The Wild Lands

by Paul Greci

“We left together. We just couldn’t do it your way,” Max whispers.

  “We could have,” Tam whispers. “But we didn’t want to.”

  “Glad I had the screwdriver,” Max says.

  “Me too,” Tam says. “I wouldn’t have escaped without it.”

  “I almost didn’t follow them,” Jess whispers. “I had to make a decision right then and there.”

  “I don’t care how you got here.” I wipe my eyes. “Just that you made it. I was torn over what I’d do if not everyone showed up.”

  “It was a good plan.” Max smiles.

  We have a lot of catching up to do. What happened at the river? Why didn’t they wait for us? How did they get caught? What have they seen? What have they learned? But first, we have to deal with the present: getting the hell out of here.

  Tam’s looking toward the clearing. She scrunches up her face and points. I follow her finger and see, at the very edge of the cliff, an arrangement of rocks that from this angle spells the word basic.

  “Impossible,” I whisper. Then I tell them how I struck Dylan in the head with a hammer—twice. And how his body went limp. “I could’ve just knocked him out, and when he woke up he came straight to the cliffs. Or he could’ve left those rocks weeks ago, before he even got to Stan’s.”

  We’re all glancing around with our eyes, keeping our bodies still. I tighten my grip on the hammer. No matter what we do, it seems like Dylan is always one step ahead of us. Like he has a crystal ball and can see what we’re going to do before we even know we’re going to do it

  “It doesn’t matter,” Tam whispers, grabbing my arm. “We just have to keep moving. If he tries to stop us, we’ll deal with it. Now that I know what that place is all about, I’d rather die fighting than live there.”

  * * *

  “At least if we follow the old road bed we’ll know we’re going in the right direction,” I say. We ran into the road about a hundred yards from the yellow cliffs.

  “But Wendy and Ellen said it was safer to stay above it,” Jess says.

  “Where Wendy and Ellen live, it’s treeless,” I say, “so it’s easy to stay off the road and still follow it. But in the jungle it’s next to impossible. I’m just glad we found it.”

  “Your arm,” Max says. “How come you keep touching it?”

  “Oh, I forgot. I guess I kind of got shot. Hurt like hell for a while. Now it just aches. It’s in a place where I can’t see.” I hold my arm up.

  Jess makes a face like she’s gonna puke.

  “Is it that bad?” I ask.

  “Sort of,” Jess says. “I mean, it’s bloody.”

  “We need you to take off your shirt,” Max says. “We’ll help you.”

  I stand still with my arms out as Max unbuttons my shirt and Tam unbuttons the cuff on one sleeve, but when she reaches up and starts pulling the arm of my shirt, a jolt of pain in my upper arm makes me gasp.

  “Your shirt was stuck to your skin,” Tam says, looking me straight in the eyes. “Sorry. At least now we can see what we’re dealing with.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, still feeling the warmth from her nose in my neck from when we were reunited.

  My shirt hangs off my other arm as the three of them gather around my wound.

  “It looks like a bloody burn,” Max says. “I don’t see a hole.”

  “Me neither,” Jess says. “Does it hurt much?”

  “It hurt a lot less until the three of you started checking it out.” I smile.

  “The bullet must’ve grazed you,” Tam says. “Your arm is all bloody, but I think it’s pretty much a surface wound. At least it doesn’t look all dirty, but still, we should wash it off soon. It’ll cut down the chances of it getting infected. Definitely not as bad as what I did with that screwdriver. I don’t know if I killed him, but he went down. I was surprised when the head guy came into my cabin. I thought maybe he was going to tell me who I’d been paired with, but then his smile told me that I’d been paired with him. He—”

  “Wait,” I say, “you mean Stan was going to be your husband?”

  Tam nods. “He started talking in this soft voice, telling me how beautiful I was as he closed the distance between us, and I wanted to puke. I told him to hold on and turned away from him and washed my hands and splashed water on my face. My hands were shaking when I snuck the screwdriver from under the towel as I dried off. And I thought to myself, It’s now or never. I turned and attacked him like there was no tomorrow, because if I’d lost, there wouldn’t have been a tomorrow for me. Then I heard all hell break loose outside.” Tam turns to Jess. “Without you doing your part, there’s no way I would’ve escaped, because I’m sure they would’ve heard Stan calling for help.”

