A tall, thin man approached from the rear of Cindy’s rig. She’d met Dave Bowman back at Emporia. He was a little strange, she thought, and unlike so many of the middle-aged drivers here, he didn’t have a potbelly. Dave seemed to glide across the cement surface.

‘Coat still warm enough for you, young lady?’ he asked.

Sofia nodded. ‘Yes, thank you.’

‘No problemo,’ Dave said.

Cindy circled around from the driver’s side, chatting with another female trucker, who also wore a furry creature hat. A rabbit of some sort, thought Sofia. Perhaps Bugs Bunny.

‘Mel, where’s Brian?’ Cindy asked the other woman.

‘Feeding the bunnies,’ this Mel said. She was about the same height as Cindy French and seemed rather too refined to be a trucker. With her unusually straight posture and precision of movement, Sofia wondered if she might be a veteran. They all moved the same way, she thought.

‘You keep the rabbits for food?’ Sofia asked. ‘I had my share of them. I could cook a pot for you if you’d like.’

Mel actually took a step back as a wash of pale horror fell across her features.

‘Pets, hon,’ Cindy said quickly, taking the teenager by the shoulder. ‘Melissa keeps bunnies as pets in her rig. They’re kinda cute . . . Hey, Mel, is Brian gonna come too, then?’

‘No,’ the woman in the bunny hat replied, recovering herself but smiling a little awkwardly at Sofia. ‘I’ll take him something. Let’s go eat.’

Inside the Flying J’s government-run canteen, it smelled of fresh paint, disinfectant and greasy food. As she joined the line of diners, Sofia kept one eye on the television suspended from the ceiling in a corner of the dining area, but it only seemed to be playing re-runs of some pre-Wave show hosted by a man called Jerry, where fat people attacked each other in a TV studio. Sometimes they wore costumes that made them look like perverts. It was incomprehensible and eventually she gave up.

Soldiers and civilians moved down the queue, each clutching a metal tray. Occasionally they’d glance over at the TV screen too, but mostly they busied themselves scooping up piles of the usual bland but plentiful government food. Stiff, dry potato bake, frankfurters, bacon like jerky, fatty ham, and the always popular shit on a shingle. In front of her in the line, thin Dave Bowman shook his head at it all, deeply unimpressed.

‘Give me an apple and a whole-wheat roll,’ he said.

‘Don’t want much, do ya?’ the man serving behind the counter replied. He tossed a sad-looking yellow apple over. ‘Bread’s over at the bench, dude.’

Dave noticed Sofia focusing again on the television and elbowed her gently. ‘Sure you want to go to Fort Hood?’ he asked. ‘They’re all like that down there, you know.’