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either.”
    We were quiet. Deads she keeps calling them.  Name fits I guess.   They’re dead after all …
    I was almost asleep .
    I’ll call them that too, I thought as I drifted off to sleep.
    “You got a girlfriend?” she asked waking me up.
    “No,” I said quietly.
    “You know, I saw you looking at me,” she said.
    “I know you know,” I said, smiling, my eyes still closed.
    “Can I lay with you?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    She came over and lay down next to me.  She put her head on my chest.  I put my arm around her.
    “My head still hurts,” she said quietly.
    “It’ll be better in the morning…oh wait, shit.  Here.”  I reached into my front right pants pocket.  The aspirin was still there.  “This might help with the pain.”
    Her bottle of water was still half-full.  She downed three aspirin.
    “Thanks” she said as she laid her head back on my chest.
    After that we were very quiet.
    Soon enough we were asleep.
     
    Back on the highway the next morning, Tara wanted to drive.  As she drove, I looked over the roadmap that I had picked up at the gas station.  I studied our position:  it was about 196 miles to Spokane.  We still didn’t know exactly why we were heading there other than the army base that we knew about.
    The roads were pretty clear so far that morning.  It seemed to make everything better.
    The destruction around us didn’t seem to be as severe.  Things looked more normal the further away we got from Seattle.  Maybe the destruction only surrounds Seattle , I thought.
    Hours later, as we drove down into the Yakima River valley, we saw that both sides of the highway had collapsed and were partially underwater.  My idea that the destruction was going away fell apart.  I climbed up on some rocks to get a better vantage point as I looked down the road.  The Yakima River ran right alongside the highway.  As far as I could see, the road was destroyed.  Large rippled cracks split off into several different directions.  Between the bent over forest, the road curved into the distance.  We would need to backtrack.
    Back in the van, the roadmap showed that the only way around this would be to take a side highway.  That meant we would have to backtrack all the way to Cle Elum.
    “All the way back ?” Tara asked.
    “Yeah.   We wasted a good half day getting here.  If we walk, there’s no telling what might be down the road.  We might not be able to get through even on foot.”
    “I really don’t want to dr ive all the way back, Dan.”
    “Yeah me either…”
    I looked at the road map.  I said “Well, it’s about 5 miles to Ellensburg.  Hopefully Ellensburg’s not destroyed, too.  You think we can hike that far?”
    “I think we can – if the deads let us.”
    “Let’s not worry about them for now,” I said with a chuckle.  “We haven’t seen any for a while…let’s hope it stays that way.  Let’s each carry a small bag.  You carry the food.  I’ll carry the weapons.”
    “K.”
    We set off from the van.
    At first, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be.  There weren’t any deads around, thankfully.
    For the first few miles, the hardest part was hopping from highway slab to highway slab and then back onto dirt or mud.  Most of the road was built above water.  Pieces had fallen down or had cracked sideways so that the road angle d down into the rushing water. As we walked and hopped, the river raged next to us.  The sound was very loud. It covered up our grunts as we jumped across gaps in the cool mountain air.  The scent of fir trees and fresh sap was very strong.
    When we were about halfway to Ellensburg, Tara grabbed me by the back of the shirt to get my attention.  I looked.  The valley next to the road had dropped into a dee p rippled crevasse.  We really couldn’t tell how deep it actually was from our position.
    We stood side by side for a minute, looking at the complete destruction.  Trees had fallen into the crevasse