by Ryan Harding
Adam tentatively scooted to the edge of the creek, though Patrick and Gin had already proved it safe.
“It’s doubtful he’d put explosives right up on the water,” Patrick said. “You don’t want wet wiring if you can help it.”
Adam didn’t look back at him, only muttered, “There were a lot of monsoons in Vietnam.”
And it’s not like he’s too concerned about keeping you alive.
She nearly gasped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Patrick leaned in close to her, a whisper so faint she strained to hear it. Adam would miss it as he fussed with the mug along with the cover of rushing creek water.
“He’s barely here with us. He’s thinking about his parents more than his next step, and sooner or later that’s going to be a problem for us.”
Gin checked to make sure Adam was still preoccupied before replying, “Well, we can’t just tie him to a tree and leave him.”
She regretted it before the last word escaped her lips, expecting him to say that’s exactly what they should do, right this minute. He merely gave her his patented look of survivalist disappointment (a special edition with a head shake) and turned his attention back to the road.
She spun in a slow circle. So many trees, layers of cover, a thick blanket of wood and foliage to disappear within. But Patrick had a point—a man (or whatever Orange was now) could accomplish a lot with dedicated trapping day by day for so many years.
Patrick was optimistic they could kill Orange for a reset, but he had a good track record the last several years. She remembered a news story when she was eight years old, Orange shredded in a hail of bullets at a wall checkpoint. There was optimism this time he was gone for good. He’d exhausted his nine lives and the scourge was banished (though he’d far surpassed nine by that point; Wikipedia lore put the total between twelve and seventeen times by that point, citations still needed). Ten days later they spotted him again, grainy surveillance footage as professional as a Bigfoot sighting, but nobody disbelieved it for a minute because deep down they all expected it. A radical outcry from hysterics suggested they evacuate the whole state and just nuke the fucker (the so-called Scorched Earth Exorcism Initiative), but that went over as well as New Coke. It was a grave new world, although “grave” was a rather vague concept for one of its citizens.
He’d been decapitated, blown apart by a grenade, shot, incinerated, impaled, and several combinations thereof, only to return to his killing fields a week or two later, arisen as a phoenix from the ashes to pick up where he left off. He bounced back from decapitation and cremation in a week. The grenade put him away for twelve days. No rhyme or reason. These had been experiments by the military, or at least the ones publicized. Some put the true figure of executions in the hundreds, even thousands. The new movement was to keep a drone on standby to patrol and destroy every time he showed up, but not many people (especially veterans) liked the idea of drones used on American soil, even if the target in question was a completely bugfuck psychopath. Plus maybe there were technical difficulties to consider if Patrick hadn’t made up the electromagnetic weirdness.
Since that news story from her childhood, there might have been two, maybe three other confirmed “kills” of Agent Orange. If they had ever been initiated by anyone not affiliated with the military, there had been no reports. It didn’t do much to inspire confidence in Patrick’s “live off the land” plan; in fact, it made it sound like the sort of counterculture thing that might have been popular with people wearing bell-bottoms back when Agent Orange was still a normal human being serving a tour in Vietnam.
Adam finished by baptizing himself with the mug like Patrick. She wondered if he did it to cover up tears. Men were funny when it came to such extreme emotion. Like it wasn’t natural to fall apart when people you’d known all your life died so horribly, feeling like there was something you could have done to stop it.
She noticed a puzzled expression on Adam’s face and followed his eyes to Patrick. He looked back in the direction of the lodge through the tree tops.
“I was hoping there’d be smoke.”
There wasn’t. No sign of an inferno at all. Nothing of note but the occasional ruffling of branches as a bird hopped around for a better spot. Patrick had to know the hidden security would have all manner of contingencies, be it an incursion by Agent Orange or a fire. Hurricane Rose tore through the area ten years ago and nothing happened. Orange stayed within the walls. They were prepared.
Gin’s eyes drew once more to the trap in the creek. She watched the tree trunk as though it had some secret to part of the forest. She noticed Patrick looking too.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” he said.
“Yes.”
Adam came over to them. “What? What are you thinking?”
Gin answered, “We could set a trap of our own.”
Patrick nodded beside her. “If we miss with the napalm, we’re out of options. But if we catch him, we get a free shot.”
Adam looked at them doubtfully. “Yeah, that’d be great, but with what? The napalm’s our only weapon. We don’t even have a knife. Unless you’re MacGruber all of a sudden and you can turn a coffee mug into a land mine.”
“MacGyver,” Patrick corrected absently.
Gin wasn’t so sure Adam wasn’t right.
“It doesn’t have to be elaborate. We can find enough materials in Morgan.”
That’s when they all heard the scream, way off in the distance from the direction where Lee left with Eliza and Annette.
“Sounds like the wrong group created a distraction,” Patrick said. “Come on, we need to move fast.”
Eleven
Lee seemed like a fun guy to be around, if you only had to deal with him for about 14 seconds, that is. Anything past that was torture.
“You girls would love my band,” he assured them.
“Girls?” Eliza echoed.
Lee missed the implication entirely. “Yep. Been playing since I was in grade school. Fastest fingers you ever saw.” He held up his hand and waved them. “Not just at playing music, either.”
