Read Online Ascending the Boneyard by C. G. Watson - Free Book Online Page A

been on lockdown, my feet bolted in shock to a single spot on the cracked pavement.
    He wanders into the middle of the freeway to meet me, where we stand in complete silence and just . . . stare.
    â€œHow’d we miss this ?” he finally whispers, leaning in to me like he’s afraid someone might overhear. Which we can now clearly see is impossible.
    â€œIt just . . . popped up,” I say. “Totally out of nowhere.”
    Wisps of smoke drag my words away from me, and I follow their tracks to the wreckage up ahead.
    â€œHow many cars?” I ask.
    â€œFifty,” he says. “A hundred. Hard to tell.”
    â€œWhere do you think everyone went?”
    â€œNo idea.” Haze adjusts his gas mask, and for the first time ever, I covet that thing, wish I had one of my own. The reek of burnt rubber and axle grease and barbecued engine parts hangs heavy in the air.
    But the fear . . . the fear of what this could all mean pulls at me like triple gravity.
    I try to ignore the brewing sickness in my stomach as we pick our way through the tangle of twisted bumpers, stray hubcaps, curls of tire tread, and corrugated chassis. I half expect, half dread the sound of dying moans from people trapped underneath it all. But the only sound we hear is hissing radiator steam. Beyond that, it’s eerie silence.
    That is, until the frantic screech of tires heads our way. Haze and I stop dead in our tracks, turn in unison toward the sound. It doesn’t help that we’re walking right down the middle of the highway; and as the shriek of faulty brakes gets closer, we press ourselves up against an abandoned frozen-foods delivery truck that’s tipped at a dicey angle.
    The car stops within a few feet of us, and Haze and I brace ourselves for the hail of machine-gun fire that’s bound to come spraying out of its blacked-out windows. I wince in anticipation.
    But instead the window rolls down, and when it does, my fear starts to melt, then slide, down the side of the frozen-foods delivery truck. Haze pulls his mask under his chin, his mouth hinged open.
    â€œWhat the hell is happening?” he whispers to me.
    I would have asked him the same thing if he hadn’t beaten me to it.

6.5
    The driver is a ginger supreme. She has this huge smile, and hair the color of a rusted fender bouncing around her like a shampoo commercial, and long, slender fingers wrapped around the gearshift of the most ghetto car I’ve ever seen with a savory girl behind the wheel. I mean, the car’s a real Frankenstein. But the girl . . . the girl is undeniably hot. And she’s here.
    Here.
    The only other soul in this miles-wide radius of wreckage.
    Why is that?

7
    â€œIt took me about five passes,” she says, panting yet smiling in satisfaction. “But I finally figured out how to get onto the highway without ending up in the bone pile.”
    Haze and I bank a quick glance off each other, then switch back over to the girl.
    â€œIt’s the on-ramp,” she says. “You have to take the right on-ramp or you’re gonna end up crashing into all that.” She lifts her arm and points to the massive pileup, as if there might be some confusion as to what she means by “all that.”
    â€œWe weren’t entering the highway when we crashed,” I tell her. “We were already on it.”
    Her face washes over pink, then red. “Oh, was that your truck back there?”
    â€œYeah. It just started rolling all of a sudden.”
    Haze fake coughs. “There was nothing all-of-a-sudden about it, Tosh. You took your eyes off the road.” I jump in, try to explain about the car icon and avoiding the tolls, but he’s hell-bent on splitting hairs here. “You took your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road.”
    â€œThat’s a no-no,” she says.
    I narrow my gaze at her. “Who are you?” I ask.
    â€œOh, I’m