by Amy Briant
We had silently crept past several of the colossal tanks—blue, white, pink, green. All the colors were starting to look alike as the light faded. I was worried about finding our way out of there. The tanks had rusty metal staircases spiraling up and around their sides and I would have liked to see the view from the top, but they looked dangerously decrepit. I decided the climb wasn’t worth the risk, not yet, at least. Just how big was the place? Well, if a bunch of bird-brained turkeys could get in and out, surely East and I could too.
Gobble gobble. They were close. Very close. I put up a hand to signal East. Stay here. She nodded and crouched down to wait, giving the icy wind less of a target. I slunk around the side of a lavender tank. The four turkeys had their backs to me, alternately scratching at the dirty concrete with a clawed foot, then pecking at whatever they’d found. Bugs? Weeds? Grit? Didn’t look like much of a foraging spot to me. But then I was concerned with what I was going to eat, not them.
The wind was helping me now, keeping my scent from them and concealing the small sounds of my movements. Closer and closer I snuck, my bola at the ready. Now! I flung the weapon at the nearest turkey, entangling its legs and sending it flopping to the ground. It squawked its outrage, while the other birds ran off at a surprisingly high rate of speed. Good thing this hadn’t been a footrace—I definitely would have lost.
I did my “thank you, Mr. Turkey” bit in my head, then dispatched him with a loose chunk of concrete. He flopped once more, then was still. I took in a long breath.
“East! Come over here! I got him!”
She came rushing around the tank and let out a war whoop when she saw me with the turkey. She gave me a big hug. I think she would have hugged the turkey too if the next problem hadn’t occurred to us simultaneously.
As in how hard it is to cook an eight-pound turkey without firewood. We looked around in some dismay. We were deep in the heart of a tank-filled maze with maybe two hours of dwindling daylight left. Going forward seemed like the lesser of two evils. At least, per my compass, it was the desired direction.
“Let’s look for wood and a place to camp,” I told her. “Maybe there’s a way out of here just past the next tank.”
The only thing waiting for us after the next tank was another tank. And then another one. We couldn’t even set up the tent on the hard concrete surface.
But I killed a turkey, my brain insisted. Like I was due points for that. Yeah, right, because life is so fair.
I was beginning to fear we were walking in circles, compass or not, when we emerged from the rows and rows of tanks to find something different. Another chain-link fence with a gate keeping the forest at bay was a few hundred yards away. Up close were three, beat-up old trailers arranged in a U-shape. Dozens of rusty barrels were stacked on pallets to one side. The scorched skeleton of an overturned tractor trailer reposed on the road leading out toward the gate.
East, fumbling, put her hand on my sleeve. She had turned around, staring behind us at the tanks with her mouth and eyes wide open. I whirled, expecting some new threat, but instead found my eyes drawn up to the tanks as well.
Messages. They covered the sides of the tanks, from top to bottom. Some small, some very large, from ground level up to the highest point, fifty feet above our heads.
Most were in paint, which led me to a pair of conclusions. Those people had come prepared, so this was a known spot to leave messages. I nervously glanced around, but again saw or heard nothing out of place. No people. Just the wind among the shadowy tanks. And realized none of the messages looked particularly new. Some had faded to illegibility.
It was an amazing display of diversity, if nothing else. Hastily scribbled pleas for help. Text so beautifully painted it was practically art. Messages in different languages, different colors, different sizes, different tones. Human nature being what it is, some of the messages were rude. THIS BITES was one of the milder ones.
Someone had scrawled ten-foot-tall Shipright slogans in red, white and blue paint. Someone else had painted “stupid fuckers” underneath in elegant black script.
Most of the messages were personal. R. I. P., DONTELLE.
I LOVE YOU, MOLLY NGUYEN.
JURGEN S. WAS HERE!
There was one in particular that stuck with me.
WE DESERVE THIS.
I wandered from one tank to another and read all of the messages that I could. Twice. But there was nothing from anyone I knew, no name I recognized, no mention of Segundo. If Gabriel and her group had come this way, there was no sign of it now.
East was still standing where I’d left her, fists clenched by her sides.
“I want to leave a message for my brother,” she announced. Her tone dared me to disagree.
“Good idea,” I said mildly. “What can we use for paint?”
“Oh,” she said blankly, looking around and seeing a whole lot of nothing like I did. None of the previous artists had conveniently left us brushes and a can of paint. But East brightened and pointed—at me.
“The turkey! I can use its blood.”
It was unnerving how she was starting to think like I did.
“It won’t be that much,” I cautioned her. “You’ll have to keep it brief.”
