Andrew

“I HAVE TO GO.”

I look down at the Kid as he pulls on my hand.

“Right now?” I ask. “We’re going to find a place to stop for the night. Can you hold it for five more minutes?” He can pee behind the first house we check before we settle in for the night. But the Kid shakes his head quickly. “All right. Hey, guys, Kid’s gotta pee.”

The others ahead of us stop and the Kid takes off his little backpack and runs into the trees beside the road.

“Don’t go far!” Rocky Horror shouts.

But he doesn’t have to, because the Kid knows how far to go. Especially with the sun setting. The western sky is bright pink and purple where the light breaks through the clouds.

Taylor rolls her eyes at me, which is strange but kind of nice to see. It means she’s getting back to a more sisterly relationship with him instead of the overly adult guardian demeanor she’s had since Frank and the others died.

We were supposed to be in Bethesda by now, but we’ve been delayed by a torrential downpour for the past day and a half. We also ran out of gas, so we’re back to walking. Cara and Rocky Horror are talking about which direction we should go at an intersection up ahead, so I take the moment to drink some water.

But then something chills me to the bone.

A tinkly version of the Mexican hat dance drifts through the leafless trees.

Taylor’s and Cara’s eyes go wide.

“Shit.”

“What is it?” Rocky Horror asks, clearly seeing our concern.

“We heard that same thing back when we were camping with the Nomads.” I pull at the jacket I’m wearing—the one Jamie stitched together from the shredded rats’ nest in Dick’s Sporting Goods.

“What is it?” he asks.

“No clue. We left before we found out, and I think we should do the same now. Let’s get back on the highway,” I say. “Maybe go an exit or two farther just in case.”

“Yeah, that shit sounds ominous.” Rocky Horror puts the road atlas away as I call out for the Kid to finish up.

The Mexican hat dance ends, then starts over again.

Then again.

Still the Kid doesn’t emerge from the trees.

“Kid!” Rocky Horror shouts.

He doesn’t answer.

No way he would walk toward that sound. Right?

I look at the others to see if they’re thinking the same thing, and they don’t seem to feel as optimistic as I do. Taylor shouts for him again, her voice anxious. But I run to the trees, the others calling after me.

“Kid!” I yell. But not too loudly. Because if we can hear the Mexican hat dance, it means the person playing it can also hear us if we get too loud. I look around the trees, trying to see if the Kid is just having a bad tummy day—I mean, it happens to the best of us on the road, so we’ve got to have a nice way of putting it for the Kid.

But he’s not here.

I call out again, keeping my voice low as I step farther into the woods.

A twig snaps behind me, and I turn in the dimming daylight to see Taylor, followed by Jamar. They whisper-shout his name, too. But now I think he’s more drawn to the sound of the ice cream truck music. Because what kid wouldn’t be? It’s been over a year and a half since he saw an ice cream truck in real life, so why wouldn’t he walk toward one?

A million horrific possibilities pop into my head. The loudest being the most terrifying. It could be some psychotic child killer who survived the bug and decided to use an ice cream truck to lure kids with no parents out of their hiding places. A postapocalyptic Pied Piper.

The image is horrifying, and it’s enough to get me running toward the music, the Kid’s backpack swinging in my hands. Fuck being quiet.

“Kid!” I scream.

Maybe the others figured out what I was thinking because I can hear them behind me. All of them, running, yelling for him.

The music gets louder, and through the trees I see headlights. And a fire. The chug of a diesel engine below the tinkly music.

The truck is on. Of course, it would have to be if it’s playing music through the speakers.

Which means it can drive away before we catch up to it.

“Kid!” I shout, getting closer to the lights. The music is louder now.

There’s a clearing up ahead. I burst through the tree line. No weapons, nothing in my hand except for the Kid’s backpack. My left arm throbs with pain and I clutch it to my chest.

The truck really is an ice cream truck. It’s painted pink and seafoam green, the words SE?OR HELADO written in yellow above the window cut into the side. The lights inside the truck are on. There are two folding chairs set up by a fire.

But nothing else.

No one else.

Behind me, Jamar is the first to emerge from the woods and slides to a stop next to me. He sees the truck and slowly shakes his head. “I’m surviving the apocalypse and I’m absolutely worried about ice cream truck serial killers.”

