Sixteen
“How will we cross it?” Blaise asked.
The water rushed in front of us, blocking our path.
“We could swim,” Josh said as he bent to pick up a smooth rock. He threw it, but missed the opposite bank by several feet.
East glanced at Jonah and back to the water. “No, we need to find a way across that doesn’t involve soaking ourselves, our clothes, and our packs.”
I stood, staring at the water pass over the rocks that must have marked the banks a few days ago. The rains had made the river explode beyond its confines. Trees that grew at the water’s edge were now a few feet underwater. Along the edges, the water looked angry as it flowed swiftly over rocks and roots it normally didn’t touch. In the middle it was calm and still. I’d spent enough time in water and around water to know what that meant. It was deep, really deep, to create that level of stillness.
“Josh, Jonah, come here,” Sara called.
I turned. She was in the trees behind us. The two went to her, and the rest of us followed.
“Here, take this to the bank,” she said, looking at the fallen tree at her feet. “If we can find more, we can use the duct tape to make a raft.”
“Great idea! Even two together would keep our packs and most of our clothes dry,” Blaise said, a broad smile crossing her lips.
A few minutes later we had three fallen trees, of different lengths and widths, next to each other on the bank. East, Jonah, and Josh lifted first one end, then the middle, and then the other end as Sara wrapped the duct tape from East’s pack around the trees.
“Will it hold us?” Josh asked.
“It should,” Sara said. “Especially if we spread out and distribute our weight evenly. But we’ll need a way to push forward. Otherwise, with this current we’ll drift for miles downriver before we get across.”
“I can push it while the rest of you ride,” Josh said.
“Josh, I don’t know about that,” Blaise said, biting her lip. “It looks deep and you aren’t that strong of a swimmer. I’ll do it.”
Jonah and East were noticeably quiet. They were always the first to volunteer for the worst of jobs, and this job with the icy water and strong current would be one of the worst.
I took a breath. “You aren’t much better than him,” I said, looking at Blaise. “I’ll do it.”
“No, I’ll do it,” Jonah said.
East stared at him. “No, you won’t. Bria, do you think you can get us across?”
“Bria could get a raft three times this size with three times the people in it across a raging river,” Josh said.
“She’s not superwoman,” Blaise said.
“Yeah, I know, but you’ve seen her swim,” Josh said.
“This water is freezing,” Sara said, looking at me with pity.
“I’ll be fine. It will be fun to swim. I’ve missed it,” I lied knowing the temperature would be excruciating.
Jonah looked at me as if he wanted to say something.
East nudged him. “Come on.”
I handed my shoes and pack to Blaise. Josh and Jonah pushed the raft into the water. Sara crawled to the front, and then East. Jonah looked back at me one more time and got on in the middle. I slipped my shoes and then pants off, thankful I was wearing underwear that was more modest than any bathing suit I owned. I folded my pants and handed them to Blaise.
“I’ll keep them dry,” she said as she and Josh climbed on last.
“Thanks,” I said, telling myself the distance was not too far and the water wouldn’t be too cold.
My friends sat on their knees to keep as dry as possible. Jonah crouched on his feet, staying low to the raft. The front of the raft was floating. My feet touched the water and it sent a shiver through my body. Only Blaise saw my reaction. She gave me a look that said she was both sorry and grateful.
I pushed as hard as I could to get the raft farther into the deep water. The cold burned and my body shook as if trying to stop the burning. The current was strong. I swam hard, pushing the raft as fast as I could to keep us from going too far downstream. The raft reached the calm water and, with less resistance, it moved with more speed. I alternated between pushing hard with my head down and lifting my head to breathe. My face hurt every time it hit the surface of the water. I wondered how soon hypothermia would set in. I knew it was minutes. I wondered if I could get across before my legs and arms started to go numb.
I lifted my head as the raft bounced hard against something. A moment later there was a loud splash. Followed by screaming.
“We hit a log. Jonah fell in,” Blaise yelled.
I moved to the side of the raft, expecting to see Jonah holding on, shivering like I was. But I saw only water.
“He can’t swim,” East screamed, panic in her voice for the first time since I’d known her.
I inhaled and dove, forcing my eyes open. It did no good. The water was so muddy I couldn’t see my own hands. I felt where he should’ve been. There was nothing. I rose and inhaled. The current. I inhaled and dove, this time swimming fast with the current. I forced myself to be calm, to not think about who I was looking for. I needed air but I stayed under, frantically swimming in circles near the bottom. I fought against my body that wanted to rise, to breathe, to live. I needed more time.
My toe hit something near the bottom. I swam back. He wasn’t moving. I latched my arm around his chest and pulled as hard as I could. We reached the surface, and my lungs burned as they frantically filled with air. Jonah did not react to the air. His body did not fight to live as mine did. Instead it lay limp and unconscious. My heart raced and my mind spun as I forced him to the shore.
