//------------------------------//
// Boiled Over 
// Story: The Longest Highway 
// by Jay911 
//------------------------------//

OCTOBER 30
07:58 AM

They'd not been on the road for an hour when Kate's latest bright idea came forth.
"You should teach me to drive the truck," she told Max.
"Ah ha ha ha," he said, deliberately making the laughs sound forced. "Not only no, but hell no."
"What?! Give me one good reason why not!"
"Do you even have a learners' permit?" he said to her.
She sneered, "When you guys picked me up, you said the law didn't matter any more."
Duncan snickered. "She's kinda got you there," he said.
"You're not helping," Max said.
"No, seriously, tell me why this is a bad idea," Kate insisted.
"Kid, I'm driving a truck that's now longer than your home town," he began.
Kate delivered a jab to his ribcage for calling her 'kid'. "All the more reason for me to learn how to handle it properly. For both of us, really," she added, indicating Duncan.
"Hey, I'm happy to just passenge the whole trip," he said, holding his hooves up in a defensive posture.
Kate pressed on. "What if you get sick? Or too tired to go on? Wouldn't you like to have a rest once in a while?"
"If I'm tired, we break for the day," Max stubbornly said. "If I get sick, help me get better enough to drive."
Kate sat back down in her usual spot, hmph'ing. "I still think it's a smart idea," she said.
"Kate, this isn't a snowmobile or dog sled or whatever you're used to- ow!"
"Keep it up, smartass!" she snarled at him, lowering her hoof again.
"Dude, that one was uncalled for," Duncan acknowledged. "Hell, you come from even further north than either of us. In fact, only jolly old elves live further north than you did. Did either or both of you need to stop and make some coffee, or take an anti-cranky pill maybe?"
The truck was silent for a few moments, except for the road noise and the engine. Finally, Max broke the ice. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Calgary was a real letdown for me."
"I get you," Kate responded just as sullenly. "I'm sorry too."
Duncan's eyes wandered until they settled on a blinking light on the satphone. "Hey, there's a message waiting." He snatched up a pen and turned on the display.

Feeling dangerous, do not approach under any circumstances! Indicates presence of hostile entities.

"Nice!" Kate said sarcastically. "Perfect timing."
"What the hell are 'hostile entities'?" Max wondered aloud.
"Well, y'know..." Duncan said, shrugging. "Bad guys."
"With this few people left in the world, how are there any bad guys left?"
"Do you think no gang members came back?" Kate suggested. "Criminals?"
Duncan shuddered. "Criminals locked in cells coming back... that'd be a bad end."
"Or people in hospital," Kate said, before remembering they'd brought up that very issue the day before in Calgary.
"It's all behind us," Max said. "Literally. Let's try to keep looking forward."
"Right," the other two agreed, nodding.
The truck blew through a town that straddled the middle of the freeway, literally - the southbound lanes were separated from the northbound by about three blocks of 'downtown' Nanton. Max was tempted to stop at the Flying J at the south end of town, but their tanks were all but full still, having only left Calgary an hour before.
"What else is on this road?" Max asked, more out of curiosity and filling time than anything else.
Duncan scrolled on the GPS display with a pen. "Let's see. Stavely. Claresholm. Granum. Fort Macleod. Oh, hang on, gotta zoom out - this road dead-ends at Fort Macleod."
"What? I thought this went right to the border."
"Hang on, I'm lookin'. Oh! Ha, we could turn left right now and go to Vulcan."
"Seriously?" Max leaned over to look.
"It'd be illogical to lie to you, Captain."
"Yeah, they have a spaceship there and everything," Kate chimed in. "Spock visited, too. The actor, I mean."
"I have to update that list of attractions to come visit once we get settled," Duncan mused as he continued to scroll. "East is better than west, right?"
"Absolutely," Max said.
"Okay, so at Fort Macleod, turn east onto route 3, then you get to a city called Lethbridge after a few dozen miles. Then we..." Duncan trailed off yet again as he scrolled. "Aha, there we go. Route 4 brings us to Montana via a bunch of little towns on both sides of the border, and you can go down the I-15 to Great Falls."
"How long to Great Falls?" Max wanted to know.
"Let me put that in." Duncan fiddled with the controls for a few moments. "About four hours."
"Do you want to stop in this Lethbridge place to see if there's anybody around, or some supplies, and shoot for Great Falls for tonight?"
"Sure," Duncan said.
"Fine by me," Kate piped up.
"Okay, then," Max said. "Lay in a course, Number One, and make it so."
"That's 'engage'," Duncan smirked, tapping on the GPS.
"Whatever."

