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“Too bad you didn’t die in a ditch on the way over here.”
“Too bad you didn’t die in a cave by yourself.”
“Dude,” Gregg says reproachfully. “That, like, almost actually happened. It’s less funny when it’s something that kind of basically almost happened.”
Bea taps her cigarette lazily with a hand. “Oh, were these things supposed to be funny? I wasn’t aware.” She slides both hands back on the steering wheel, set perfectly to ten and two. “If you guys are going to keep this up I vote to kick you out of the car.”
“Agreed,” Angus says, and kisses Gregg on the cheek.
“Aw, babe, I can’t believe you would kick me out of a moving car. That’s so cute.” Gregg bats his eyelashes. Mae squirms and squishes herself against the car door until her face is flat against the window. “I’m getting carsick because of you and I never get carsick. Don’t, like, have sex in Bea’s car.”
“Please don’t have sex in Bea’s car,” Bea says darkly. “Also, Mae, that’s not true. You almost threw up in my car. On multiple occasions, I think.”
Mae throws her hands into the air and shouts, “I was super drunk! Also, there was a cosmic horror thing living in my brain! I think a lot of the things I did should be forgiven because of the, uh, cosmic horror!”
“The old cosmic horror card,” Bea mumbles and adds, “Now you’re neither of those things so please don’t be carsick in my car.”
Angus, who is looking out the window, says mildly, “I think if she’s carsick anywhere else it doesn’t count as being carsick so she would probably do it now.”
Mae stretches her arm to the back seat to pat Angus on the shoulder. “See, he agrees with me! Thanks, big guy. Can always count on you.”
Outside, the landscape is wheat fields interspersed with thick stretches of dark forest, but the car is speeding by fast enough that Mae can’t catch anything except for the occasional crow or pigeon staring balefully at the empty highway. Stupid birds, she thinks. Northern dumbfowl. “Dumbass birds,” she says out loud. “Dumb. Ass. Birds.”
Gregg’s head is resting on Angus’ shoulder, his eyes half-lidded. “You say ‘ass’ a lot.”
“ASS,” she enunciates. “ASSSSSS.”
“Also,” Gregg says, “Where are we going again? Is this a road trip to Donut Wolf? Please say yes.”
Angus tilts his head down towards Gregg and says, “Hon, we’re going to New Mexico? I think Bea told us, like, weeks ago-” at the same time Mae gleefully yells, “Out west!”
“Oh, sick.” Gregg’s eyes flicker shut. “Git me some tarantulas, pardner. Yeehaw.” He looks to be entirely asleep before he finishes talking. Angus smiles. “Should probably turn in too. Night, guys.” He folds up his glasses, places them neatly into the cup holder, and pulls his hat down to cover his face. Soon, the sound of his snoring fills the car.
Mae taps the little neon digital clock on the dashboard. “Wow, is this thing right? It’s only nine and they’re both all tuckered out? Weird. They’re adorable, though.” She glances towards the backseat at the two of them leaning against each other, interlocked like puzzle pieces.
Bea, not taking her eyes off of the road, comments dryly, “Must be the jet lag.” Some of her eyeshadow is smeared around the base of her eye, making her look more exhausted than usual. Mae can see the way it’s dragged downwards from the light of the occasional passing car but decides not to comment on it. Keep her big fat mouth shut for once. Instead, after a few moments of listening to Bea tap her fingers lightly against the steering wheel, she says, “Hype for New Mexico? All that sand and shit?”
Bea side-eyes her. “We got sand in Possum Springs.” Mae rolls her eyes. “The dust from the construction people smashing the sidewalks isn’t sand, Beabea. I’m talkin’ deserts! I’m talkin’ cactuses! I’m talkin’-”
She cuts her off. “Okay, I get your point.” Softening, she runs her finger along the sides of the steering wheel and half-whispers, “I’m excited for the stars.”
“Huh. Aren’t those, like, exactly the same as the ones back home?”
