Day 9
I looked over the fallen log. I swore.
I looked back at the map. I swore again.
In addition to the burner phone, Jared had given AJ and me a pretty detailed map of the Upstate New York area. We could anticipate forests, preserves, back roads and all kinds of useful markers. Handy when you’re a cowpony on the run without GPS.
No two ways about it, we gotta go’ through the town.
“Why not around it?” I asked, looking at the surrounding fields on the map.
We’ll lose a whole day.
“So? I thought we were just getting you to New York. You didn’t say anything about a deadline.”
Got a bad feelin’. We need to get there as quick as we can.
I sighed, rolling my eyes. AJ had just proven that even with all her experience and wisdom, she was willing to fall back on “bad feelings.” I don’t care how spot on they are, “bad feelings” are for movies and morons.
“Look, if all you have is a ‘bad feelin’’ then congrats. I don’t see the weight of the One Ring about my neck egging me on, so we’re going around,” I said.
I closed the map and was about to put it away when my legs locked.
Scrunching my eyes, I said, “Really?”
I ain’t Pinkie Pie, but I got good instincts and I listen to ‘em. We need to get to this city o’ yers and be quick about it.
I sighed again. I could argue with the dumb, “bad feelin’” pony about how utterly wrong she was, or we could just go through the town. One meant me being kind of frozen in a forest while I explained her wrongness, the other meant we made some kind of forward motion. While we were hidden in the forest, I didn’t want to dawdle too long in one space forever.
In the end, my urge to keep moving won out over my urge to be right. And had nothing to do with “bad feelings” either.
“Fine,” I said.
My legs unlocked and I could move again.
“Thought you said you were gonna be all respectful about the body,” I said, picking up the map and tucking it in the mouse-with-a-flower backpack.
I didn’t do more than put my hoof on your withers and you know it, she countered.
“You locked my freaking legs,” I grumbled. “And I wanna point out I didn’t even know what withers were till I met you.”
Nothin’ wrong with learnin’ somethin’ new, she chided in her “mom” voice. Hay, my friend Twi’s always excited about that kinda thing.
I then got the impression of AJ doing something. Like she was looking me up and down. How I could tell this when she was the one without a body, I have no idea. My life.
You two kinda have a bit in common, y’know? she said.
“Yeah?” I said.
Yeah.
Then I remembered Twilight Sparkle.
From my own viewings of Friendship is Magic, I knew Twilight was the leader, or whatever, of the ponies and a fellow book nerd (props to that), but otherwise, she was just a character in a show. Then AJ did whatever she did in my head, and suddenly, my knowledge went a lot deeper. And what was weirdest was how it felt like it all happened to me.
I remembered sitting with Twilight on a ridge watching the stars. I remembered when we read the same book about farming techniques. I remembered her trying to coach me in some new-fangled budgetin’ ideas.
I remembered an entire friend I never met from a life I never had. Something in me twitched, wailing at this potential loss of identity. Yet, the rest of me swelled in pride. I got AJ’s perspective on Twilight, and it was filled with respect.
And she said we had a bit in common. I had never been so flattered to be compared to a purple unicorn with nerdier book habits than me.
“Jesus!” I hissed, a bit overwhelmed by the sudden influx of information. I held a hoof to my chest. “How did you-?”
Same way I learned about Max and all, only in reverse. Just thought about it and includin’ you.
I worked on getting my breathing in order. The memories were surfacing and splashing around, crowding my short term recollection and making it momentarily hard to think straight. One particular memory welled up and I knew AJ was experiencing it in just as much detail as I was.
Emotion swelled up in me and I had to sit for a second. My chest tightened slightly and my eyes got watery.
“She...” I started, too stunned to form words.
Yeah, she did. It was a kindness. Normally, Dash’d spend that day with me, but she was busy and Twilight asked. She was mighty kind about it.
The memory came again, less intense and more just recall, and I could feel Twilight’s forearm wrapped around my back. I looked at my parents’ grave. It was a small, practical thing without heavy adornment. Not even an epitaph. That was apparently a human thing. Their cutie marks were over their names. The dates they lived, below.
I took a moment to remind myself that Doug and Maggie Shelton were alive last I checked. Dad making rocket engines for rocket scientists and Mom terrorizing high school students. It was bizarre. I felt the loss and permanence of my parents all at the same time.
Is that where I was? Alive and dead all at once?
“I didn’t know,” I said, finally finding my mouth.
Ya didn’t ask.
“I’m sorry.” I wiped at my eyes with a fetlock.
No need t’be. Hay, I don’t really think about it myself most of the time. Just miss ‘em is all.
AJ wasn’t lying, really, but she was downplaying the ache. The empty space where her mom and dad were supposed to be. Her grandma had helped her growing up, and she had a brother and a younger sister and a mess of friends that gave her all the love she could ever want, but... She missed her mom. She missed her dad. It was just a familiar missing at this point and she could live with it.
Appreciate the kind words, though, she added.
What do you say to that? My parents were alive and hardy. We weren’t some perfect family, but we were all still there.
