Louis Collins: A Post-American Odyssey

Chapter 64

Gladice kept both hands on the wheel and did not look away from the road. Outside, the moonless night was pitch black except for the occasional sweep of headlights from the other lane. Louis turned once in his seat and looked back through the rear window. He could see only the dark highway behind them. After a while, Angelique leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. Louis moved the cane aside enough to make room.

In the front seat, Jennifer stared through the windshield. Her blonde hair had begun to come loose around her face.

“Are there any guards at the border?” she asked suddenly. Her voice came out too high. She cleared her throat once.

“There must be a lot. We need to find the right spot to cross,” Louis said. “Somewhere away from the main road.”

She nodded but kept looking through the windshield. “I have never been to the border.”

Gladice glanced at her once. “You never left Alabama?”

Jennifer shook her head.

“Right, you already told us yesterday,” Gladice said.

Angelique spoke for the first time since they got into the car. “That is not her fault.”

“I’m not blaming her.” Gladice adjusted her hands on the wheel. “I’m just saying.”

Jennifer said, “My father did not think it was proper for women to travel alone.”

“Of course he didn’t.” Gladice let out a breath through her nose. “Well, tonight we’re all being improper.”

Jennifer turned her head. “Are we really going to Florida?”

“That’s the plan,” Louis said.

“What is in Florida?”

“The Collective authority. We can contact my father from there,” Louis said. “He’ll send a plane.”

“And then you go home.”

Her voice dropped on the last word. Louis looked at her in the road light.

“Yes,” he said.

She stared ahead. Then she said, “And what about me?”

Gladice tapped her fingers once on the steering wheel. Angelique looked from Jennifer to Louis.

“You can go where you want,” Angelique said. “We will help you get there.”

Jennifer looked at her. “I have nowhere to go.”

“I will talk to my father,” Louis said. “He will grant you asylum in the Dominion if you want it. You can go to universities there. Work. Whatever you like.”

Jennifer stared at him, then back at the road. “He would do that?”

“Yes,” Louis said.

“Why?”

He hesitated. “Because I am his son and you helped us get out.”

Jennifer looked back at him. Her hand tightened in her lap. “But I am not...” She stopped, then turned back to the road. “I am not from your world.”

“No,” he agreed. “You’re not. But that doesn’t mean he won’t see what you did.”

She said nothing. Gladice took a turn without slowing, and the car leaned with the curve. The engine sound deepened.

Louis looked back through the rear window and saw flashing lights far behind them on the highway. At first they were too distant to identify. Then they came closer, and the shape behind them became clear. It was a police car.

“Fuck,” Gladice cursed.

Louis looked forward. “Speed up.”

She already had. The engine roared as the car surged forward with a force that shoved all four of them back into their seats. The blue lights fell back, then began closing again.

Jennifer looked from the rear window to Gladice. “Maybe it’s just speeding.”

Gladice let out one sharp laugh. “Yes. That would be the problem.”

Louis leaned forward between the seats before he had time to think it through. “We can’t stop.”

Jennifer stared at him. “Why not?”

Angelique answered before he could. “Because technically, we are fugitives. And this car belongs to the government that owns the police.”

Jennifer turned toward him. “Then—”

“Then we do not stop,” Louis said. “Get off the highway. Find a smaller road. Lose them.”

Gladice nodded once and swung the sedan into the left lane. The police car followed at once.

“Open the glove compartment, Jenny,” Gladice said. “See what’s inside.”

Jennifer opened it. Inside were a folded state map and registration papers.

“Give me the map,” Louis said.

Jennifer handed it back. He opened it in his lap and tried to orient himself. The blue lights were closer now, lighting up the interior of their car in quick pulses. Angelique put her hand on the back of Gladice’s seat and braced herself.

“PULL OVER,” the police car’s speaker said. “PULL OVER NOW!”

The exit sign came up ahead. The lane opened to the right. Gladice waited until the last safe moment, then cut the Cadillac hard toward the ramp. The car tilted toward the shoulder before the tires caught the pavement again. Jennifer grabbed the dash with both hands and shut her eyes. They left the highway behind. The siren rose higher, then cut as the police car followed them down the ramp. The car hit level ground again, and Gladice pressed her foot down. The engine roared. They tore down the county road, trees rushing past on both sides, the police car still behind them.