Bea shakes her head. “No, it’s like- okay, so I was looking up New Mexico to see what we could do there and apparently the stars are so much more beautiful there. Like the sky in the desert is unaffected by light pollution or something so you can see all the stars.” She swallows, and her eyes are suddenly luminous. “You can probably see everything.”
“‘Black like the spaces in between the stars,’” Mae echoes. “You remember when the cult guys said that?”
Bea’s hands tighten almost imperceptibly on the steering wheel and then relax. “Mae,” she says, ”There are going to be so many stars in the sky that we… We won’t be able to see the spaces between them. Just light.”
She hums. “Yeah. Okay. Just light. I think that’s okay.”
Somewhere between that conversation and sunrise, Mae drifts to sleep. When she wakes up, the neon numbers on the dashboard read 11:52 PM and outside of the car, Angus and Bea are having a hushed conversation. The car is parked at a Mobil with cobwebs dangling inside of some of the gas pump handles, and it's dark and empty save for the small building beside it, which is bleeding starkly fluorescent light from its windows.
Mae straightens up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and catches the last half of Angus’ sentence: “-don’t worry, I’m not tired anymore. I can switch in,” and Bea’s murmured assent.
Angus slides into the driver’s seat and tips his hat at Mae, who pulls her legs into the seat and whispers, “Is Gregg still asleep?”
Gregg pops between the front seats suddenly and says cheerfully, “Absolutely not, fuckers.” Mae screams and topples over, her head bonking the dashboard. It makes an audible thunk, which Angus winces painfully at.
“Argh! Gregg, you are the number one source of all my head injuries. You are like a concussion manufacturer.” Mae rubs her head and grumbles, “This is probably going to make all my brain blood vessels explode or whatever.”
Without warning, the car door slams, and Bea jumps in the back, looking wild-eyed. “Okay, we have to go right now we have to GO.”
Gregg, from beside her, hisses, “What happened?”
“Okay, so, the machines here are busted as hell and I couldn’t get the money to go in or whatever and I thought that we could just leave but you dumbasses are out here are making a huge racket and they’re definitely going to catch us now Angus go GO GO!” Bea gasps out.
Angus slams the gas pedal, and the car stutters awake, speeding back down the highway with a steady rumble.
“Crimes!” Gregg crows. “We were gonna go legit, but the thrill of the steal called you!”
“Well,” Angus says doubtfully, “We did kill, like, fifty guys not that long ago. That’s not really going legit.”
“Babe, that was like a whole month ago! That’s over thirty days of not doing crimes.” Angus rolls his eyes at Mae, but he’s fighting back a smile. He glances back at Gregg, probably to say something witty and appropriately chastising, but Gregg puts a finger to his lips and points theatrically at Bea, who is slumped against the door, fast asleep. Gonna be quiet now, he mouths.
Nodding, Angus turns back to Mae. “Were you the one that suggested the road trip?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah,” Mae replies, and then stops. “Wait, are you, like not into it?”
“No no no no,” Angus says quickly. “I’m totally into it. I think we’d take any excuse to get out of town at this point.”
“This is a dumb question but...why?”
He smiles, and it’s dark outside and inside, but to Mae, it looks sort of melancholy. “Aside from the cult of conservative assholes who we kind of killed? And also the god that lives in a hole under our town? I mean. A lot of things that are, I guess, smaller than that.”
Angus pauses and says, “You know Gregg and I are moving out to Bright Harbor soon, right?”
Mae nods, but slowly. “I… Yeah. I mean, I guessed.” She fiddles with the hem of her shirt, not making eye contact.
“We can’t live in this town anymore. Like, it’s too small, but we’re also drowning in it? And we’re basically the entire queer population of Possum Springs. It’s, uh, hard to live there but it’s also just hard to be there. You know?”
“I do know,” she says, and she’s being honest. Small towns are shit. Still, she wants to tell him how it’s different when you leave. How you could live your life with an ache to break away from home, to run away down the railroad tracks and never come back, and the needling fear that you’ve been trapped all along and still, still, be set adrift when you finally break free. How in an unfamiliar place, the most unfamiliar part is the desperate need to go back home.
