Kings of the Road: The New Ank and Williams Adventure

Book excerpt: Ank and Williams (The Ank Williams Story, A Dinosaur is a Man's Best Friend, Flashback Twilight) return in an all-new adventure which picks up right where Flashback Twilight left off. Join them as they're recruited by an aging king in post-apocalyptic Canada and charged with transporting his daughter across country to Edmonton--a journey fraught with peril including vicious albertosauruses, a 700-pound prehistoric beaver, were-raptors, and more! From Kings of the Road: We ran, even though we were tired (Ank had tossed and turned most of the night which meant of course Gisela had tossed and turned; which meant that between his farting and her griping I hadn’t slept a wink); past former canola fields and dry pea fields and barley—all of it now overgrown—past Brightview and Wiesenthal to Southfork Landing/Leduc; where we came upon a car—a bright-yellow AMC Pacer, if you can believe it—which was headed in the opposite direction. “Ho, easy does it,” I said, even as Ank slowed to a crawl and the car pulled alongside. “Eh? What sort of kerfuffle is this?” The driver looked at Ank disbelievingly. “Oat and aboat with the dinosaur, are you?” I looked beyond him at the passengers: at the plain but pretty woman seated next to him and two others—a male and a female in their twenties—in the back. “Meh—tame as a Peep Toe mule, I assure you. And completely untouched by the fever. Carries our gear—and other things.” I paused, noticing blood on the door. “We’re heading up north—to Edmonton. To some sort of mall encampment. Anything we should be aware of?” The driver’s eyes flicked up and down; as though noticing me noticing the blood. “Din’ come from there—hung a roger onto Highway 2 from Route 19; at the Petro-Pass. So I couldn’ really say.” He looked at the young woman next to him—who seemed markedly ill at ease. “I’ll do ya a blunt tho an’ tell ya: if you’re look’n for a place to crash—that Petro-pass is tops. There’s still stuff on the shelves: bottled water, toilet paper—” “Have a safe trip,” I said, with my hand close to the revolver. “Bridge is out near Red Deer. And thanks for the tip.” “Eh?” He looked me up and down again. “All right. Have it your way.” He glanced through the rearview mirror at the young people, who just stared back. “Off like newlyweds, then. Hooroo.” And they went—after which Gisela called down, “Why so rude?” I exchanged knowing glances with Ank. “Because they were troubled—you couldn’t see it from up there.” I watched as they disappeared down the road. “The kind you can catch.” And then we continued—toward Leduc/Nisku and what I hoped would be our camp for the night. Toward the Petro-Pass; which I assumed was a kind of Canadian answer to a truck stop.