//------------------------------//
// Spreading the Good Word 
// Story: The Longest Highway 
// by Jay911 
//------------------------------//

OCTOBER 22
10:26 AM
62 MILES (100 KILOMETERS) SOUTH OF BEAVER CREEK, YUKON, CANADA

"Good news: No more traffic."
"Bad news..." Duncan thought for a moment. "No more hot dogs."
Max shrugged. "I'll give you that one."
Duncan nodded in return. "They were both kinda weak. Okay. Good news: Pollution is almost non-existent now."
"That's easy to follow up. Bad news: No more diesel than what's in the storage tanks."
"We did fill up, right?"
"Yeah," Max said. "I did it while you were checking the motel."
"Okay," Duncan responded. "Your turn."
Max pondered a bit for another item for their time-wasting game. "Good news: The Mariners will never miss the playoffs again."
Duncan laughed. "Talk about optimism," he said. "Okay, then. Bad news: King Felix will never make the Hall of Fame."
"Aww, now I'm sad," Max pouted, only mildly facetiously.
"Good news," Duncan said. "He'll never record another loss."
"That's better." Max pondered again. "Bad news: We gotta figure out a way to tell people what Alex told us, and not come off sounding like crazies."
"You think the physical proof won't be enough?" Duncan asked, gesturing to himself and then Max with a hoof.
"How would you react if I walked up and told you we were converted into ponies by aliens, magic is real, and you should come with me to Illinois?"
"Um, hello?" Duncan countered, again gesturing to himself.
"Okay, bad example. I still think it's gonna be a tough sell. Explain to people that everyone around them was sent ahead in time, and that's why they're all missing, and you need to change everything you know about the universe as a whole. And if you want a chance at survival, come with us."
"All right, that does sound a little iffy," Duncan conceded. "But I'm sure we'll figure it out by the time we come across someone."
"I don't know - it's not like we have a schedule," Max said. "We only have a vague statement that 'a few thousand' people-"
"Ponies."
"-ponies still exist. Somebody with access to a population distribution map and a calculator could probably figure out our odds of finding somebody, but for now, we're just stabbing in the dark."
"I hear ya. But you gotta think positive."
"Mmm," Max said noncommittally as he drove on. Changing the subject, he added, "So far we've been only driving five or six hours a day. What do you think about driving all the time the sun is up? We got about six hours to Whitehorse, which is the territorial capital. There's around eight hours of daylight today I figure, so we could get around 120 miles past there."
"Don't forget that we need some time to explore the community we stop in, service the truck, look for supplies and survivors, and so on. Probably better to do that with some light."
"Of course," Max said, smacking a hoof to his forehead. "Thanks for catching that. I'm too fixated on getting south as fast as I can."
"Not a problem," Duncan nodded. "Let's stop in Whitehorse tonight. We'll hopefully find a GPS there, and be able to figure out how far we can go and where we can stop from there on."
"Works for me," Max agreed.

Several hours down the road, Max broke the silence. "We need to add some items to the shopping list," he said.
Duncan jerked as if being awoken. "Huh? Oh, okay. What?"
"Spare parts for the truck," Max said. "Specifically tires. I'm feeling a little shimmy that might be a flat spot on the right front after I ditched it between Coldfoot and Fairbanks."
"You don't have any spares onboard?"
"Not like that," Max said, shaking his head. "Takes too much space that could be used for emergency gear. Plus, with highway trucks, it's not uncommon to have a service truck come out to just change or repair the tire right where you break down."
"I see," Duncan said, then tapped and scribbled on the tablet for a few moments. "Is it working OK otherwise?"
"Oh yeah, plenty of fuel, temps in the green," Max reassured his co-pilot. "We'll want to stock up on DEF once we hit a decent sized truck stop."
"DEF?"
"Diesel Exhaust Fluid. Newer trucks need it to meet emissions requirements."
"Do we care about emissions any more?"
Max shrugged. "Not sure if it'll run without it. Let's just be safe. Also motor oil and gear oil, spare air filters and washer fluid. Maybe even a couple spare batteries. All that kind of stuff, we need to get when we can. I'd rather carry the extra weight of it than not have any and be broken down in the middle of Canada with nobody around for a thousand miles."
"Fair enough," Duncan said.

