Kimber

by L K Hingey

  “You finish it. My meal had a higher water content than yours did,” she said sleepily. The sky outside was getting noticeably darker and tonight, the borealis would be masked by the cloud of dust. Kimber was suddenly feeling the exhaustion hitting her as her dinner settled and the effects of the day’s adrenaline wore off. Tristan must have been getting tired too because he downed the water bottle without arguing.

  “You get the tiny side,” he jutted his chin towards the inner two pillows. He turned off the light so it would not shine into her eyes as she crawled onto the pillows, and then he passed her one of the small plushy beds to use under her head. He grabbed one also, and after she was settled in, he laid himself down beside her. The room was getting ever darker, and Kimber sighed deeply. Even her bed in her little catacomb was not this soft, she thought dreamily, feeling very safe, and very spent, next to Tristan.

  Sleep came quickly for Kimber, and Tristan laid there quietly listening to her breathing as it slowed. Outside, the wind continued to strain angrily against the building, moaning as it was left with nothing to do but sweep over the structure. Inside though, Kimber’s heartbeat was delicate and even, softly lulling him to sleep. Waves of sleepiness washed over him, and he too slipped away.

  Chapter XIII

  The wind howled throughout the night, waking Tristan more than once. Without the flickering light of the fire bowls or the swaying light of the borealis, the night was darker than what he had become used to. Gusts slammed into the west side of the building, occasionally making Kimber stir. When he would hear her move, he would hold his breath until her body relaxed and he knew she was asleep again. The days ahead promised to be long and even if he could not sleep well, he wanted her to.

  When the morning finally broke, so did the winds. Kimber woke up at dawn and carefully crawled out of her bed. Tristan lay splayed out, his muscular yellow-teal-brown limbs stretched in all directions. His body was relaxed, and his face was tranquil. And handsome, she thought to herself. He looked vulnerable, and Kimber’s heart skipped a beat as she looked back at him. She was pleased with herself for not waking him and carefully tiptoed to the broken door.

  When she walked outside, she was greeted by the after-haze of the storm. Reddish dust still floated around and clouded the landscape, limiting her visibility to a few miles. The wind had all but ceased, and the morning glowed in serenity under the muted borealis which shimmered up high behind the particles of sand and dirt. Kimber squatted on the north side of the building and relieved herself as she gazed out at the small grouping of buildings.

  So, this was Upton, she thought as she took in a small post office, a fire station, a few auto-repair shops, one state-of-the art train-truck parlor, and another discount goods store. The sign for the discount goods store was beginning to fall apart, and Kimber judged it suspiciously. Those were the types of dangers that were hurtled around in the windstorms. The top layer looked to have been a blue vinyl of some kind and was peeling off enough to reveal a bleached yellow dollar-store logo.

  The store must have been rebranded during the Harnessing, most likely when the world converted from paper money to a uniform cryptocurrency. Kimber knew the wares would be the same as all of the discount-goods stores that dotted southern Kentucky and Northern Tennessee. They were always fun to go into though, and the Auroreans couldn’t help but bring loads of the cheaply made toys down into Inanna for the children.

  She crawled back into the hole in the glass and let her eyes adjust back to the dim light. The glass diamonds shimmered on the ground, and she smiled at a lone marshmallow that lay nearby. Tristan was still sleeping, and Kimber decided to hunt through the rest of the market. She scanned the tools and camping section again but did not see anything else that would be worth carrying. She went over to the medicine aisle and did the same, scanning for anything that could be useful.

  All of the pain medications, sleep aids, cold remedies, and skin ointments had long been cleaned out. All that remained were the more random personal care items like muscle creams, poison ivy scrubs, adhesive wraps, and dental products. Kimber grabbed a hairbrush off the shelf and untied her hair. She quickly brushed it out and tied it back up, placing the brush back. She scooped up a toothbrush and a small tube of tooth paste and then continued her search. The pet section didn’t have anything else they needed, and Kimber skipped over to the canned foods and then the snack aisle.

