The Wild Lands

by Paul Greci

  This is life stripped down to basics. We are animals. And when I think like this, well, feeding on another human doesn’t seem like such a far-off possibility, especially if they were already dead. Hunting and killing other people for food, I don’t think I could do that. But how can you really know what you will do until you’re in the situation?

  Through the fog a crunching noise invades my ears, like boots on gravel. I put my lips to Jess’s ear. “We have to be absolutely quiet.”

  I feel her nod.

  The crunching sound stops, but not right away—like maybe one person stopped walking, then another did the same.

  I’m not sure if we’d be visible from the road without the fog. I’m pretty sure whoever is down there can’t hear my heart beating even though it’s pounding in my own ears, relentless, like a bass drum.

  Maybe they’ve spotted our tracks. Maybe they’ve been following our tracks all day. And all day yesterday.

  A fainter crunching noise works its way into my ears over my heartbeat.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Slow careful steps. Steps that are meant to be soft and unheard. Sneaky steps. Dangerous steps.

  I slide my knife from my pocket and silently click open the blade. Three inches, maybe four. It’s small, but I’d plunge it deep—and hard.

  The steps stop. Just stop—like a car running out of gas or a TV being unplugged.

  Are they or he or she or it waiting for me to do something? To show myself? To screw up out of fear? Part of me wants to scream or run out with my knife to show that I mean business. Maybe being on the offensive would be a good thing. Maybe it would show whatever is out there that I’m not someone to be messed with—that I’m a ruthless freaking murdering machine.

  Then I hear breathing. Slow and steady—barely perceptible—but I can hear it, slicing through the fog. It has to be an animal. I mean, humans wouldn’t breathe like that. They’d be doing what I’m doing—not making a sound.

  Unless they aren’t scared. Or are scared but trying to pretend they aren’t. Or trying to psych me out, get me to choke and make a bad move.

  I put my finger up to my lips for Jess to see, but she’s sitting back with her eyes closed.

  A slight cough, or maybe a grunt, filters through the fog. Whatever is out there could be fifty feet away—or only ten.

  Now my whole body is buzzing like I’ve been plugged into an electrical outlet. I want to scream and run toward the sound and fight. Anything but this waiting. But I don’t have enough of an idea of how far away and how many there are. People? Wolves? A bear? And maybe they don’t know what we are either.

  But that cough—if it was a cough from a person—either it slipped out, or they want me to know they’re out there. But why?

  I keep still. I’m hot and sweaty everywhere from the adrenaline, except for my feet, which are slabs of ice.

  And I wait.

  My fingers start going numb and feel more rubbery with each passing second. I keep listening hard, but hear nothing.

  Maybe I’ve imagined the whole thing. The footsteps, the cough. You know how it is when you can’t see anything and you think you hear something. And before you know it you’re convinced that you’re going to die, or be attacked, or whatever.

  The fog still prevents me from seeing what is or isn’t out there. And then I think about all the hiding I’ve done the past few years. Not just me, but everyone. And not just hiding, but trying to watch others to see if maybe they are trustworthy or at least worth taking a chance on.

  The main thing I’ve learned is that with some people you can tell right away that you don’t want to deal with them. That all they’re after is what you have, and they won’t hesitate to kill you for it. And the others are people who you aren’t sure about at first, but at least there’s some hope they aren’t out to screw you, like Max and Tam, and to a lesser extent Mike and Dylan.

  Jess leans forward and her head droops between her knees.

  The fog thins for a moment, and I think I catch a glimpse of two people dressed in long coats. I shake my head. If they exist and I’ve seen them, then they’ve probably seen me as well.

  “I saw you,” I say. “You can’t fool me. I’ve been listening to you sneak up here.”

  Jess’s head shoots up and I put a finger to her lips.

  “Do you have a little one? A child?” an old-sounding voice answers. A woman’s voice. “We saw small prints.”

  “Just leave us alone,” I say. “I’m armed.”

  “We want to help.” It’s definitely a woman’s voice. And it sounds a little wobbly.

