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five days, in this heat, surely she’d be dead.
    In the dim light, the gravel road was barely visible. Two columns of skeleton trees flanked it. As she moved between the trees, she could see they were all scorched by the fire. Not a leaf or needle remained. Smaller trees and brush were consumed entirely, leaving only the frames of the largest bushes standing, and the trees, giant black toothpicks with a few short branches poking out like spines.
    On the main road, she turned left, continuing down the hill in the same direction she had been traveling when all this started, not even a full week ago. Behind her, it was thirty miles to the nearest town. She hoped in the other direction she’d find a stream, a house, a town, a gas station, or a rescue vehicle.
    Under her feet, the road was covered with a thick layer of ash. Her boots shushed in it like in fine powder snow, sinking down in it to the laces. She wiggled her feet experimentally and found herself sinking lower. There had to be four or five inches of it on the ground.
    It was slow going, hiking through it. Coral walked through a still, dim landscape of an ashen roadway that passed through a dead forest of black skeleton trees. No animal noises, no car noises, no sound at all pierced the thick air. She was used to silence from backcountry packing, but this was eerie, this padded silence. It seemed like some empty vision of the afterlife that nomadic desert dwellers might have invented, a limbo for lost souls.
    When she got to the bottom of the long hill, before the next one started to rise, she left the roadway, making her way to the lowest point between the two hills, the place where water might be. She hunted for a creek, a stream, or any trickle of water. Despite spending what seemed a full hour at the search, she found no trace of moisture. If she could tell how the land sloped away to one direction or the other from here, she would have followed the slope down, but without clear skies and light to reveal distant trees, it was impossible for her to guess how the land changed further than a dozen feet away.
    She made her way back to the roadway and trudged on. Within steps, she had to stop. Her heart was pounding and her breath was coming in gasps, pulling fine silt through her mask. She thought she couldn’t have lost that much fitness in just a few days, but this climb was far harder than she had anticipated. She wondered what sort of elevation she was at—probably something like 5000 feet. Still, she had been hiking in high country for over a week. She was fit, young, and strong.
    But then again, she was hungry, thirsty, and worried, and she was breathing dust through a makeshift mask. Irritated at having to make the adjustment, she lowered her expectations of her drained body. At this rate, in two days, she’d only cover a dozen miles before thirst stopped her. Maybe she’d get twenty miles before thirst killed her.
    She had to find water—or help—soon.
    She started off again, slower, taking the sort of short steps she’d normally take only on a much steeper grade. Each footfall she moved only a couple inches ahead. After two hundred paces, she had to stop to catch her breath, even at this turtle’s pace. She took the pack off and sat, waiting until her breathing had slowed to normal. She looked at the water bottle but refused herself its relief. Next stop, she’d allow herself a scant mouthful.
    The next stage was no easier. You’d think it would get easier, she kept telling herself. The straps of the heavy pack dug into her shoulders. She kept her pace slow, but still it was as hard a hike as she’d ever taken. In the hot air, pulling herself up this hill, she was sweating and resented it, resented the loss of water from a body already too dehydrated.
    It seemed to take hours to reach the top of the next long rise. It probably wasn’t hours, but having no way to check a clock, she couldn’t be sure. No car passed her during the time she walked. No