End Times (9 page)

Floyd paused, a spoonful of cereal midway to his mouth. “You’re really bent on doing this, huh?”

She nodded, making his eyebrows knit.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “It’s dangerous work—I’d never be able to forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“I’ll wear a hard hat.” She snuck a glance at the clock, wanting to catch the foreman first thing when he came in, before he got busy. She knew she was taking a chance going to him for a job, but her meager savings from the 7-Eleven were nearly depleted, and she was starting to worry about Myra being able to make rent. Besides, something about the thought of the rig pumping away without her filled her with an inexplicable emptiness. She felt as drawn to the work as she’d been to Carbon County. Weeks of sitting around the trailer with Janie, watching TV and reading parenting books, had begun to feel stale, and she wanted the satisfaction of going out and earning a paycheck, one of the few small joys in her life back in Detroit.

“You sure are determined.” Floyd chuckled, but his eyebrows stayed furrowed. “You want me to go down there and talk to him with you? We’ve gotten pretty friendly since they moved in down the block.”

“No thanks.” Daphne picked up the manila folder and headed toward the door. “I want to do this on my own.”

“You really are your father’s daughter,” Floyd mused as she bounded down the steps.

Outside the day was just beginning to warm up, the midmorning sun chasing the chill from the air. Daphne jogged across the road to the contractors’ trailers, jumping the potholes that their vehicles had left in the road. She told herself that the thin sheen of sweat on her forehead was from the fresh heat of the early summer sun, but her pounding heart told her otherwise. She knew from Uncle Floyd’s stories that Dale Reimer was a tough, no-nonsense kind of guy—one of the best foremen in the business, he said—and she was about to waltz onto his turf and ask for a job doing manual labor in one of the least forgiving industries in the world. All five feet, six inches, and 127 pounds of her.

She slowed down and gave herself a moment to breathe before rapping on the trailer’s door, right below a hand-lettered sign that read:
Help Wanted—Inquire Within
.

“C’min!” a gruff male voice hollered from inside.

The trailer was large and spare; a bank of computers sat against one wall, some file cabinets along another. A large folding table hunkered in the center, covered in blueprints and papers and manila folders just like the one she was carrying. A half pot of coffee brewing on a counter filled the small space with a slightly burned scent, and Dale himself was sitting at one of the computers, sipping from a steaming Global Oil mug and squinting at the screen.

He was a tall, broad man who’d spent enough of his life around oil rigs to give his skin a glossy sheen that looked dirty even straight out of the shower. A perpetual rust-colored stubble dotted his cheeks, and he wore a Baltimore Ravens baseball cap pulled low over eyes that had faded to a pale blue from years spent outdoors, supervising rigs from North Dakota to Texas.

“Hello.” Daphne gently shut the door behind her.

Dale looked her over and grunted. “Can I help you?”

She took a deep breath. “I wanted to ask about getting work on the rig.”

“You?” Dale nearly spat out his coffee. He managed to swallow it and coughed loudly, not bothering to cover his mouth. One massive Caterpillar work boot pounded the floor, making the whole trailer shake.

Daphne handed him the folder. “I don’t have any rig experience, but I spent three years at the 7-Eleven in Detroit and was promoted to manager. I learn fast, and I’m a hard worker, plus I’ve been studying up on how the rig works. My résumé’s in there.”

Dale snorted. “Listen, young lady, once the rig is up there’ll be plenty of work for you in town: hotels, restaurants, massage parlors, you name it. There’s no reason for you to waste your time here.”

She dug her fingernails into her palm, forcing herself to keep calm. She’d known this might happen—she just hadn’t realized it would be so
quick
.

“I
want
to work here,” she said.

