After the Shift: The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  Nathan picked up Tony and hugged him close.

  Because the highway was relatively easy to travel now, Nathan decided they should move on from the burning limo for at least a couple of hours and get some distance between them and the flames which might draw anyone, especially scavengers, to the vicinity.

  “You want me to get in there?” Lucy peered into the open door of the crew cab. “But there’s… a dog.”

  Saber stuck her head out and licked Lucy’s pointed finger. “Dear God,” she said before hiking her leg up and climbing into the cab in the most undignified way possible.

  Nathan drove, with Cyndi alongside him, Tony sharing the seat between her legs. Freeson, Syd, and Lucy squeezed into the crew cab, Saber lying obediently in the foot space.

  “What a delightful smell,” Lucy said as Saber settled down beside her, rubbing her head against the fur coat. “Perhaps she thinks they’re related.”

  Although it was meant as sarcasm, Nathan and the others chuckled companionably. Lucy might not be their idea of a fellow traveler, but her inadvertent comic timing changed the dour atmosphere in the crew cab as they struck on into the darkening night.

  They encountered no other traffic for nearly two hours and managed to average between fifteen and twenty miles per hour over that time. Nathen felt nearer to Detroit now than he did to Glens Falls, which was saying something. He knew it wasn’t true in terms of miles, but it certainly felt that way in terms of trajectory.

  As 7 p.m. came and went, Nathan began looking for a place to pull off the road to park the Airstream for the night. He didn’t think it was a good idea to simply settle on the highway so he looked for an off-ramp that might lead into a small town or a retail area. Somewhere out of the way, but with options for a quick getaway if they needed it.

  Nothing came up for another few miles, and Nathan was coming around to the idea that they would need to stay on the highway when Free leaned over from the crew cab, pointing off into the distance. They were at the top of a rise in the road, and a wide expanse of landscape filled with snowy forest stretched out below them.

  “Look; lights.”

  There was a dot of yellow below them. Off the highway and too distant to make out any detail. The Dodge continued rumbling towards it.

  They leveled out on the road, the landscape swallowed up by the reduced perspective, and the lights disappeared.

  “Any ideas?” Nathan asked the others.

  “We’ll know when we’re nearer, I guess,” Freeson said, and Nathan heard him checking the Winchester over on his lap. Ever since the attack on Nathan’s house, Freeson had tried never to be more than two arm lengths from the weapon, and it was always next to him in the crew cab.

  There was a bend in the highway a mile or so ahead, and the encroaching trees, with their cargoes of snow and icicles, had conspired to keep the view consistently unchanged. But Freeson was pointing away from the roadside trees and seemingly into the forest.

  Nathan slowed so that he could take his eyes off the road and stop worrying about hitting something unexpected. And yes, there, in the trees, dim lights.

  “Is it a fire?” asked Cyndi.

  “No,” Nathan answered, squinting. “That’s electric light.”

  Nathan picked up speed and, fifteen minutes later, they took an off-ramp and curled around into the forest, to a wide area of tarmac in front of ‘Marty’s Trucker Love.’

  It was a snow-covered, one-story building with an attached gas station, a forecourt that had been cleared of the latest snow, and windows that burned with all the light of welcome—as if the Big Winter had forgotten to fall here.

  The wrecker and Airstream combo hissed onto the wet, almost clear concrete. There were three rigs already parked across one corner of the lot. Their cabs dark, their trailers unlit. Two were designed for transporting goods, the third being a fuel tanker that looked like Christmas to Nathan’s eyes.

  Cyndi had indicated the day before that they were still doing okay on the fuel reserves packed into the back of the Airstream, but that they’d need to start thinking soon about getting more gas. Marty’s Trucker Love, intact and burning with warming light, looked like just the kind of place where they might at least find fresh supplies of fuel.

  As a group, they hurried across the chill concrete and Nathan pushed the diner’s door open. A blast of warmth hit him like he’d opened an over door.

