The storm was closing in as they rushed towards the camper. Whether it was luck or the effect of Rosario’s trick with the expanding crystal dust, no one gave them trouble.

After letting the children in and retrieving the lamp she had tied to the roof, Rosario sat in the driver’s seat and thought the old vehicle that had served as their home for the past years never felt more like it. She left her coat and rifle on the floor on the passenger side and then placed the power cell back in its place. Heavy raindrops fell as she started the engine and began turning around towards the road when Franziska’s scream made her slam on the brakes.

“Stefan, you idiot!” she yelled. “You killed it!”

“I didn’t know it was there!”

Rosario adjusted the read mirror to try seeing what was happening in the back. “What’s going on over there?” she asked the kids.

“There was a little lizard hiding under the table, but Stefan threw his backpack full of crystals under it and, of course, it killed it,” said the girl. “The poor thing was sick. It probably just wanted to escape from the rain.”

Rosario looked up at the ceiling. “Stefan, you know the backpacks go inside the closet.”

He ignored her and looked at Franziska instead. “How do you even know it was sick?”

“Because it had a round bump on its back.”

“You mean like some tumor?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see much before it became dust.”

Rosario turned around in her seat. “Franzi, I’m sorry about the little lizard. If it was sick, maybe a quick end was better,” she tried to offer as a consolation, but she only saw a disappointed on the girl’s face. “Let’s talk about it later, okay? It’s dangerous to stay here.”

They left the clearing and entered the road surrounded by forest, but not too far from where the road converged with the one descending from the tunnel, she stopped: a tree had fallen and was now blocking their path.

The children in the back of the camper noticed her stopping and moved forward to look. Franziska climbed onto the half seat behind the driver, while Stefan moved to the passenger seat.

Both were talking about the fallen tree, but Rosario didn’t hear them. Her thoughts were racing; something was very wrong here, and then she saw it: sawdust near the base of the tree. The image of the dead deer next to the monster artichoke flashed before her eyes.

“Get down!” she yelled as she put the vehicle in reverse and began driving. The tires screeched, and the heavy rain muffled the sound of the gunshots. One hit the vehicle on the side, the other broke the windshield near the passenger side. Rosario heard two more shots but didn’t know where they hit, as she was now driving still in reverse over the muddy narrow road.

Rosario was a skilled driver. After all, she had been driving that old camper for almost two decades, but her head suddenly started pounding again. She lost control and hit a tree. Noticing dark spots in her visual field and worrying she would pass out, she remembered her rifle still on the passenger seat floor and attempted to reach for it. Unless their attackers were as resistant as a crystal hunter, they would be at least severely injured from crystal poisoning once she shot at the area nearby.

But she didn’t get to grab the weapon. Her vision blurred and pain overcame her, causing her to bend over from driver’s seat the passenger side. In a state of utter confusion, she felt the rain pouring in from the broken windshield, screams, and then another shot, this time very close. Darkness came quickly after.

****

Rosario heard a rattling sound and felt the irregular vibration of the engine before she even realized she was awake. The headache was gone, and she felt warm and damp air on her face, coming in from a broken windshield. She was on a car seat, which was fully reclined. She knew it was her vehicle because the smell and the texture were those of her van, but how could it be that it was her vehicle that made that horrible noise? Then it all came back at once: the blockade, the gunshots, running in reverse into a tree, the headache…

“She’s waking up, Stefan!”

“Okay good. But I can’t stop or we’ll get stuck in the mud,” and in a lower voice, he added. “Or maybe the engine won’t start again.”

She was lying on the passenger seat. Stefan was driving and Franziska was in the seat behind, smiling.

“Hi!”

“Hey, Franzi.” Rosario thought her head would hurt as she tried to get up, but oddly enough, any trace of the intense headache was gone.

“You can rest some more. We are almost back on the main road.”

“What--?” she put her seat up a bit.

“After you fainted, we moved you to the passenger seat and Stefan drove away from where they shot at us. You are heavy. And Stefan barely reaches the pedals,” she giggled. “Oh, and he shot your rifle. My ears still hurt a bit.”

“Mine too. I prefer my slingshot,” said Stefan, without taking his eyes off the road.

Rosario ran her fingers through her disheveled hair while trying to place the events in order.

“Still, that was a good reaction. Well done, you two.” The kids smiled. “Do you know what happened to the people who attacked us?”

“Not really. They shot us four times, but after the crystal bullet, they stopped and we didn’t see anything else. We also didn’t stop to look.”

“Oh, right! How did you get past the fallen tree?”

“We didn’t. I drove back to the reservoir and crossed the bridge.”

“What?” She got up in surprise. “The one that was covered in trees?”

“Yeah, but we used crystals to burn them and got across just fine.”