  She quietly crept back to Tristan and opened a few cans of fruit she had found. She also placed a chocolate bar containing 90% cocoa on the counter. Dark chocolate was one of the few things that had kept decently over the many years. Milk chocolates and dairy-rich products spoiled far faster, and the various molds Kimber had seen on sugars had turned her sweet tooth off almost entirely. Instead she craved salt and had become the biggest benefactor of saltshaker donations to Inanna’s Rafinesque dining hall.

  Tristan must have heard her rustling around. He woke up rather dazed, gazing around the shop and then up at Kimber as reality swam into focus. His butt had fallen through a gap in two of the pillows that had slid away from each other.

  “Chilly bottom?” Kimber asked bubbly.

  Tristan looked down at his sad little bed and grinned. “Yeah. Next time we can find a sewing kit and sew the pieces together. Overall,” he said sitting up with a yawn, “I’m not complaining.”

  Tristan’s shoulder caught Kimber’s attention. Streaks of dried blood ran down on either side. She quickly knelt by him and evaluated the cuts. “We should have made the hole bigger for you.”

  “I wanted to keep the hole as small as possible. If the wind had changed direction, or if it comes from the east next time, it could catch the hole and rip the door right out.”

  Kimber nodded. His logic was sound, but she did not like seeing him bloodied up, even if their bodies were designed to self-heal. She looked closely at the scrapes. They had already sealed themselves up under the scaly armor on his shoulders. Tristan closed his eyes enjoying her feather-light touch. “You should check the other side too. I think it was hurt worse,” he teased opening one eye with almost a purr in his voice.

  Kimber grinned and punched his arm. “You’re fine, and you know it.”

  Tristan shrugged, “It was worth a try.” His hazel eyes twinkled.

  She grabbed the chocolate bar off the counter and held it behind her back. “But just in case you do need a pick me up!” she said presenting it to him. She added a little sheepishly, “I heard your heart rhythm last night every time the wind woke me up, and I don’t think you got a good night of sleep.”

  He smiled widely and opened a corner of the chocolate bar. “True, but I did get to sleep in a bit. Mmm. Thank you,” he said, relishing a small bite. He offered her the bar, but she shook her head instead reaching for the cans of mixed fruit. She set one down next to him and told him about searching through the rest of the market and the dollar store across the street. He nodded intently as he drank down some of his own can of mixed fruit.

  “We’ll need to go through the pack before we set off to make sure we aren’t carrying any more than we need,” Kimber said eyeing the leather bag. Tristan picked it up and dumped the contents out onto one the dog beds.

  “Map, check. Flares, check,” she said, and he put the map and the two road flares back in. “Batteries, check. Flashlight, check. Access card, check. Multi-knife, check. Leather fold with two sticks of jerky left, check. Water purifier and extra water bottle, check.” Kimber paused sizing up the two walkie talkies. “What do you think about these?” she asked Tristan.

  “Let’s save them until the end to see how much room we have left.”

  “Good idea,” she said and reached into the box of plastic utensils, pulling out two forks. She threw them into the pouch and tossed the rest of the box on the pillow along with the toothbrush and toothpaste that she had grabbed. The butane lighter, the small bottle of eye drops, and the walkie talkies also laid there next to the large lantern.

  “I’ll pop
some of these in again, but we don’t need to bring the bottle.” Kimber reached for the eye drops. She blinked a few droplets into her eyes while Tristan felt the weight of the bag.

  “We don’t really have that much in here. Let’s not take any heavy canned food, but bring the walkie talkies. We are obviously not taking this big boy,” Tristan said as he grappled the batteries out of the lantern. “Can we take the chocolate bar?” he asked hopefully.

  “Of course. That will be dessert to our lunchtime jerky. Need to study the map?”

  “Nope. I’ve got it locked up here. Our next stop is Sonora, which is bigger than Upton,” Tristan said, tapping his temple. “But what we do need is water. Let’s jog back to that creek and fill both bottles up. It will add a bunch of weight, but it will be worth it. I’ll jog with one in my hand.”

  “Perfect. I’m going to bring the toothbrush with us to the creek. We can ditch it when we’re done.”