  Days on the road had gotten Nathan used to being damn cold almost all the time. The heaters in the crew cab were old and used up a lot of fuel, so they’d kept them to a minimum use. When they were in the Airstream, snuggled in their sleeping bags, they were used to their breath condensing in the air. But Marty’s Trucker Love apparently made no such attempts to save fuel or power.

  The floor was of blue and white checkerboard tiles, the diner booths and seats being red plush vinyl. Pictures of Elvis, Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Little Richard smothered the walls in all their rock ’n’ roll glory. A counter at the far end of the diner glittered with chrome and plastic.

  A portly woman in an apron, with an ice cream sundae of white hair balanced on her ruddy face, waved them inside from behind the counter. An equally fat septuagenarian in a red checked shirt and 11th Airborne Division cap—a white eleven on a red circle, abutted by white feathery wings—was already appearing from a door next to the counter. Nathan noted that the man had a carving knife in his hand, but held it blade down, and his other hand was extended in welcome.

  “Well, hello!” he said, as if the situation was the most normal in the world. “Welcome to Marty’s, folks. I’m Marty. Take a seat and Betty will be along in just a shake of a lamb’s tail to take your order.”

  Nathan’s party exchanged incredulous glances. All except for Lucy, that was, who took one look at the place and said, loudly, not caring who heard, “Tell me, did we all crash and die on the road without knowing it to wake up in a 1950s hell?” Her tone had been loud, uncaring about who heard, which Nathan had come to recognize as Lucy’s default position when it came to conversing with the ‘lower orders.’

  Nathan didn’t know where to look, and he wished the ground would just open up and swallow him whole, but Marty was made of stronger stuff, it seemed. “Ma’am, I don’t know about hell, but you look like you’ve just fallen straight down here from heaven.”

  Lucy’s mouth dropped a little, and she slid into a booth seat next to Freeson, who, Nathan noticed, didn’t seem to mind her closeness one damn bit.

  Betty arrived from around the counter and flipped an order pad over, licking the end of her pencil. Up close, Nathan could see her face was lined like a road map. She was easily the same age as Marty, if not a little older. Her apron wasn’t as clean as it had appeared from afar, and Nathan got the sense that their bonhomie was a little more forced than it might have been in better circumstances.

  “How’s business?” Cyndi asked, saying out loud what Nathan had been thinking in checking out the lay of the land. No one wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth, but some things really were too good to be true.

  “Oh, business isn’t as brisk as we’d like, but we get by.”

  “Must use up a ton of fuel to keep it this warm and lit.”

  Marty had stood nearby throughout the exchange, and inclined his head to answer. “We got a generator, and enough fuel to see me and the missus out.”

  Betty put her arm through Marty’s and gently turned him around. “Why don’t you go out back and get us some steaks from the freezer? These folks look like they haven’t had a square meal in days.”

  Marty pushed the peak of his cap back and kissed Betty on the cheek. “Why don’t I just go and do that?” And with that, the man trotted back towards the kitchen door.

  “Don’t you take no notice of him. We’re just as badly off as everyone else since the spring didn’t come. My husband likes to tell tall tales.”

  Nathan detected a little desperation in her voice, maybe from knowing that Marty might have said to
o much for safety’s sake. These were dangerous times to be sitting on a good supply of fuel oil or gas.

  Nathan reached out and squeezed Betty’s hand. “It’s okay, Betty. We’ll pay for whatever we need now that you can spare. What’s yours is yours.”

  Betty smiled in relief. “Tell you what, why don’t I just go get you folks some coffee, and you can decide among yourselves how you’ll be wanting your steaks? I’ll also mash up some potatoes and fix you a pepper gravy the likes of which you will never have tasted!”

  She was glossing and sidestepping, but Nathan decided not to press her on it—she was doing the best she could.

  “Hey, honey.” Marty appeared behind the counter, lifting up his cap and scratching his bald head beneath it. “I know you wanted me to get something, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.”

  Betty’s shoulders drooped as she walked towards him, and Nathan saw—in both her frame and in Marty’s confused face—the layer of distress that underlined their situation just below the surface. They were both old and trying to make the best of it in the Big Winter. But here it was obvious the threats to Betty and Marty were not just the weather. Betty’s husband seemed to be losing his faculties.

