“Hopefully, people aren’t being as dumb on the freeway as they are in town,” Moira said. She could not see through the windshield anymore, so she hung her head out the window to look at the line of cars stretching back from the entrance ramp. They were still three miles away according to the map, whatever that meant in their brand new, stretched-out world. The gas needle had already dropped to three-quarters.
Moira did not sound very hopeful. It was evident from the amount of traffic that people were being as dumb on the freeway as they were in town. Jeremy sighed and looked at the map. There were other ways into the city. He pointed to the block that his apartment building was on.
“Okay, here is my building.” He struggled to pull the pen out of his pocket and drew a little star, “And here we are. All the main freeways are probably blocked. If we go along here…”
He started to trace a path through the one-way streets and neighborhoods of the city. He pointed to one of the parks. “I know where this is. If we can get to it, I can get us to my apartment, and then we can head over to your boyfriend.”
“He lives here.” She pointed to one of the blocks in a nicer district not too far from Jeremy’s building, “He goes to the university.”
Jeremy drew another star. “Where is your uncle’s penthouse?”
She pointed it out, and he drew a third star. Plan acquired, he checked all his mirrors and started to signal that he was going to turn around. Many of the other cars caught in the line were doing the same. A huge, lifted truck came barreling down the road past them all. Two guys sat in the bed beneath billowing flags. They shouted into megaphones.
“Turn around!”
“They’ve got the highway blocked off to transport military equipment.”
“It won’t be opening any time soon!”
Moira groaned, “Traffic is going to be a nightmare even in the neighborhoods if that’s true.”
“It will be a nightmare no matter what.” Jeremy turned around. Even more cars began to do the same. As they drove back down the length of the line, he paused a few times to let a car pull out to do a three-way turn. The line of cars ended, and they began navigating the four-way stops and one-way streets again.
“What I don’t understand,” Moira said as the houses began to give way to townhomes and strip malls, “Is that distances are stretched out, but it does not seem like yards are any larger or townhomes are pulled apart.”
“Maybe there is something in the spell that preserves the integrity of places where people live.” Jeremy mused, “Or maybe it just added more space in places where people don’t live.”
Moira hummed while scrolling through her phone. “Apparently, experts have crunched some numbers and have a theory that the earth expanded to be five times as large as it was. So, if the spell did anything, it preserved the integrity of places where people live.”
“And things like power lines and underground cables.” Jeremy added, “You still have internet, right?”
“Yes, but only in some spots,” Moira said, “Remember how I lost signal for most of the ride into town from my house? Towers probably only cover their original ranges. They also say that satellites are all out of whack because whatever software they are programmed with accounts for a smaller Earth. They keep falling out of the sky.”
“That’s why the GPS doesn’t work then.”
“And why plane travel was originally shut down.” Moira chuckled, “Not because of the dragons.”
“Probably also because of the dragons.”
Moira turned her phone off and slapped it down on her thigh. She sighed and looked out the window. “This is a nightmare. It’s hard to believe that just last night, we were at that party, and everything was normal.”
Nothing about that party had been normal for Jeremy, but he understood where she was coming from.
“Not totally a nightmare.” Jeremy said, “Being able to do magic is cool.”
“Yeah.” Moira held her palm out. A rock dropped into it. When Moira tried to practice summoning water and got it all over Jeremy’s car earlier, he’d banned her from doing so again. So, she’d turned to conjuring various rocks out of thin air. She dropped it into the cup holder with all the others she’d summoned.
“I wonder if there is navigation magic to replace GPS.” Her eyes followed a passing street sign, and she leaned forward to look at the map.
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“Maybe your family kept excellent records, and there will be instruction manuals on magic types.” Jeremy said, “There is obviously elemental magic, but maybe navigation or combat magic. That would help the army with fighting at the gate.”
“Maybe.” Moira looked from the map to the road, “In two lights, at Monroe Street, take a left.”
After two stop lights, Jeremy flipped on his turn signal, got in the left turn lane, and stopped at the red light. They both looked to the left. A city park, lush with trimmed bushes and verdant trees, sat at the end of the road. Park benches dotted the grassy area around a fountain.
“Oh.” Jeremy said, “I know where we are now.”
“That’s good.” Moira sighed with relief and began folding up the map. She tucked it back into the bag with the others. Jeremy squinted at the park. A large shadow moved below the trees. A huge paw squashed one of the park benches. It had ridged scales and wicked claws. The tree branches rustled and parted around the figure of a dragon. Its overlay was the same as everything else’s: dark red with a few runes. He could not see the runes from this far, but he could tell there were several.
Moira’s jaw dropped open, “That’s not good.”