"You ever think of changing this over to biofuel?" Duncan asked a while later.
"What, like french fry grease?" Max responded.
"Yeah. Eventually it's probably going to be easier to find that than diesel."
"Plus, you have french fries," Kate supplied, smiling.
"We'd need a metric buttload of grease, I think, wouldn't we? I mean, I put 300 gallons of diesel on the truck every time we stop. I can't imagine you would get near that amount of grease unless you cleaned out every restaurant in a town."
"Just an idea," Duncan said. "Like I said, it might become worth it in the long- whoa!"
Max and Kate looked over to where Duncan was pointing, to their left. A ball of flame was erupting from a farm just off the highway.
"Holy shit," Max cursed. He let his hoof off the accelerator, and then after an instant, switched it to the brake and decelerated hard.
"Do you think there's somepony over there?" Kate asked, leaning forward onto the center console to see.
"Things are probably stable enough to not spontaneously explode," Duncan nodded, wrapping his forelegs around the seat belt as Max put the truck into a hard left turn at the next cross road.
It took them a few minutes to double back and stop on the side of Highway 2. Rather than work their way to yet another cross road and navigate down sideroads and the frontage road, they just parked the truck and leapt two or three fences.
Kate was the first one to the scene, seeing as how her travel was unhindered - she just leapt from the truck's window, as usual, and flew directly to the still-burning propane tank. It was a large tank, or had been, before it exploded in flames. The house, barn, outbuildings, and several vehicles and pieces of farm machinery were all heavily damaged and burning.
Max and Duncan came to an abrupt halt in the farmyard, having leapt the Texas gate that led from the frontage road, but now being held back by flames. It was impossible to tell if there was any overt cause for the blast.
Max felt himself slipping back into the job he'd had wrested from him two weeks previous. He silently berated himself for not slipping into turnout gear before leaving the truck, so he could at least have some protection from the flames as he searched.
He didn't need to do much searching, though; it was handled for him. "There's a pony over here!!" came a shout from above. The two stallions looked up to see Kate frantically gesturing between the house and the barn.
"We gotta go through," Max said to Duncan, facing the clichéd wall of flames. He looked at the other pony. "I won't blame you if you stay back here. Actually, that might be better. Gives me a voice to backtrack to. Okay?"
"If you say so," Duncan said with a wild, frightened look on his face. "Be careful."
Max nodded and looked up at the pegasus above. "Which direction?!" he yelled.
"To your right a bit!" she called back. "Yeah, there!"
Max lowered his head and ran forward. In all his years on the job, he'd been in genuine burning buildings three times, and every time, he was encapsulated head-to-toe, with protective gear and breathing air, a partner, and the protection of a hose line. Never had he found a victim during one of those 'interior attacks'.
Now he was going to a person in definite need of rescue, with none of that equipment.
He leapt as he reached the wall of flame, feeling it sting him briefly as he passed over it. The smoke obscured his vision, so he got down to the dirt and crawled on his belly.
"Almost there!" he could barely hear over the noise of the items still burning, hissing and creaking and crackling as they off-gassed and combusted.
Then he saw a red pony limb materialize out of the haze. A stallion, smaller than him, but still of adult age, lay on the ground, unmoving. His coat was indeed red, but it was hard to tell what was colored fur and what was injured, burnt flesh. His blond mane and tail were also singed.
"Buddy! Can you hear me?" Max said, crouching down and shouting in the pony's ears, coughing from the smoke as he did so. The pony remained still and silent.
Max made a decision and put his head down to the dirt, trying to wedge himself between the stallion's belly and the ground. Holding on to the pony's hooves, he forced his head forward, and managed a quadruped version of a fireman's carry, the unconscious stallion draped over his neck and withers.
"He's got them!" he could hear Kate holler. "Dunc, shout out for him! Max, turn almost completely around!"
"This way, pal!" Duncan was calling. "Back my way!"
Max turned to put Duncan's voice right in front of his nose, and staggered forward, moving slower as he tried to avoid dropping his patient.
"I have an idea!" Kate shouted, swooping lower. She beat fearsomely with her wings, and managed to push some of the flames aside with her manufactured breeze.
Max staggered up to Duncan, and then began to pass him. "Max, I'm right here-" he began.
"This guy needs the stuff in the truck," Max grunted under the added weight, continuing towards the highway.
Between the three of them, they managed to get the unconscious pony all the way back to the ditch, ultimately crossing the fence, and going not to the semi, but to the first trailer - the fire/rescue wagon.
"I checked what I could of the house while you were rescuing him," Duncan said breathlessly. "Nobody else is around."
"Oh god, he's hurt bad," Kate cringed, hovering over them.
Max did a quick survey of his patient, frowning. Indeed the pony was fairly decently injured. The burns were bad enough - appearing to cover somewhere between a third and two-fifths of his body - but the fact he was unconscious probably meant that something else was going on. Either respiratory arrest - no, his chest was rising and falling - or perhaps traumatic injury.
He needed immediate medical aid.
"Looks like you get your wish, kid."
"Don't call me- wha?"
Max pulled open the door of the trailer and started making a path to get the injured pony in to the medical section. "Get us turned back around and to the nearest hospital. And be careful. I'll be standing up in here trying to help this guy."
Duncan helped Max lift the patient inside the trailer. "Do you want help?" he asked Max.
"You don't know where stuff is or what I need. I can do it quicker on my own. Just help her get moving and pointed towards an emergency room. When we get there, it'll be all hands on deck to get what I need to stabilize him."
"Gotcha," Duncan nodded.
Max looked at Kate, who was still hovering there, surprised at the turn of events. "Think about how big the truck is and try to avoid sharp turns. It's thirteen feet ten inches tall. Get Doc to figure that out in meters, and stay away from any bridges that read that height or less. And drive smoothly - like I said, I'll be on my feet back here."
"Hooves," she automatically corrected, then blinked and shook her head. "I got it. I can do it. How do we talk to you if you need us to stop?"
"Hang on, I can handle that!" Duncan said, rushing around. He extracted some of the handheld radios from one of his recent scavenger hunts, and passed one to Max. "Channel 1."
"Let's get moving," Max said, reaching out to grab the door handle in his jaw. "Ee hairful."
"We will," Duncan said just before the door slammed shut. "You too."