She nodded. I gave her the bird, my knife, a cooking pot and some quick instructions, then headed off to investigate the trailers. All three had been occupied in the past—two of them, disgustingly so. What is it in some people that they get off on destruction? Original sin, Gran would have said. Whatever that was.
The third trailer was okay and would give us shelter for the night. The pallets provided plenty of firewood. I had the camp set up and a fire going when I went back to East to retrieve the entree.
“I made it short,” she said almost defiantly, tears running down her cheeks, while absentmindedly plucking feathers with her blood-stained fingers from the dangling corpse in the crook of her arm.
“I see.”
BAIRD—AT SEGUNDO. ELLIE.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand, which only rearranged the dirt.
“He calls me Ellie,” she said. “He’s the only one who calls me that since our mom died.”
I nodded, since I could think of nothing useful to say. One good rain and her message would be gone. It was almost dark. I reached out to take the turkey from her, but she surged into my arms and held on to me fiercely, her tears trickling down my neck.
We stood there like that long enough that the blood-red letters of her message faded into black as the first faint stars appeared overhead.
Chapter Thirty-five
Special Delivery
Days went by, then weeks, then I lost count. The sheer tedium of it was challenging. Sure, there were moments of adrenaline, but those were few and far between in the long hours of walking. Walk, camp, sleep, repeat. I found that East and I spoke less and less, and when we did speak, we argued more.
I would argue when I disagreed with her on something important or needed to make a point, but for her it almost seemed to be entertainment. Was this how her family had communicated? I couldn’t imagine that household. Her jabs hurt my feelings more often than not, but I hid that from her.
Screw her for making me feel bad about not wanting to have sex with her. Screw her for not even trying to understand.
One more thing to never talk about.
Whatever I had thought of her back in school seemed completely childish. She was a totally different person to me now. As I knew I was to her.
I sometimes wondered if she would even still talk to me if we made it to Segundo. Still be my friend. Maybe take another shot at being more than friends if I could ever figure that out?
Or was it all just a matter of convenience for Elinor Eastman? Convenience and proximity. Back at the Settlement, she had her boyfriend, the not so dearly departed Hunter Cohen. On the road, she had me. At Tres Hermanas…
Just how many women had she slept with at Tres Hermanas?
Again and again,
she made me ask myself if there was anything real between us, or if I was just a means to an end.
There was way too much time to think on those unending days of long marches. I tried to focus—I was on a mission and the only thing I needed to think about was getting us to Segundo. But then my brain would throw something random in like that’s right, you’re on a mission and when you get to Segundo, you’ll have proved you’ve got what it takes to be a Messenger.
Where did that come from? I wasn’t taking on their freaking Aptitude. One million-mile hike was more than enough for me.
Just concentrate, I told myself. North in the a.m. and east in the p.m.
One day, due north took us down a broad and well-worn grassy path which I suspected was once a dirt or gravel road. Animals clearly had found it be an easily-traveled trail. The countryside was rugged with many rocky outcroppings and no trace of any former human habitation. Our tree-lined track wound steeply down a hillside. I was glad it was comfortably wide—the drop-off to our right was severe. I could hear but not see a stream or maybe even a river far below, merrily rushing. The promise of replenishing our water bottles kept me following the path, although I was already worried about what exactly was down there. I hated not being able to see further than the next bend in the road.
East was quiet and lagging several steps behind. Tired, no doubt. Cranky, for sure.
A sizeable tree marked the next turn, a sharp ninety-degree angle. I paused in its shade and shrugged out of my pack for a moment, seizing the opportunity for a quick back scratch against the tree’s gnarled trunk. Something had inflicted significant damage to it in the past. Lightning strike? Had someone tried, but failed, to cut it down? Or maybe something had crashed into it Before. And yet the tree continued to flourish, while whoever or whatever had struck it was long forgotten.
“Hear that stream, East?”
“Yeah. How much farther do you think?”
I stepped out of the shade and crossed to the side of the road to stare down toward the sound of moving water, trying to guess the distance. I still couldn’t see it, not even a flash of sunlight reflecting off it. Although precipitous, the hillside was covered with scrub oak and pine, shrubbery and rocks, all of it obscuring my vision.
“Not too far,” I told her.
Four things happened rather quickly.
East came over to take a look for herself.
A squirrel leapt from a bush right next to her and ran toward the tree.
Startled, she yelped and jumped and, in doing so, knocked into me as I peered over the edge.
I flew.
East’s screams rang in my ears as I tumbled ass over teakettle down the steep incline. It felt like all the major body parts managed to bounce off the hillside at least once. Including my face. I was grabbing frantically at every passing shrub, root and branch, but it was all such a mad whirl that I only succeeded in ripping up my hands.
