BARREN_A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

by J. Thorn

  “It’s getting bad out there.”

  Dia nodded. “The snow didn’t start off coming down hard, but it picked up by the time we got back to the house.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone while you were out?”

  “No one. We didn’t go very far, though. And I’m sure anyone around here is probably taking shelter from the storm.”

  Hado worried that smoke from their fire would attract gangs or raiders. But at the same time, she was beginning to think that, between their not being able to find anyone when they’d first arrived, and how long they had been in the cabin now with the smoke escaping from the chimney, maybe the town really was empty.

  When the squirrel finished cooking, Dia brought some to Hado, along with the melted snow which she had put into Hado’s canteen.

  “The water got a little warm, so that should help you feel better.”

  “Thank you, Dia.”

  Dia helped Hado sit up and then sat back down on the floor, sharing her own portion of squirrel with Decker and allowing Hado to have the couch to herself. Dia took a sip of water as she fed Decker a piece of meat, glancing sideways at the window.

  “Well, the snow is good for at least this. I know it’s going to be difficult for us to maneuver through it, especially when we get into the mountains, but at least we’ll have water.”

  Hado finished a bite of the meat, then took a sip of her own water. She drew in a deep breath after she swallowed. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  Hado took another sip of water. “I’m not going to Denver.”

  Dia froze with meat halfway to her mouth. “What do you mean? I thought you wanted us to get to the Venganza there?”

  “I do.”

  “Then why stop? We’re so close.”

  “You’re not stopping. You’re going there.”

  Dia scrunched up her face and shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “You can’t take me with you. I will only slow you down.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You lost one arm. You can still ride. We just need to stay here another couple of days while you recover.”

  “You don’t have another couple of days. The snow is only going to get worse. The Denver Venganza will know how to survive in it. They will have proper shelter. Plenty of food stocked. But going through the mountains to get there is going to be treacherous even under the best of circumstances. You must go and beat the storm.”

  Dia stood, dropping the meat she’d been holding in the process. “No. I’m not leaving you. I didn’t chop off your arm just to leave you here to die anyway.”

  “It’s what you have to do.”

  “No. What you have to do is get better. And once you do that, we will leave. You’re not going to die here. Not after what we’ve already been through.”

  “But, Dia, you—”

  “This is no longer a discussion. So stop it.”

  Hado tilted her head in acknowledgement, no longer having enough physical energy or willpower to argue with the girl.

  “Then we will leave tomorrow,” Hado said. “And that is not up for debate. I won’t feel much better than I do now any time soon, and we can’t afford to waste more time. If I get worse on the way or can’t make it, though, you must leave me behind.”

  Dia nodded. “Fine.”

  “Now, sit back down and eat. Then we rest.”

  Chapter 27

  18 Days West of Erehwon

  The after-effects of the successful amputation felt worse than the infection had. Hado swayed with her horse’s movements, biting her lip and pushing frozen tears from her face. The snow had only intensified, swirling through the trees and across the road like an angry, white demon. It had become difficult to distinguish night from day as the sky had blanketed them with an eternal, gray gauze. By this time, Decker had permanently joined Dia in the saddle.

  Hado had known that the closer they got to Denver, the tougher the journey would become. She’d heard all about the Rocky Mountains, as well as how much it snowed there. Lanette had told Hado stories when she’d been a teenager—wild tales of the brutal wilderness of Colorado. Hado hadn’t been able to believe there could be a place that received more snow than northeast Ohio, but now she was seeing Lanette’s truth firsthand.

  “How are you feeling?” Dia asked.

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “There’s a river up ahead. I think we should stop so I can check it. The horses need a break, and I’d like to see if it’s something they can drink out of.”

  They stopped the horses ten yards from the bank. Dia dismounted and pulled her canteen from her satchel. She took a sip, then went to Ree and retrieved Hado’s canteen, handing it to her.

  “Thanks,” Hado said.

  When Dia walked over to the river, Decker walked behind her, but she told him to stop once she got close, fearing that he might fall in. The snow-covered ground made for unstable footing and thin ice, which made any approach to running water treacherous.

  Watching Dia absently, Hado drank from her canteen and glanced off into the wilderness. The ground was covered in white, and snow-capped mountains surrounded them. She was looking to the west when she noticed movement. Pulling her canteen from her lips, she stared through the blinding snow.

  A dark flash, followed by two more.

  “Don’t move,” a man said, looking at Hado.

  Three men emerged from the trees three feet away, each one bundled in heavy animal furs that hung down to the ground. The man in front pulled back his hood, revealing long, jet-black hair braided into two strands that lay upon his chest. He had dark skin and piercing black eyes that seemed to melt the snow.

  “You, down near the water. Don’t you move, either.”

  “We’re only travelers,” Hado said. “Is this your territory?”

  “It is indeed.”

  “We apologize for being here. We will move on.”

  “It’s not so simple,” another one of the men said.

  Hado and Dia looked at each other. Hado used her eyes to tell the girl to remain calm.

  “These are ancient, native lands that you have trespassed upon. One does not simply disturb our ancestral spirits and then leave.”

