leaned her forehead against the window. All the adrenaline that had been propelling her since she climbed out of the cistern had vanished and she felt weaker than she ever had in her life. There weren’t even any words for the exhaustion that had descended on her like a load of bricks. Her legs were trembling and she couldn’t hold the pedals down anymore. And she was so thirsty, as if every single cell in her body had shriveled into dust.
Where were the people? Were they all asleep? She thought about her own street. Dog walkers were up early, but no one would walk a dog all the way out here. There was hardly any space along the road, and the ditch on the other side.
No cars. No buildings. Fields, grassy hills, potholes filled with muddy water and the occasional meandering barbed wire fence. The only signs of civilization were the telephone poles and a highway marker—23—a designation that meant nothing to her. The houses must be down rocky tracks, tucked away out of sight. If there were any houses.
How long had she been driving? Long enough for the sun to come up. Half an hour? More?
She glanced over at Sourmash. Her driving maneuver had shifted the body slightly so he now leaned back against the seat as if he were dozing. His arm lay disturbingly close to her leg, and she folded herself up as tight as possible. It, she reminded herself. There was a narrow space between its legs and the glove compartment. She wondered if there was anything helpful inside. A walkie-talkie, maybe? She could picture him using one. She slid her hand in, avoiding any accidental contact, and felt around until she found the button. She popped it open and drew out a wad of stuff. Dumping it in her lap, she started going through it. Auto manual, map, mini tool kit, beef jerky, a half-empty plastic bottle with a red screw cap. She held it up. A cloudy yellow liquid sloshed around. Fuck. She ran her tongue over cracked lips. Old apple juice? Urine? God, let it be juice. She opened the cap and took a cautious sniff. It smelled fruity. That’s good, right? Before she could second-guess herself she’d lifted it to her mouth and drained it. Her stomach heaved and settled. And now, her thirst temporarily assuaged, she realized something else. She was starving. She opened the beef jerky packet with her teeth, tearing into it like an animal, using both hands to shove a piece of jerky into her mouth. She was almost too tired to chew but she choked it down, ate another one, and another, barely pausing in between. Swallowing hurt. She caught a glimpse of her face in the rearview mirror. It was pale, with planes and shadows and grooves where there had been none before. Hair hung in rats’ tails. Blackening eyes. Blood streaked the side of her head. It had congealed under her reddened nose too, like a macabre mustache. She tilted the mirror away.
“Fuck you fucking fuck, look what you’ve done to me,” she screamed, bits of jerky spraying from her lips. Did his hand move on the seat?
The smell of the meat was overpowering all of a sudden. The taste, greasy and rotten on her tongue; and the juice, rank, too sweet. Was it his urine after all? She gagged. The cab felt too small. She cranked her window down further and leaned out, gasping for fresh air to clear the stench, but it was too late. The jerky hurt as much coming up as it had going down. She got out of the truck and collapsed against the side, ribs heaving. She tried to spit but she was still too dehydrated.
She shoved her hands in her hoodie pouch and pulled out Stroud’s phone. Her grip was slack and she dropped it into a mud puddle near the truck’s front wheel.
“Fuck,” she screamed as she yanked it out and wiped grungy water onto her sleeve. A few shards of glass fell out onto the road. She powered it up with no real expectation and stared in disbelief. Two bars.
What was the landline number? It took a few seconds for her to remember.
Her hands were shaking so much that she flubbed it the first time. Come on, come on, she told herself furiously, forcing her fingers to cooperate.
Her mom answered on the first ring, “Hello,” and Ari heard it all in her voice: fear, grief, desperation, hope.
“Mom,” she said. “Mommy.”
There was a moment of silence and then her mother’s voice rose in register higher than Ari had ever heard it.
“Ari! Where are you? Bill! Bill, it’s Ari!” she screamed.
“Highway 23.”
“We’re coming. Stay right there.”
She collapsed onto the tarmac, in the shadow of the truck, making herself as small as she could. She kept the phone tucked in both hands until it died, and then she counted in tens to one hundred over and over again, folding her fingers down like a little kid. The wait seemed interminable.
She heard the sirens before she saw the police cars, a whole phalanx of them coming up over the hill and screeching to a halt, and then she saw nothing at all but her parents running toward her.