  They both nodded and got up, looking back gratefully at their disheveled little bed. Kimber picked up the empty cans and threw them into a trash can nearby and Tristan picked up the pack. “Be a little more careful on your way out?” she asked as she squeezed through the hole and beckoned for him to pass the shoulder bag through to her. He nodded and shimmied his body through, more carefully than he had in the storm. The sun was bright overhead and the dust had mostly settled, revealing a brighter borealis.

  “Well hello again,” Tristan greeted the aurora in the sky. “Shall we?” he asked, dropping his gaze to Kimber.

  They jogged the short distance south. It did not take them long to find the creek, and they hurried with their business. Tristan filled the spare bottle with filtered water and insisted Kimber drink it before they departed. He drank two full bottles himself as he patiently waited for her to get it all down. When she finally did, he filled it up once more with the filtered water. This stream was not flowing nearly as healthily as the Green River, but Tristan appreciated even a trickle of water out here in the barren landscape.

  “It’s going to be a long day of traveling. If you want to pass the pack over at any point, don’t hesitate to, okay?”

  Kimber smiled at him defiantly. They both knew she would not be passing the pack over. Tristan rolled his eyes and chuckled, “Okay fine, at least set the pace then.”

  The day went by much like the day before, only at a more consistent pace. Because they were on the smaller highway that they had branched off on, instead of the super expressway they started out on, the concrete was in relatively good condition. The sun dominated the Earth again, sharing the sky with the energetic dancing colors and shining upon the great expanse of old Kentucky that rolled in front of them.

  Kimber felt more in tune with her body today than she had the past day and a half, and she flew across the pavement. She felt as if the surrounding desolation was pushing and pulling her legs forward like pistons in an engine. Every step brought her nearer to some kind of obscure truth and as she got closer, her curiosity was only becoming more and more piqued. Tristan, who had planned to stay behind her so that he didn’t burn her out with the pack, struggled to keep up.

  An hour passed, and the pair merged back onto I65 where it re-intersected Highway 31. Kimber’s pace never slowed, and Tristan didn’t break her concentration. It was only when they closed in on a town that Kimber started to slow down and look around. Welcome to Sonora, KY, a sign to the south read.

  Tristan caught up with her and gawked. “You know you’re a tank, right?” he said, trying his best to breathe normally.

  Kimber looked at him sideways with a laugh, “Oh a tank. Good. That’s what every girl dreams of being called. I wouldn’t have wanted to be called graceful or beautiful or even powerful. Tank is good.”

  “Tank in the most impressive way possible,” Tristan tried to reassure her.

  “Uh-huh. Hey! How much ground did we cover?” Kimber asked, walking at a fast clip.

  Tristan was struggling to match her stride. “Um one quarter,” came the inappropriate response.

  Kimber cocked her head to the side and suddenly realized her pace had been a little too brutal. Instantly, she slowed and her tone softened. “Should we stop for a break?”

  “Yeah, a break would be good. And afterwards, we can try to push it to Elizabethtown. If we can’t make it all the way there, there is a travel plaza right off the expressway that we will run into.”

  As Kimber stopped to take in more of her surroundings, she saw that they were engulfed in a small city. Broken down houses lined the highway, their neighborhoods marching into the distance behind them. Abandoned vehicles were scattered everywhere, like in all of the towns and cities. Little shops and small business dotted the streets, but closest to them was the Sonora fire station. “Let’s take a seat in the shade,” Kimber said motioning towards the fire hall.

  They sat down together, leaning against the brick building. Fire stations were always a top pick amongst the Auroreans for shelter. Supplies and bottles of water could always be found stashed away, and none of the freaky occurrences, the type that always seemed to happen in individual residences and places of worship, ever seemed to occur at the fire stations. Kimber shivered thinking of the multiple mass suicides they had stumbled upon in various churches over the years.

  Kimber opened her pack and took out the jerky and water. She wasn’t particularly hungry, but knew Tristan would ask her to eat, so she gnawed on her stick quietly.