The truck rolled on, generally southward, past villages with names like Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay. They didn't stop in every little hamlet they came across, lest their trip get extended to many months of travel; realistically, their odds being so close to zero that they'd come across another person/pony, they relied on slowing down and getting on the horn, lights, and siren as they passed, and scanning the streets to make sure any movement was noticed.
The road became gravel again, which ended up being more like hard-packed dirt with a pebbled surface. It was short-lived; apparently there was a construction zone, with some abandoned equipment left there. Max resisted the urge to siphon as much diesel as he could from the graders and paving machines - there would be plenty to get with less effort further down the road.
"Wait a minute, now we're going north again," Max said as he approached an intersection in the ghost town of Haines Junction, where Highway 1 pointed to his left.
"It's okay," Duncan said, waving a hoof while looking at the map. "Just for a bit. It bends around east and then we're in Whitehorse pretty quick."
"All right then," Max said, cranking the wheel around to the left.
True enough, the road arced east a few kilometers out of town, and then Max saw a sign that indicated Whitehorse was 154 kilometers away.
He did a little math in his head, helped along by the dual-labeled speedometer on the dash. "That's almost 100 miles," he said. "You consider that pretty quick?"
"Relatively speaking?" Duncan said with an apologetic grin. "They look pretty close on these map pages."
Max shook his head, reaffirming to himself that he had to find a GPS in the city and see if it worked.
Finally, ultimately, they arrived in the capital city of the Yukon Territory, and it was as desolate as the other places they'd visited. Not a single vehicle was on the streets, and there was no power to be had, if the traffic light on the highway was any indication. Max turned left and headed into the 'downtown' area of the small city, to find a place to lay up for the night.
"I am going to be so glad to get out and stretch my legs," he said, leaning back and wiggling them even as he spoke. "All four of 'em."
"Tell me about it," Duncan agreed. "I cramp sitting on this seat like this." He was referring to trying to sit like a human.
"So why do it? I'm the one who has to, in order to drive," Max pointed out. "Bend like your body's supposed to. Don't take pity on me."
Duncan shrugged soundlessly, and the two men fell silent while they surveyed the town. The north end of the downtown area held some shopping centers and stores, so Max wheeled over that way to find a spot to park.
"Holy -!" Duncan blurted out, and suddenly Max found a powder-blue hoof shoved into his personal space, very close to his snout.
"What the-" Max began to protest, but then looked in the direction Duncan was pointing, and spotted the house a little bit west of the downtown core. The house was a bungalow - no, an actual one-story log cabin, right here in downtown. It was surrounded, like its neighbors, by a well-kept wooden fence. The one difference about this house was the smoke rising lazily from its chimney.

"So what do we do, knock?" Duncan said, standing on the sidewalk leading to the house's front door.
"Idunno," Max shrugged. "I figured anybody alive would've come running at the sound of the truck."
"Door's open," came a voice from within, startling both ponies.
Duncan looked at Max, nodding to the door. Max nodded, and stepped forward, giving the door a tentative push.
The inside was warm and toasty, lit nicely by the windows, from which the curtains were all drawn back. A German Shepherd dog sat up, ears perking up and showing the alertness of the canine. It wasn't who had spoken, though. Sitting on a couch was a pony, with an off-white coat, green eyes, and black mane and tail. Lack of a horn indicated that he was of the same race as Max - the so-called "earth pony".
"Hello," the pony said. His voice had the slow, calm, carefree timbre of an aboriginal. "Welcome to my home."
"Hello," Max responded. "I'm Max. This is Duncan."
The pony nodded. "Jordan James," he said, "of the Southern Tutchone, before you ask." He was using his hooves and a knife to peel an apple. "Have you come far?"
"Very far," Max nodded. "Do you know what happened to the world?"
"Please, sit," Jordan said, indicating the other chairs in the room. "And don't mind Sydney. She won't bite."
Sydney had laid back down by the time she was mentioned, and looked over to the pony briefly, then returned to gazing at the fire in the fireplace.
"To answer your question," Jordan said once his guests were seated, "It would seem that an owl is loose."
Duncan looked nervously at Max.
"I speak of our legends," Jordan said evenly, waving a hoof in dismissal. "Dismiss your thoughts of the crazy old man who became a crazy old horse." He nudged some apple slices set out on paper plates towards the ponies, who accepted them. Another piece was flipped across the room to Sydney, who snapped it out of the air into her jaws with barely a movement.
Max said, "Forgive us. This is a little surreal."
"And what isn't these days?" Jordan said with a hint of a smile. "The owl has taken everyone away, and I am out of pitch." He shifted a little, setting the knife down.
"How have you survived alone here all these months?" Duncan wanted to know.
"The same way my people have survived all these thousands of years," Jordan answered plainly. "The land shares her bounty with us, and we in turn treat her well. Perhaps even better than she has been treated in my lifetime."
He's referring to the Earth 'healing' now that humans aren't assaulting it with pollution and industry, Max mused.
"It was a surprise to find that she wants us to leave the elk and the deer and the moose alone," Jordan was continuing. "Perhaps a trick of the raven, or maybe the land wishes that the animals grow plentiful and strong once more."
"You're talking about not being able to hunt and eat meat," Duncan said.
Jordan nodded the patient nod he'd used many times with the white man who needed things spelled out for them, who didn't appreciate Tutchone lore. "Tell me what your explanation of all this is."
Max leaned closer. "As strange as it may seem, the Earth has been hit by a strange radiation that was going to kill us all. But aliens-" He blinked and stuttered, realizing how bizarre it sounded coming out of his mouth. "Aliens, so we're told, changed our forms to something that could survive. And sent most of the world's population into the future for some reason - supposedly to help us make it."
Jordan listened, then nodded and smiled. "Your story and my story could easily be the same tale viewed through different eyes. The tale of the owl seems not so tall when set beside the idea of visitors from beyond this land transforming us, does it?"
Neither pony had any response to that.
"It will soon be dark," Jordan said. "I was going to go to the store and gather supper before long. It is fortunate you got here before I left."
"We don't want to intrude," Duncan protested.
Jordan fixed him with an intense stare. "We four-" he indicated the dog as well as his two guests "-are the only living souls in this city besides the wild animals. I would not turn away the only people I have talked to in twenty-three weeks."
"...If you insist," Max nodded.
"I do," Jordan said, giving a nod in return. He stepped down off the couch. "Let us go."