“Sure you do—you probably heard the money’s real good. But do the math, sweetheart. As a roustabout you’d make thirty an hour, tops. Once the grifters take over this town, you’ll make at least that in tips at the bar and grill of your choice—and you won’t have to worry about losing a limb in an accident or getting a face full of flaming oil. I run the safest rigs in the business, but accidents still happen more often than you’d think. Just hold off another month or two, get a job where you can put that pretty face of yours to work, and you’ll be rolling in it.”

Daphne’s eye twitched violently. “It’s not about the money,” she said quietly, trying to control the anger in her voice. “And I’m not afraid of danger. I want to work on the rig.”

“Listen.” Dale tossed her résumé on the table without opening the folder. “I’d like to be able to hire you, but I need big, strong guys for this work. Guys who can be out all day in the sun lugging a hundred pounds of pipe, who don’t mind getting a face full of oil when I ask ’em to clean out a valve.”

Daphne’s heart pounded right along with her eye, the blood pumping through her veins in adrenaline-fueled spurts. “I see.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled on her old leather work gloves, the ones she’d used to haul heavy crates of dry goods into the 7-Eleven’s storage room whenever a shipment arrived. “Are any of those filing cabinets full?”

“Sure.” Dale rolled his eyes. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

It took two long strides to get across the trailer. She put a palm against the closest cabinet and pushed it back gently, tipping it toward the wall. The pressure against her hand was heavy—it was full.

Daphne crouched and got both arms around the filing cabinet. She took a deep breath and reminded herself of all the heavy lifting she’d done in the past: crates of beer and Slurpee syrup, the industrial meat slicer behind the 7-Eleven’s deli counter, a drunk who had once passed out in the Doritos aisle. With her gloves firmly gripping the cabinet’s slippery sides, she grunted and sank weight into her feet, using her knees for leverage. Beads of sweat popped out on her forehead as she lifted it one, then three, then several inches off the ground. It felt like being crushed to death by a dinosaur, but she didn’t let go.

Still holding the filing cabinet, she turned to face Dale. Coffee had sloshed over the sides of his mug, which he held uselessly in the air, as if he’d forgotten its purpose.

“Is this strong enough?” she gasped. She knew her face must be scarlet with exertion, but she didn’t care.

Dale gulped.

Shuffling her feet and guessing at the distance, Daphne lugged the cabinet to the other side of the trailer. She could barely see around it but used her peripheral vision to sense when she was across.

“I’m going to put this here now.” Her voice was strained, but she wasn’t panting. Yet.

“Okaaaaaaaay,” Dale said.

She set the cabinet down slowly, taking extra care to make sure it didn’t bang on the floor. She mopped sweat from her brow and met the foreman’s mild blue eyes.

“Is it okay there, or would you like me to put it back?” she asked.

Dale looked as if he’d misplaced his voice. “I guess it’s good there,” he finally croaked.

“Good,” Daphne said. “Now, what were you saying about needing big, strong guys?”

Dale looked at her, openmouthed, for a long moment. “I stand corrected,” he said finally.

“Thank you.” Daphne peeled off her work gloves and shoved them in her back pocket. “So when can I start?”

Dale still looked reluctant. “You know I wasn’t joking about the danger, right?” he said. “It’s not just lifting and carrying. You’re in the line of fire. Things go wrong.”

Daphne shrugged. “Still sounds better than waiting tables.”

Dale guffawed, slapping his Carhartts hard with a leathery palm. “All right,” he said. “You’re hired. You can start tomorrow.”

“Great!” Daphne smiled.

“And now for the really killer part of this job—the paperwork.” He turned and rummaged in one of the filing cabinets, producing a folder bulging with papers. “I’ll need you to fill out all of these—and if you’re under eighteen, I can’t put you on the graveyard shift.”

“Sounds fair,” Daphne said. She pulled up a chair, and Dale handed her a pen, looking over her shoulder as she filled in her name.

“Daphne Peyton?” he read, eyebrows creeping up his forehead.

“Mmm-hmmm.” She chewed on the pen cap, trying to decide whom to put as her emergency contact—Myra or Uncle Floyd.