  Jess smiles. “One of the Council Women told me as the new husbands were arriving at the cabins. She was watching out the door of our hut. That’s how I knew when to do my part. I waited a minute or two and then cut my arm on a sharp piece of wood I’d hidden, and then I rubbed some blood on Marcy’s bed while I was sitting with her. She’d gotten used to me sitting on her bed and talking to her. We’d kind of become friends.” Jess pauses. “Marcy was so convinced it was her blood that she started screaming, too.” Then she lowers her voice. “I hope she’s okay. I mean, I hope all the stress didn’t damage her baby.”

  Max looks at Jess. “You did what you had to do and you did it perfectly. I think she’ll be okay once the older women check her out.” She pauses. “I took my guy by surprise. I was pretending that I liked him. I said to him, I got you! You’re the one I would have chosen.” She shakes her head. “It was that guy, Jim, who was so outspoken at the meeting.”

  “Did he die?” Jess asks. She has a troubled look on her face.

  “I don’t know,” Max says, “but just keep this in mind: We only hurt people who were trying to hurt us. They didn’t have a right to take me and Tam as wives, and they wouldn’t let us go peacefully.”

  Jess hugs my uninjured side, and I put my arm around her and kiss the top of her head. “You are so brave,” I whisper.

  Her warm body snuggled beside me makes me think of Mom. Jess used to hug her like this all the time. If only she could see Jess now, this combination of still being the little girl full of love that she was at the start of our journey but now with the ability and poise to play a major role in escaping from a dangerous place. We all relied on her and she came through.

  We decide to stay away from the rock shelter on the yellow cliffs because that’s where Max and Tam were when they got caught. And for all we know, people from the compound are waiting in there to recapture us. It’s too bad, because Max’s and Tam’s packs are in there. All we have is a hammer, a box of matches, my fire-starting tool, the map and the notes from my mom and dad, and the clothes we’re wearing.

  At least we’ve been well-fed for a few days, and since we’re traveling light, we can make good time. Or as good as possible in the maples.

  I can’t see them, but I know there are mountains in the distance. I remember from the map—the Chugach Range, the last set of mountains to cross before the coast. Hopefully, up high we’ll get into some treeless country that will be easier to walk in, but it’ll be colder, too. And when we top the pass and head for the coast, who knows what it’ll be like on the other side.

  These mountain ranges, I realize, are like gatekeepers for plant species. Sure, some seeds blow through the passes. There were a scattering of maples north of the Alaska Range before the fires, but I never paid much attention to them. South of the range that’s almost all there are. Terry said the maples were genetically engineered. But still, how did they spread so quickly?

  On the other side of the Chugach there’ll be a coastal influence. It’ll probably be wetter country. And if people live there, well, hopefully they won’t be as whacked-out as Stan and his troop of gray beards.

  * * *

  We’re resting by a stream after walking for hours. We’ve followed it downstream for a couple of bends from where it
crosses the road. We hope to stay here until it gets light out, taking turns keeping watch. Jess is already lying down, her head in my lap.

  Tam pushes more twigs into our small fire. “That pregnant girl, Marcy. She just turned fifteen. That means those psychos married her off when she was fourteen. If I had any food in my stomach right now, I’d puke.”

  “I was really depressed when I was fourteen,” Max says. “My family was dead. I thought about trying to run away from the group home”—she bows her head—“but I didn’t even have the energy to try.”

  “At fourteen,” Tam says, “I was in what turned out to be my second-to-last foster home.” She jams another stick into the fire. “My deranged foster parents were kicking the shit out of me every chance they got, when they could catch me. I tried to be perfect, to not upset them, but you know me, I need to move around, and they basically insisted that I sit still, and they grew irate when I didn’t. When they’d come after me, I’d run, but I didn’t always get away.”

  Max raises her head and looks at Tam. “Both of us, even with no parents, had it way better than Marcy at fourteen. I wish we could’ve taken her with us.”

