Peterbilt Glider
Peterbilt Glider
Admiral Biscuit
The wide-open sky stretched out in front of her. Mostly clear ahead; cloudy to her right and behind her, a diagonal line of rain she’d just passed through.
The hood of her Peterbilt still glistened with it, and outside the sweep of her wipers, the windshield was still spotted with droplets.
She glanced in her mirror, then flicked the turn signal stalk, merging into the center lane to go around a transporter loaded with shiny new black and white Ram pickups and a single electric blue Wrangler at the very front.
She’s got a Wrangler, a cheerful yellow Rubicon. It’s a fun little truck—with the top and doors off, driving it is practically like flying.
Having the windshield folded down made it even better, but Officer Friendly hadn’t liked that and said he'd give her a ticket if she didn't put it up. Stupid. What was the point of a folding windshield if she wasn’t allowed to drive with the windshield down?
She studied the traffic ahead and behind before deciding to move back in front of the transporter. He flashed his headlights politely; she thanked him by blinking her brake lights and then turned her attention back to the road ahead.
A blue information sign informed her that the Vermilion Valley service plaza was two miles ahead. Out of habit, she did a quick scan of the gauges—everything was normal; her truck needed nothing.
A quick survey of her own physical well-being indicated she was also fine. She didn’t need to pee or eat or stretch her legs or wings, so she pressed on. Her truck was happiest when it was moving. She was happiest when she was moving.
•••
A lot of people didn't like Ohio because it was flat and boring, and a lot of it was. She was past that boring flatness now, dropping down into the Cuyahoga Valley. There was a false valley right before it; every time she saw the row of electric pylons she thought she was about to cross the river, but that was still a ways ahead.
She shook her head as she passed a gaggle of teens clustered on the side of the turnpike, taking selfies or something—who knew with kids? Just beyond them, a white stretch limo idled in the breakdown lane. Every day it was something different on the road, even on familiar routes. People, cars, trucks, weather, accidents, and she got a front-row seat to most of it.
The wonders of human infrastructure never got old. Sometimes she didn’t appreciate how much must have gone into constructing the highway, but when she crossed the bridge over the Cuyahoga River, big and broad enough to hold a pony town comfortably, nearly cloud-high over the river valley, she couldn’t help but admire the audacity of the humans who had planned it and built it.
She changed gears as the truck came off the bridge and started climbing out of the valley, the engine note of the Caterpillar deepening as it went to work.
Hills and turns made driving more interesting. Flat was boring. If she had a co-driver, she’d make him drive through the plains states while she slept in the back.
Her ears perked as the CB let off a brief burst of static, followed by: “Nova Scotia to Texas?”
Another burst of static—half the conversation was out of range. She tuned it out. Those trucks were far ahead.
Nova Scotia was an island, she knew that. Apparently, there was a bridge or a ford to it, or else trucks had to take a ferry to get there. It would be fun to be in a truck on a boat. Over in Scandinavia, trucks got to ride on boats all the time.
She glanced over to the right, and spotted a herd of deer grazing in a cornfield. She didn’t like deer. Deer were dumb.
Ahead, the sky was dark and ominous. She’d checked the weather before setting out, and it had promised a row of thunderstorms near the Ohio/Pennsylvania border around five, but when she checked at her last fuel stop, the prediction had changed to clear skies all the way through. That unreliable forecast was what happened with unmanaged weather.
Off to her left stretched the Lordstown Assembly Plant, and closer in, one of its offspring was overtaking her truck.
It slowed down as it drew abreast, and she glanced over, curious if it contained a kid who wanted her to blow the horn, or a woman who wanted to show off her boobs.
It was the former, so she obliged him, giving two short blats of her horn. The car honked back, then pulled ahead.
•••
The downpour started just before she reached the Ohio Route 2 exit, which advertised itself as the last exit in Ohio.
She’d intended to take a break just beyond the exit at the Glacier Hills service plaza, but had no intention of getting soaked—no intention of spending the next couple of hours with wet fur, a soaked seat, and the cab smelling like wet pony. She could push on into Pennsylvania. Maybe she’d be through the squall by then.