Max idled the truck through the deserted town, following the pony piloting a quad bike ahead of him, a dog running at his side.
"He's something else, isn't he?" Duncan said.
"That's how these folks are. The natives, I mean," Max said. "Met a lot of them up in Prudhoe. Very down-to-earth people."
They continued on in silence until they got to the Superstore parking lot. Max pulled the truck up to the fire lane as Jordan stopped his quad near the front doors.
"There's still stuff salvageable in here?" Max asked.
"Some," Jordan nodded. Sydney darted ahead at some unspoken command, ducking through a half-open door. "Not the fruits or vegetables of course, or the frozen foods. You might want to hold your breath."
Max and Duncan involuntarily gasped as they entered the building; the stench of rotting food was horrible. Jordan seemed unperturbed by it, and Sydney was long gone, scouting for dangers far ahead of the trio.
"Oh my," Duncan squeaked out, trying not to breathe too deeply.
"Luckily, the cans and boxes hold the smell at bay," Jordan said. He went to a cart sitting near the front of the store, a small flashlight lashed to the wire frame by a shoelace. He flicked the light on, then began nudging the cart forward down an aisle.
"Peaches," Jordan said, taking a can and putting it in the cart. "Pineapple." That can was taken as well. "Pears... meh. Don't like pears. Take them if you want."
Max and Duncan followed along silently, watching the pony load up his cart.
"Honey Nut Cheerios," he said after moving down another aisle. "I guess the regular ones are all gone now. Going to have to live with it, Sydney."
A whimper sounded from elsewhere in the store. Jordan called out, "I told you you should have eaten them slowly."
"We have plenty in the truck," Duncan said. "You won't have to bring much along."
"Me?" Jordan queried, then gave a short chuckle. "I'm not going anywhere."
Max blinked. "We have word of a colony down south," he began to explain. "There's lots of-"
"My people have lived here for thousands of years," Jordan explained. "If, as you claim, the owl will show mercy and return them over time, I should be here to greet them."
"How will you survive?" Duncan wanted to know.
Jordan looked over his shoulder with a smile. "The same way my ancestors survived, and those before them," he said simply.

They returned to Jordan's house with a decent-sized basket of food and supplies. Again, Jordan drove the now-laden quad, with Sydney running alongside, and the truck trailing behind.
"Are we gonna try to persuade him to go?" Duncan asked Max.
The driver shrugged. "He seems pretty set in his ways. If he's sure he's gonna make it, who are we to tell him no? Besides, to hear him tell it, he's survived here for 23 weeks. Tell you what - I'll offer him some of our supplies if he insists on staying here. We can always pick up more on the road."
"I guess that'll work," Duncan said, sounding like he was still unsure.