  “Thinking about the Fort?” Tristan asked bluntly.

  “Kind of everything,” she shrugged. It was true. There was so much weighing on her mind that she almost preferred to be traveling, if for no other reason than to help tune it all out.

  Tristan nodded silently and took a bite of his jerky. He chewed for a minute and said, “One more sleep and then one more day. Then we may be wishing we were still sitting right here.” His tone was frank, and Kimber did not argue his point. Instead she mulled it, and her jerky, over, resolving to try to calm her mind. They were doing the best they could, after all.

  “I think I am most worried that my mother may have been hurt. Or was murdered,” Kimber said darkly after a long pause.

  Tristan was surprised by her abrupt confession. He looked at her and nodded slowly. Her head was leaned back against the red brick as she spoke towards the sky.

  “I know it sounds paranoid. But I have this feeling way down deep in my gut that something happened. Something bad. My mother told me I had to start being very careful... that I would be in danger after learning who she used to be. I should have known that it would have put her in the crosshairs too. I should have done something.”

  “Kimber,” Tristan started softly. “There was nothing any of us could do. Humans can’t survive up here. Whatever she did, and wherever she is right now, she chose to protect you. And all of us.”

  Kimber rolled her head to the side to look at him. She looked calm and collected, but Tristan could see the pain hidden there. It broke his heart to see such a numbed look coming from her light blue eyes. She turned her head forward again and looked up at the borealis. Tristan did not say anything. He respected Kimber too much to patronize her or to belittle her concerns. For all he knew, she could be right. Perhaps the council had retaliated against Kimberly’s breech of silence.

  He knew that the truth would play itself out eventually and right now the best thing he could do was to be here with Kimber, in the present. So, he simply scooted his body towards her until their shoulders touched. He watched as the small gesture lit up her eyes, and his heart melted. Such a small thing, he marveled. Kimber gently laid her head on his shoulder and the pair sat there, staring out together over the dusty road like two outlaws from the wild west.

  They stayed there for a while, both enjoying the freedom of their own thoughts. Neither tried to force conversation and neither tried to rush the other. Eventually though, the road began to beckon, and they knew they had to make it to the next town. Tristan broke the silence.

&n
bsp; “Well?” he said flatly, looking out to the north. He hated to bother her, hating it worse when she lifted her cheek off of his shoulder.

  “Yeah, it’s about that time. You said we had covered how much ground? One quarter was it?” she teased as she hoisted herself up, trying to lighten the mood.

  Tristan grinned, “Yep. Which means, in my sleep-deprived mind, that we have exactly three-quarters ground left to go.”

  Kimber shook her head and smiled. She slung the pack over her body, and they walked out into the town. Neither of them felt like stopping to explore, but they enjoyed seeing the layout of the town. Deserted gas stations and tiny shops lined the road much like they had in Bonnieville, or in every other small town in the region for that matter. One grocery store, a salon, a bank, a post office, and many window-less houses later, they popped out on the north side of Sonora.

  To the west was a crater of a lake. It had, like all small lakes, been dried up for years, but it prompted Tristan to stall a bit longer by digging out a bottle of water. He took a long pull and offered some to Kimber, who scrunched her nose up and looked away. He chuckled and put the bottle back, breaking off a chunk of the chocolate bar while he was in the pack. Kimber did accept a piece of it, for an energy boost if nothing else, inconspicuously inspecting it for blooming first.

  Then they were off again. The concrete snaked endlessly in front of them and their steps became blurred with those of the past two days. All that mattered was that they kept moving, kept running, and kept progressing northward. The only thing that broke up the monotony was a collapsed overpass at the intersection of county road 222. They looped around it without speaking and kept on pressing up the road.

  ***

  The burning sun moved into position above the traveler’s heads, smoldering like a lavarock in the noon sky, before falling languidly to their western flank. The pair labored on for hours, maintaining a robust and ceaseless pace. Kimber let her thoughts drift into the cloudless atmosphere, and she slipped into a trance-like state. She was yanked from her daze only when Tristan called out from the rear, bringing her attention to the city on the skyline.