Mae twists her lips. Her legs are still tucked up on the seat and she pulls them closer to herself, curling up. “Angus… are you, like, running away from Possum Springs? I’ve been there, dude, and if you’re looking for all the answers in Bright Harbor, I…” She trails off. “They might not all be there. I dunno. Sorry.”
Angus stares straight out the windshield, pushing up his glasses with the heel of his hand. “It’s fine.” Steadily, he turns the car down a sharp curve in the highway, his hands unfaltering. “I’m not looking for all the answers,” he says, his voice low. “I’m just looking for a safe place to love him. Just one safe place.”
There are other things that she wants to say, but she can’t force them into coherent sentences. Instead, she just gives him a lopsided smile. “If anyone deserves that, it’s you two, bud. I’m rootin’ for you. Also, all the cops in Possum Springs have definitely figured out who’s been stealing all those old tires from the junkyard so it’s probably better to get out while you still can.”
“It’s literally junk!” Gregg scoffs from the back, slightly muffled because his entire face is pressed flush against the glass of the window. “The point is that no one wants it! They’re free tires, yo.”
“Gregg,” Mae says disparagingly. “It’s a crime when you break into the junkyard to steal the junk. There’s a gate there to block junk thieves. Like you. What are you even doing with all those tires, man?”
“What were you doing with all those stolen pretzels, dude?” Gregg shoots back.
Mae glances nervously at Bea. “She’s, like, completely asleep, right? Conked out all the way?”
“Dude, yeah. Why else would I be talking right now?”
“Okay, so basically, I had these children. My beautiful little rat children. They were living in the corpse of Mallard P. Bloomingro? Remember from the Spring Parade when he ran over Chris Evans’ legs?”
“Oh yeah,” says Angus. “Chris was in my calc class. His femurs were never the same.”
Gregg flaps his arm at Angus. “Dude, hold on, I wanna hear about her Mallard corpse rat babies.”
“So the thing is, they’re not babies anymore? Like I fed them and raised them and taught them to be good and decent rats and I fed them so many pretzels they, uh, left the nest and kind of overran the town? And are living in The Pickaxe? Uh, oh hey Bea. Did you sleep well?”
“No,” Bea groans. “I had a nightmare where you said you caused rats to take over our town and then my store.”
“Ratmaggedon,” Gregg says reverently. “Fuck yeah.”
“WowthatsoundslikeareallybaddreamBeasomovingon,” Mae rushes out. “Anyway, shouldn’t we switch drivers now? Gregg, you ready to drive?” Gregg bounces up and down in his seat. “Hell yeah, dude! What time is it?”
The clock reads 2:35. “I think we get there in like two and a half hours? That’s not that bad.”
The car pulls over to the side of the highway neatly, bumping gently against rocks littering the roadside, and Angus steps out of the driver’s seat and into the back with Bea. Instead of getting out, Gregg clambers through the gap between the front seats to flop bonelessly into the driver’s seat.
“I’m excited for this. You driving my car,” Bea says dispassionately. “At least Mae isn’t driving.”
“Okay, it’s not because I can’t drive!” Mae shouts. “It’s because I called shotgun and the rules of shotgun stipulate that I can’t leave this seat until we get to our destination!"
“If I can do this,” Gregg revs the engine twice and grins a sharp, dangerous grin. “That should be in about an hour.” He slams the gas pedal and the car roars to life just as everyone else in the car yells, “Gregg, no!”
“Oh, dip,” he says as the car resumes its exact speed of a mild fifty-five miles per hour. “It doesn’t go any faster than this, does it.”
“Nope,” says Bea, who relights her cigarette. “It’s Gregg-proof.”
An hour or so later, Mae is still watching the scenery outside the window, but the dirt has started to shift into lurid, reddish sand and the greenery into low shrubs and dune grasses. The ground itself is somehow rising, raising into mountains and twisting landforms.
