Hope's Ruin

16 | Remains Of The Day

At dusk they loaded Pluto and headed off across The Great Wastes. Twelve's tracks led around the tip of the mountain where Jack and Tomas were exiled. The followed for hours, Pluto coughing and spluttering infrequently as Erin bounced in the seat and wrestled the gears.

They slept in shifts that night with no shelter other than the canvas tent. The desert stretched towards infinity in every direction. Clouds glared down, ever-watchful.

Skeletons of machinery freckled the landscape. An olive and cream camper van. A handful of washing machines and refrigerators. Splinters of plastic tubing. A cast iron safe. Even the remains of an enormous yacht, beach and boned like a whale carcass.

Pepper wondered where all the people were.

Sure, they'd passed hundreds of bodies along the way. Bones and rags all bundled together in heat-soaked piles. They made Pepper's skin crawl.

But there were only hundreds of them.

The world had lost billions.

Where were the rest?

The water must have taken them all with it, Pepper supposed. Like pebbles from one shore to the next.

Billions of pebbles.

Billions of bones.

Pepper shuddered.

Pluto belched.

Black smoke erupted from the exhaust.

Erin slammed on the brakes.

The cabin door flew open.

"What is it?" Marshall said, hurrying round to Pepper's side.

"Sounds like the combustion system is getting clogged," said Pepper, glad of the distraction. "I could try and clean some of it out, but we'd really need to—"

"It's not Pluto," Erin said.

Pepper and Marshall exchanged curious glances.

Erin pointed.

Socks howled.

Pepper turned and looked.

Three ominous hills rose from the desert. Stone teeth cluttered the hillside. Scaffold summits on each. A warning. A reminder.

"BootHill," Erin whispered.

"Why has Twelve come to this horrible place?"

"She's just passing," Erin said. "On her way to—"

Marshall caught Pepper's eye again.

"Yes, just where do you think Twelve is actually going?"

Erin stared at the dark hills.

"There's nothing here," he told her. "And beyond this? More of the same. If Pepper's right, there's a cave system to the west and a township in disarray further north. What would Twelve want with those?"

"What would she want with BootHill?" Erin bit.

"Revenge? Closure?" Marshall said, unsure. "A connection to her sisters."

Erin gripped her pigtails in both hands and yanked them repeatedly.

"It's okay," Marshall said, soothingly. "She'll be okay."

"Will she?" Erin spat. Tears welled in her eyes. "She should be safe and sound on her cross at Coldharbour Farm. With me. And you. And Thirteen."

"And we should be back there now," Marshall tried. "Eating nettle soup and casserole and trying to forget about all the unpleasantness that lives beyond the farmyard fence."