And it occurred to me then, that AJ wasn’t dangling her pain over me. She simply acknowledged her parents were gone and she missed them. It was part of her life and she lived it. She didn’t wear it like a badge and she didn’t use it to guilt me about my own parents, who she most likely knew all about since she was living in my head.
Something resolved in me. When all this mess was over, I planned on talking to Mom and Dad. Maybe not enough to magically make it all better, but get started. Dad and I had our bonding time, so just ask about doing that more. And I could start doing something with Mom. Like, share books or something. She’s the one who got me into reading.
Of course, this all hinged on getting back home. Or getting my body back. If my body was even still alive.
Adjusting my hat, I settled the backpack and took a steadying breath. I couldn’t speak to AJ’s pain. What I could do was get us through this town. Maybe with a minimum of bitching too.
Stepping out of the treeline, I came out on a sidewalk beside a road the map indicated would take me through the town square. The town didn’t really have a name that I could see. And that was if you wanted to be generous and call it a town.
Places like it remind me of tourists and people who go- New York, it’s just one big city, right? Yeah. Till you go upstate and learn the big city is actually in a state that has its boonies too.
This town was certainly pushing for the stereotype. Houses a stone’s throw from each other, all wood-built and painted white or brown, and looked like they were made fifty years earlier. The sidewalk was more of an idea than a reality.
For my part, I kept as inconspicuous as I could, but I was a freakin’ pony with freakin’ apples on my freakin’ butt. I could only get so invisible. Granted, this also applied to the townspeople. The space between the houses gave me enough time to see someone and them to see me and so far, it had been empty. Quiet.
Till I saw a guy on his porch. Whittlin’. I didn’t even know people still did that.
“Maybe I should take the hat off,” I muttered. “Look like a wandering horse with a backpack.”
Take off Liana? What would Carrie think?
Freakin’ guilt-tripping, mom ponies, rassum frassum.
I caught the attention of the guy whittlin’ on the porch. He watched me pass, so I did the only thing I could think of. I tipped my hat at him as I passed.
He nodded back, returned to whittlin’.
“I can’t believe that worked,” I said.
He’s farm folk. He gets it.
While the town itself wasn’t really that big, I could see how going around, in the forest, would have taken longer. Farmland stretched back from random houses, forming a generous, and kind of pretty, perimeter. Trotting past them, it occurred to me that I’d never really looked at crops before. Outside of when I was a kid, staring blankly out the window on car trips, farmland was just background. Now, it was different somehow. It looked... Peaceful, reassuring.
“Is that you?” I asked.
I’m a farmer. Whaddya think?
I almost rolled my eyes, but then I looked back to the crops. That reassuring calm settled within me.
“Okay. I can see the appeal now.”
Much obliged, she chuckled.
The farmland gave way to houses built closer together with the same old-timey look, but also a rundown quality too. Like more than time had worn on them. I considered this as we approached the town square, till I felt nausea rising up in me.
I blinked. I’d been catching a smell off and on since we crossed the divide. It wasn’t official. Just a point where you could tell here be town, and there be farmers. I knew the smell was roadkill, but I’d never smelled any that bad before. Was it my nose or...
“AJ? You okay?” I said.
Jus’ not used to “roadkill.” That’s all. Her voice sounded strained. Like she was equal parts upset and sick, and trying to hide both.
I looked over and easily found splattered guts. It wasn’t a squirrel either. I realized I’d been passing squished dogs and other “domestic” critters.
Don’t y’all... Take care of yer pets? Like Max?
“Most of us do,” I said, noting a pooch with a proper collar leaning out of a fence at me. “But there’s always exceptions...”
An’ out here to boot! she went on, either not hearing me or not believing it. These folk are closer to the land! They’re to know better!
“I don’t think these people are all farmers like you are AJ,” I said, my voice tired, my heart heavy.
You know that busted places exist. Places where not enough people give a damn so it all falls to crap. One thing to know about them, another to wander through dog-kill alley and try to tell your friend, who’s still learning about humanity, that it’s just an isolated thing. That this isn’t really that prevalent. That people are okay, you know?
Rather than try to swallow that, I focused on Max. And Carrie. And Jared. Reasons to keep walking, rather than stop walking and wonder how much humanity I wanted to claim.
In an effort to cut down on my visibility, and maybe to cut down on what was visible to me, I went behind the shopping centers. Roadkill aside, one whittlin’ dude was fine, but I was pushing my luck in case Matthews rolled through here. The less people who spied an orange pony with apples on its butt, the better.
I’d gotten an okay look from a distance and the town center reminded me of 1980s Hill Valley from Back to the Future: all half alive and limping along. Getting up close just confirmed this. Even from behind the shops, I could see many were abandoned, squatters’ spots. Most likely homeless on the way through. Debris and bits of paper and torn open back doors were the rule.
“I think we’re in part of the Rust Belt,” I said.
The who now?
“My Dad told me about it. It’s this term that got popular in the eighties. The whole area used to be a big factory along with the farming. From, like, up in Maine all the way to Wisconsin there’d be factories making all kinds of steel-based stuff. Before it went bust, it was called the Steel Belt.”
