‘What are the chances of getting a lift?’
‘Slightly worse than the odds against getting your head broke for asking. I been trying for hours and I’m still here.’
‘Is there any other way out of Graveyard except for riding a truck?’
The Minstrel Boy scratched his ribs, and pulled a face.
‘I was coming round to thinking that maybe I was going to have to walk.’
Billy looked surprised.
‘Walk? Walk where? I thought there was only the road, down to no man’s land.’
‘Well, I sure as hell don’t want to go there, and even if I did, I sure wouldn’t walk that far. No, you been talking to truckers. They always forget about the old road. They can’t hold it together, and they can’t run down it, so they don’t think about it.’
Billy frowned.
‘You mean the wheelfreaks didn’t make the road?’
The Minstrel Boy looked at Billy as though he was looking at an idiot.
‘ ‘Course the wheelfreaks didn’t make the road. The road’s been there for ever. They just hold it together. There’s this other bit of road that goes on from here, it ruptures in places, but it goes right through to the plain.’
‘The plain? What’s the plain?’
The Minstrel Boy shuddered.
‘Don’t even talk about it. The only good thing about the plain is that the town of Dogbreath is in the middle of it, and you can get a stage from it. That’s only a good thing, though, because everything else is bad.’
Reave looked anxious.
‘Could we make it that way?’
The Minstrel Boy stared at the two of them speculatively.
‘Maybe. I doubt if anyone could do it on their own, but three of us might, particularly when you’ve got those fancy guns. Can you use them?’
‘Sure.’
Billy whipped out his gun, spun it and dropped it back into its holster. The trick made Billy feel that he was back on to a level with the Minstrel Boy. He might know more than Billy, but Billy was armed. It was Billy’s turn to look speculative.
‘Maybe the three of us should travel together?’
He turned to Reave and winked.
‘You want to travel with this guy, brother?’
Reave shrugged.
‘Maybe. I don’t see no reason why we shouldn’t.’
The Minstrel Boy’s eyes flickered from Reave to Billy and back again.
‘Who says that I want to travel with you guys?’
‘You said one man couldn’t do it on his own.’
‘I never said whether I wanted to make it.’
‘You don’t want to get stuck inside of Graveyard.’
‘Okay, okay. We’ll travel together. There’s no other way, we all know it. What are you two called, anyway? If I’m going to cross the plain with you, I might as well know your names.’
Billy grinned.
‘I’m Billy, and he’s Reave.’
‘Glad to know you.’
‘And what’s your name?’
‘People call me the Minstrel Boy.’
‘So now we know each other, shall we get started?’
They walked across the parking lot and down the slip road. Billy walked slightly in front, while Reave walked with the Minstrel Boy, telling him about life in Pleasant Gap, and their walk through the nothings.
They started down the road, and after about a mile, Billy stopped and looked at the Minstrel Boy.
‘How long before the Graveyard field stops?’
The Minstrel Boy tried to explain.
‘It ain’t like it actually stops. This ain’t like the nothings. It kind of holds together in a way, only there are sort of holes in it. You know? You could maybe get right through without any kind of stasis machine, but it would be better to turn them on now, to be on the safe side. It’ll save anyone who falls in a hole.’
They all halted, turned up the gain on their porta-pacs, and then walked on. After about another mile, they came across an elliptical hole in the surface of the highway. It was about four feet across, although the edges shimmered and fluctuated slightly. There didn’t seem to be any bottom to the hole, and it was filled with a thin blue mist. Billy walked across and peered down into the hole. He glanced back at the Minstrel Boy.
‘Is this how the road starts to come apart?’
The Minstrel Boy nodded.
‘There’s more and more of them as you go on.’
Billy carefully placed one foot above the hole, and a piece of highway surface obediently appeared to receive his foot.
‘Lumps of the same nothing.’
They walked on, and the holes became more and more numerous. At times they had to thread their way along a flimsy network between a mass of openings. Despite their porta-pacs, they all tried their best to avoid stepping on the empty spaces.
After walking for a long time they came to a fairly clear section of road. The sky had changed from brilliant white to a dull metallic grey, and they found they were walking through a dim twilight. Reave stopped and dropped his bag.
‘I’m exhausted, for Christ’s sake let’s stop here for the night. It’s almost dark.’
Billy and the Minstrel Boy also stopped. The Minstrel Boy put down his guitar, and pushed his hair out of his eyes.
‘We might as well stop here, but don’t think it’s nightfall, it ain’t. That light the truckers use goes on twenty four hours a day, we’re just moving out of range of it. It’s always dark along this stretch.’
Reave shook his head.
‘I don’t care anymore. Let’s just stop here and sleep, I’m going to cave in any minute.’
Billy looked at the Minstrel Boy.
‘What’s the best way to sleep in this kind of country?’
The Minstrel Boy laughed.
‘You boys’d be lost without me. It’s simple. We hook up our three pacs in a series. That’ll give us a field big enough to sleep inside of.’
They coupled up the power pacs, piled up their belongings, and unstrapped their belts. Billy tucked his gun inside his jacket and lay down on the grass of the central island. It was hard and cold, and he drew his knees up to his chest. Just as he was convincing himself that it was impossible to sleep in those conditions, his consciousness drifted away.
Billy wasn’t sure what had woken him. He raised his head and looked around and saw to his surprise that the road was filled with people. He sat up in alarm, but none of them seemed to notice him.
It was a long column of people, men, women and children, hobbling and stumbling through the twilight. There were young and old, grandfathers limping on crutches, and young mothers holding clinging babies. Every one of them looked sick and exhausted. Their clothes were ragged and torn. They moved on and on past where Billy crouched, coming from the same direction as he and the others had come.
They looked neither left nor right. They just trudged on, staring at the ground. They made no attempt to avoid the holes, but walked straight over them as though they didn’t exist. Some pushed prams or carried suitcases, while others were bent under bundles on their backs. They came on and on in a never-ending, sluggish stream.
At intervals along the lines were armed guards on tall horses. They wore dark uniforms, and their faces were hidden by their steel helmets. Even the guards seemed bowed in their saddles, as if they too had travelled a terrible distance. Each time one of them passed him, Billy tried to make himself as small as possible, but although even in the twilight he must have been clearly visible, none of the guards seemed to notice him. The thing that really scared him was that both guards and prisoners seemed to have a strange, unnatural, ghostly translucence. Billy felt a cold sweat begin to trickle down his face and body. He stretched out a hand and shook the Minstrel Boy.