All That's Left Behind - ronance

chapter 10

That night feels crowded. They (meaning Robin) decide that it’s not safe to sleep in the open, so they park the truck in an abandoned barn and settle into clumsy sleeping arrangements. Robin ends up in her usual spot in the driver’s seat, Billy in the passenger’s seat, Nancy in the back, and Dustin and Lucas in the truck bed. (They only agreed to sleep back there if Robin let them barricade the barn door for no reason.)

Billy had insisted that he and Nancy switch places before Robin could. He’d climbed into the front, met Robin’s eyes, and a silent understanding came over them. Later. He slept at an odd angle, twisted with his front to Robin in obviously distrust. Robin kind of wants to tell him she would rather have Billy awake when she punches him, but she likes the idea of Billy keeping one eye open.

Robin glances back at Nancy, pale and twitchy in her sleep, faint rust-colored smudge on her temple, and is surprised to realize that the steady thrum of Max, Max, Max in the back of her head is now overlaying another: Nancy, Nancy, Nancy.

*****

In the morning Robin muscles are hell. Billy is slumped in his seat, neck bent uncomfortably. In the back Nancy is turned away from Robin, but she seems peaceful. When she hops out of the truck she finds Dustin and Lucas snoring, lying head to feet. Lucas is hugging Dustin’s shoe.

She checks outside carefully. There are a couple of stiffs wandering around the burned house that had once accompanied the barn, but they haven’t figured out how to climb over things, so she heads back inside. Her achiness is persistent, and she’s grumpy when she shakes the others awake. But Nancy’s cheeks are pinker and her eyes are brighter and when she smiles at Robin she forgets about the discomfort for a while.

As she drives she reaches down to touch the spine of the book Nancy had given her, crammed between the seat and the door, and feels suddenly very warm.

*****

Dustin and Lucas know every single word to “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Robin wants to join in with them. But she doesn’t. She can tell Nancy could do with the silence so instead she waits until one of them has to piss badly enough that she’s forced to stop, and then watches as Nancy enjoys the silence with her eyes closed.

“Hey,” says Lucas suddenly. Robin sighs. So much for silence. If she has to listen to another account of the time Dustin projectile-vomited on a rollercoaster, she’s going to projectile-vomit. “Hey,” says Lucas again, “I know this girl.”

Robin’s heart jolts, and she whips around. Lucas is holding the picture of Max — he must have snatched it out of its usual spot. “What?” Robin demands.

“What?” Nancy says.

Lucas shows the picture to Dustin as he gets back in the car. “Isn’t this that girl we saw in Ohio?” he asks.

Dustin stares at it. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, she was older, but that’s her.”

Billy peers at the picture over Dustin’s shoulder. “She had a boy's name.”

“Max,” says Lucas and Robin at the same time. They stare at each other. Nancy adds on quietly "Max is gender neutral" with a roll of her eyes.

Robin bursts into rapid speech. “Was she okay? Where was she going? Who was she with? Did she look like she's been eating? Or- or if she had got bitten?" Her mind runs wild with more questions, a frenzied drum beat of Max, Max, Max taking over.

Billy blinks at Robin. Lucas and Dustin hear the urgency and desperation in her voice. “Weird crowd,” Lucas says quickly.

“They wouldn’t tell us where they were going,” Dustin adds. “But when they left, they went east.”