  “How do I know?” I ask. “How can I know?”

  “You can’t,” she says. “Just like we can’t know that you won’t try to slit our throats or shoot us.”

  I turn to Jess. Her eyes are closed. Just how bad off is she? I need to help her.

  My chest grows tight, like my heart is going to break through the skin. I take a breath. “Okay,” I say. “But we’ll have to wait until the fog clears.”

  “Aren’t you cold?” This voice is deeper but still sounds like a woman’s. “I only saw you for a moment, but it looked like you didn’t have much.”

  I want to stand up, to stand Jess up, and walk toward the voices. I want to believe that this isn’t some trap we’re being baited into.

  “When the fog clears,” I say, “we’ll follow you.” I pause. “At a distance.”

  “Okay,” the woman with the deep voice says. “My name’s Wendy. And, well, I guess you can’t see her, but this here is my younger sister, Ellen.”

  “I’m Travis,” I say. “And this is my younger sister, Jess.”

  I want to tell them that Jess has hit her head, but if this is a trap I don’t want to give them any information that will help them out. As far as I know, they could be scouts from some cannibalistic group. Use a couple of grannies to bait in the kids.

  How dangerous could a couple of old women be? I think I’m about to find out.

  CHAPTER

  56

  WHEN THE FOG CLEARS, WE follow the two women on a windy trail that runs parallel to the road below for miles and miles up into the pass. Sections of the brownish-red rocks come and go. I think about the photo I have of Dylan, Mike, and their uncle Mark at the secret cache, and the C marked on the map. I want to run ahead and ask the old women if they know this guy, Mark, but there’ll be time enough for that—unless we’re walking into a trap.

  The farther along we get, the less I think this is a setup, and I actually relax a little bit.

  They both have these long brown coats, the same color as the rocks, and smallish brown packs on their backs. They keep a steady pace, slow enough that Jess can keep up. I wonder if they’re doing that on purpose.

  Jess and I have talked a little bit about the situation. We agreed that we need to see what these two people are all about. I mean, they followed our footprints in the fog. That was a huge risk. We could’ve been armed killers, desperate for anything—clothing, food. Actually, we are desperate for those two things, but I wouldn’t kill for them. I wouldn’t take a life just for someone’s stuff, but I’d fight to keep my own stuff, if I had any.

  The women turn off the trail and start zigzagging up a slope with loose rocks. If they live so far away from where they found us, I wonder what they’d been doing, where they’d been coming from when we met.

  Now we’re walking along the base of a brownish-red cliff that towers a few hundred feet above us. The cliff keeps wrapping around to the east as we rise higher and higher. The road is a scratchy line far below us. And in the distance I can make out a sea of green. The Buffer Zone.

  * * *

  I pull out the photo and show it to Wendy and Ellen.

  “That’s him,” Wendy says. “If it weren’t for Mark, we’d probably be dead.”

  “Not probably,” Ellen says. “Would certainly be.”

  I tell them about Mike and Dylan, and how I came to hav
e the map. And about their dad, and the fires he started, and our journey thus far.

  “Mark said his brother was a little touched,” Wendy says. “But he must’ve gotten worse.”

  “With all the destruction,” Ellen says, “it could drive even perfectly sane people crazy. And with no one to help him…”

  “We never met any of Mark’s family,” Wendy says. “But he talked about his nephews. About how he hoped they’d come back for another visit so they could see how he’d improved the secret shelter, even though he’d had a falling-out with his brother.”

  “We felt funny about moving in to his shelter after he died,” Wendy says. “But after our place burned in a wildfire, well, it was more about survival than anything else.”

  We’re really tucked into the cliffs. Somehow Mark moved a lot of rock and built supports with big beams. I’m not sure how he hauled all the wood up here. And a small woodstove, too. Maybe with pulleys and block and tackle.

  Since it faces south, you can sit just back from the opening and be in the sunshine with the Buffer Zone visible in the distance. And Wendy and Ellen said they have a way to close it off in the winter to keep the heat in, but they still sit out there on sunny winter days, the brown rock absorbing the heat from the sun.