“You forgot all the others,” I say. “Point for Niki.”

“Yeah, you can be the one to tell her when we get out of here.”

Rocky Horror bursts through the tree line, the rifle in his hand. The others follow him, taking in the scene. He turns to Jamar, Taylor, and Cara, telling them to go back into the woods and stay out of sight. “If something happens, run. Get out of here.”

Cara nods and leads Jamar and Taylor into the trees as Rocky Horror turns his attention to me. I run around to the rear of the ice cream truck—the Mexican hat dance drowns out something Rocky Horror calls after me.

The back of the ice cream truck is open. I round the corner, expecting some horror show to greet me.

Instead there’s a short, thin man with light brown skin. He’s shouting out vocalizations to the music as he vigorously whisks something in a large steel bowl. He glances over at me and startles. His whisking hand goes wild, and something thick and syrupy goes flying up to the ceiling.

He puts his hand to his heart and shouts something, but I can’t really hear him over the music. Rocky Horror joins me, pointing the rifle, and the man’s hands fly into the air.

“Don’t shoot!” That I understand.

But the man is alone in his truck. There’s no Kid in sight.

“Let me turn off the music!” he shouts, pointing toward the front of the truck. Rocky Horror motions with the end of the rifle for him to go ahead, and the man cautiously walks to the front. The music snaps off and he returns, his hands still high above his head.

The man is in his forties, maybe. He has a salt-and-pepper beard, but the gray hasn’t spread yet to the thick waves of black hair slicked back on top of his head.

“Please,” he says, speaking with a Spanish accent. “Don’t shoot me. My brother, he is alone out there. I play the music for him.”

“Andrew?” I turn to see the Kid standing by the trees. He’s holding the hand of a boy with Down syndrome. Rocky Horror immediately lowers the gun.

The man in the truck jumps down between us, his voice rising to sound happy and excited, but I can still hear some anxiety in there. He says something in Spanish that I can’t recognize but then repeats it in English—I assume for our benefit. “Hector, come meet our new friends.” He puts his hand out to Rocky Horror, using the other to gently push the rifle down a bit more. “I’m Ramiro. My brother is Hector.”

“Rocky Horror.”

Ramiro quirks his head and smiles wide. “Beautiful name. Nice to meet you.” He turns to me. “I assume, then, that you are Andrew?”

I say yes and shake his hand.

The others emerge from the woods and introduce themselves. Ramiro says hello to everyone, the atmosphere slowly growing less tense.

“Hector!” he calls out to his brother. “Why don’t you come say hello if you want, and let our friends warm themselves by the fire while I finish the ice cream.”

Ice cream? I mean, I know it’s an ice cream truck but, one, it’s probably not even forty degrees out, and two through one million, it’s the fucking end of the world. How is he making ice cream?

But before I can ask, Hector comes over, reaches out, and hugs me. “Hi, Andrew, I’m Hector,” he says.

“Nice to meet you, Hector.”

He turns to Rocky Horror and introduces himself and hugs him, too. Rocky Horror tells Hector his name and watches him go say hello to, and hug, the others. And I realize Amy isn’t there. Cara tells me she waited by the road with Henri-Two—probably worried we’d all be murdered and wanting to spare her one-year-old that fate—and says she’ll go get her. Rocky Horror turns and follows Ramiro into the truck. Knowing the Kid is safe with Hector and the others, I follow him.

“Do you like ice cream?” Ramiro asks, back to whisking.

“How do you have ice cream?” Rocky Horror asks.

Ramiro motions around him. “It’s an ice cream truck.” Then he winks at Rocky Horror and laughs. “I would not call it real ice cream had the whole world not shit the bed. I love that phrase, shit the bed. But ice cream, yes. Sadly, until I can find a cow small enough to fit in this truck, we are stuck with—” He moves the metal bowl and opens the steel door to the chest freezer, taking out several bags followed by cans and a plastic bottle. “Powdered milk, condensed milk, evaporated milk, and on those depressing days when we no longer have shelf-stable milk, raspados.” He shakes the bottle of cherry syrup, then drops it all back into the nonworking freezer.

