Free Still Waters by Emma Carlson Berne Page B

way back to the highway for food.”
    “That’s like forty miles!” Hannah grabbed the homemade map from the dash. “There was a town, it’s marked—here.” She stabbed a tiny dot, labeled OXTOWN . “It’s probably too small for the big map.”
    “Assuming it’s still in existence,” Colin muttered. “Okay, it doesn’t look too far, maybe …” He measured the distance from the highway with his fingers, then the distance from Pine House to town. “Like two or three miles.”
    “Oh, that’s nothing.” Hannah settled back into the passenger seat as Colin folded the map and started the truck down the bumpy road.
    Path
was more like it. Woods. Pine trees, more pine trees. Big trunks, little trunks. Branches. Totally isolated
.
    The thought popped unbidden into her head, and she shoved it away. There was nothing wrong with being alone.
It’s romantic,
she told herself. The road was mainly two wheel ruts with weeds growing up the center. The woods themselves were already a black mass, even though the sky still held streaks of sunset overhead. Hannah stared into the trees until her eyes hurt, trying to pick out even the tiniest comforting detail, like a rabbit nibbling grass, or a deer. But there was nothing—just darkness, with black branches stabbing the sky. Hannah shuddered, looking away. For what seemed like a long time, she watched the tunnel of branches in front of them.
    It seemed to be taking a lot longer from the house to the roadthan Hannah remembered. But finally, she saw a faint strip of gray at the end of the tunnel, which widened rapidly. The trees grew sparser, and Colin bumped the car onto the main road and turned right.
    Hannah realized she was sitting forward in her seat, one hand gripping the door handle. She sank back, surprised to feel a little frisson of relief in her chest. The truck wheels thrummed reassuringly on the slate gray asphalt. The road was small, with just one narrow lane on each side. In front of them, the double yellow line unspooled like a ribbon.
    They were silent. Hannah gazed out the window again. Beside her, Colin drove smoothly, efficiently. They passed overgrown pastures lined with decaying rail fences. Here and there, a skinny cow stood morosely over a feed trough. Smudges of dark trees divided the fields, which should have been waving with six-foot corn at this time of year. But most appeared to have never been planted and were choked with waist-high weeds.
    Farmhouses drooped beside their fields in the deepening twilight. A huge mansion, like a decaying wedding cake, stood on a little rise with an equally grand barn in the back. But glassless windows gaped like blinded eyes. Loose clapboards hung from the walls and lay strewn on the ground where they’d fallen.
    There was something missing. But she couldn’t quite figure it out. Then she got it. “Colin, you know what’s weird?”
    Colin jerked a little, as if awakening from a daydream, and glanced over. “Hmm, what?”
    “No other cars. No one outside. No one. We’ve been drivingstraight on this one road, and we haven’t seen a single person or car since we left the road to Pine House …” She looked at the odometer. “Seven miles ago.”
    Colin’s brow creased. “There’ve been cars.”
    “No, Colin, there hasn’t. Not even one other car.” It was like they were the only people left on earth. Which was stupid of course. The place was just really depressing.
    Just then another truck appeared, coming toward them. An early-model black Ford, the kind Hannah’s grandfather used to drive. Colin pointed triumphantly. “There, see? I told you there were other cars.”
    They both watched the Ford approaching. The paint was dull and the bumper cracked. The truck loomed in their windshield, then whooshed by, a stone-faced man in a feed cap at the wheel.
    Hannah settled back in her seat. The sight of the other driver should have made her feel better, but somehow, she wasn’t comforted. She stared out the