And so, after a candlelit supper, Max said to their host, "Thank you for the fine meal. Canned fruit isn't something we thought to bring from where we started."
"You should take some with you," Jordan suggested. "There will still be plenty left at the store by the time I tire of it."
"What will you do when the food in there is gone?" Duncan pressed. "There aren't any more deliveries coming-"
"Maybe not by truck, or airplane," Jordan smiled, "but I will be provided for."
"Can we at least leave you some things to help you get through the winter? Is there anything you're needing?" Max asked.
Jordan pondered for a moment. "My stock of firewood is running low and my chainsaw will be useless soon, with good gas in short supply. And I see you are in a fire truck..."
Max smiled. "I think we can spare an ax."

In actual fact, after a restful night inside a warm house with comfortable bedding, they spared not only an ax but one of the three comprehensive first aid kits the truck carried in its medical bay. Also, they parted with some of the MREs and bottled water that Duncan had rescued, in return for cleaning out the Superstore of powdered drink mixes, to add to their water for variety. Lastly, Max left a small notebook's worth of information - what they learned from Alex, plus the number to the truck's satphone.
"I don't have a spare phone," Max said. "But if you do manage to get a way to get in touch, call or text us and let us know how you're doing."
"Do not worry about me," Jordan smiled, shaking Max's hoof. "Sydney and I will weather this just as with everything else."
"Take care of yourself, Jordan."
"As with you, Max, and you, Duncan." At the last moment, Jordan pressed a small book into Duncan's hooves. "Some reading for the journey. Be well."

After topping off with fuel and other supplies - with the blessings of Jordan James, the sole resident of Whitehorse - Max and Duncan found themselves on the road headed south-eastish, towards the British Columbia border. It felt strange to leave someone behind, but both of them realized that not everyone would want to be dragged away from their longtime home to uncertain salvation.
"Huh," Duncan said, reading the book Jordan had passed him.
"What?" Max asked.
"It's about the Tutchone - his people," Duncan explained. "Listen to this in the section on their legends. 'Etsuya. The Traveler. A heroic monster-slayer. Frequently he uses his cleverness to defeat his enemies, at which point he transforms them into something harmless'."
Max pondered it for a moment. "Interesting, but it doesn't fit exactly."
"No, but it's really eerie, don't you think?"
"That a native people have a legend about a traveling hero?" Max countered. "I think every culture does. Doesn't it?"
"Maybe," Duncan conceded. "It just seemed prophetic to me."
"We're not heroic monster-slayers-"
"You're a firefighter. Don't you guys talk about 'slaying the dragon'?"
Max sighed. "Well, we don't transform our enemies into something else."
"No, but we were transformed into something else," Duncan said.
"Okay," Max said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes a little.

The pair found nothing of use in between Whitehorse and Watson Lake, some 275 miles down the road. They also came up empty on the next day's leg, between Watson Lake and Fort Nelson, British Columbia, another 320 miles distant.
On the evening of October 24, Max told Duncan that he wanted to stay put for a day, do some work on the truck - change the oil, make sure all the linkages were tight, and so on - and asked if he would be comfortable venturing through Fort Nelson on his own to look for supplies.
"Yeah, I can do that," Duncan nodded.
"Cool. Got the shopping list?"
"Yup, up here," Duncan said, tapping a hoof to his head.
"Excellent."
And so, on October 25, Max found himself lying under the truck in the wash bay of a truck stop, getting filthy from both the floor and the collected gunk and grime the truck had accumulated in its 1600 mile journey. Unscrewing the drain plug for the oil pan was not easy with hooves, and Max was glad he waited for the truck's motor to be a full night's worth cooled down before he ejected its contents - mostly into the used oil pan, but more than he liked onto him.
While the sump drained, he checked tire pressures, brake slack, differential fluid and power steering fluid levels, fifth wheel tightness and lubrication, and a myriad of other things important for continued operation. He did this under the light from several battery-powered tower lamps stored on the truck, so he was working with a limited amount of lighting, and had to remind himself to charge them from the generator once they moved back outside overnight.
His work time alone gave him plenty of time to think about the journey, both already gone by and yet to come. Getting south as quickly as possible was his ideal goal; not that he had anything against Canada, but getting into CONUS would put him into familiar territory on US highways. And Canada, with its one-tenth the population of the United States, by definition gave him and Duncan only a 10% chance of finding others compared to what they'd find in America.
They hadn't found a GPS yet, and had forgotten to ask Jordan James about the device back in the city of Whitehorse, where it was likely they'd've found one. Duncan was under strict orders to find one on his scavenger hunt, along with 'the usual stuff', meaning foodstuffs, tools and equipment, anything unusual that looked handy, and of course, the items on Alex the pony from Paris's list.
If they found anything that wouldn't fit into the cab or trailer, Max had another idea, but it would take some luck and fortune to make it happen. The back of the trailer had hitches and air and electrical connections on it, as many trailers do, allowing the truck to pull a second trailer. In fact, a lot of long-haul drivers would pull three - and there were the stories from Australia of the road trains, pulling five or more full-sized trailers across the outback. Max was sure the tractor could take the strain of one more trailer and maybe another, and he was reasonably sure of his skill in pulling two trailers behind the big rig - though three would be only done if it was absolutely necessary.
What they would need to find was a trailer, either a flatbed or an empty van, and a 'dolly', which hooked up to the hitches at the rear of the fire truck's trailer and provided a fifth-wheel attachment for the new trailer to hook on to. So instead of an eighty-foot-long 18-wheeler, Max would be in control of a nearly 140-foot, 34-wheeled monstrosity - if they only added one more trailer and the dolly.
Max wriggled back under the truck and put the drain plug back in, tightening it up, then lay there on his bony, pony spine for a moment. What have I gotten myself into? he wondered, for a fleeting moment.
Then he decided, You're just responding to an emergency situation. The biggest emergency situation of your career. Nothing new. He glanced at the hooves holding the oil filter wrench over him. This makes no difference. Not at all. You've proven in eight days over 1600 miles that you can do what needs to be done.