“Unfortunately”—he shrugs as he returns to whisking the fake ice cream—“Hector is not a fan of raspados, but I make him ice cream as long as I can find the ingredients to do so. If I do it well enough, he hardly can tell the difference.”

“That’s a very nice thing for you to do.” If I didn’t know Rocky Horror to be a cynical bitch like I am, I’d think there was a bit of joy in his eyes. But, yeah, even I can see the kindness in Ramiro’s actions.

Ramiro turns to look at us again, then out the open window of the ice cream truck. “Well, there isn’t much else left to do these days. Why not spend the time we have doing kindnesses for those we love?”

Again, my heart breaks for Jamie. The kindness that’s missing from him. Was it my fault? Was I not doing enough to remind him that there can be good in the world? Maybe I should have stayed with him. Gone with him to Fort Caroline and tried to stop him before he got there.

“Rami.” We turn to see Hector at the ice cream truck window. He motions for Ramiro to come over. He bends down while Hector whispers in his ear.

Ramiro smiles wide at us and shrugs. “I don’t see why not. Hector would like to share. Do you all want to stick around for some ice cream?”

“We don’t want to impose,” Rocky Horror says as Hector turns back and starts talking with the Kid, Taylor, and Jamar.

“I think the imposition would be telling Hector no. And you don’t want to disappoint him, do you?” Ramiro puts a hand to his chest as though scandalized by the thought. He gives Rocky Horror a playful nudge. “I’m playing with you, sweetie. He’ll be sad, but he’ll get over it.”

Sweetie?Is . . . Ramiro flirting?

Rocky Horror lets out a loud laugh and nods. “Well, we’d be happy to stay and maybe also share our food with you?”

He turns to me, the inflection at the end of his sentence making it clear that he knows we don’t have enough food, but also if we’re getting free end-of-the-world ice cream, it’s a fair trade, right? I nod.

“No need!” Ramiro dumps the mixed ice cream into a soft-serve machine bolted to the wall of the truck and turns it on. He hands Rocky Horror the dirty bowl, then opens the other side of the freezer and takes out a few cans of food. “You’re our guests this evening. We rarely get visitors in our truck, and between you and me”—he means Rocky Horror and him, because I have quickly become the invisible third wheel in this ice cream truck of love—“I’ve missed hosting dinner parties.”

Oh, definitely queer. Welcome to the group, Ramiro.

Hector spends most of the night talking to the Kid and Jamar about Pokémon. He knows the names of every single Pokémon and has a notebook he’s drawn most of them in. I try to take part in the conversation at one point—if only to give Rocky Horror and Ramiro a moment to flirt in peace—but it quickly goes over my head, so I ask Cara to help me change the bandages on my arm.

Soon after dinner—and dessert—the Kid and Hector both fall asleep. Henri-Two is still awake—probably wired from her first taste of ice cream. The look on her face almost made this whole trip worth it. The rest of our group enjoys the remaining ice cream by the fire.

It’s cold and very sweet, but it’s been so long since I’ve had real ice cream, I can’t even tell it was made with imitation vanilla extract and powdered milk.

“It’s because of all the sugar,” Ramiro says after I tell him this. He shakes his head, looking over to Hector in his sleeping bag by the fire. “I should have reminded him to brush his teeth when I saw him getting sleepy.”

Henri-Two finally crashes, and Amy turns in for the night with her.

I’m finishing the stale ice-cream cone—my second, and honestly just as amazing as the first—when I decide to come clean about the last time we ran into Ramiro and Hector. How we heard their music through the small town in South Carolina and we thought he was probably an ax murderer.

“I’m sorry!” he says, wiping the tears away as he laughs. “It’s for Hector. When I’m in the truck, sometimes he wanders, and I play the music so he doesn’t get lost. Oh, speaking of.”

He jumps up and goes to the truck—which has been running since before we arrived. The soft-serve machine was running off the battery, but he keeps the freezers switched off and uses them as storage. The truck is diesel, and Ramiro showed us the pump and hoses secured to the top of the truck that he uses to pump the tanks at gas stations.

Apparently, Ramiro and Hector have been driving from Cabo San Lucas all around the country. Ramiro owned the ice cream truck and always said he’d take Hector to America for a vacation, but life kept getting in the way. Then Ramiro and Hector were the only ones in their family left after the bug. So they decided not to stay in Cabo, and went on their road trip instead.