  Tam and I nod in agreement. There was just no way to make that happen.

  Tam and Max tell me about being questioned by the Council and trying to answer questions in ways that would give them more of a chance of having a gentler husband, not because they thought it’d be easier to live with someone like that but because they thought it’d make it easier to escape. But based on the choices, I think they chose Jim so he’d quit causing conflict, and I think Stan chose Tam for himself. I remember his eyes lingering on her when he met her.

  I tell them that Dylan had been in the fissure and had heard us talking about him.

  Then they talk about the young guys catching them off guard and holding them at gunpoint. They thought they’d have to fight for their lives, but all the guys did was march them to the compound. And that they called them by their names, so Dylan must’ve been involved in their capture even if he didn’t show his face. Maybe he put the word basic in the rocks then and just stayed out of view so Tam and Max never saw him.

  And before all that, back at the river, Tam and Max had waited and waited. But then they saw someone on the same side of the river that they were on, and he was coming their way so they kept moving. They tried to find the cache in the brown rocks along the road, planning to wait there for us, but obviously they’d missed it.

  I tell them about Wendy and Ellen and how they live off voles.

  We could sure go for a few voles now because we don’t have any food and don’t know if we’ll find any, but just being back together makes it feel like everything is going to be okay. Just being out of that compound calms my mind, even if two of the gray beards really did die from screwdriver wounds and Dylan from hits with my hammer.

  I hate hurting and killing people, but sometimes people leave you basically no choice, unless you want to stand by and watch the people you love be hurt or killed.

  And now we’re maybe less than a hundred miles from the coast. Maybe we’re actually going to make it. A shiver runs up my spine and I think, maybe I will get a chance to get to know Tam better.

  “This might sound corny,” I say, “but I’m going to say it anyway.” I hold my hands over the glowing coals, the remains of our fire. “What we’ve got—it’s special. I mean, we’ve come a long way together. I know it’s not over yet. And it hasn’t been without conflicts. And there’s no guarantee that we’ll even make it. And when we get there, we might not find anything. And I’m not trying to discount any of our friends or family or anyone who has helped us out. I guess I’m saying that even if I die tomorrow, I’m just happy I’ve had this time with each of you.”

  The three of us just stare into the coals, letting the soft sounds of the creek fill our ears. Jess shifts her body a little and I stroke her hair, thankful that she’s recovered from that head injury. I see Max reach out and put her hand on Tam’s knee. Tam turns toward her and smiles.

  Then Max whispers, “I think I hear something from upstream, toward the road. Voices, maybe.”

  We came down the creek a couple of bends, but now that I think about it, we really don’t know if the road took a bend or not. Maybe we’re closer to the road than we imagine.

  The glow from the coals won’t give off much light, especially with the four of us crowded around it. But the smell of burning wood—depending on the wind direction—could be a giveaway.

  I strain my ears, willing the noise of the flowing water into the background. I can’t be sure, but I think I hear something, too.

  CHAPTER

  72

  WE KEEP SITTING IN SILENCE, each listening but not speaking for fear of being heard. And just what do I hear?

  Voices? Maybe.

  Leaves rustling? Definitely.

  A splash in the water upstream? Just one.

  Breathing? I’m pretty sure.

  I just want it to get light out so if there is something or someone, we can see what we’re dealing with.

  Dylan, I think. Maybe he’s toying with us. Tracking us down. Maybe he’s planning on trying to kill us or recapture the girls. But I’d clocked him hard with that hammer. If it is him, I decide, I will finish the job. He is just too dangerous.

  I’m not scared of the dark, but noises are definitely scarier in the dark. I turn toward Jess, alert and ready, now sitting up next to me. On my other side I feel Tam’s knee pressing against mine. It’s been there since we all sat up straighter minutes ago after hearing the noises. Neither of us moved to avoid the sudden contact. And next to her, Max is squatting with her hands resting on the ground, ready to spring into action. I have the hammer in my hand and I know that I will kill without hesitation to protect any of them.