The CB crackled to life again with truckers griping about the rain that wasn’t supposed to happen. She eyed the mic, but decided not to bother responding. She couldn’t fix it by herself, and they were unlikely to appreciate a pegasus giving them weather management advice.
•••
The rain abated as she cleared the last tollbooth in Ohio, stopped entirely by the time she reached the first tollbooth in Pennsylvania, then started again as she descended into Beaver Valley.
Rain and fog—it was like driving through the inside of a stormcloud, and she brought her speed down a little and turned on her four-ways. It only took one idiot to start a pile-up.
Moments later, she found the idiot who was going to try. A solid grey shape loomed through the mist, resolving into a slow-moving semi trailer. She yanked her rig into the passing lane, then keyed her mic as she blasted past him. “Hey, Swift, I know your company’s cheap, but it doesn’t cost much to use your running lights.”
He didn’t answer—if he was driving for Swift, he probably couldn’t afford a CB anyway.
She thought about cutting in close, spraying him with all the water off the back of her truck, but what was the point? He wouldn’t learn anything from it.
•••
The Pennsylvania Turnpike was all twists and turns and hills and valleys, good for keeping her awake and alert. If that wasn’t enough, the Turnpike authority was busy with construction, with a new zone almost as soon as the previous one ended.
The skies had cleared somewhat, so she considered skipping to the next service plaza. She still didn’t need a break herself, and she had plenty of fuel.
She was still dithering a mile out—but it was smarter to stop. She could stretch out, check the weather. If it was going to stay bad, she could nest up with the other trucks. And, this plaza sold Auntie Anne’s pretzels, which tasted pretty good.
•••
The service plaza was already starting to accumulate trucks on the ramps, which wasn’t a good sign. However, fortune was with her, and she found an actual spot near the fuel island she could nose her Peterbilt into.
She opened the door and flew out of the cab—it was easier than trying to use the step on the saddle tank.
Before she went inside, she did a quick walkaround of her truck, making sure everything was as it should be. That also gave her a chance to get the blood circulating in her legs and work the kinks out of her tail.
The weather looked like it was going to be okay ahead, so she decided to continue onward. She had the hours left, and as traffic dropped off for the night, she could make better time. Maybe one day, she’d find a batpony co-driver and they could run around the clock, but the only batponies she knew drove trains instead.
She chewed the last bits of her pretzel as she walked back to her truck. This time she did a more thorough inspection, kicking each tire to make sure it was full of air, and opening the hood to check the various fluid levels and to make sure there were no leaks. It was probably unnecessary; the truck had been fine when she’d inspected it in the morning, but she’d feel really dumb if she broke down a mile or two out of a service plaza.
It took her a moment to settle back into her seat, and then she edged out of the line of trucks, cautiously until she was far enough forward to get a clear view around her cab. The cabovers she’d driven were better for visibility, although not nearly as comfortable.
•••
It got dark quick in the mountains. There was less traffic, which was nice, but there were other hazards—especially drunken idiots and deer that ran across the highway with no care for traffic.
She’d hit one once, and she felt really bad for it, but she wasn’t going to tip over her truck trying to avoid an animal that was too dumb to look both ways before crossing the road.
Up ahead was the tunnel, her least favorite part of the turnpike.
She glanced at the advisory sign—her truck didn’t have any prohibited cargo on it. She could still take the alternate route, but that was longer, and she risked dying on the clock.
It always came up quicker than she thought it would. Didn’t give her time to prepare herself before she drove her truck into the gaping maw of the mountain. They’d decided to run traffic in both directions through one bore, and she was stuck behind a crappy blue minivan going ten under the speed limit, giving her plenty of time to think about the millions of tons of rock pressing down on the fragile eggshell roof of the tunnel.
And then it was over. She was out in the air again, jockeying for position on the downhill side. She cracked the windows open, blowing out the stale tunnel air the vents had pulled in and the lingering traces of fear-sweat.
