End of the World, Start of My Empire novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Mesa Road
Thirty trucks left the Yard gate at first light, nose to tail, with no lights and no horns.
I had never seen so many engines running at once.
Farmers drove them, and laundry women, and boys too young to shave.
The old man with the white beard rode in the lead flatbed with his shotgun across his knees.
My mother stood at the gate with a dish towel over her shoulder.
She did not wave.
She only nodded once, the way she had nodded when I left for school.
Tova took the point in the Tax truck, two lengths ahead of everyone.
Hallie rode with me in the middle of the line.
"Rule two," Hallie said, watching the truck ahead. "She's too far."
"She knows."
"Does she?"
The road to Black Mesa left the highway at a dry wash and rose in four hard switchbacks along a face of rust-colored rock.
We hit the first one at dawn.
Tova's brake lights flared.
The whole line stopped.
On the ridge above the second turn, a dozen shapes moved against the sky, and then the ridge itself began to move.
"Rocks," said Hallie.
They came down in a gray roar, boulders the size of cars, skipping off the cliff and cartwheeling across the road.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of End of the World, Start of My Empire are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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