“Where are we?” Louis asked, tracing the map with his fingers.

“South of Greenville,” Gladice said. “There’s a state road just ahead.”

“Take it.”

She hit the brake, threw the wheel right again, and swung them into a narrower lane. The police car took the turn behind them with a squeal of tires, then came after them. The distance widened, then narrowed again as the road bent and straightened. The GPS had been wrong since they left the highway. The marker lagged two turns behind, jumped ahead into a blank part of the map, then slid sideways off the road entirely. At the T-junction, the road split around a closed gas station and a church. Gladice turned left too fast. The car slid sideways for a second, then straightened. The police car went past the turn, braked, and came after them.

“Find something smaller,” Louis said.

Gladice gritted her teeth. “Working on it.”

The next turnoff was not marked. They took it anyway. The road became a narrow lane running through empty brown fields. The police car slowed but kept following. The siren had come back on. Then Louis saw a break in the ditch line. Two dirt ruts turned off the road and disappeared between the pines.

“Over there!”

Gladice took it without hesitation. The car came off the asphalt, hit the dirt road and shook hard. Dirt and stones hit the underside. Jennifer cried out as her shoulder struck the passenger door.

“Hold on,” Gladice said.

The track turned between the pines and dropped lower. The car bounced hard. Louis grabbed the seat. Branches scraped both sides. Dust filled the headlights. Behind them, blue light flashed between the trees. The police car had found the turn. Then the car hit something buried in the track. There was a hard crack under the front of the car. The car jerked to the side. Gladice fought the wheel and kept the car moving, but the front end started to shake.

“Shit,” she said.

“It’s the tire,” Louis said.

“I know.”

Louis looked at the navigation screen. The icon marking their car had vanished entirely.

“It’s gone,” Jennifer said.

“Yes,” said Angelique.

The track forked around a stand of scrub oak. There was no sign or marker. The atlas showed only blank green shading in this section.

“Left,” Louis said.

Gladice turned left. The sedan slid on the dirt, then straightened. The track dropped behind a line of pines, and the trees cut them off from the fork. The police car came up behind them and took the wider right-hand track. Its blue lights flashed through the trees once, then vanished. Gladice eased off the accelerator. The track narrowed again until grass brushed the underside of the car and pine boughs reached over the hood. The headlights showed a narrow dirt track ahead. The ground was uneven, and the sedan kept bouncing through the ruts.

Jennifer looked down at the dead GPS screen. “We are in the middle of nowhere.”

Louis turned in his seat and listened. He could no longer hear the siren or the engine behind them.

He said, “Good.”

The damaged tire thumped again, and the car pulled right. Gladice tightened both hands on the wheel and forced the car back into the track.

“This piece of shit can’t take much longer,” she said.

Angelique looked ahead into the trees. “We should find a place to stop for the night.”

Louis nodded. “Take the next turnoff.”

They drove on. The track bent left and ended at a cabin set back among the trees. The windows were dark. The front wall showed grey in the headlights. Then the right front wheel dropped into a rut, and the tire burst with a flat crack. The car pulled hard to the side. Gladice fought the wheel, kept it from sliding into the trees, and brought the car to a stop near the cabin.

Louis opened the door and climbed out, the cane digging into his palm as he put weight on his bad leg. He limped up the path to the cabin and listened. No sound came from inside. He tried the front door. It was locked. He motioned for them to wait and went around the side of the cabin. The back door was locked too. A stack of firewood stood under a tarp against the wall. He tried the window beside it and found it unlatched. So he pushed the window up and climbed in, wincing as his bad knee caught on the sill. He found the light switch and turned it. The power was off. The room stayed dark.

He crossed to the front door and opened it from the inside. Angelique came in first. Jennifer followed with the valise held tight against her chest. Gladice shut down the engine and kicked the car once before coming in. The car was finished. Without it, the border was too far to reach tonight.