Rosario saw they were now driving on a grass covered road flanked on both sides by the ruins of wooden chalet-style houses.

“Isn’t this cool?” said Franziska. “When we were stuck up in the ravine, I saw these ruins. And after they attacked us and Stefan began driving, he thought that maybe there was a road that connected the lake with the town. And we found one! We followed it and here we are now. I think this town is all abandoned.”

Rosario couldn’t hide her surprise, relief, and pride, and fell back into the seat.

“You two are one hell of a team. I think I can retire now.”

The siblings chuckled, and they rode in silence for a moment. Rosario looked again at the surrounding ruins; some houses had lower walls made of stone, while the upper floors were made of large planks of wood. Most of the roofs were long gone and what was left of the wood was rotting away, but ornate decorations were still noticeable, as were some of the signs of the restaurants, stores, and hotels. Before the collapse, this would have been the historical old town; now, trees and ferns grew on the remaining standing walls and out of the broken windows.

The view suddenly changed to more modern style concrete block buildings with blocky balconies, which in Rosario’s opinion looked horrendous even when there was so little left of them.

“Alright, we’re out of the old town and now there should be a road on the left that runs towards the train tracks.” Franziska had a laminated paper map on her lap and a finger on the point of their current location.

“Good, I think I see it, and it looks clear enough.” The engine made a horrible noise as Stefan turned, and the wheels had to fight to get out of the muddy terrain.

“If we can drive on railway for a while…” Stefan explained, “... we should eventually reach a point where the tracks intersect with the road we wanted to take.” He paused, as if waiting for Rosario to add anything.

“You two are doing an excellent job,” said Rosario. “Don’t let me stop you.”

Stefan nodded and continued with the plan.

“Where did you even find that map?” She didn’t want to distract them but couldn’t help but ask.

“At the town’s tourism office,” explained Franziska, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

They eventually found the tracks, and thankfully, the track ballast of the railway was wide enough for them to drive over it. At times, they had to use highly potent crystals to clear the vegetation, so it took a while until they reached the point where the tracks continued on an overpass, and the road they had initially intended to take was below.

Only once they made it to the road below did Stefan stop the car, but left the engine running.

He had been going on pure adrenaline since the moment of the gunshots back in the forest road, and now it caught up to him. His legs felt like gelatin and was out of breath. He looked at Rosario.

“Hey, so, if you’re feeling better, maybe you can drive again?”

*****

Rosario spent the next twenty minutes assessing the damage made to the vehicle. One shot had only made superficial damage, leaving a mark near the back window. Another shot pierced through one of the cooling systems, which meant now the vehicle could only go at low speed or else it risked overheating the energy extraction mechanism. A third shot had impacted in the distribution system, which for some reason, and despite the warning signals on the front panel, kept working. But it was surely only a matter of time before a critical damage would let them stranded.

All of that made Rosario angry enough, but it was nothing compared to what she felt when looking at the shot that had gone through the windshield and all the way to the back compartment. Stefan and Franziska had been very close to its trajectory, and it was pure coincidence they weren’t hit.

But it would have to wait. While the camper still worked, she had to get her and the children to safety, and at the moment, getting to the nearest town was their best choice. Even with the impending danger of a potential swarm of monsters coming from the valley behind them, it was still better to be in a human settlement than out in the wilderness.

Rosario returned to the driver’s seat and started the engine, which, to her relief, started on the fourth try. A thin plume of white fume emerged from the side of the hood. She ignored it, as well as the many orange lights blinking on the front panel, and began driving.

“Don’t worry, we’re just burning some coolant,” she explained, not reassuring the children. “Anyway, let’s see if we can make it to Spiez and hope they can repair our machine there. We have crystals. We can pay for nice repairs.”

“What about the swarm crawlers?” asked Franziska.

“The what?”

“While you were out, we picked a name for the monsters in the cocoon forest,” explained the girl. “We thought ‘swarm crawlers’ sounded good.” Besides her, Stefan nodded with a serious expression. They had probably put some serious thought into it.

“I like the name, and I don’t think they’ll come out just now, so we’ll be fine. We can first see if they can repair the damage, and if it takes too long or they can’t fix it, we’ll see if we can load the camper on a train and take it elsewhere. This town has connection to a rail network, so worst-case scenario, we take the train and leave.”

“Hey, Rosario?” asked Stefan.

“Yes?”

“If we have to stay in the town for some days, do you think you can go see a doctor? For your headaches, I mean.”

It caught her slightly by surprise. “Of course. I’ll do that.”

As they drove, Rosario tried her best to keep the conversation going, so their thoughts didn’t go to the likely possibility of the camper breaking down and leaving them stranded on a semi-abandoned road.

*****