Once our bodies hit land they became heavy. My muscles screamed in pain as I forced myself to my feet and dragged him a few inches, his head at least on dry land. I pushed him to his side. Before I could do anything else his lungs forced the muddy water out onto the smooth river rocks. I closed my eyes as a tear of gratitude formed. I placed my hands beneath his head, cushioning it against the rocks. Again he vomited. I turned my head as my own reflexes tried to force the food from my stomach. I inhaled, forcing it back down, forcing my body to calm.
East ran toward us, sliding to the ground by her brother. Tears streamed down her face. A moment later Sara came and placed her hand on my shoulder. I looked at the bank. The raft was there, fifty feet or so from where Jonah and I met land. Blaise and Josh knelt beside Jonah and me, water dripping from their hair and clothes. They must’ve pushed the raft the rest of the way.
Jonah’s head moved in my cupped palms. When his eyes opened, my body released the tension it held. East lifted his shoulders, and his body shook.
“He needs heat,” I said, the words coming out strange, my lips struggling to form the sounds. My body shook violently. I looked down; my legs and feet were still in the water. I didn’t feel the cold. I didn’t feel anything.
Sara, looking at me, realized what was happening and pulled me from the water. She dragged me to the sunniest spot on the bank. East did the same with Jonah, who was now conscious, though far from alert. I hugged my arms around my body as it shook violently. Jonah lay on the ground beside me, breathing heavily.
“Her toes and feet are purple,” Blaise said, concern in her voice.
She was kneeling on the ground beside me and taking my feet in her hands. I watched her move her hands and I knew she was touching my feet, but I couldn’t feel her touch. I couldn’t feel anything.
East pulled Jonah’s shoes from his feet. The blood that once stained them had partially faded, left in the water of the river.
Josh dropped my pack beside me.
“I need to change her shirt. Look away,” Blaise said to Josh.
I heard his feet against the rocks as he walked, carrying his own pack to the trees.
Blaise pulled my dry clothes from the bag—the faded gray sweatshirt that East had given me a lifetime ago, the words “Saint John’s Seminary” hardly readable. It was my favorite
piece of clothing—it and Jonah’s old coat.
“I can do it,” I said through chattering teeth.
I took the sweatshirt from Blaise and laid it on my legs. I peeled the wet shirt from my body. Jonah moved beside me. I turned. He was sitting now, his head resting on his knees, turned away from me. Sara took the T-shirt from my hands and wrung out the water as I clumsily forced the soft sweatshirt onto my wet skin. She helped me pull it down across my back and stomach, my fingers barely working. The dryness of the sweatshirt brought an immediate sense of warmth. A burning sensation began at my toes and worked its way up to my knees. I knew it meant feeling was returning.
Sara and Blaise rubbed my feet. I winced when the burning turned to feelings of glass puncturing my skin and poking through to my bones. I closed my eyes and bit my lip. Sounds became muffled around me as I worked to stay calm. This won’t last, this won’t last, I repeated hundreds of times in my mind until at last the pain started to lessen. A few minutes later the pain had subsided enough for me to open my eyes. Jonah now knelt in front of me. My feet were propped against his wet jeans, and his hands were rubbing my calves, moving slowly toward my feet and toes.
The pain was gone and in its place was an acute awareness that I hadn’t shaved my legs since Blaise’s wedding and I wasn’t wearing pants and I had no idea what was going on.
“Thank you for saving my life,” he said. “I should have told you I couldn’t swim.” He lowered his head toward my feet as if embarrassed.
“Am I dreaming?” I asked, staring at him.
“I don’t think so,” he said, a smile spreading across his lips. He cleared his throat, forcing it down. “The others went to get changed. They’ll be back any minute. Didn’t you hear us talking?”
I shook my head and pulled my feet toward me, slipping the sweatshirt over my knees.
“How long have I been sitting here?”
“Not too long. Maybe ten or twenty minutes,” he said, moving to sit beside me. His hair was mostly dry.
“What happened? On the raft, I mean. How did you fall in?” I laid my head on my knees, suddenly aware of how tired I was.
“It was my fault,” East said from behind me. “When we hit the log I fell backward into Jonah and I pushed him off the raft.”
“You didn’t push me off the raft. We hit the log and I lost my balance,” Jonah said.
“You lost your balance because I fell onto you,” East said, choking back tears.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Besides, it’s going to take more than a raging, flooded river to take me out,” Jonah joked.
East ignored Jonah and looked at me in a way she never had before. “Thank you for saving him.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. Didn’t she know I would do anything if it meant keeping him alive?
“Oh, good. You’re out of your trance,” Josh said.
From beside me, Sara asked, “Can you walk? Do you want to get some pants on?”
“Yeah, pants would be good,” I said, my face blushing as I remembered the lack of clothing on the bottom half of my body.
A moment later I was walking barefoot, following Sara and Blaise into the trees.
“You left me alone with Jonah?” I whispered as I pulled on dry underwear and pants.
“We didn’t think you’d mind,” Blaise said, making a face at Sara.
“I didn’t exactly mind.”
Sara and Blaise exchanged a knowing glance.
“But I haven’t shaved since your wedding.”
“Do you think he cares?” Sara said, rolling her eyes.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I whispered.
“Bria, you just saved his life,” Sara said. “I’m pretty sure he could care less about the state of the hair on your legs.”