She turns to Gregg, who is loosely gripping the steering wheel with one hand and flicking his pocketknife open and shut with the other. He's regarding the landscape outside, eyes darting over and over rocks and withered trees, but his stare is blank and almost glassy.
“Lookin’ pretty deserty out there, Greggor,” Mae says seriously. “One of us going to have to take one of the team and be the one who has a layer of their skin shrivel off.”
“Dammit,” he says. “I always knew it would come to this. Can it be the same person whose blood we drink when we get dehydrated?” Gregg is smirking and his voice is casual, but his hands are trembling, and Mae can see the slight quiver of the knife every time he pops it open.
Mae touches his shoulder. “Dude, you okay? You’re, like, shaking. Been doing drugs again?”
“Oh yeah,” he says. “All of ‘em. Like at once.” Now his voice is trembling too.
She sighs, half exasperated and half fond. “Seriously. What’s going on? You look like you’re gonna throw up or have a seizure or something.”
“It’s stupid. I dunno. Just thinking about Casey, I guess. He would have really been into this. All of, like, the sand and shit and the wide-open spaces. Probably the lizards too.” Gregg blows out a breath. “It just fucking sucks.”
“What does?”
“Like, all of it? I don’t know. Things are happening all the time and they happen to us way too much. It doesn’t really seem fair,” he says, flicking the knife shut and stowing it into his jacket. “And, like, the way the cult assholes said they picked off people who were worthless and didn’t have a future. And sometimes I just think about how they could have picked me too or instead, and ugh-”
Gregg cuts himself off. “It’s fine. It just pisses me off. When I think about what happened to Casey I always end up thinking that those guys deserved to die and I don’t wanna think like that.” One hand is still wrapped around the steering wheel, but the other is clenched in his lap.
Cautiously, Mae says, “It’s okay to be angry. That’s the opposite of what Dr. Hank told me, but that guy is so bad at his job.”
“He’s probably okay at all of them. All fifty of them.” Gregg shifts uncomfortably. “I guess I’m just mad that this could happen. Like that the whole world could just stand by and let them get away with all of that.” He stops, his mouth working as though trying to force out words, and then spits out, “With killing Casey.”
“Gregg. Gregg,” Mae says, placating. “Angus told me a while ago that he believes in a universe that doesn’t care, and in people who do. We didn’t let them get away with it. It’s over. It’s okay.”
Gregg's jaw is still tight, but he nods, offering her a thin smile.
“Oh hey,” says Angus. “I think we’re here.” The clock reads 5:04.
Gregg pulls over sharply, sending clouds of rust-colored sand into the air. He points to the mustard-yellow sign beside them. “‘Welcome to New Mexico,’ hell yeah we are!”
“Wow,” Angus says, getting out of the car and looking around. “It’s real flat.”
Gregg bounces out beside him. “Naw, dude, there’s a mountain right there! Huh. Looks like a really big trash heap.”
“I think that’s what all mountains are, but instead of being made of trash, it’s… uh… rocks.” Bea scrunches up her face in thought as she steps out of the backseat.
Mae flings the passenger door open. “Don’t forget about me! Where are the cowboys? Are they here yet? Where are my beautiful boys? And cows?”
Bea grabs her arm. “Forget about the cowboys, Mae, look up!” she breathes.
For a moment, she can’t see them. She blinks, her eyes adjusting, and suddenly the sky is rich with starlight, entire galaxies visible as streaks of brilliant white speckled across the sky. Everything is, at once, illuminated by the ghostly glow of the endless, heavy sky.
Beside her, Mae looks at her friends. The people she loves most in the world. Angus and Gregg are standing, hand in hand, to her left, and Bea, looking awestruck, to her right. She feels this aching feeling rising up in her chest, one that she’s only felt once before in the face of an old god inside of an abandoned mine.
Love, tinged with fear, and the knowledge that here, right now, they have each other.
Ahead of her, the sun begins to rise, spilling orange and crimson onto the desert. And without warning, Mae realizes she believes her own words.
This is okay.
Everything is going to be okay.
fin.