"Okay, so do you have a driver's license?" Duncan asked Kate when they were seated in the cab. "And I'm asking because I want to know if you can drive at all."
"I've driven everything from quads to a one-ton," Kate said, looking over the dash as she sat behind the steering wheel. "I'm sure I can do this."
"Okay then," Duncan said. "Select D from this panel over here, that's the transmission. You have to have your hoof on the brake to get it to shift."
"Got it," Kate said, shifting the truck into drive. After releasing the parking brake, they started to roll forward.
"Find another crossover road and take it real wide - don't forget the second trailer. Then get us going southbound again. I'm going to see if the GPS has a hospital listing."
"Okay," Kate nodded, hooves resting on the wheel, focusing on the road.
After a few minutes, Duncan grabbed the other handheld radio he'd dug out of his stash. "Max, we're about 35 miles from the nearest hospital. It's in Lethbridge. 35 or so minutes. You good with that?"
"Gonna have to be," came the answer after a moment. "He's stabilizing, but he's still gonna need a lot of help."
"Okay, just call us if you need anything."
There was no response; Max had just set down the radio, being too busy to continue with pleasantries.
"All right, Kate," Duncan said. "In a couple minutes, Route 2 will dead-end at Route 3. Take it east towards Lethbridge, and then find the 5, and then follow the signs to Chinook Regional Hospital."
"Highway 2 to Highway 3 to Highway 5, to Chinook Regional," she said. "Got it."
"How you doing?" Duncan asked. "Got the feel of it yet?"
"I'll manage," she shrugged.
Duncan was looking over at her and he leaned in, reaching out to touch her wing. "Is this... did you get burned?"
Kate shrugged again, and Duncan noticed she winced when she did so. "It was a little warm over the fire," she said dismissively.
Duncan tch'ed and looked over the pegasus, noticing her singed and discolored coat and wings, on primarily the side which would have been facing down. "As soon as Max has this guy dealt with at the hospital, you're going to get checked over yourself."
"It's just a little heat," she protested. "Haven't you ever accidentally burned some arm hairs? It's like that."
"We don't know at all what it's like. We have no baseline for what a healthy pony is. I'm hopeful that Max's skills in treating humans will translate over well enough to keep this poor fellow from dying."
Kate put the truck into a gentle turn to follow the ramp from Highway 2 to Highway 3. "How about this - if I start to feel bad, I'll ask for help. If, like you say, Max's going to have a challenge with saving this guy, he should focus on him and not me."
Duncan looked less than impressed. "I guess I'm going to have to accept that," he sighed.