“Fine,” I said. “Next time, don’t leave me with him.”
“You mean next time he falls into a flooded river and you save his life and almost freeze in the process?” Blaise said as she and Sara began heading back to the beach.
“Yes,” I said while wringing out my pants and following them.
Seventeen
I woke to the sound of Jonah breathing gently beside me. It was the sweetest sound in the world. The sky was glowing. The sun would brighten this side of the planet soon. I lifted my head. The others—including Josh, who was supposed to be on watch—slept. I crawled from my spot beside Jonah, careful not to wake him.
I reached the top of the hill where we had made camp shortly after dusk. With the shadows of night gone I could see what lay beneath us, and though I saw I didn’t understand. Where there should’ve been miles and miles of houses there were broken remains of buildings. Every second the sky became brighter and the scene below became clearer. Everywhere I looked, I saw nothing but charred remains of all that had been: houses, schools, malls, churches. A few structures stood among the ashes, as if refusing to fall, though they were only bits and pieces of what had once been.
“What is that?” Sara said, standing behind me, horror in her voice.
“Everything that used to be west of the beltway,” I answered, as my eyes continued to scan the scarred landscape.
Sara pulled her arms across her stomach as if she were trying to keep herself from breaking into tiny pieces. “Do you think my mom’s place burned too?” she asked, her voice shaking with fear.
“I don’t know. I don’t think the fire could have jumped the interstate,” I said.
“But there could’ve been another one on that side,” she said, staring at me.
“There’s no point in worrying about that now. Your mom is smart. She would’ve figured out a way to survive.”
Sara and her mom looked nothing alike, nor did they sound in any way similar, but they were both brilliant and cunning—resilient and strong survivors. If there was a way for her mom and Sage to survive, then they did. The challenge would be finding them. It seemed unlikely they remained in their small apartment in a violent part of the city, but we had nowhere else to start.
We didn’t hide as we picked our way through the charcoaled remains of what had once been Springfield. There were no people here. They had no reason to stay. The ground was dark with soot. It was bare of plants and animals. We’d found nothing living since we left the wooded area where we camped. Here and there, charcoaled remains of a tree stood, but no green buds. Only brown death.
“Why is nothing alive here?” Blaise asked, touching a charred tree.
Josh looked at the small tree and said, “The fires would’ve killed everything.”
“Yeah,” Blaise said, “but some spots aren’t burned and there’s still no grass. Besides, unless the fire happened last week, things would have started growing back by now.”
“If it was an EMP, then the radiation from the reaction would have fallen to the earth below where it was detonated,” Jonah said, looking at the pale morning clouds.
I stared at the brittle branches of what looked to be a cherry tree, the kind that to me was the very essence of DC in the spring … the time when the city’s impressive human-made monuments were temporarily overshadowed by nature’s simple beauty. I pulled my hands in, placing them on the straps of my pack. I was afraid to let them go and brush against the radiation that undoubtedly flowed unseen around us. I was glad we wouldn’t be going into DC. I didn’t want to witness the death of nature as well as a nation.
When the sun reached its midday height, we came to a brick building just west of the interstate. Three of its walls still stood. Blaise raised her rifle and used the scope to peer through what was once a window, the glass black and shattered at my feet.
“I can’t see a thing except the wall,” Blaise said, lowering the scope from her eye.
“Wall?” I asked.
“The sound wall that encases the interstate,” Blaise said. “It’s like a giant barricade surrounding a moat, which surrounds another giant wall that surrounds everything within a twenty-mile radius of DC.”
“We have to get
through two sound walls and a ten-lane interstate just to get inside the beltway?” I said, chewing on my bottom lip.
Sara’s eyes were fixed in the direction of the wall. It was the only place we knew to look for her mom and sister. We had to find a way inside.
Josh stood beside Blaise. “Do you think they planned it that way? You know, tell everyone it was to block the sound of the interstate, but really it was in case of an attack. To be able to wall off the capital and surrounding areas.”
“If they were that smart, they would’ve realized we were under attack before we were attacked,” East said, her anger rising. “They would’ve stopped whoever did this.”
“So what do we do?” Blaise asked, gripping the gun at her side.
“Our only option is to go below the beltway using an overpass or get on and off at an exit ramp. Either way, we’ll be defenseless,” Jonah said.
“We could use the subway,” Josh said.
Blaise looked at him curiously. “The subway?”
“Yeah, we could use it to go completely under the beltway,” Josh said.
“There’re no lights,” East said. “It would be like walking through a cave without a flashlight. We’d never find our way out or know if someone was about to attack.”
Josh shrugged his shoulders. “Well, if we did have a flashlight, that would be another option. Just saying.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true, but we don’t, so let’s move on to another idea,” Jonah said curtly.
Blaise looked at Josh and shook her head in amusement.
“I think we should cross beneath the interstate at an overpass,” East said. “At least that way we won’t be stuck in the middle of a ten-lane interstate if things go wrong.”
“I agree,” Jonah said.
Pointing to the west, Sara said, “The closest overpass is about a mile that way.”
Through the Ashes (The Light Book 2) Page 9