  Nathan had been through the same process with his own father, who’d faded away with encroaching senility until he’d not been the man he’d once been; instead, he’d become forgetful, frustrated, quick to anger. In the end, the cancer that finally took him had almost been a blessing in the face of his dementia.

  And as the evening progressed and the steaks were delivered and consumed, it became clear that Marty’s senility was more advanced than Nathan had initially assumed. He would ask Betty or Nathan the same question three or four times and would call Nathan Billy. His opening gambits had been just that, gambits. He’d probably said that same stuff a million times, and it was just brain and muscle memory that got him through. Now, when a conversation was freestyle, he found it difficult to keep up.

  When Marty collected the plates up to take them out back for washing, Nathan took Betty aside and commented, “I guess it can’t be easy for you, with Marty going like he is.”

  Betty smiled. “Oh, he’s just fine; don’t you worry yourself.”

  Nathan touched her shoulder, shaking his head. “My dad went the same. I guess he’s the reason you’ve not left, yeah? He needs the familiar around him. He can cope with that. Out on the road… different matter.”

  Betty nodded, deflating a little and sinking into the booth seat across from Nathan and Cyndi. Syd and Tony were on the other side of the diner now, playing salt cellar chess. Freeson sat in another booth drinking from Betty’s store of bourbon with Lucy, hanging on her every word as she spoke about her four marriages, her money, and her houses.

  Nathan hadn’t seen Freeson so willing to just sit and listen for an age, but he’d been one of those guys, before his accident, who’d fill any space he could with a line or a joke. Now, his big cow eyes were fixed on Lucy in a way Nathan figured he’d need a crow bar to pry him away from.

  So Nathan and Cyndi sat with Betty while the others talked and Marty washed up. He came back three times to ask if Betty still wanted the steaks, and three times more she sent him back to do the washing up. Over the conversation, it just became clearer that the warmth and light of Marty’s Trucker Love was a real-world representation of the love Betty obviously felt for Marty.

  “If I changed anything, left the lights off at night or didn’t run the heaters the way he liked them, then all hell would break loose. If we left, all hell would break loose. Best I can do is wait here until it all runs out and hope that the cold takes us quick.”

  There really wasn’t anything to say to that. Betty had it all worked out, and she added, “I have to do the best by Marty. He’s always done the best by me.”

  “Hey, you folks! Welcome to Marty’s Trucker Love. Who wants my wife to rustle them up some dinner?”

  Nathan and Cyndi smiled towards Marty, and a tear wound a lonely path down Betty’s cheek.

  When it came to settling up, Lucy, a little the worse for bourbon, reached into her purse and brought out her credit cards.

  At the cash register, Betty smiled, but shook her head. “That’s a mighty fine set of credit cards you’ve got there, my dear, but we’re not able to process cards at this time.”

  “But I don’t use cash. No one uses cash anymore! Well, not anyone who matters, that is…”

  Nathan came up to the register, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. He pulled out a number of twenties.

  “Again, Nathan, that’s a nice lot of cash you have there, but it’s no good to us. Our supplier, when he comes to deliver food supplies, will only deal in gold or jewelry.” Betty’s eyes alighted on Lucy’s wrist hopefully, acknowledging the white-gold, diamond-encrusted bracelet that hung there. “Now, that—that I can take in exchange for tonight’s food, and all the fuel you may need to get you on the road again. But credit and cash, they’re no longer any good to us now…”

  Nathan didn’t know if it was genuine indignation or a bourbon fueled meltdown, but, in a second, Lucy exploded towards Betty and he and Freeson had to grab at Lucy’s arms and drag her away from the counter. “You thieving bitch! How dare you! How dare you!”

  Lucy was kicking out, her teeth bared, eyes burning. “Let go of me! Let go!”

  Marty’s face crumpled. The old man was retreating, suddenly scared by the noise, tears welling in his eyes so that the precariousness of his psychological health was revealed in all its rawness by Lucy’s anger.

