1
Civilization dwindled.
First the towns—tiny clusters of homes, steeples, and storefronts. Then the farms, with sagging barns and gray silos reaching into a gunpowder sky. And finally the road, which disappeared as pavement crumbled to gravel that crunched beneath the tires of the old maroon Buick.
Arlo Davis cranked the passenger window. A chilly breeze wafted into the car. He filled his lungs with crisp fall air and peered out at the bleak countryside.
“I think we took a wrong turn.”
The cornfields on either side lay fallow. Ribbons of fog snaked along the earth dotted with broken, bent stalks, shriveled brownish-gold leaves, and the skeletal remains of tractors, plows, and combines.
“Perfect setting for a zombie apocalypse!” announced Lola from the back seat.
Heather Flores frowned. “Have you been letting your sister watch that silly show when I’m at work?”
“Zombie Army of Darkness is not silly,” said Lola. “It’s only the most watched drama in basic cable history.”
“She has a point,” said Arlo.
His mother’s gaze bobbled from the road to Arlo, then back to the road. “She’s too young,” she muttered. “It’s too scary. She should be watching happy shows. Like Rainbow Wonders or Unicorn Utopia.”
Lola leaned forward, her seat belt stretching to its limits. “I’m almost nine. I’m never scared. And I hate unicorns.”
Arlo had to hand it to his little sister. He’d have been terrified of all those decrepit and decomposing bodies when he was her age. Truth be told, at twelve years old, he still was.
He preferred to watch the Nature Channel. He was more interested in biology and botany than brain eaters. But all his friends watched Zombie Army of Darkness, and he didn’t want to be left out of the conversation, so he made sure to catch every episode.
He gave his mother an earnest look. “She is pretty tough. Like you.”
His mother tapped her periwinkle fingernails on the steering wheel, sighed, and shook her head. Her long red curls swayed. Arlo made a sour face. He couldn’t get used to that color. He liked her brown hair.
“You’re tough, too,” she said. “In a different way.”
Arlo wished that were true. His mother was always trying to make light of things. Make him feel better about himself. Less anxious. More at ease.
The car radio was tuned to an increasingly static station that proudly proclaimed to play all oldies, all the time. A high-pitched voice screeched a solitary line over and over as if skipping on an old vinyl record.
“This thing isn’t working.” Arlo poked the portable GPS screen. “It’s supposed to provide driver alerts to increase awareness. There’ve been tons of sharp turns, and it hasn’t warned us. Not once.” He jabbed harder, but the device remained steady and silent. “We should have used Waze.”
“We don’t have good reception here—the app would have cut out.” She took her hand off the wheel and adjusted the rearview mirror.
“B-Both hands on the wheel!” Arlo sputtered. “Ten o’clock! Two o’clock!” He was years away from driving, but he had already studied the online driver’s manual.
His mother tousled his curly black hair and returned her hand to the wheel. “Relax, Arlo. Remember what Dr. Lewis said? Positive thoughts.”
“Yeah,” echoed Lola. “Positive thoughts.” She punched his upper arm.
He turned and glared. Lola batted her eyelashes and then leaned back, placing her dirty soccer cleats on his headrest. She powered up her tablet and plugged in her earbuds.
It was their mother’s idea to book an old Federal-style mansion bed-and-breakfast on the East Coast for Thanksgiving. They were going to leave the world behind. No TV. Take long walks, eat chowder, and get plenty of ocean air. It was a long drive for a few days. To make matters worse, she refused to take the interstate.
Arlo glanced at the sky. It was a brooding menace. “We’re not going to make it before dark.”
“Well, at least we’ll be able to say we took the road less traveled…” She dropped her voice for dramatic effect. “And that has made all the difference.”
Arlo took his phone out of his pocket and began filming the landscape. Cornfields had given way to a struggling apple orchard. Remnants of rotting fruit lay strewn beneath bare and baleful branches. The air suddenly smacked of cider and hayrides.
“I don’t think that’s what he meant.”
His mother fiddled with the radio, more static than song. She tried the tuner. All stations crackled in and out, so she switched it off altogether.
“Huh?”
“The poem you were quoting,” said Arlo. “‘The Road Not Taken’—it’s by Robert Frost.”
He zoomed in on a derelict greenhouse. Like a long-forgotten glass castle left to decay, its windows were shattered, its metal frame rusted and tilting. Monstrous vegetation grew rampant through the jagged openings. A huge maple burst through the roof.
“Since when are you a poetry expert?”
Arlo stopped filming. He tried to upload the footage to his social story, but the connection kept breaking. “Mr. Kim read it to us. Along with a bunch of others.” He concealed all trace of enthusiasm, but truthfully, he had rather enjoyed the poetry unit.
“Mr. Kim.” She smiled. “Can’t believe that old guy hasn’t retired. He must be a hundred.”
“He says the poem is about two roads. And the narrator has to pick one.”
“Hate to tell you this, Bud, but that’s pretty obvious.”