  * * *

  We’re grateful when the gray light of dawn starts filtering through the maples. We haven’t heard anything in hours. The cold has crept under our skin, but what can we do? We stopped putting wood on the fire when Max first heard the noise.

  We cup our hands and slurp frigid creek water, then start up the creek toward the road. My arm aches. We washed the dried blood off last night before we heard the noise.

  We take small steps and plant our feet like we’re walking barefoot across a field of sharp rocks, our eyes scanning the land around us.

  At the faint path that used to be the road, we pause. Has someone passed through here? We all remember hearing at least one splash. It could’ve been something crossing the creek while traveling the road. But who or what? And which way had it come from? And which way had it gone?

  “I don’t see any footprints, or animal tracks, or scuffed-up ground,” I say. “Maybe it was nothing.”

  Jess says, “Nothings don’t make splashing and rustling noises.”

  We talk a little more and decide that yes, we heard a splash and some rustling. The voices and the breathing—we can’t be certain of those. Could it have been a bird landing in the creek, its cooing or singing sounding like voices? Or some other animal? But an animal would leave tracks—unless it walked for a bit in the water like we had.

  “Regardless,” I say, “we have to keep going.” I feel the weight of the hammer in my hand. “The sooner we get to the coast the better, I hope.”

  “Let’s not stop until we’re out of the trees,” Tam says. “Or at least till we get to the edge of them. Then we can still have wood for a fire.”

  “These maples,” Max says, “they are beautiful. But I’m kind of tired of them.”

  We still need to move carefully, and stay aware of what else might be lurking in the jungle. But since we don’t see prints by the stream crossing, I’m feeling better, more relaxed. Like maybe we really are alone out here. Then I think of Dylan and how potentially whacked he is and wonder if he is watching us right now.

  “Before we go,” Max says, “I’ve got this thing I want us to do.”

  She explains the activity. We form a c
ircle. Then we join hands. Jess’s hand in mine feels small but strong. Tam’s hand is surprisingly warm. Max has us close our eyes. She squeezes Tam’s hand, and Tam squeezes mine, and I squeeze Jess’s, and Jess squeezes Max’s.

  We do this half a dozen times and then Max tells us to open our eyes and drop our hands to our sides. “When I was really little,” Max says, “way before I ended up in the group home, my grandma would put everyone in a circle and do that. And she’d say, ‘We need to share our energy. Together we can accomplish much, much more than we can as individuals.’ I used to like that game because it was fun to pass the pulse around a circle of twenty or thirty people. I didn’t really think about the energy thing, but now, I’m not sure how I’d do walking this jungle road alone. I might not make it. But all of us, I’m sure we’ll make it. But even if we don’t—I’m at peace because I know we’re doing the right thing.”

  I nod. So do Tam and Jess.

  It’s kind of true, I think. Doing something alone, one mistake and you could be finished. And there’s no one next to you to keep you going when you’ve been without food for a few days. Or like when that bear was chasing us: Without Tam, I would’ve been its lunch. And without Tam and Max disabling the two gray beards, and Jess playing her part, there’s no way my escape plan would’ve worked.

  “Okay,” I say. “Together, we go.”

  I take a step backward and bend down to retie my shoe. And that’s when I hear it. A splashing sound. Then a tinkling noise. Like pieces of pipe gently knocking together.

  I finish retying my shoe and stand up. It’s pretty obvious that everyone has heard what I heard, because we’re all standing silent, searching one another’s eyes for answers.

  I point upstream because that’s where I think the splash has come from. Jess, Tam, and Max all nod.

  I lean forward and so does everyone else. “I want to know what’s up there,” I whisper.

  “Let’s just keep going,” Tam says.

  Max nods.

  “No,” I say. “We need to know if it’s Dylan, or whoever. You can wait here if you want, but I need to know.” I have my hammer out. I think again of Dylan, but I also think of my mom and how we’d never found her body and how when we first climbed out of the fissure, we saw someone way in the distance behind us. I don’t mention any of this to Jess, because I don’t want to get her hopes up only to have them dashed when we have miles to cover and no food to eat. She’s grown up a lot on this journey, but she’s still only ten years old.