•••
The Midway Plaza was cluttered with trucks, stretching out onto the shoulder of the turnpike. On the eastbound side, a Pennsylvania State Trooper was up alongside the line, his flashing lights on, perhaps trying to warn other trucks that there was no more room for them, or perhaps trying to herd some of them along.
Behind her, a set of headlights blazed in her mirror, getting closer and closer, close enough that he might be considering pushing her down the hill. As soon as traffic in the passing lane cleared, he whipped out around her. It was too dark to get a look at the cab, but the trailer was covered in graffiti, so he was probably from New York City or New Jersey, which explained the rudeness.
She fell into the rhythm of the twists and turns, trying to avoid getting caught up in clusters of trucks and cars.
The first of two warning signs for Breezewood appeared. There used to be two signs with the warning message spread across both, but apparently truckers couldn’t be bothered to read the whole message, so they’d just replaced them with signs indicating truck restrictions on Route 30. Some day, if she ever got curious enough, she’d ride her Jeep topless down the road and see what all the fun was about.
•••
Despite the lack of traffic, Breezewood was as terrible as usual. Two lanes were closed for re-sealing cracks, and a group of workers practically had the whole exit ramp blocked. She squeezed past them cautiously, then wound up having to wait right beside a concrete saw. They weren’t polite enough to turn it off, so she just sat in a cloud of concrete dust until the light turned in her favor.
The first part of Interstate 70 was the worst. The speed limit was only 55, presumably just to get ticket revenue—there was no other reason for it to be so slow.
A CR England truck barreled past her, and she wondered if he knew where the cops were hiding, or if he was just hoping to get lucky. It wasn’t worth the risk, it wasn’t worth the fine, and it wasn’t worth the delay if the cop wanted to go through all her paperwork or do a roadside inspection.
It was hard to keep her truck at speed—it wanted to go, and so did she. Oblivious four-wheelers zoomed around her, confident in their radar detectors and Wazes and maybe the laws of probability.
•••
At the Maryland border, she unleashed her Peterbilt’s horses, ignoring the prudent slow acceleration in favor of a wide throttle. She couldn’t tell in the dark, but maybe there was a nice black soot cloud to show what she thought about Pennsylvania’s dumb speed limit.
Up ahead, a cloud had taken residence in a dip in the road, and it looked strange and otherworldly illuminated by the headlights of passing cars and trucks.
Then the road split again, and she lost sight of oncoming traffic. The GPS showed what was on either side of her, but she couldn’t see anything of it—there was just the road in front and the signs illuminated by her headlights, and a bit of road behind, showing red in the light of her taillights. The CB had fallen silent, nothing but faint white noise static. She was completely alone.
•••
She could have kept driving—she had just enough hours to make it to Baltimore, at least if her GPS wasn’t lying. And it would avoid the busiest traffic times in the Metro DC area, but then she’d have to find a place to park for the night, since she couldn’t unload until the morning.
Maryland’s welcome center rest area was over thirty miles from the border. Presumably, that was the first place where there was a flat enough piece of ground to put it. It was a good place to spend the night—the Appalachian Trail was in close flying distance, so she could get a good morning trot in, and it was downhill out of the rest area, so she wouldn’t have to work her truck hard first thing in the morning.
Naturally, it was crowded with trucks all bedded down for the night.
Sometimes, there were spots still open in the lot; trucks that were low on time didn’t want to drive through, find nothing, and be forced to continue on.
She stopped at the tail end of the queue, turned her four-ways on, then flew out of her truck.
Her pegasus-eye view of the lot revealed an empty space plenty big enough to fit her, as well as a flatbed that was cheating and parked over on the car side of the lot.
She glided back down to her truck and claimed the spot before someone else could take it.
It didn't take too long to take a trip to the restroom and then finish up her paperwork. Behind her, she had a sleeper berth with all the comforts of home—it even had a coffee maker and a hotplate. Not that she needed that much space; she could curl up on the front seat and sleep there, and she had when she’d been driving a daycab.
Or. . .
It was a nice night, so she grabbed her pillow and flew up to the top of the trailer, where the wind could blow through her fur, and the grumble of idling diesels could lull her to sleep.