Half an hour later, Kate had the truck on Tenth Avenue - mostly; the rear trailer was partly on the curb at the intersection of 19 Street. The hospital in the city of Lethbridge loomed before them.
Duncan opened the door of the trailer, having finished supervising Kate's shutdown of the semi. Max was still in the medical suite, with the unconscious pony now partially covered in gauze. Sickly-colored fluid covered the floor, some of it slopping out through the doorway.
"Yuck," Kate said, hovering her way to the door.
"It's just saline and a little bit of blood," Max said hurriedly, as if it was of no concern. "Rinsing off his burns. Can one of you see if there's a gurney in the ambulance bay?"
"On it," Kate said, zipping off.
Duncan stood by the door, noticing for the first time the horn protruding from the patient's head. "A unicorn?" he blinked.
"I didn't notice either, until I started my assessment," Max said. "Guess we were all too busy to notice."
"Is he gonna make it?"
"Probably," Max said. "I'm thinking he just has a pretty severe concussion. I can't see any legit reason for him to be out cold otherwise. He's had some blood loss from the burns, but he's getting that back." Max nodded his head to a hanging bag of fluid, leading to a tube and needle in the pony's foreleg.
"You managed to put in an IV?" Duncan asked.
"God knows how," Max nodded. "Horses don't line up with humans as far as I know, biologically. But I was able to find a vein."
A squeaking and clattering sound heralded Kate's return with a hospital gurney. Max and Duncan carried the pony onto the bed while Kate steadied it, and then they wheeled their charge towards the medical center.
"No lights in there," Kate warned.
"One of you will have to come back and get a tripod light after we get him inside," Max said. "How'd you get in and out?"
"That door there," Kate said, pointing to a 'man-door' beside the roll-up ambulance bay doors.
"Okay. Let's get him inside and to the trauma bay."
Only a few words were exchanged while they moved the pony indoors. Kate dashed back to the truck once the gurney was inside.
Max and Duncan managed through the dim light provided by windows to maneuver the gurney into an exam bay in the emergency room.
"Spooky place," Duncan observed, looking around at the completely empty hospital ward.
"Just an empty building with some supplies we need," Max said, kicking at the latches on the wheels of the gurney to lock it in place. "Find me stuff that looks like this," he directed Duncan, indicating the plastic bag of fluid on the IV. "Probably in storage that's marked 'normal saline'. The more the better. Then I need all the gauze you can carry, preferably sterile."
"Okay," Duncan nodded, dashing off.
A few seconds later, a bright light came in from the ambulance bay, the beam awkwardly shifting back and forth as Kate carried it inside, turned on. "Where do you want this?" she asked.
"Anywhere in here with it pointed at him," Max instructed.
"Okay," she said, and set it up.
Max thanked her as he continued his work, especially when he could suddenly see the patient much better. The burns appeared to be stable and not as horrific as they were initially thought to be, though they were still serious. The lack of consciousness mildly concerned Max, but there was little he could do about that. Normally, he'd insert an airway to help the patient breathe, but if he thought he was lucky getting an IV in, he knew he had next to no chance making a human-sized airway fit a pony.
"What can I do?" Kate asked.
Max was frowning at the efforts he'd already done. "We need to carefully remove this gauze. I shouldn't have put it on in the first place, but I wanted to protect the open wounds. Once the burns are exposed again, we'll flush them with saline and cover them with sterile gauze. Doc's getting that stuff now." Max grimaced. "I'd like to give the poor guy morphine, or something else that will kill the inevitable pain when he wakes up, but I have no idea what a proper dose is for a pony."
"I wonder if I could get some information from a vet?" Kate asked.
"What?"
"You know, I could go find an animal hospital and get some textbooks or something."
"Let's hold that thought in reserve for now," Max said.
Duncan came back just then, dragging a crash cart behind him. "Couldn't carry it all by myself, so I just piled it on this thing."
"Good enough," Max said, rooting through the materials. "I didn't ask you for this, but you didn't see any antibiotic cream, did you?"
Duncan shook his head. "Sorry. Want me to go look now?"
"Sure," Max said. "But don't spend too much time - I'm going to dress the wounds as soon as I get them cleaned up."
"Okay," Duncan said, again departing.
Max turned back to see Kate gingerly peeling a strip of gauze off the pony's leg. "Good," he said. "Like that. Make sure it doesn't get any debris in it. And try not to open the wounds agai-"
"I'm trying," Kate said quietly.
"Okay. Thanks, you're doing great."
Max helped her work on the pony while they waited for Duncan to return.
"Is he gonna wake up?" Kate asked.
"I don't see a reason why not," Max said. "His body might be keeping him out to get past the stress of the burn injuries. We'll see once we get them dressed and get his fluids up." He looked to the IV bag. "I should change this one out. Keep doing what you're doing."
"Gotcha," Kate nodded.
Max used both his hooves and his teeth to manipulate the drained IV bag out of the end of the tubing, and open a new bag and 'spike' it. It took him at least five times as long as it would have had he had hands.
"I think I have what you need," Duncan said, coming back into the exam room. "I'm not up on my medical terms, but it does say 'antibiotic' on it, and it's a cream."
"Let's see it here," Max said, letting the IV bag hang from its pole again. He took the container Duncan offered, and looked it over. "Yeah, this'll work. At least, it would for humans. Let's hope ponies aren't allergic to it or something." He thought on it a little more and added, "I just realized I'm not gonna be able to spread this with my fingers. I hate to send you off again, but I need some tongue depressors."
"That one's easy," Duncan said, walking across the room and tapping on a metal container. "Looks like about 60 in here."
"I hope I don't need that many," Max smiled.