  Freeson bent to Lucy’s ear and whispered something Nathan couldn’t hear. In response, she went limp and stopped struggling almost immediately. She shook herself free of Nathan’s hand and hugged Freeson close.

  Whatever Freeson and Lucy had been talking about over the bourbon had definitely had some impact, because Lucy put an arm around his waist, her head on his shoulder, and let Freeson walk her slowly back to the booth where they’d been sitting.

  Freeson put his forehead against Lucy’s and they continued whispering while Nathan turned to Betty, who was now comforting her sobbing husband.

  “I’m sorry,” was the best Nathan had. Betty nodded, her face one of resignation. It was the face of someone who was tired of being strong for both she and her spouse.

  “It’s the supplier. Gold or jewels. Nothing else. I wasn’t trying to cheat you. I promise.”

  Nathan wished the counter wasn’t between them so that he could at least reach out and touch the woman, offering the solace of human comfort if nothing else.

  Betty took Marty back into the kitchen, where she sat him on a chair near an ancient cassette player and hit the play button. Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock” came on and, within a moment, Marty’s face was cleared, his tears stopped and his toe tapping along to the music.

  By the time Betty reached the counter, Freeson had returned from the booth with Lucy’s bracelet and was ready to hand it over. Lucy had her head in her hands back in the booth, but as Freeson passed the bracelet to Betty, Lucy raised her head to them and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

  10

  Betty let them stay the night in the diner.

  She kept it warm and cozy for the party, bringing blankets and pillows from their apartment above the diner. The booths’ benches were wide enough for them to lay down comfortably. Cyndi and Nathan shared one booth, and Syd, Tony, and Saber another. Freeson and Lucy shared not only the same booth, but the same bench. It seemed her head hadn’t moved from his shoulder the entire night. At about 3 a.m., when Nathan came out of his booth for a call of nature, he saw that Lucy was asleep with her head in Freeson’s lap, covered in a blanket, and the mechanic’s hand was on her shoulder, his chin on his chest, snoring gently. They looked like they’d known each other for a thousand years.

  Morning came with them being awakened by Betty moving around in the kitchen, making eggs and bacon for everyone human, and sausages for Saber—wh
ich, if the dog’s reaction was anything to go by, made Betty her friend for life.

  But it wasn’t the cooking that caught Nathan’s attention with a shocking intensity. It was a TV to the side of the range that Betty had turned on. It was playing reruns of I Love Lucy, and Nathan watched incredulously as the episode ended and a “News Flash” came up, warning of another ice storm moving in from the north in the next few hours.

  Nathan leapt towards the counter. “Betty, that’s live? Not your VCR?”

  Betty looked at him as if he was a child who’d never seen the Magic Moving Pictures before. “Yes. We got cable.”

  “You got Wi-Fi?” he demanded next.

  “Yes. Of course. We might be old, but we’re not ancient. I’m quite the silver surfer, doncha know? Why?”

  But Nathan had already begun heading towards the Airstream.

  He returned in under two minutes with Cyndi’s laptop. They fired it up, asked Betty for the password to the Wi-Fi—which she told them with a definite twinkle was “LoveTruck27”—and they logged in.

  Stryker had replied to Nathan’s email, and his message was chatty and warm, offering Stryker’s Skype handle along with his note.

  Cyndi fired up the program, rang Stryker, and turned the laptop screen with its built-in webcam towards Nathan. There was an ecstasy of finger drumming while they waited, and then Stryker appeared.

  He hadn’t changed that much since Nathan had last seen him in the flesh. Thinner perhaps, a little older and with a little less hair at the temples, but still blond, and Nordic with the kind of face both women and men would say was on the pretty side of manly if they buttered their bread on that side. In the laptop’s screen, Stryker was bare-chested and looked like he’d just gotten out of a shower. Behind him, in bright sunlight streaming through a high window, were massive towers of hydroponic trays, fat green leaves trailing healthily over the sides.