“Yes,” said Arlo, “but most people think it’s about choosing the better way. The right way. The road less traveled. Like, not following the crowd. Freethinking. All that stuff.”
“Exactly. That’s why I like it.”
Arlo fidgeted with his phone. His carrier indicator kept flickering to No Service. He stole a backward glance. He could still see the brittle branches of the maple reaching toward the sky like a petrified giant surrendering to the clouds. He closed the window. The vent coughed stale air into his face.
“Mr. Kim says the poem isn’t about decision at all. It’s about indecision.”
His mother cocked her head. “How does he figure?”
“He said it doesn’t really matter which path you choose—so long as you choose. When Frost says it made all the difference, he was being ironic.”
His mother pondered this for a moment. “You know, you’re pretty smart for a sixth grader. Though…” She dragged the word a little too long for his liking. “You did say we took a wrong turn. If there is no right way, then there’s no wrong way. Kind of ironic, dontcha think?”
Arlo narrowed his eyes. She had a point.
His mother was only thirty, but her face seemed older. Every year was etched into her features, weighed down by worry she tried hard to mask. She hadn’t finished high school—had to quit to have him, get a job to support him—yet she was the smartest person he knew. She could calculate the most difficult math problem in her head, reassemble a broken toaster in a matter of minutes, and recite the entire national anthem backward.
She could have been anything. A nuclear physicist. A brain surgeon. Instead, she’d married his father, Milton Davis, had Lola, and now worked at a dusty desk in a crumbling building.
She was smarter than his father, the podiatrist, who Lola liked to call the toenail trimmer, the corn chopper, or the bunion butcher. He didn’t appreciate her humor.
Arlo’s father had a new wife, Renée, and new baby, Reginald. Arlo and Lola only got to see little Reggie on alternate weekends. Babies were a lot of work, so it made sense he had even less time for them these days.
They passed a sign with lettering that proudly announced WELCOME, NEW HAMPSHIRE. Arlo read the slogan at the bottom out loud. “Live free or die.”
“The phrase is attributed to John Stark—a New Hampshire general,” said his mother. “But it was actually adapted from the French Revolution—Vivre libre ou mourir!”
Arlo frowned. There was something about the sentiment he didn’t quite understand. It seemed somehow extreme.
Arlo stuffed his phone into his pocket, leaned back in the seat, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the sky had grown darker and a mist had blown in, washing the world of color. The peaks of the mountains vanished behind a hazy curtain of twilight.
Arlo’s mother reached a hand behind the passenger seat and held it out. Lola fished a bag of Larry’s Licorice Laces—Spearmint Green—from a plastic grocery bag filled with chips, chocolate, and Little Debbie Happy Camper Cakes.
“Robert Frost lived around here,” his mother said, taking the bag and flipping it into Arlo’s lap. “For a while.”
They made a sharp turn, zipped past a water park—SPLISH! SPLASH!—its slides abandoned for the season, and then a campground devoid of tents and RVs. They were in the North Country now.
Pine, oak, beech, ash, and hemlock crowded either side of the road. The trunks grew thicker and taller. Above, the strip of sky diminished little by little until it disappeared altogether.
Arlo had watched an episode of Tree Planet that featured old-growth forests. Though he hadn’t thought trees this enormous existed anymore, especially at this altitude.
How old were they? One hundred? One thousand? There was a photo in his textbook of a tree somewhere in California that was five thousand years old. What would it be like to live five thousand years? Would you get bored?
“I’m sure we’re going the wrong way.” Arlo yanked open the plastic and held it toward his mother.
She withdrew two rubbery strands of green licorice—Four Feet of Fun!—and stuffed one into her mouth.
“Did you know New Hampshire is home to ten National Register of Champion Trees—the largest of their species nationwide?” he said, but neither his mother nor Lola were listening.
He had no idea why they were even taking the trip. It came out of nowhere. They always spent Thanksgiving with Grandma Pearl, but his mother had insisted. She said they needed some time away together. They were together all the time.
Lola rummaged through the cooler, found a red apple, and offered it to Arlo. He waved it away. He could hear her take a large bite of the crisp fruit while his mother chewed the spearmint laces.
“How can you eat that stuff? It tastes like toothpaste.”
The car trundled over an old set of railroad tracks. Ahead, Arlo noticed a fork in the road. An old splintered sign pointed to the right. The script was missing. In the dim light, all he could make out was the letter L and the number 8.
Keep left, announced the cheerful electronic voice of the GPS. His mother veered left.
“It’s not natural. It’s practically neon. You know Japan and Germany ban those food colors?”
She stuffed the second piece into her mouth. “I like it.”
“It can’t be healthy. It could make you—”
He caught himself just in time. His eyes darted toward his mother. She didn’t flinch, but she paused a moment and then chewed a lot slower.
It’s going to be okay.
His mother’s words, spoken so long ago, were like earworms burrowing deep into his brain, going round and round.
He wanted to say he was sorry, that he didn’t mean to say anything upsetting, but he wouldn’t have the chance.
Copyright © 2022 by Marina Cohen