"Is that it?" Kate asked an hour or so later, standing in a small pile of used bandages and empty saline bags.
"Pretty much," Max said. They had the pony cleaned and dressed - as in, covered in bandages - and lying still, using up fluids at a quick but decreasing pace.
Max commented on that last part. "That's good news, I think," he said. "Means he's probably back up to a decent volume. I'd check his blood pressure, but I haven't the foggiest idea of where to measure it. Maybe it'd be wise to go see if you can find some horse texts, but I'm not sure I want you to go alone."
"I'm good," Kate said. "Don't forget I was by myself forever before you guys came along."
"Not in a big city," Max countered, but shrugged. "Just so long as you be careful and don't take any risks. Especially if you get that feeling we did in Calgary."
"Okay, dad," she quipped, trotting out of the exam bay. Her hoofsteps went down the hall, past a resting Duncan, and stopped as she got to the door by the ambulance bay.
"Umm," she said.
"What?" Max called out.
"What's up?" Duncan asked, sitting up.
"There's... a pony out there, kicking the living shit out of the truck..."

"Come on!"
The pony punctuated her plea with a buck to the door of the trailer, causing the whole thing to rock on its springs somewhat.
"I know you're in there!" she hollered, turning around to pound on the door with a foreleg. "I know you're realI!"
She whirled around again, her black mane whipping in an arc, and shifted her green body forward to let her pick up her hind legs and lash out again. "Open up!!"
"She reminds me of somebody," came a voice from in front of her, and her head shot up. A creature like her, but male, colored orange and with red and yellow hair, stood there smirking beside a pink and white girl pegasus thing, who looked on with a surprised expression.
"You..." the truck's assailant said, setting her feet - no, hooves - back down on the sidewalk. "You..."
"Thanks for stopping that," the male said. "We might need to get in there later, and I'd prefer it not be damaged."
"Max! She's obviously in shock," the girl said. She stepped forward. "I'm Kate. Are you okay?"
The pony stared at Kate and Max. "O-okay?" she asked.
"I know how you're feeling right now," Kate said softly. "Max found me in the same shape a few days ago. Yes, we're real. Yes, you're safe. Can you come inside with us? There's somepony in there we need to keep an eye on, and it'd be easier to explain things to you while we do that."

Duncan diverted his attention from watching the unconscious unicorn to the door, which was opening to let in Max, Kate, and the female earth pony.
"Everything okay?" Max asked him.
"No change," Duncan shook his head.
"Duncan, this is Angela," Kate said. "Angela, Duncan's our other friend. The red guy we don't know yet, but we found him hurt earlier today."
"H-hi," she stammered to Duncan.
"Shall we all have a seat?" Duncan said, indicating the couches he'd moved to within sight of the pony lying on the exam gurney. "Let's get to know one another."
Angela went over to one of the couches and tried to sit down like a human would. The other three sat in a more anatomically-comfortable position, and Angela eventually copied them after studying them for a moment.
"How long have you been out here?" Max asked.
"One hundred and sixty days," Angela said. "May twenty-third at five-thirty-seven AM."
"Oooh," Duncan winced. "Sounds like you've been in it for the duration."
"Duration?" she echoed. "What do you mean?"
"Maybe it's better if you let them tell you the whole whacked-out story from the beginning," Kate suggested. "And trust me, it's a doozy, but it's the real deal."
"I don't intend to go anywhere until this guy at least wakes up," Max said, nodding towards the exam bay. "We should know if we're taking him away from something important here before we get on the road again. I'll text Alex later and explain."
"Something important here?" Angela scoffed. "There's nothing here. The world is dead. I don't know where you all came from, but you're the first ...people I've seen in almost half a year."
"About that," Duncan said. "Let us tell you what happened before you write the world off."
Angela wore an incredulous expression as she made a forced laugh. "Fine. Fire away."
"Well," Max said, "First things first, we learned all this from another pony in Illinois called Alex..."