Ramiro cuts the engine and lights and rejoins us.

We throw more wood on the fire and talk. All of us sharing stories about our lives one by one, except for Taylor, who fakes a yawn and excuses herself. She wraps her body in her sleeping bag and lies by the fire with her back to us.

Taylor has always avoided talking about her family in the before times. I honestly can’t blame her. It’s hard talking about life before.

“How old is Hector?” Rocky Horror asks.

“Thirty-two.”

He nods. “I had an older brother with Down syndrome. He died before the flu. Maybe twenty years ago?”

I turn to Rocky Horror, fascinated. I never knew this about him. He’s never talked about his family from before; I always assumed it was because there weren’t any happy stories to tell about them. But the look on his face says this story is a happy one.

Ramiro scoots his folding chair over to Rocky Horror and takes one of his tattooed hands. He says something quietly in Spanish that I don’t understand, but it sounds comforting. Then he adds, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“It’s okay, I’ve had enough time to grieve him. But more time to remember him.”

Ramiro nods aggressively. “I love that outlook. What was his name? What was he like?”

“Vinnie—well, Vincent. I called him Vinnie. And he was the only one in my family, I believe, who truly loved me. I told him one day, I asked him to use my new name. He asked why, and I told him it was because I never felt like the person our parents had named me. I said I was a boy.” Rocky Horror’s eyes flit over to Ramiro, then down to Ramiro’s hand holding his before rising to meet mine.

I’m as surprised as he seems to be. It’s almost like he didn’t expect to say that out loud just now. Rocky Horror never hid who he was when we were in the Keys, but on the road—even with the Nomads—he was reluctant to trust too easily. This must have been an accident, but he’s never slipped before. I wonder what that means. But after a brief pause, he continues.

“He was the only one who never had a problem. He messed up maybe three times his whole life, and it was just because he was excited about something. Meanwhile my parents deadnamed me for years. I never understood why Vinnie got it so easily, but they couldn’t.”

I can see Ramiro squeeze Rocky Horror’s hand tighter. “Because Vinnie loved you.”

Cara and I share a glance and smile at each other. Something passes between us—a telepathic message that says these two should have some time together alone—so I wait a few moments before I take a page from Taylor’s book and fake a yawn.

“I should probably get some sleep.”

Cara stands. “Me too.”

Ramiro turns his attention back to Rocky Horror. “I’m going to stay up for a bit—I’m kind of a night owl. Would you mind if I left you all here? I’ll make my own fire over there.”

He points to the truck a little farther away.

“Can I join you?” Rocky Horror asks.

“I would love it if you did.”

We say good night to them, Cara and I trying our hardest not to let on that we’re whispering behind their backs about how cute they are together.

“Why Se?or Helado?” Rocky Horror asks as they gather some wood to make a smaller fire separate from us. “You’d get the alliteration if you went with Se?or Softie.”

“Sir!” Ramiro says. “No one has ever referred to me as soft.”

“Holy shit!” I whisper to Cara. She immediately falls into a fit of giggles that she has to smother in her sleeping bag. I try to hide my own laughter as well. Several times throughout the night, I wake up to throw more wood on the fire. Each time, I can hear Rocky Horror and Ramiro talking quietly by the truck.

The next morning, Hector and the Kid are up before the sun. I hear Ramiro whisper something to Hector. Even with no real Spanish vocabulary, I recognize the sound of an older sibling scolding a younger one.

I get up with them and the three of us go to where Hector says there’s a stream. I fill up the water bottles and they help carry them back to the camp, where the others are beginning to stir, including Rocky Horror, who wipes his face, clearly exhausted.

“You two were up late,” I whisper as I set down a pot on the side of the fire and fill it with water.

“Hmm” is all he says. “Gotta pee.” With that he gets out of his sleeping bag and heads into the woods.

Hector pulls at Ramiro’s arm and points to his lips. Ramiro bends down and gives his brother a kiss, saying good morning. Then he turns his attention back to us. “I have something I have been saving for a special day, and I think meeting new friends makes this the perfect occasion.”

