Illinois.

Brother and Sister find themselves lost at a Greyhound bus station. The neon lights of the run-down bar across the street reflect through the panes of glass into Sister’s eyes. It’s a nowhere part of the nowhere state they’re stuck in. A set of train tracks on the other side of the Greyhound station articulate the severity of the nowhere-ness, that if you become stuck in No-where then you will become No-body.

Nebraska, says Brother, maybe Nebraska, but what he doesn’t know is that all the travel brochures say Illinois, and the night manager is closing the station up for the night. She locks the doors and Brother and Sister find themselves on the curb, at least until the next bus, which leaves in four hours. Sister pulls out her cell phone and it won’t turn on.

She says, It’s dead.

He says, What is?

Our phone.

We better get comfy.

Their four bags become pillows and their jackets become blankets. They bundle up close to make one large blob up against the building, next to a rack of telephones, the kind that still take quarters. They’re not alone, vagabonds and weirdos walk the block back and forth, back and forth, there might be three or four of them, with plastic bag shoes and shadows over their faces. Brother feels in his pocket for that butterfly knife Sister found when they were camping a few states back. Just in case.

Let’s do it in shifts, Brother says. You rest your eyes first. I’ll wake you in a little while.

I’m cold, she says, so they get closer and they can smell each other’s breathe and the snow starts to fall in Illinois with a soft dry touch.

The tracks suddenly become alive at the crushing loudness of an incoming train, and the wind becomes still for a moment before sucking by their ears. The cars behind the engine are all boxlike, with graffiti straight out of the Chicago scene, but there’s a bright white light just on the other side of the train, and Sister and Brother are both ogling at it, trying to see what exactly had happened, is happening. The cars keep on whipping by and the light gets brighter.

But then the light disappears. The rest of the train rattles right on by, and Sister and Brother leap to investigate. They just clear the caboose and onto to the other side of the tracks, where there happens to be a crater. This crater is about the size of a two bedroom house with a wrap-around patio, as deep as a telephone pole, and as dark as the vagabonds which have gathered next to Brother and Sister as bystanders.

What is it?, Brother asks. Sister grabs her brother’s arm and clenches it. Smoke rises from the crater.

The vagabonds stir. One of them speaks. A gift from God, he says.

Black ooze comes out of the crater and into the dirt. Everyone stands back as the ooze sets a nearby tree aflame. The ooze bubbles out of the hole and suddenly spurts up fifty feet into the air, a geyser of oil. The snow picks up particles of ooze and the sky turns black. Flakes fall on Sister’s shoulders and her coat starts to catch. She notices immediately and puts it out, and Brother guides her back to their original spot, underneath the protective awning of the building.