They were standing on a grassy slope that rose in front of them. Billy fell to his knees and rolled on the ground.
‘We made it! We made it!’
Reave sat down and pulled at the straps of his bag.
‘Want a beer?’
‘You got some beers?’
‘Sure, I nicked a six-pack while old Eli was out back.’
‘That was sharp. Yeah, I’d really like a beer.’
Reave pulled out two cans of beer, and passed one to Billy. Billy turned it over, looking at the label - Tree Frog Beer, the fat green frog squatting under the red lettering, grinning at you. For the first time Billy knew there was something called homesickness.
After a couple of moments, though, he snapped out of that particularly unique depression, pulled the ring on the can and gulped down the beer. When it was finished he wiped his mouth and flung the can at the wall of nothing. As it hit the mist the can melted, smoked and became nothing itself. Reave grunted.
‘That’s what’d happen to us if we didn’t have no stasis generators.’
‘Better not get caught without one.’
Billy stood up.
‘Guess we better find out where we are.’
The sky above them was a uniform shining white without either sun or clouds. The air was warm, clear and still. The grass slope ran upwards for a matter of yards and then stopped at some kind of summit. Billy scrambled up it and, once at the top, turned and shouted down to Reave.
‘It’s a road, man. A goddamn road!’
‘A road?’
Reave scrambled up to join him. The road ran flat and dead straight as far as they could see in either direction, a wide, six-lane highway. It was made out of a smooth composition material with a grassy central reservation. On either side were more banks of grass, like the one that Reave and Billy had stumbled upon. Beyond that there were the walls of shimmering nothing.
After prowling around for a few minutes, Billy and Reave came back to the central strip of grass.
‘So what do we do? Start walking?’
Billy stared down the seemingly endless strip of highway.
‘It looks a mite far to walk.’
‘What do we do then?’
Billy sat down on the grass, and tilted his dark glasses forward.
‘Just sit here a while, take it easy and wait. I reckon somebody’s got to use this road, and when they come by, we’ll try and beg a ride.’
Reave looked doubtful.
‘We could wait a good long time.’
Billy shook his head lazily.
‘I don’t think so. Nobody builds a big old road like this, and then doesn’t use it. That stands to reason.’
‘Maybe.’
Reave sat down on the grass but still looked uncomfortable. Billy punched him on the arm.
‘Come on, man. Relax, it’s warm, we’re out of that fucking fog, what more do you want? This is an adventure and we ain’t in any hurry to get anywhere.’
He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a ration bar, snapped it in half and handed one of the halves to Reave.
‘Have something to eat and take it easy. Something’ll come by sooner or later.’
Reave munched on the food bar and stretched out on the grass beside Billy, feeling a bit more comfortable. Just as the two men were drifting off to sleep, they heard a humming way off in the distance. Billy sat up and shook Reave by the shoulder.
‘Something’s coming.’
Reave rubbed his eyes and looked around.
‘Which way’s it coming from?’
Billy listened intently.
‘I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. It must be a good way off.’
Gradually, the humming grew louder, and a tiny speck appeared far off in the distance. The hum became a high whine which took on more body as it came closer. From a small speck, the object got bigger until Billy and Reave saw it was a huge truck bearing down on them. They jumped about and waved frantically, but the truck sped past them in a flash of chrome exhausts and black and white paint job. Then huge red warning lights flashed at the back and it screeched to a stop, about two hundred yards down the road. Billy and Reave started running and the truck started to back up. They met each other halfway, and a skinny little guy with a shaggy crewcut, long sideburns and a face like a shifty lizard, leaned down from a small door high up in the cab.
‘Wanna lift?’
The truck was a huge semi, with an immaculate matt black paint job on the cab and huge bonnet, it was trimmed in white. Huge chrome blowers reared from the top of the hood, and all the accessories, the wind horns, the military spots mounted high on the cab, the headlights on the fenders were also chrome. The sides of the trailer were of matt finish aluminium, and JETSTREAM WILLIE was lettered on the cab door.
Reave and Billy climbed up the steel ladder on the side of the truck and ducked inside the cab. The driver sat in a high bucket seat behind a huge steering wheel. The dash panel was a mass of instruments. A pair of rabbit’s feet on a thin silver chain dangled from the top of the windscreen. There was a long bench seat, upholstered in white leather with black piping, beside the driver’s seat. Reave and Billy sat down on it. Billy grinned up at the driver.
‘Some truck.’
The little lizard guy threw the truck into gear.
‘Sure is. Seven speed, four pod 5-0-9, blown through. Hits three hundred when I floor her.’
He went through the gears like a master, and was soon at a speed that made Billy and Reave dizzy. Billy swallowed and grinned again.
‘Is that your name painted on the side?’
‘Sure is. Jetstream Willie, that’s me.’
He swivelled round in his seat to show them the same lettering on the back of his black leather jump suit, and the truck swerved so alarmingly that Reave and Billy grabbed for the edge of their seats. Jetstream Willie laughed and accelerated even more.
‘Where you boys from?’
‘Pleasant Gap.’
‘I never heard of a place of that name, not on the road.’
‘It’s not on the road.’
‘Whadda you mean it’s not on the road? If it ain’t on the road, then how the fuck did you get here?’
Billy pointed out to the side of the truck.
‘We walked through the grey stuff.’
‘Through the nothings? That ain’t possible.’
Billy held up his porta-pac.
‘Had these.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Miniature generator.’
Jetstream Willie shook his head in disbelief.
‘You two got to be crazy.’
Without waiting for an answer, he punched a button on the dash, and country and western music blared from concealed stereo speakers.
‘ “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash. Finest music the world ever known.’
Billy and Reave both nodded. They didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. The truck seemed to be going at a suicidal speed, but Jetstream Willie held the wheel with one hand and went right on talking.
‘So where are you crazy guys headed?’
‘Anywhere. We’re just drifting.’
‘Drifting, hey? Long time since I picked up any drifters. I can take you as far as Graveyard.’
Reave looked puzzled.
‘What’s Graveyard?’
He found he had to shout to make himself heard abave the roar of the engine, and the country music. Jetstream Willie looked amazed.
‘You don’t know what Graveyard is? You must have come out of the nothings. Graveyard’s the end of the road, It’s the truck stop. It’s the wheelfreaks’ paradise. That’s where I got my camper, and that’s where my little woman is, just a-waiting for me to come back. A-waiting in that them transparent neglig-ay that she got from the Stuff catalogue. A-waiting to give me something hot with my dinner, or, at least, she better be, or I’ll kill the bitch.’