Chapter Thirty-Two: The Guardrail

While Gavin had long since turned his gaze toward the road ahead, casting Ennis aside, the people in the motorhome remained fixated on the increasingly distant town.

Staring at the familiar silhouette, William pressed his palm against his forehead, his lips trembling as if he were about to speak, though the words never came. He had always been a talkative man—at least when he first met his idol, he had been so chatty that it was hard to keep up, his words spilling out in a chaotic jumble. But in just a few hours, his sudden silence had led everyone meeting him for the first time to assume he was simply a man of few words.

Beside him, Eugene rose from the sofa and walked to the back of the motorhome. He stood by the bed, peering through the rear window, lingering on the town where he had spent decades of his life. It wasn't just a town he was reluctant to leave; it was the entirety of the last thirty years of his existence.

Meanwhile, at the dining table, Winnie’s small mouth parted instinctively as her gaze followed the receding town through the window. Noticing her daughter’s expression, Doris took her small hand and whispered, "Don't look anymore, dear."

"It's okay, Mom. I'm just looking, that's all. You don't need to worry about me."

Winnie’s tone was flat, yet that very indifference seemed to trigger something in Doris. Her demeanor shifted, and she hissed in a low, emotional outburst. "I said stop looking! That place isn’t your father’s grave, honey—it’s hell. A goddamn hell!"

With that, Doris collapsed onto the table, burying her face in her arms and squeezing her eyes shut. Startled by the sudden outburst, Winnie hesitated, then reached out to run her fingers through her mother’s hair. "If Dad and my brother knew we were still alive, they would be so happy, Mom."

Without waiting for a response, Winnie leaned in, resting her head against her mother’s.

In the back, hearing the two women, Eugene took a deep breath and turned around. A sneer flickered across his face, but a moment later, it soured into a bitter grimace. He dropped the half-hearted expression and sat down across from Doris at the table. While toying with the roses on the table, he muttered, "I was about to scold you for being less composed than a child, but then I thought, 'Fuck, I’m probably not any better than a kid myself.'"

"Believe it or not, when we were driving out of Ennis, I almost cried my fucking eyes out!"

"It’s embarrassing as hell. I’d rather have pissed my pants than let water leak out of these two holes in my face. You know why?"

Eugene tapped the table with his finger, prompting Doris to look up at him, her eyes tinged with fear.

In the driver’s seat, Madison caught wind of Eugene’s words and glanced back. "Eugene, you’re capable of being this serious?"

"There’s a lot you don't know about me. Answer my question—do you know why I hate shedding tears so much?" Eugene pressed on, not waiting for a reply from Madison or Doris. "Because I learned something interesting when I was fighting in the Middle East."

"Whenever one of my squadmates had a breakdown because of the endless suicide attacks and hid in a tent or a trench crying like a girl, he wasn’t long for this world."

"It wasn't a coincidence, and it wasn't an isolated case. The war I fought wasn't like the movies. In films, the more a soldier cries, the more likely he is to survive and become stronger. But in reality, once my comrades felt fear or started to crack, they never had the time to grow stronger. Death always found them with unerring precision—every single one of them!"

"So..." Eugene tapped the table again, staring into Doris’s avoidant, timid eyes. "Do you want to die like my comrades did?"

Doris gasped, shaking her head frantically. "No, I..."

"Haha, I’m just fucking with you. You’re a woman—you can cry all you want! I was saying that for William’s benefit. Hey, little William, ever since you saw your deadbeat dad, you’ve been acting so pathetic it’s like you’re dying to put on some lingerie! The kind with a thin strip of fabric wedged right up your ass—haha!!!"

Laughing, Eugene left the table and ruffled William’s hair vigorously. After being manhandled for a moment, William finally reacted, exhaling with annoyance and ducking away from Eugene’s hand. Seeing that William was genuinely irritated, Eugene let him be, leaned back on the sofa, and pulled out a cigarette.

"I won't go smoke in the passenger seat; I’m not as particular as our quarterback here. Besides, the world has changed. You two will see plenty more assholes like me soon enough," he muttered, lighting the cigarette.

Exhaling a cloud of smoke, Eugene looked toward the driver’s seat. "Madison, want to learn how to smoke? Believe me, you’ll need this stuff eventually. It’ll slowly kill you as it burns, but it’ll fill a little bit of the void in your heart. Even if it’s just filling your heart with shit, believe me, shit is better than emptiness. Those two feelings are worlds ap—huh?"

Before he could finish, Madison suddenly slowed the motorhome!

The people inside instantly abandoned their philosophical musings and lunged toward the front to look at the Tyrannosaurus ahead. The vehicle was slowing down, pulling over to the side of the road, and Gavin jumped out.

Stepping onto the highway, Gavin walked to the shoulder, frowning at the guardrail. There hadn't been any guardrails when they entered Ennis—why were there some now that they were leaving?

As he leaned in to inspect the barrier, the others stepped out of the motorhome, leaving only Doris and Winnie inside. Before they could get too close, Gavin waved them off. "Don't worry, I’m just checking the guardrail. I never really paid attention to whether there were barriers on this road back when I used to drive it."

Gavin wasn't a genius with a superhuman brain; his memory was standard, but he was just a bit more cautious than the average person. He examined the material of the guardrail—it wasn't the plastic buffer type, but solid, hard metal, nearly impossible to break.

Nearby, Madison asked hesitantly, "Is there something wrong with the guardrail? There are always barriers on the side of the road. It’s common."

"Yeah, too common," Gavin nodded, then shook his head, thinking aloud. "The guardrail itself is fine, but if we have to avoid the city center once we reach the vicinity of Coskana and look for a way through, I’m worried these barriers will become a problem. They lock us onto the road, leaving us with nowhere to go but forward or backward."

Gavin turned to the group. "Are there guardrails like this on the roads near Coskana? Do you recall?"

"Ha, I actually do have an impression of that," Eugene said, counting on his fingers. "There are definitely a lot of guardrails over there, and they’re sturdy, too. Lots of trucks pass through that city, and the economy in Coskana is much better than in Ennis."

"Unlike our Ennis, where there’s only one straight road in and out—it’s hard to even get into a car accident there. Coskana is a labyrinth, the city planning is a disaster, the shitty City Hall and state assembly are useless, the politicians are all liars, and the state government only knows how to collect taxes. Motherfucker."

Eugene spat on the ground. Gavin nodded and walked back toward the Tyrannosaurus. "It’s fine. Let’s keep moving; we’ve still got thirty-some kilometers to go."

With that, everyone climbed back into the motorhome, and they continued their journey. But less than eight kilometers down the road, Gavin pulled over again.