The dragon came down the street toward them. It had two hind legs and two vast wings that it used to crawl along, bat-like. The edges of its wings scraped along the cars parked on the side of the road and dragged through the brick siding of the buildings. The air filled with awful screeching and a spray of brick and mortar. It did not seem agitated, but it was very large. The light turned green.
“Maybe if we don’t move, it will just walk by,” Jeremy said.
“Or it will step on the car and crush us to death,” Moira countered.
Behind them, a car honked its horn. Jeremy’s mouth dropped open. He glanced in the rearview mirror. There was a little compact car inching up on his bumper, the driver scowling at them through their windshield. They honked again.
“Jesus.” Moira hissed, “Haven’t they ever seen Jurassic Park? You have to be quiet.”
They both looked back to the dragon, which lifted and tilted its head as if on high alert. It leaped toward them in a movement that only half-utilized its wings, given the narrow space between buildings, and landed with a crunch on the cars a few hundred feet from the intersection. Moira made an indignant sound.
“See! Crushed.”
“Yeah, okay.” Jeremy did not like being so close to the dragon’s claws either. It was pretty large to be wandering around downtown. If he could find a parking garage or something similar to duck into, maybe it wouldn’t follow. He took a deep breath before slamming his foot on the gas. He headed straight through the intersection instead of turning left and right into another car.
The driver of the compact car had either not noticed the dragon or was determined to drive past it despite the danger. They had decided to go around him and turn left, and Jeremy had been too focused on the dragon to notice. His hood punched into the back door of the other car and pushed it a few feet. The airbags deployed, and Jeremy got a jarring hit to the nose.
“Ow,” Moira complained.
Jeremy shoved the airbag and blinked away tears so he could look out the window. The dragon had not moved, still watching with its head tilted in interest. From the other car, he could hear the driver cussing at them.
“Are you okay?” Jeremy asked Moira.
“This is fucking bullshit!” She beat the airbag down, “Where’s my fucking phone. Yeah, I’m fine.”
The other car now blocked the way forward. It was not possible to make a right because the road was dead-ended at a warehouse. If he tried to back up or turn left, it would put them within range of the dragon’s giant claws. He wasn’t sure the car would move anyway. It was still running, but his hood was in another car’s back seat. His heart hammered. The irate driver, currently trying to shove open his dented door, was the only person in the other car. The dragon took a step toward them.
“Can you make a run for it?” Jeremy unbuckled his seatbelt and grabbed the door handle, testing to see if it would open.
“I can’t find my phone!” Moira cried.
The dragon’s shadow loomed over the car.
“Moira, run!” He tossed the door open and hit the pavement running. Every hair on his body stood on end as he heard the dragon’s scales scrape across the asphalt. When he reached the line of cars parked along the road, he threw himself behind one. The sound of metal screeching against metal and crumpling filled the air. He peeked over the trunk of the car.
The dragon stood on the trunk of his car, crushing it completely and making the rest of the vehicle stand up in the air. He couldn’t see if Moira was still inside. The animated cussing of the other driver drew the dragon’s attention to the little compact car. It reached over with one of its clawed wings and dug into the roof to peel it back. The dragon stuck its snout into the car. The driver’s cussing turned into screaming as the dragon’s jaw closed around him and snapped him in half. Jeremy’s stomach flipped as he watched the dragon tear into the man like he’d seen lions and wolves tear into their prey in nature documentaries.
Then Moira fell out of the other side of his car, landing in a lump on the asphalt. The dragon was sufficiently distracted that she might have gotten away, but she hesitated while she got her bearings. By the time she got her feet under her and ran toward the warehouse for cover, the dragon’s attention switched to her. It stepped off the car, which fell back to the road with a deafening crash. Moira stumbled and fell over the curb.
Jeremy cursed and looked around for something. He needed to distract the dragon somehow. A few stray flyers were lying on the sidewalk where they blew down from the postings on the streetlights, but not much else. He shook his head ruefully. In a world now filled with magic, the most he could do was toss a handful of water or a pebble at the dragon. He doubted that would do much good. If they survived this encounter, he needed to start figuring out more helpful magic. In the meantime, he needed something substantial to throw.
He peered into the car he was hiding behind. There was some sports equipment in the back, including cleats and a soccer ball. Whoever left that stuff in plain view on the street was stupid, but he was grateful to them. He raised his elbow to smash it through the window, then froze.
A roar shook the street. Bits of asphalt jumped on the pavement as the ground vibrated. A few car windows shattered, and several car alarms went off. A new dragon stood where Moira had stumbled to the ground. There was no sight of her now. It stretched its wings as if challenging the first dragon and roared again.