He turns and heads back to the truck.

“Oh, please let it be a bottle of prosecco,” Amy prays. Sadly, Ramiro returns with a giant can in his hands.

Freeze-dried bacon and eggs. The can says there are nine servings in it.

“Holy shit!” Amy yells. “It’s better than prosecco.”

Ramiro tsks. “Hardly. Oh, I’d kill for a mimosa.”

We boil the water and wait for it to rehydrate the eggs. I’m halfway through my own bowl before I realize I need to savor this. It’s salty and hot and delicious. And honestly, when I’m finished, I feel amazing. Completely rejuvenated.

While the rest of the drinking water boils, Rocky Horror crouches next to me. “Can I talk to you?”

Here it is. The “can we ask them to join us” talk. And it’s going to be a quick talk because, yes, absolutely.

But that’s not what Rocky Horror asks. In fact, he doesn’t ask me anything at all.

He says, “I’m going to go with Ramiro and Hector.”

My stomach drops and I stare at him.

“I already know what you’re thinking and, trust me, I thought it, too, for the last several hours. But there’s something here. I was never the kind of person who believes in fate or God moving us around like chess pieces, but this all seems to fit too well. We fit too well. Like maybe with fewer people in the world, there are more chances for divine intervention.”

That phrase Cal said to Jamie comes to mind. Universal convergence. If that’s true, I hope there’s some good intervention coming up for Jamie and me.

“And we can both feel it,” Rocky Horror continues. “We spent the night talking. The whole night.” He leans against a tree, bracing himself on his knees, smiling. “I honestly haven’t done that since . . . maybe college. After?”

“Okay, but why don’t you ask if they want to come with us?”

His face clouds. “For one, they have their own plan, and I don’t want to be the person who changes that. He and Hector went from Cabo to the Grand Canyon to Vegas. Along the northern border and down south again and up the coast.”

“Where are they going next?” I ask.

“He says he wants to show Hector everywhere he can drive to. They have general locations in mind all the way up the coast, then through Canada and back down to Mexico and maybe beyond. Basically, they’re going to travel until they can’t find any more diesel or the truck breaks down.”

“Are you sure they’ll let you go with them?” I ask.

“Ramiro asked me last night. I already said yes. I don’t think I’ve ever said yes to something so fast in my life.” He blushes as he says it.

I’m happy for Rocky Horror. But I also know how much I’m going to miss him.

“Who’s going to help me when I have an existential crisis?”

Rocky Horror pulls me into a hug. “It’s cute you think I’d care about your crises.” There’s the Rocky Horror I know and love. And am going to miss so damn much.

We say goodbye later that morning. Rocky Horror already has an arm around Ramiro’s back, holding him at his side. He takes it away long enough to hand me Jamie’s rifle.

“You sure?” I ask.

“We’ll be okay,” Rocky Horror says.

“Hector,” the Kid says, “you can have Albie.” He holds out the stuffed Pokémon—which Hector has explained is a Bellibolt.

“Thank you,” Hector says. He and the Kid hug, and he kisses the Kid’s cheek. Then he goes down the line and kisses each of our cheeks, saying bye along the way.

Rocky Horror gives us the food out of his pack—as well as a few more cans from Ramiro and Hector, since they have more than enough in the truck.

Then he crouches next to the Kid. “You’re in charge now, ’kay?” Rocky Horror points to me with his middle finger. “Try not to let this one fall off a cliff or anything.”

The Kid nods and gives him a hug. And if I’m not mistaken, it looks like Rocky Horror might be sad to see the Kid go.

When he hugs Cara goodbye, I hear her whisper, “Adios, Mary Poppins.” Rocky Horror snorts and moves on to me.

“What’s the plan after you all get to Bethesda?”

I shrug. “Guess we have to talk about it.”

“Something you’re not great at.”

“I’m trying.”

He opens his arms and I step into his hug. “Try harder. I know you can do it.”

With that, we say goodbye and head back to the road. If we find another car, we can be in Bethesda by the end of the day. For the first time in a long time, I’m full of food and hope. But it’s not enough because Jamie isn’t here.

Our little fellowship is getting smaller and smaller. And each time, the hole left by Jamie’s absence feels bigger.