You sure know a lot about this.
“Dad got me curious, so I looked it up on Wikipedia one night. Anyway. Progress happened, we shipped a bunch of jobs overseas and machines replaced a bunch more locally, so the whole area went bust. Jobs lost left and right, whole towns disappeared. Big, bad news.”
I stepped over more garbage.
“And this wasn’t recent either. Most of the area was dried up by the sixties. Upstate New York was totally part of the hard-hit group. But I never thought anything would still be around. I figured everything’d be gone by now...”
Clearly, not the case.
I stepped over forlorn signs advertising from the fifties and seventies. I walked past quaint, brick buildings built in a prime long since passed. Living in or near a thriving city, you get used to most things that go out of business getting built over. This far out... It looked like they’d just have to wait till the weeds won.
As we passed a garbage can, a dog poked its head out at us. I moved a little slower when our eyes met.
“Easy there,” I said. “Just passing by.”
It pricked its ears at me and came out. I had never seen a dog so skinny in my life. It was small too. Not in the weiner dog or beagle way, but small like it wasn’t fully grown with big paws and big ears. It had gray-brown fur that was grayer in some spots and browner in others and ears that perked up and didn’t look like any breed I knew.
I can’t do this, AJ said, quietly. Rust Belt, roadkill, I’m sorry, Rae, I...
Before the pony could do anything drastic, I flipped the mouse-with-a-flower pack off me.
“Hey there... Fella?” I said.
The dog cocked its head at me and shook it.
“Oh. Lady?”
She wagged her tail.
I smiled. “Want something to eat?”
That really got her attention and she came over to me. She reeked. I angled my head a bit away and went through my bag. After a little searching, I figured water and pretzels with cheese in them would work best.
Looking around, I found a trash can lid and dragged it over. The dog watched me curiously. I ignored the fact she was waiting patiently, and being attentive like no dog I’ve ever met in the history of ever. The experience was kinda like Max’ ferret, Omega. Maybe I should ask AJ about this?
I poured the water from the bottle and spread the cheese pretzels next to it, then stepped back, smiling.
“Dig in,” I said.
So she did. Heartily.
Watching the dog eat actually made me hungry, so I took out a granola bar for myself. I wasn’t too, too worried about the loss of the bottled water and pretzels. I still had a decent amount of food and a canteen, which I could fill in a stream and boil out anything nasty if need be. This dog needed more than food though.
“Got a name, girl?” I asked.
She looked up from her unexpected boon and gave me a blank look. I got the impression most folk called her girl, or lady or dog. With a very doggy shrug, she went back to eating.
I continued watching her. Thinking about her smell. Thinking about the puppy-sized roadkill that littered the road in. Something hardened in me.
What’re you thinkin’? AJ asked.
“Something dumb,” I said.
Ten minutes later, I was the unofficial caretaker for one full-stomached dog. She trotted happily beside me without leash nor even the hard promise of food. I kept glancing at her and was boggled it was working out like this.
Mighty proud of you right now, AJ said.
“Yeah,” I snorted. “We’ll feel super proud when we’re both starving because we have to feed wonder-mutt here.”
Sam cocked her head at me.
“Just a nickname, Sam.”
She wagged her tail.
“We’ll have to get her fixed...” I muttered, thinking aloud. “A check-up. Definitely a bath of some kind.” I sniffed myself. “Woo. Make that two baths.”
Cocking my head as if AJ were just above the hat’s brim, I said, “Will your precious schedule allow for a pit stop at a veterinarian’s clinic?”
We’ll see what we can do, she said, laughter in her voice.
I laughed with her, rolling my eyes. I proposed making it easy on us and she focused on her gut feeling. I proposed making it easier on the dog and she’s all about that.
“You’re not really big on you, are ya?” I said.
I’m doin’ fine, she replied. Critters in need, or anypony needin’ a hoof up? Then I don’t see why I can’t reach my hoof out to help.
“What about you?”
What about me?
“I mean, what happens when you’re over your head and there’s no one there to help you because you’ve helped everypony else.”
She was quiet. As if the thought had never occurred to her. Before I could say “gotcha” though, she said, Well, I reckon I’d have my friends near and they feel the same way.
“I give up,” I said, shaking my head.
An’ technically, I always have a friend in you, Rae, so I’m never really alone. Kinda nice when you think about it.
As the implications of that sunk in, I heard the squeal of tires behind me. Turning, I saw a dented, white pickup truck that looked like it had seen better days. Screeching to a halt, it slid off the road into the grass at an angle. I looked down at my hooves. I was still on the sidewalk. I wasn’t that in the way.
The truck corrected its angle and pulled correctly to the side. Figuring they just got spooked by the pony with the cowboy hat, backpack and dog, I checked the street number. I grinned, seeing that we were almost clear of the town. I didn’t like feeling so exposed.
“Hold it right there!”
I looked back over my shoulder and found a shotgun pointed at me.
I closed my eyes.
“This just ain’t my day,” I drawled.