Passenger

I think it may have been the longest stretch of time ever in which Qui

And I don’t know exactly who was worse off: Qui

Maybe we walked three miles; maybe it was three hundred feet. Who knew? But it was going to happen sooner or later: We came to a branch in the tu

Ben and I stunk like corpses. Ultimately, the three of us ended up abandoning our shirts, having to use them for wipe rags to smear the burning dust away from our eyes.

I tried telling myself that if we’d gone the other way—the way without the little bit of hair on the boy’s skull—that we’d already be dead. But that was a stupid thought.

Billy.

There was no escaping the idea that maybe if we were all dead, Ben, Griffin, and I would wake up back in their garage, or maybe stretched out on the deck beside their pool, lounging with Co

Maybe.

We stopped.

Ben punctuated his question by aiming his flashlight. “Right, left, or straight?”

The tu

“How about we sit down right here and get a little food and water in us?” I said.

Griffin let out a big breath of air. “I’m fucking tired, Jack.”

I watched him peel the pack off, drop it, and in less than a second, Griffin was down in the dirt, stretched out, using his backpack as a pillow.

I shined my light on Ben. We were all so filthy. We looked like pictures you’d see of trapped coal miners—all dirt, teeth, and wide, haunted eyes. Without saying anything, Qui

He put his head down on the pack right next to Griffin’s, and then rolled onto his side like the kids were spooning or something. “I ain’t trying nothing, not-Ben. I’m hurt and I need to lay down.”

Griffin kept his eyes shut. “You touch me and I’ll jab my thumbs so far into your fucking eyes you’ll be looking out your asshole.”

Ben and I sat down.

I took Griffin’s map out of my pocket.

“Try to sleep if you want, Griff. Me and Ben will keep a watch out. But when I wake you up, you’re going to get your butt in gear.”

“Okay,” Griffin mumbled.

“And no complaining,” Ben said.

I dug into the pack and pulled out one of our water bottles. We passed it around. Griffin drank some.

We let Qui

I unfolded the map, and it fell apart. I had to lay the little parched rectangles together like a mosaic, flat on the dirt between my legs.

“You ever seen a map of this place before, Qui

Qui

“I never seen one, Billy. I heard about ’em, though.”

“Anything else you heard about that you’re not telling?” Ben asked.

Qui

Griffin breathed like a little boy when he slept, nasal and deep. The kid could sleep anywhere, through anything, like flipping a light switch.

I shined the light down on the puzzle of map lying in the dirt.

“Fuck this place,” I whispered.

“What do you see?” Ben leaned over, but he kept his own light pointed away from us. He was always watching.

Here was a place called Glenbrook. The streets and highway interchanges were all laid out the same. I could have drawn the identical map from memory. But nothing else outside, away from Glenbrook, was the way it was supposed to be.

Not-Glenbrook.

Ben could see it, too.

“I found a book when I came here the first time. A dictionary. I looked shit up in it.”

Ben just stared at me like I was stupid or something, like he was saying, Why the fuck would you want to expand your vocabulary when you’re in a fucking trap like this shithole?

“They didn’t have the word earth in it. No California, either.”

“You’re making shit up again, Billy,” Qui

But I could tell by the look on his face that certain things began registering with Ben.

“You know what the book said about Marbury? That it’s the third planet from the sun, that this is where humans come from, and that it has no moon.”

“Jack. You’ve seen the same shit we all have. Do you think this is home? Do you think it’s supposed to be the way you expect in your head?”

“You guys are all fucking nuts,” Qui

And Ben said, “You ever hear of California, Red?”

Qui

“If Jack wasn’t here, I’d fucking kill you.”

Ben looked up at the ceiling, then drew a circle around our spot in the dirt with his light. “Sorry, Jack.”

“It’s okay, Ben.” I leaned closer to the map, and Ben looked, too. “I promise I’ll get us home. I swear to God I will.”

“I trust you, Jack.”

There was an obvious coastline on the map. Lines that could have been highways—maybe before the war, maybe a long time ago when Marbury was some other place—co

I put my finger on it.

“You remember that place, Ben?”

“Things are different now.”

I glanced over at Qui

I whispered, “This is how we got here. I’m pretty sure we’ve gone back in time, somehow. But we also moved things around.”

“I don’t think this is Marbury, dude.”

“I saw it in the book.”

“Fuck the book.”

I sighed. “Look.” My finger traced a path toward the lower right corner of the map. “Bass-Hove. Do you remember the battle there?”

“Honestly?”

I nodded.

“No. I don’t remember anything anymore.”

“Do you remember a guy named Henry Hewitt? He was the guy who took you and Griff across the desert, and everyone in our crew except us three got slaughtered there. Remember?”

Ben looked down at the fragments of map and shook his head.

I sighed, pointed again. “This is where Co

“He knows we’re coming?”

“I promised to meet him. It’s the way we can fix the lens. I’m sure of it. We get things back—the way they were, the way they’re supposed to work out—and we can go home.”

Ben flashed his light around again. It felt colder now.

“What makes you so sure?”

I shook my head.

I didn’t know.

“There are people there, Ben. Regular people. Not Odds and Rangers. I just know it.”

“Okay, Jack. If you say so. All I care about right now is getting the fuck out of this goddamned cave.”

I sat down and scattered the leaves of the map away from me.

“Me too.”

*   *   *

Sitting, waiting, made me shiver from the cold.

Ben started to nod off, but I could tell he felt guilty about it, so fought the urge to lie down and sleep.