Eliza rolled her eyes.
She was interested in his experiences since waking up here, not his stupid band. It was called Jack in the Box, a sleazy pun of approximately zero surprise from a guy who used words like “quim.” It was encouraging that such an idiot had survived this long, though.
Annette was out to lunch through this monologue, chewing the nails of one hand. She was lost in the latest crisis behind her eyes, thankfully a private one. Her eccentricities seemed much more embarrassing with someone who hadn’t been around them all afternoon. Hopefully they’d get to the checkpoint before she started acting up again. Lee claimed they were close.
“I know that map like the back of my hand.” He checked behind them. “I can’t see the lodge now. We’re making tracks, yo. They’re probably still talking about what to do. In our group, someone came up with an idea and we jumped on it without a town hall meeting.”
“You didn’t last very long,” Eliza pointed out.
Lee smiled at her. “I’m still here, though. Rock ‘n roll destiny. Staying in one place when someone’s after you, how stupid is that?”
Not half-bad if they don’t know you’re in that one place.
“We should keep a close eye around us and only talk when necessary,” she said.
Lee mimed zipping up his lip and tossing away the tab. It made her want to hit him even more.
The path was wide open, a field of high grass bordered on both sides by tall trees. The horizon had few obstructions, offering a glorious view of the transformation of the sky to burnt amber as the sun slid past. She tried not to dwell on how this magic palette would soon be pitch black.
As if reading her mind, Lee said, “Yeah, we’ll be at the checkpoint while it’s still light out.”
He led the way, and she was only too happy to let him. The grass grew wild over the years and no telling how many hidden things crept down in there. I
f one of them were to get bit, let it be Jack in the Box’s lead guitarist. She felt tiny things scamper (or slither) over her shoes several times. A convoy of tiny bugs jumped ahead with each step as if to flee the judgment of the giants.
“You’re sure they’ll open up for us?” She didn’t consider Patrick a fool, but he wasn’t too far from wearing a funny hat with jangly bells. Captain Napalm turned into Usain Bolt back at the lake house without the slightest concern for those left behind. Adam too, ditched his parents like embarrassing chaperones.
Not that she couldn’t commiserate on letting down family in a life or death situation.
“Positively positive,” he said. “That’s also the name of one of our jams. They go crazy for that one live. But yeah, they’ll open the gates. It’s like the US Embassy.”
“Patrick wasn’t so sure.”
Lee laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure he had a compelling argument not to find help. Tuned him out.”
“He’s a dead bitchlick.” Annette paused in her nail chewing for a moment. “They all are.”
Lee finally acknowledged her. “A dead what?”
“Long story,” Eliza said.
Annette fortunately offered no follow-up comment, like someone roused from sleep slipping back into dreamland. A longer length of nail clacked as she snapped it between her teeth. Valerie used to do that.
Things got ugly at the motel, with Eliza in the unenviable position of defending her plus one at a party where Annette tried to microwave a pet parakeet. She went from scared to full-blown whacko mode (more shades of Valerie), but after sticking by her since the ordeal began, Eliza didn’t want to concede they were right about her. Annette had her reasons. A bad situation and the added complication of no access to that laundry list of medications she reeled off to Patrick, of course she was in the Twilight Zone.
“All they can do us is send us back,” Lee said. “Maybe they’ll throw us a sandwich. I’m so hungry I could eat the ass-end out of a dead rhino.” He glanced back at her, eyebrow raised. He rolled his eyes when she didn’t burst out laughing.
Get your own material, asshole. I’ve seen Point Break.
Another clack from Annette. God, that would get annoying fast.
“We really need to be careful,” Eliza said. “If he buried that bullet at the Chicken Exit, no telling what he’ll rig near an actual checkpoint.”
“Shit. Good point.” He swiveled his head left and right and found something on the ground. He reached to pick it up.
“Careful,” Eliza warned. She put an arm out to block Annette, who halted but continued to step in place the way Eliza jogged at red lights. She went through the rotation of her fingernails in rapid succession like corn on the cob. She didn’t look at Eliza, focused on some distant point at the horizon.
Lee paused midway to look back. “He’s not going to trap a random stick.”
Eliza backed up anyway, nudging Annette with her arm.
Lee shook his head and snatched up a stick about as long as his arm. “See? Told you I’d stick around.”
It was Eliza’s turn to shake her head.
He continued to walk in front of them with the stick out, tapping the ground. She doubted it would be much of a buffer if he triggered an explosive, but better than nothing. It probably couldn’t trip the toe popper thingies that would have assured Nathan a handicapped placard if he’d survived, but she didn’t mention it.
Her stomach churned at the thought of Nathan in pieces, and right on cue she saw the poles fifty yards away to the left. She tapped Lee’s shoulder and pointed, not wanting to alert Annette on the off chance they would penetrate her weirdo fugue state.
Lee squinted. “Not much of a welcoming committee.”
