Down Jersey Drive-shaft

Chapter Thirty: The Scenic Route to the End Times

There is a lonesome road at the edge of Fort Mott. It is devoid of welcome, lacking in hospitality. La Donna cruises down it with care, as if the road is hiding something. On her right, trees dwell in silence. To the left are the ubiquitous reeds of the Down Jersey, the telltale sign that the Delaware River is right on the other side. During the rains, this uncared for, cracked road is probe to flooding. At the current hour, night fallen, many deep puddles are made visible  by the headlights. Crank drives ahead as scout, gripping the wheel, biting her lip. She knows a truck is right behind her, a truck holding Fuse, Goldman and Willis, each man girded for the last war. But she's first, her special ride outfitted with an open grill to let out the white essence of the dimensional device they all barely understand. On she goes, reaching and passing the narrow opening between a wall of bleak stone to their destination.

Finn's Point Cemetery.

The Point is a closed in realm of dead silence. Manicured grass. Headstones in off white in uniform rows. A passive house with a double roof rests off to the back right. At the left is a marble portico, and farther back, an obelisk with plaques at its base. Once upon a nightmare called the Civil War, Confederate men who died in the prison known as Fort Delaware were buried here. Supposedly, some Nazis held at the DuPont estate are six feet under this earth as well.

But as this brief convoy rolls in to the gruesome sounds of shelling in the river, it's not graves they seek, and paying respects, sadly, will have to wait. The road to Motherville is this way.

"There. Past the obelisk. See it?" Crank puts Fuse's rigged headsets to use. They reveal a tumultuous atrocity. The Black Road. Over the reeds and smattering of trees, busting through the stone wall at the other end of this memorial field it rests on the rubble. Smooth. Charcoal. Seamless. Stare at it long enough, and you can even see it undulate, carbon waves and rolls enough to sicken the stomach. No birds chirp. No owls stir, nor do bats fly by. Stillness.

The G-505 passenger door creaks open as Roy gets out. "Such passive beauty, ruined." He wanders up onto the cut grass, observes no lights are on at the house. Roy meanders beyond the circular marble idol to the brave of the American Civil War, creeps between jutting fossil white headstones. "Is it, moving?"

"What's the holdup?" Static initiates and ends the inquiry from Benny as Milkman growls overhead.

Crank adjusts her aluminum headset. "Oh, nothing much. Just our first time observing a living street."

After Milkman, the thunderous engine of Jack, as Parks calls it, passes by at four hundred feet. "I don't know about you, but y'all might wanna drive over it before she works up an appetite."

"Taking heavy fire! Repeatzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing zzzzzzzzzfire!" The outcry came from--

"Wilkes!" From the ground, the caravan can hear Milkman roll hard toward Pea Patch. "Gotta go! No time for delays! We do this now!"

                                                                                             ***

"Are you sure about this?" Roscoe Turner strokes the Helldiver as if it's his pet. "I mean, I've used the M2 for some time now, know all of her nooks and crannies. You're a pilot after all." He manages a finger snap at his soon-to-be partner in the raid on the island.

Carson Wilkes climbs into the tank, clutches the hatch. "So are you, Mister Turner. Besides, I like the weight of this old girl."

"Fine. And it's Roscoe. We should be on a first name basis seeing as how we're going into the lions' den together.'