  “We’re careful,” Wendy says. “We still have a little store-bought food from back in the day. Canned goods. Dry goods. Thanks to what Mark had stored here. But mostly, we live off the land. We’re also trying to put a garden in. We’ve been making trips back to our old place. That’s what we were doing when we saw your tracks. We’re slowly bringing some of our old garden soil up here.”

  “Fairbanks burned twice in two summers,” I say. “You know all the new green growth you get after a fire?”

  Ellen and Wendy nod.

  “Most of the new green burned. The topsoil got scorched. And then the salmon didn’t come back. There were still people, but no land to really live off. That’s when things got ugly.”

  “We were already isolated years ago with the road being in such poor condition and the shortage in gasoline,” Ellen says. “The more people that left, the more self-reliant we became. And Mark, he was always willing to lend a hand. It was tragic”—Ellen shakes her head—“when that bear got him.”

  Ellen is really fussing over Jess, which I think is great. She keeps saying it’s so nice to have a little one around. I’m guessing Jess doesn’t like being referred to as a little one, but she appears to be enjoying all the attention and doesn’t argue. Ellen has wrapped her in a blanket and keeps refilling her mug with hot willow bark tea. Ellen checked the bump on her head and studied her pupils and told her everything would be okay.

  Wendy, the older of the two, brings bowls of stew over to the table and sets one in front of Jess and one in front of me. I haven’t had hot food since we cooked down in the fissure. There is some kind of meat in a watery broth and some mushy stuff that I figure is some kind of plant material.

  I didn’t see any sign of moose or caribou on our walk over here, but there were patches of willow and other ground plants that animals would feed on.

  I just keep shoveling spoonfuls into my mouth. And I’m really happy to see Jess eating. Ellen keeps glancing at her, smiling. Then she looks at her sister and nods.

  “This stew,” I say, “it’s really good. But I don’t recognize the meat. I mean, it doesn’t taste like moose or caribou. And I haven’t seen any tracks.” I think of the bear Tam and I killed. “Is it bear? Or fox? Or beaver? Rabbit? What is it?”

  Wendy and Ellen look at each other. Their smiles don’t exactly disappear as much as grow smaller.

  “Travis. Jess,” Wendy says, “when times get tough, you do what you have to do to survive. And sometimes you end up eating things you wouldn’t normally eat.”

  I set my spoon down.

  “Sometimes you eat things that would downright disgust you. Know what I mean?” Ellen asks. She glances at Jess, then turns back to Wendy.

  “We don’t really think about it much anymore,” Wendy says. “It’s just part of our life. Part of surviving. It’s why we’re alive. And once upon a time, I was even a vegetarian.” She lets out a small laugh.

  I think of the bodies floating down the river. I pick up my spoon and fish out a piece of meat. I smell it. I’m a freaking cannibal. I feel a chill travel up my spine. The bodies flash into my mind again and I blink hard. I look across at Jess and I don’t know what to say. Her eyes are slits and she’s stopped eating.

  “We know some of the meat is tough,” Ellen says. “We tried just eating the little ones. They’re more tender, but there’s not nearly as much meat on them. So usually we let them grow at least a little before they end up in the pot.”

  Wendy’s smile fades and her face grows tight. “We’ve got a small spot in back,” she says. “A holding area. And it’s built tight so they can’t escape.”

  I study the bumpy morsel of meat cradled in my spoon. Again, I see the bodies in the river but I can’t put it together with what they’ve said. I turn to Ellen and Wendy. “Holding area? You mean they’re alive back there?”

  “Just like having fish in a pond, or chickens in the yard,” Wendy says. She forces a smile. “I know it’s not the normal thing to do, but you do what you have to do in order to survive.”

  I try to make sense of what they’re saying and how they can be so casual about this, but I just can’t put it all together. I glance over at Jess and she’s got this confused look on her face. I turn back to Wendy and say, “What’s back there?” I shake my head once. “I know it’s not people … right?”