Dale sat back in his chair. “Floyd’s niece, huh. I’ve heard some things about you.”

“Like what?” She looked up to see him stroking the stubble on his face.

“Pretty crazy stuff—like there were trumpets coming from nowhere the day you arrived, and you found this oil by jamming a dipstick in the ground. Is that true?”

“Sort of.” Daphne felt color creep into her cheeks. She wasn’t used to how fast gossip spread in a small town. “I guess.”

He shook his head. “Craziest thing I ever heard. Finding the oil is usually the hard part: Global’s spent millions on discovery, drilled more test wells than you can shake a stick at. And you just touch the ground and it comes pouring out.” He laughed softly to himself. “Heck, maybe Global Oil should send
you
to those test sites, instead of all those overpaid scientists.”

He continued stroking his chin, looking at her thoughtfully as Daphne filled out the rest of her paperwork. When she handed it back to him, he stood and smiled, extending his hand.

“Let’s hope neither of us end up regretting this,” he said, pumping her arm up and down. “But welcome to the Global Oil team.”

FROM the moment Owen and Luna left the Radical Roots festival, their journey took on the urgency of a phantom itch, ephemeral and omnipresent, demanding yet refusing relief. They talked endlessly as they drove from town to town, hitting races when they needed the money and pushing on when they didn’t, the phantom vein from their dream pulsing like a mirage, always a few miles farther down the road. They regurgitated their life stories as his wheels ate mile after mile of pavement, poring over the details of their childhoods and looking for the loose threads that would weave into an explanation behind their shared nightmares.

Besides being born on the same commune, they discovered that she was just two days older than him, that they both hated the taste of pesto, and that they would always rather move than sit still. Their restless energy filled the cab of the truck, pulsing to the jam-band tunes from Luna’s iPod, relentlessly propelling them forward. They didn’t know where they were going—only that they needed to get there as soon as possible, to placate the voice in their dreams.

A few nights into their journey, at a campground in a remote logging village in Montana, the bonfire in Owen’s nightmares burned brighter than ever before. Luna was there, her face no longer cloaked in shadow like the rest of the figures dancing and shrieking around them. Her green eyes glowed like embers as she writhed in a hoop made of fire, the flames lapping at her skin without leaving a mark. The bonfire grew until it nearly blinded him with its white-hot hunger, robbing the air of oxygen until he awoke, choking on his own fear, with the gravelly voice still whispering
find the vein
in his ears.

He thrashed in his sleeping bag, clawing at the drawstring that had wrapped around his neck until he’d shaken himself free. The late-morning sun was high in the sky, baking the bed he’d made for himself in the back of his truck, and he shielded his eyes with his hands, glancing around at the tents and RVs until he spotted Luna. She had rolled out a yoga mat under a pine tree and was standing in downward dog, peering at him upside down through the gap between her legs with an unmistakable smirk on her face.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she said, kicking into a handstand.

Fear still throbbed in Owen’s veins. “I had it again,” he told her. “Just now.”

“The dream?” She arched her body into a bridge, the charms in her dreadlocks jangling as they scraped the yoga mat. “I had it, too. It was so intense! I know we’re getting closer. I can feel it.”

Owen wondered whether the morning yoga session had calmed her, or if Luna simply didn’t find the dreams as unsettling as he did. “Where are they coming from?” he wondered aloud. “Was it like that at the commune, when you were a kid? You mentioned there were bonfires every night.” He swung his legs over the truck’s tailgate and fished in his backpack for a canteen, taking a long, lukewarm swig of water.

“A little.” Luna pulsed up and down in her backbend, the slim muscles in her arms straining. “But it was nothing like this. That was what was. This is what will come to be.”

“What do you mean?” he started to ask. But Luna had already cartwheeled her way to standing. Her back was to him as she raised her arms to the sky in a final long stretch, so that it looked like her tree tattoo was growing.