It was late afternoon when Duncan came back. He pounded on the door of the truck stop in a rhythmic beat, something he'd insisted on so Max would know it was him; hugely unnecessary, Max figured. Even if a pony with a Bowie knife covered in blood ran to the door, Max would probably at least talk to him.
"Hey," Duncan said, wedging his way through the door, with something draped over his back. "Check out what I found at an outfitters' shop."
"Saddlebags?" Max questioned, looking impressed. "And fit for our size, to boot."
"Well, they're intended for pack mules, or something like that, I think. I remember hearing once that there's still a use for them in remote hunting and prospecting. I got you a set, too, they're underneath this one." True enough, a set of bags were against Duncan's barrel, under the ones that were stuffed full.
"You got some good haul too?" Max said, nodding to the bags' contents.
"Yes, including the precious GPS," Duncan said, "though I had to break a truck's window to get it. I feel bad about that, but then I guess the driver isn't around to mind."
"Until he reappears after getting sent forward in time, and finds his truck ransacked, and nobody at the insurance company to take his claim," Max quipped, helping unbuckle the bags. "What else ya got in here?"
"A bunch of canned and boxed food, thankfully from another semi-truck - no meat or milk to spoil and stink it up like the store back in Whitehorse. Some utensils and pots and pans, because I got some mac 'n' cheese, or at least the Canadian version. More batteries - I figure we should grab all of them everywhere we go, right?"
"Right," Max agreed. "Anything from the pony's list?"
"You know, there's a surprising dearth of wind turbines or farm tractors up here?" Duncan grinned with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Seeds are in short supply here too, but there's still lots of road to travel to find any of this stuff."
"That's okay," Max said. "Good haul. Let's stuff it all into the trailer somewhere, make some-" He looked at the box. "Kraft Dinner for, well, dinner, and plan out the rest of our drive, then get our heads down for some sleep before we get on the road tomorrow."
"I'm all for that," Duncan said, slowly trudging toward the trailer's access door.
"Hey, thanks for doing this today, pal. I know you must be beat."
Duncan smiled thinly, trying to dismiss the insinuation, even though it was obvious it was the truth. "No big deal," he said. "We gotta stick together and pull our weight, right?"
Max lunged to his hind legs, grabbed the handle for the door, and hauled it open for his partner. "Get in there, Doc, and thanks."

And so, at half-past-eight in the morning on October 26, North Slope Fire District Rescue Support 30 pulled out of Fort Nelson, BC, and turned south, aiming for Fort St John, BC, 240 miles down British Columbia Highway 97.
Max grabbed the radio as they passed Muskwa, a couple of miles south of Fort Nelson, and called out on it, trying to get back in the practice of announcing his presence, in the hopes that someone might answer.
As with every time except when Duncan had answered him, there was no reply. But Max figured his luck would soon turn in his favor.