The Deep Read Free Page B

and demolished
towns and buildings along the roadside. Bodmin and Dartmoor may
have been rebuilt, but it’s clear that the world around those
places still bears the blemish of all the warfare that Tony told us
about.
    “Why haven’t you repaired this road?” I ask
him curiously.
    “Because we never use it,” Tony answers.
“Nobody lives in Penzance, and if we want to go to the seaside to
do some fishing, we drive from Bodmin to Newquay. There’s an
abandoned harbor there, too.”
    The world is enormous, yet empty. We could
drive around here for hours without meeting a soul. I wonder what
it would be like to get off this road and hit the smaller tracks.
Would we find all houses and trails tucked away in the forest
deserted? Or is it possible that animals and people are hiding
there – other survivors who believe they are alone, too?
    Relief washes over me when the pavement
improves and the road becomes wider. It’s obvious this part of the
route is kept in better condition. I even spot signs along the road
with names of places on them, to guide people on their way.
    “Bodmin,” I whisper, when we pass a road sign
featuring the name of Tony’s town. We hit a fork in the road. Like
Tony said, we’re not going straight to Bodmin. He follows a sign
saying Liskeard and Yelverton. Outlandish, unfamiliar names that
make me painfully aware of being a total stranger here.
    “Look, there’s some kind of fence,” Walt
observes once we cross a river and leave the desolate, destroyed
town of Yelverton behind. The road curves to the right and narrows
down to a small, winding trail. Walt is right – a barrier looms in
the distance, and the bus is driving toward a gate in the high
fence. Beyond the barrier, I can make out green, rolling hills and
tall boulders of jagged, gray rocks jutting out from the undulating
landscape.
    I smile. No charred destruction. Finally a
piece of earth that reminds me of home.
    “We’re here. This is Dartmoor County,” Tony
states. He slows down and stops right in front of the gate, next to
some kind of guardhouse. Two men emerge, and Tony opens the window
on his side to lean out and address them. It surprises me how
different his voice suddenly sounds – a bit more cautious and
timid. I don’t get why, because the two border guards don’t really
strike me as dangerous. In fact, for a pair of sentries, I think
they look strangely convivial. Saul’s hulking disciples would have
walked all over these two. I do spot weapons dangling from their
belts, though. They look similar to the weapon Luke Skywalker is
holding on the front cover of our Book.
    “So they have a Wall as well,” Walt mumbles.
“People can’t walk in just like that.”
    “Maybe they want to keep the people within
the enclosure safe,” William pipes up. “Tony told us the lands
surrounding these former nature reserves are poisonous, right?
Nobody wants to run the risk of getting sick again.”
    I frown dubiously. Why would they need
sentries for that? The inhabitants of Dartmoor wouldn’t want to
venture out anyway, if they feared the outside world so much. We
never had soldiers guarding our Wall either – no one even wanted to
cross. Until recently, that is.
    “I don’t know, Dad,” Walt replies
uncertainly. Clearly, he’s thinking the same thing.
    Once we pass through the gate and enter
Dartmoor County, my dark thoughts dissipate into the background.
It’s truly beautiful here. The vegetation is lush and green, and I
spot the same kind of heather that grows near our northern beach.
Farms dot the landscape, surrounded by fields filled with grazing
cows and sheep. As we drive further east, the cattle fields make
way for a different kind of farmland – fields of grain. They look
like barley and rye plants, or possibly oats. It all looks so
peaceful and tranquil that my eyes fill with tears. In here, people
have learned how to live together in peace, without being at each
others’ throats or making up ridiculous