Aidan slowly drove an old beat-up van through empty mountain tunnels. The vehicle sputtered and groaned from the years of abuse—metal plates had once been attached as armor, and removing them did not make the van cooperate any better—but he ignored the sounds. Angela, who sat in the passenger seat, slowly rubbed hair through two fingers as she flicked on the overhead light to illuminate the inside of the car. She was checking for gray hairs; Aidan knew that for sure, but he had learned it was better to say nothing than try to convince her one or two strands of gray weren’t an issue.
“Are we there yet?” a squeaky voice in the back said.
“No, dear,” Angela replied softly as she turned around. Three children sat in the seats just behind, and a baby was sleeping peacefully in support behind the passenger seat.
“Kids these days don’t appreciate trips, do they, Angie!” Aidan chimed in as he twirled rough hair from a beard hanging off his chin. He flashed his kids a smile in the mirror.
“I like trips!” a boy about the age of a preteen said in his defense. “It was Lucy complaining!” he added while pointing to the second youngest of the group.
“I just wanted to know, Mark,” a girl the age of six shot back.
“You both need to stop!” a teenage girl added with a roll of her eyes.
“Shut up, Mattie,” the two said in unison.
The kids began to loudly yell at each other until the baby cried. Angela reached back to the youngest.
“Take it easy for Johnny,” she said softly but sternly to the kids, and they nodded quietly.
“And I see light!” Aidan said with glee as the van pulled out into a worn-down mountain village. The kids watched out the window as they drove down by dilapidated houses and overgrown grass. The van groaned some as it stopped.
Lucy was the first to jump out and ran eagerly into the village.
“Hey, don’t run off!” Mark shouted as he chased after.
“Uh, children. Mom, yell at them!” Mattie groaned.
“Slow down, you two,” Angela yelled with a firmness in her tone as she slowly pulled out the baby. The two froze and ensured they didn’t get out of their mother’s view.
“What are we doing here, anyway?” Mattie asked her father as he stepped out of the van and stretched his legs.
“A road trip to celebrate peace,” he answered.
“I know that… I mean, why this ghost town?”
Aidan chuckled.
“Let’s just walk around for a bit, do a favor for your old ma and pa.”
“Whatever, Dad.”
“Hey, look!” Mark shouted with glee as he pointed in the distance. “The robots had a battle here!” Angela smiled and walked over with the baby in her arms. Aidan quietly pulled a shovel from the back and headed into the town after taking a deep breath. Mattie looked back and forth between her mother and father and groaned. She chased after her dad—he smiled some as he heard her footsteps catch up to him, and she matched his pace.
***
Mark eagerly pointed to empty metal shells. Several laid in bits on the ground, and one yellow machine, a faded yellow not nearly as brilliant as it once had been, leaned its back to a rocky face. Plants had overtaken the machines and grew around them, and flowers bloomed like a bouquet was planted inside the empty chassis. The young boy took another step closer, but Lucy grabbed his arm.
“Don’t go closer; they might jump at you!” she said worriedly.
“Don’t be silly; they’re dead! Besides, Mom and Dad kill these things all the time!” Mark said with confidence.
“But they left their pilot suits at home,” Lucy replied, her tiny voice trembling when looking at the dead giants.
“You should stay away,” Angela warned as she came close. “Best to leave them in the past,” she added while looking at the yellow one. Her kids watched her a moment in shock as she gently bounced to calm Johnny before he could get too fussy—he had made noise as they walked close to the machines. Some familiar faces appeared inside the flowery hole, and she took a deep breath. She had seen nothing since leaving the Reaper behind, but she made sure to remember every one of them daily. “Just wait a little while; we’ll stop by that old city on this trip too,” Angela whispered. The phantoms vanished at her words, and she felt her shoulders loosen. She turned away from the machine and to her kids and smiled. “Come on, let’s see if we can find your father.
***
Across the town, Mattie followed her father around the overgrown scene, taking care not to trip on hard shells dotted here and there until they stopped in front of a spot. A line of graves marked with simple wooden crosses fashioned so well that even with the simple materials, they did not fall apart even with the wear of years gone by showing.
At the end of the row was an empty pit and a pile of dirt, and several feet away, under a tree, a one-arm skeleton pointed to the grave. Next to the skeleton lay a wooden cross and a metal piece of a car body that had been used to dig the holes.
Aidan shook his head and covered his eyes with a hand.
“Are you okay, Dad?” Mattie asked as she looked back and forth between the graves, the skeleton, and her father.
“Just fine, dear. Got something in my eye is all.”
Aidan silently moved the remains from under the tree to the hole and filled it with dirt. After a few minutes of watching, Mattie rolled up her sleeves and helped push the soil in. They stabbed the small cross over the spot as the rest of the kids and Angela came over.
Aidan pulled an old helmet off his head and sat it on the cross of the grave they had just filled.
“Oh gross, you got dirt on your hands!” Mark shouted to his older sister.
“Shut up,” she said, gently rubbing them over the grave to knock the remaining dirt on top.
Angela handed the baby to Aidan and looked at the other graves. She pulled two bits of fabric from her pockets and looked around at five graves too old to tell apart. She looked at Aidan and stared, confused, with blue eyes containing a red crescent—over the years, the red had been slowly vanishing like a waxing moon. He walked over and pointed with the leg Mattie always heard him grumble about being sore.
“This is for the bandana,” he said before pointing to another, “and this for the slacks.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
She tied the fabric to each cross, and the family stood together.
“So, what now?” Lucy asked after a moment of silence. Mattie held a finger up to indicate she should be quiet.
“Thank you for all you’ve done,” Aidan finally said. “I just wanted to show you we’re doing alright and carrying on,” he added tremblingly. “We’ll make sure the next visit doesn’t take so long.”
The children watched silently as their father and mother wiped tears from their eyes. Then they followed as they returned to the van.
“So, now what?”” Lucy asked again, taking care to avoid sounding rude.
“There’s a village on the side of some mountain. We have to drive around the range, but we’ll plan to stay there a little longer,” Angela explained.
“How long is this trip going to be?” Mark groaned.
Mattie elbowed him in the side.
“Don’t worry,” Aidan said with a laugh, “I know some great places to eat along the way. I bet that old burger joint is still going!”
“Oh, burgers?” Mark said with a smile.
“They can’t be as good as mommy makes them!” Lucy added.
“You really think?” Angela asked.
“Oh yeah, this guy was too stubborn to die,” he nodded.
“Well, I guess we’ll get going then!” she replied as she took Johnny.
The family loaded back into the van and soon set off for the next leg of their trip. The kids eagerly waited in the back to see all the spots their parents planned to take them to in the peaceful world.