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Hado said. “We just want to get some water and move on.”

  “And you will. As soon as you hand over the horses.”

  “What?” Hado asked.

  “You heard me. We’ll take your horses. Along with whatever is in the satchels hanging on them. You can keep the dog, though. He looks worthless.”

  Decker growled as Hado looked at the men again. They appeared to be Natives—remains from the groups of people from before who’d been rounded up and forced by the government to live on segregated lands. Lanette had spoken of them. She had said that they’d become destitute drunks who’d run casinos. None of that had made any sense to Hado then, and it wasn’t something that would help her now.

  Hado winced as another pain shot through where her arm used to be.

  “You can have them,” Dia said.

  Hado looked over at Dia. She shook her head.

  “No, Dia. Shut up.”

  “It’s okay, Hado. We have no choice.”

  “Listen to the girl,” the man said. “She apparently wants to survive more than you do.”

  Hado glared at Dia. Was she giving up this easily because she knew Hado couldn’t fight? How were they supposed to get the rest of the way to Denver, on foot, and without any of their supplies?

  “I just want to get them some water,” Dia said. “We’ve been traveling for some time without it, and they need to drink.”

  The man who’d last spoken looked at the other two before turning back to address Dia. “How do you know the water is safe?”

  “I’m a water whisperer. I’m able to detect clean water.”

  “Impossible. Our people have lived on this mountain for generat
ions. And since it all ended, all the mountain streams have been contaminated. We melt and store the snow; that is the only water safe to drink. That river right there. It hasn’t been clean for decades. Nobody has dared to drink from it in over seven years.”

  “I promise you that I can tell. Let me show you.”

  Again, the men looked at each other before the leader spoke up. “Okay.”

  Hado and Dia shared another glance. Hado couldn’t have been sure, and maybe it was the blinding snow, but she thought the girl had winked.

  The men walked past Hado. They had taken their arms out of their furs, and each man was carrying an ax with a blade that sparkled in the wet snow.

  “Prove it,” the leader said.

  “Not a problem.” Dia raised the canteen to her lips, but the man shook his head.

  “No, I want to see you dip it into the water and then drink out of it.”

  Dia nodded. She went to the bank just beside the water, kneeled, and collected water straight from the river. Then she faced the men and tilted her head back as she drank from the container. When she had taken a big gulp, she looked at the man and shrugged.

  “See? Safe.”

  “Step aside,” the leader said to Dia. He then looked at the two men flanking him and handed one of them his own container. “Fill these while I check what they have with the horses.”

  The men nodded and approached the bank. The leader went over to Ree, smiling as he looked up at Hado. Keeping his eyes on her, he opened her satchel and looked through it.

  Hado glanced to Dia, who focused on the two men approaching the edge of the river. What caught Hado’s attention was the smile stretched across the girl’s face. There was no way to know what she was thinking, so Hado looked back to the leader at her horse’s side.

  Suddenly, screams tore through the snow-deadened air.

  Hado and the leader of the group looked toward the bank at the same time. The ground had collapsed at the river’s edge, and the two men had fallen into the fast-moving water.

  “Sun! Crow!” the leader screamed, hurrying toward the bank and dropping his ax as he stumbled forward.

  The two men flailed as they floated downstream in the frigid water.

  “What did you do?” the leader asked, turning around to Dia.

  When he faced her, though, she was waiting, spear in hand. She jabbed the tip of the spear into his gut, then pulled it out. Then she stabbed him again.

  He groaned, reaching for his bleeding stomach. He stepped backward then, only a few feet from the bank. As he reached the edge, more of the ground collapsed below him and he fell backward into the water.

  Dia looked up at Hado, who still sat on top of Ree. Frozen breath came from her mouth instead of words as the two women waited for the men’s screams to fade.

  “Are you mad?” Hado asked. “They could have killed us.”

  “They would have anyway.”

  “You’re acting like you knew the bank would collapse into the river.”

  Dia mounted her horse. “That’s because I did.”

  Hado’s brow creased.

  Dia pointed to the bank. “I could feel how weak it was when I went to get water. It barely held me up, so I knew it would collapse under men that large.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Dia shook her head. “Just trying to keep us alive. Now we’ve got to get going in case all that commotion got the attention of the rest of their tribe.”

  Dia kicked her horse and took off.

  Hado snorted, and then followed.

  Chapter 28

  She looked down at the bones with her one good eye. The stink had gotten so pungent inside her single-room dump that she almost made herself gag. But Lanette had taken a liking to the place since the day she had first laid eyes upon it. In those days, the remnants of the old world had hung around like disgruntled ghosts—the steel, asphalt, and concrete yet to disintegrate.

  A convenience store.

  That’s what it had been called in the days of her youth.

  A luxury for those who’d never appreciated it. A place that sold convenience, as if those times had been anything but. Lanette could remember talking on phones, watching television, riding in cars. These memories meant nothing to the girls of the ruins. Or their mothers, for that matter. Instead of trying to stand up to Shiva, Lanette had accepted her ostracism, shut her mouth, and taken up residence in the empty convenience store which had been in Cleveland Heights, on the city’s east side. Over the years and as the northern woods had come back for what was rightfully their own, the roads had been swallowed and the sidewalks overgrown or torn asunder by roots as thick as a woman’s thighs. And within five years, her home had become an outpost in the wilderness even though it had once been in the middle of a thriving, urban community.

