Lost Roads (Benny Imura 7)

Ledger grinned. “Some good news: Jose and Sunny-Day Ray fixed one quad by scavenging parts from the other two. It means that there’s only one that’ll work, but it runs. Kind of. They warned me that it has to be kept under thirty miles an hour to keep the engine from going kaflooey. Don’t even ask me how they found tires that fit. The tires are patched and nearly bald, but we have a working quad, so let’s not look a gift horse in the dentures.”

“Thank God!” cried Urrea, and Ford nodded, his hand over his heart.

“The downside is that the suspension is shot, and there are some other issues that make the quad a poor choice for two big men with a lot of heavy weapons and gear to piggy-back on it,” said Ledger. “Which means we have both lost time and need to go by horse. The only upside is that if Collins is where we think she is, it’s not that far away, and she’s unlikely to have moved on.”

“That’s a big ‘if,’?” said Urrea.

“It’s what we have.” Ledger’s face clouded. “And… that brings us to some news none of us are going to be happy with. The good news is that Manny Flores has made a batch of the drug. What’s bad is that it’s not full potency. Best estimates are that Chong, Sarah, and Morton have less than a week before… well…” He let the rest hang and threw a weak, consoling smile at Chong.

Everyone automatically glanced in Chong’s direction, and then over at Karen. Gutsy felt her heart sink in her chest.

Less than a week.

“This does leave us with a few options,” Ledger continued, and the others all looked suddenly, desperately hopeful. “Option one is we send Chong back to California on the quad, because there’s a lot more of the drug there.”

“Not a whole lot,” corrected Chong. “It’s one of the reasons I came along on this trip: Asheville has the biggest supply, but it might also be threatened by the Night Army. We have a lot more back home than what’s here in New Alamo, but not an endless supply. Much as I’d normally volunteer to go back and get the drugs, I think I’ll stay here.”

“Wait—why?” asked Benny. “It’s a good plan.”

“No, it’s not,” said Chong. “I mean, c’mon, look at me, Benny. I can’t walk down a set of stairs without throwing up. I get double vision and headaches. Much as I would love, love, love to go back home and never leave again… do any of you really see me driving all that way?”

“Chong’s right,” said Nix. “It’s a bad plan. He’d be in a ditch half a mile down the road. No offense.”

“None taken,” said Chong.

“How far is it to your town?” Gutsy asked. “How long would it take?”

Urrea raised his hand like a kid in his own class. “On good roads, it’s sixteen hundred miles. Sixty-six hours at twenty-five miles per hour. If you take into account sleep, bathroom breaks, clearing debris from the roads, and avoiding and/or dealing with los muertos, figure closer to ninety. With everything going right, that’s four days at eighteen hours driving per day.”

“It won’t be anywhere near that quick, though,” Benny said, looking thoroughly stressed. He explained the big detours they’d taken to avoid nuclear strike zones and areas polluted by chemical spills. “I think it would be closer to a hundred twenty hours. That’s five days easy, maybe six.”

“Six lucky days, sure,” said Nix. “We didn’t have a lot of lucky days on the way here. Whoever went would get there just as the pills ran out here.”

“Might be quicker than that,” said Ford, “because now you know the safest route.”

“Safest, yes,” Nix said, “but not the quickest.”

Gutsy raised her hand the way Urrea had and waited until everyone looked at her. “Can I say something?”

“Sure, kid,” said Ledger. “We’re open to all ideas right about now.”

She looked directly at Benny. “When you told me about your trip here, you said you had a radio of some kind. What did you call it? A walkie-talkie?”

“Kind of,” said Benny. “What we have is a satellite phone, which has a better range than a walkie-talkie, but it stopped getting a signal a while ago.”

“Yeah,” Ledger said morosely.

“I found it in your saddlebag and tried it, too. Not a ghost of a signal. We’re way out of range.”

“Oh,” said Gutsy, deflated.

“What’d you have in mind?” Benny asked.

“Well…,” she said uncertainly, “I thought that if somebody drove back, they could try calling along the way until they got through, then maybe someone from your town could drive out to meet them. And bring food, fuel, and a big bag of pills. That way, whoever we send could turn right around and come back.”

They all looked at her.

“But if the phone isn’t working, then…”