There were at least ten, racked together like bowling pins. Her feet tingled, ready to run. She had the stamina to reach the wall. Ten miles would be easy. At least until the toe popper or land mine or whatever surprise he had for them, because there would undoubtedly be something. Callous though it was, her biggest concern about Lee dying in a trap was that he wouldn’t be on point to catch the next one.
He continued to beat the grass before him. Eliza kept pace with Valerie, ten feet behind him. Discretion was the better part of—
She realized her mistake. Not Valerie, Annette. Annette walked beside her. Valerie wasn’t. Valerie couldn’t. She was buried with their mother and father back in Illinois, surprisingly without a coffin full of antibacterial soap.
I think I’m coming down with what mom had, El.
Jesus, you can’t “come down” with pulmonary fibrosis. You’re fine, Val. You always think you’re sick, and it’s always in your head, isn’t it?
But it feels different this time!
It felt different last time too, and the time before that. Go to Dr. Ferguson if you’re really that worried, but I’m telling you, you’re fine.
Eliza assured her of the same two weeks later. The paranoia was bad enough before their mother died, but after that she was certain there must be a terminal illness with her name on it; a package that would show up at her door one day when they got it properly routed to her. Dr. Ferguson humored her as best she could. No telling how many times Valerie crashed her general practice with imaginary complaints since Eliza moved away. She’d been happy to leave her front row seat to the endless charade in exchange for the occasional cell phone update. She assumed there were multiple visits each time her sister reiterated her concern of “coming down” with pulmonary fibrosis.
It turned out Valerie didn’t go to the doctor. She tried to buy Eliza’s token assurances. After weeks of trying to believe it was all a delusion, she did go see Dr. Ferguson, who referred her to a pulmonary specialist. The diagnosis was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Valerie was dead within eight months. Dr. Ferguson said an earlier doctor’s visit might not have made much of a difference anyway.
Might not—meaning might have. Like if an apathetic sister hadn’t assured her she imagined the whole thing and implied it was a waste of time to go to the doctor; implied also she would embarrass herself by going.
Valerie embarrassing herself wasn’t the issue, though; it was the embarrassment by proxy to Eliza. It began as those sardonic smiles at school with her many absences, the students and gradually the teachers. Oh, Valerie’s sick again. Right, right. Of course she is. It became Eliza’s problem too. Pulled yourself away from your sister’s deathbed for the big algebra test, eh? If she missed school, she always wondered if teachers joked that it might be a pattern they’d seen before from that MacColl family.
When it came time to choose a college, Eliza focused on the best possibilities out of state.
She watched Annette gnaw her fingers now. Not much like Valerie, really, but she latched on to the core element of comparison from the beginning. The way the rest of the group quickly took sides against her, annoyed and hostile, questioning her sanity. Things she knew she did to her sister. It was hard not to consider this a kind of karmic opportunity to get it right and redeem the guilt of failing Valerie.
But I’ll still leave her behind if it’s her or me…won’t I?
She’d been with Valerie at the end and watched the awful decline, the regression of results with her incentive spirometer, the anguish that finally accompanied each breath. Her sister even seemed relieved to finally know what would get her after decades of wondering. Valerie never mentioned that Eliza told her she was fine. Eliza almost wished she had. It was worse to pretend it never happened, or that it didn’t matter. She felt like she deserved to see the worst unfold, helpless to change it.
She became serious about running after that. Maybe she thought it would prevent the same thing from happening to her, or maybe she did it as a punishment because early on especially her lungs caught fire when she pushed herself.
Now she had Annette. No denying Annette needed looking after or that nobody else really cared if she wound up drowning in a thimble of water. Annette should have been the one to suggest a pyrotechnic defe
nse against Agent Orange, adept as she was at burning every bridge.
Eliza risked talking to her. “You holding up okay?”
Annette looked up sharply, still not breaking the rhythm of chewing. “Pies and cakes and puh-puh-pussy puddings.”
“Yeah, she’s coming up aces,” Lee said.
Eliza resolved not to disturb her again. She focused on the sounds of their footsteps and the sea of grass sweeping their legs. Cicadas shrieked off in the trees, a sonic grinding that set her teeth on edge and seemed to fill up her skull.
Cicadas and Annette’s fingernails.
The world around them remained still, other than wind through the tree branches. She doubted Marcus and Suzanne got away, but hoped they at least made him work for it. Even better, she hoped he still hunted for them back by the lake. The screams on their way out said otherwise, though.
“Hey, look,” Lee said. “You see it?”
It was too far to be sure, but a couple minutes later, there could be little doubt.
“Told you so.” Lee beamed at her over his shoulder. “A Chicken Exit on the way out. The checkpoint’s probably a mile and a half away. We’re real close.”
“Why did they bother with one so close to the checkpoint?”
“If you thought you could get soldiers to drive in and get you, would you walk another foot by yourself? Breaking news, we’re walking around with a stick. They’ve got machine guns and hand grenades and shit in that mug. Maybe even one of those rotating cannons on the jeep. Shit, it could be a tank for all I know, but point being—”
“Yeah, got it,” Eliza said.
“It’s probably dead, but we’ll try it anyway.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“You’re right, let’s not worry about getting help. He’ll probably run for the hills when we pull this stick on him anyway, the great equalizer.”