  About ten years ago, she’d given up trying to patch the roof or repair the doors, opting to move her living quarters to a different corner of the structure that still held together. Now, she had nowhere left to go. The roof leaked constantly, the bitter drafts ate through the walls, and the animals shit on the floor at will. Lanette looked at her oil lamp and then at the lumpy, soiled mattress crawling with insects of all shapes and sizes.

  “Ugh. I’m too old to think about anything but dying in my own bed.”

  But Lanette knew that wasn’t true even as she said it out loud. She’d gathered the sacred bones, lit the lamp, and read the incantations from the old book. The Venganza had lost the art of the scry—all except for her. And here she sat at the table, her hands folded and her eyes closed. She concentrated on the Rocky Mountains. Denver. Eneka.

  Lanette had begged to come East as a young woman and waxed nostalgic for the West as an old one. She didn’t miss the two-faced bitch who had manipulated the Council there like Shiva did here. No, she’d had a lifetime’s worth of razor-tongued insults from that one. Instead, Lanette thought about Hado and Dia, ultimately hoping that they’d get beyond Denver, through the great mountain range, and all the way to San Francisco.

  She was rushing things, however, and her vision faded to remind her of her impatience.

  “For shit’s sake. Okay, okay. I’ll focus.”

  Lanette had dreams of Hado and Dia reaching the West Coast, successfully surviving the long journey all the way to California. She never would have written Hado if she hadn’t believed they’d make it. It had been quite a risk, that letter, even for an old, useless hag such as herself.

  Perhaps she’d been hasty. She’d written the letter and sent it off before consulting the bones, but there simply hadn’t been time. The gods—or the demons, whoever controlled the universal motions of humans—would understand. They’d take pity on her and on the situation in Erehwon, where life seemed to be evaporating and flowing away before their very eyes.

  Concentrate.

  Lanette put her fingers on the bones, feeling the grooves and shapes she’d carved into them twenty years before. A mild buzz came through her feet, up her legs, and all the way to her yellowed, curled, fingertips. She even felt a stirring in her womanly parts which made her cackle, surprised the circuits still operated that far south.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  Meditation? Yoga? Her mind wandered, trying to decide whether anyone left on the godforsaken planet still did either of those ridiculous things. People of the old world had used meditation when life was not… convenient.

  “Enough,” Lanette said, chastising herself. “Concentrate hard, or the bones won’t show you what you want to see.”

  She nodded to herself, obeying her own command. The tingling returned to her fingers, and the darkness behind her eyes gave way to a dull gray followed by a bright white.

  “The Rockies. Snow.”

  Lanette shivered, and yet she couldn’t tell whether it was from the wind blowing through her hovel or from the vision of chilling altitude.

  She kept her eyes closed as fuzzy shapes appeared in the scene. Lanette blinked in her mind, and the snow par
ted to give her a view from atop a mountain pass, above a valley with foothills on each side. Between them ran a wide river, ice on the surface frozen with wisps of snow blowing across it.

  “There they are.”

  Two horses walked into the frame, each carrying a rider—one with a dog. Lanette could tell by their height which one was Hado and which one was Dia. They’d both made it into the Rockies. Eastern gap? Western gap? The bones wouldn’t get that specific. But they’d made it to the Colorado territory.

  The old woman had just opened her mouth to speak again when the vision accelerated. The scene flickered, and then Lanette saw the two riders had dismounted, Hado being about ten feet in front of the girl. Both appeared poised to cross the frozen expanse while the horses waited to be summoned.

  Lanette felt a crack of arthritis in her knee, and she winced. A cold panic ripped through her mind as she realized what the bones were about to show her.

  “No!” Lanette cried out. “The ice will give beneath you! Stop!”

  Her cries went on unabated as Hado took the first steps onto the ice, followed by Dia.

  Frozen death.

  The meaning came into Lanette’s mind as clear as spoken words.

  “Stop!”

  But neither Hado nor Dia could hear her. For all Lanette knew, she could have been watching a replay of the past, the ice having already broken and murdered its victims.

  Who will die?

  As if to answer her question, Lanette watched as Hado stopped walking. The woman turned around in time to see Dia disappear through the ice and drop beneath the surface of the chilling water.

  Lanette knocked the bones off the table, scattering them into darkened corners where the rats would gnaw away whatever marrow remained inside. She took a deep breath, gasping for air to fill her lungs—as Dia would have. Had done? Couldn’t do? Wouldn’t do?

  The possibilities of the when of the vision made her head ache so hard that the old woman collapsed onto her filthy mattress.

  Just before she passed out, she considered praying to the bones to spare the water whisperer’s life. The girl had too much responsibility, so much potential and so many to save. But Lanette stopped and let the blooming migraine drag her into unconsciousness.