  “People?” Wendy says, then she lets out a laugh. “Not people. Just voles. They run around in the rocks and eat the bits of plants we put in the enclosure and, luckily for us, have lots of babies.”

  “Voles?” I say, and let out a breath.

  “Yes,” Wendy says. She laughs softly. “Sorry for the confusion.”

  “You mean mice?” Jess asks. She puts her spoon in her bowl and scoops up a piece of meat and studies it. Then she pops it into her mouth.

  “Red-backed voles,” Wendy says. “They’re the same size as mice. Not that I haven’t thought about eating a person. I’d be lying if I said that never crossed my mind. But the voles, that was Ellen’s idea. There was quite a population of voles in our garden before our cabin burned and it became unsafe to live by the road.”

  “Those voles,” Ellen says, “some years they ate more of our carrots than we did. So we live-trapped a whole bunch of them and brought them up here. And it’s been our main protein source for over a year now.”

  “We eat pretty lean around here,” Wendy says.

  I glance at my bowl, and over to Jess’s, then realize we’re the only two eating. “We won’t be staying long,” I say. “Just long enough for Jess to get her strength back from that river crossing. The sooner we get into the Buffer Zone the better.”

  Jess looks at Wendy and Ellen and says, “Thanks for the food. And the tea.” Then she yawns.

  Ellen and Wendy smile at her and tell her to eat all she wants.

  Truth is, if I thought they had more food, I might stay longer, but I just can’t see eating up their vole supply with winter coming on.

  Jess eats another spoonful of stew then puts her spoon down and just stares at the center of the table. Then she says, “I miss my mom.”

  Ellen sits down next to Jess, puts her arm around her, and says, “Of course you do, sweetheart. It’s natural to miss her. I know that doesn’t make it any easier. Nothing does but time.” Ellen points to me. “And your brother there, you’ve got him and he’s got you.”

  Jess snuggles into Ellen’s side and Ellen gives her a gentle kiss on top of her head and we all sit in silence for a minute. I think about what Ellen said and I realize that yes, I do have Jess.

  Sometimes I’m so focused on and stressed by having the responsibility of keeping Jess alive, I forget that not only is she my only family, but she’s this amaz
ing person. She’s only ten years old and she’s walked about six hundred miles this summer through a wasteland. She must be stronger than all of us given her age and what she’s accomplished. She’s even more of a fighter than I realized.

  I want her to have a life, a long life, and I want to be around to see what she does with it. And I realize that it’s not a burden to take care of her, it’s a privilege.

  * * *

  A couple hours later, after Jess and I have had a little sleep, we’re back around the table talking. I need information about what’s ahead.

  “The forest is really thick in the Buffer Zone,” Wendy says. “We used to hunt and fish and pick berries and dig roots down there, but not for several years now. Those first two years after the government set us free, a lot of people followed the road south, so we kept off it. You’re the only people we’ve seen trying to pass through this year. Not that we see everyone, but we’ve got a pretty good view of the road from up here.”

  We talk more about the bodies in the river. Ellen thinks they are probably from this religious commune that set up shop on the site of an old gold mine. When she points to the spot on my map, it’s right next to one of the lakes that make up the headwaters of the Delta River.

  And the person I saw walking downriver on the opposite shore after we’d crossed the river, she doesn’t know what to make of him. Maybe he’s part of the same group. Maybe not.

  Wendy says, “Even though we’re the last ones left around here, I just want to stay. Maybe if I were younger and looking to start a family, I’d risk traveling through the Buffer Zone, but not now. This is our home.” She smiles at Ellen and Ellen smiles back.

  I tell them about Tam and Max and how we got separated and hope to find them. I think of Tam and the possibility that she actually likes me, and I get this raw feeling in my chest. And I think of Max and the amazing way she and Jess have bonded. And I worry all the more that something bad has happened to them. At least they had their packs and spears when they crossed the river. But where are they?