My furious plunge came to an end as sudden as its beginning. I caromed off the hillside one last time, was briefly airborne, struck a smallish tree whose branches broke my fall by beating the shit out of me and then landed hard on my back on a flat, leaf-covered surface with a dull “clonk.”
The impact knocked the breath out of me. I could hardly believe I was still alive. I lay there without moving for at least a minute, trying to collect my thoughts and simultaneously convince my lungs to take in some air. Finally, with respiration returning, I managed to sit up and take inventory. Limbs, check. Torso, check. Head, still attached. Although I was battered and torn, I was grateful to realize I was not badly hurt. No broken bones, thank goodness.
On a not so positive note, my compass, which I’d been wearing on a string around my neck, was shattered beyond repair. I categorized this as bad, but not a full-blown catastrophe. The sun would help us stay on our basic north-then-east path. It wasn’t like I’d been navigating to a specific and known point on a map.
Throughout all of this, I’d heard East hollering my name and the sounds of her following me down the hill in a much slower, but obviously panicked, fashion.
“Kell!” she yelled again.
I tried to speak and found that I couldn’t. I took a deep breath, winced at the pain that resulted and tried again.
“I’m here, East! I’m okay,” I called to her, somewhat truthfully.
“Jesus Christ,” I heard her say to herself. I could see her a ways up the hill, cautiously testing each hand-and foothold as she descended. And glory be, she had my pack with her. She’d come a long way since the Worst Field Trip Ever started.
Wait a minute—clonk? Just what had I landed on? I seemed to be about ten feet off the ground. I could see the stream not far away, sparkling in the sunlight. The flat surface I found myself on was approximately eight feet wide by fifteen feet long, thickly covered with leaves. In retrospect, there had been two clonks. The first one when I landed flat on my back, then the second one after I bounced up and back down. I was fortunate the leaves—rotting underneath, more or less dry on top—had acted as a safety net to cocoon and catch me on the second bounce.
East was still grumbling her way down the hill and had reached the ledge that must have served as my launching point. She stared at me in disbelief.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah. Shook up, but unstirred.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, my Gran used to say something like that.” Although it didn’t sound right when I said it. Maybe I’d hit my head harder than I realized. I cautiously rose to my feet, testing the surface beneath. It seemed solid enough.
“Do you know what you’re standing on?” East said from her vantage point.
“What is it?”
“It’s a truck,” she said. “It’s a big, brown, boxy truck. You’re on its roof. It must have crashed down the hill a long time ago.”
She found a way down from the ledge while I did a few careful stretches and deep knee bends on the roof. My ribs were sore on one side and there was a goose egg developing on the back of my head. I knew I was lucky to have escaped with such minor injuries. I’d probably feel like hell tomorrow, but for now, the next order of business was to hang off the side of the vehicle and drop to the ground below. I washed my cuts in the icy clear water of the stream while East refilled our water bottles.
We then went back to the truck at my insistence. The front and the sides were thrashed, evidence of a headlong dash down the densely wooded hill that must have ended when the truck rammed into a very large tree. The pancaked engine compartment bore silent testament to the violence of the impact. A gaping, driver-sized hole in the windshield suggested a sudden and fatal exit for that individual. He or she was nowhere to be seen for which I was grateful. The last thing we needed was another grisly sight to add to our memories.
I had quite a bit of experience salvaging cars and trucks, thanks to Gabriel’s tutelage and plenty of practice back in San Tomas. Better safe than sorry was the first rule. Don’t expect much, if anything, was the other one. Water usually found a way into a vehicle long before my sister and I arrived, leaving the interiors a rotting, mildew-y mess with nothing worth taking. Once in a while, though, we’d come across something worthwhile—something that had withstood the passage of time and the elements. Maybe a sentimental relic of the past that we could trade to some gormless Settlement adult for an actually useful item.
The passenger side door was partially open, but just a few inches. East and I pushed and pulled, and finally managed to pry it further open enough for me to climb inside the mangled cab. It was a tight squeeze, but occasionally being small and skinny is a good thing. I told East to stand watch while I took a look.
“Anything?” she asked after all of five seconds.
“Oh, yeah, sure—fried chicken, clean underwear and a feather bed.”
“Ha, ha. Very funny.”
Five more seconds.
“But, seriously,” she said. “Anything?”
/> I set aside an empty plastic bottle with its cap screwed on. We could use that. The seats were moldy and decayed. I was careful not to catch myself on the exposed springs.
East stepped up on the running board and rubbed her sleeve on the passenger mirror. Her sleeve was no match for years of muck and exposure.
What else? I had no tools to remove any mechanical parts, even if I could think of a purpose for them. A screwdriver under the seat was a find—rusty, but still serviceable. I used it to pry open what Gabriel called the glove compartment. No gloves, just a decomposing glob of papers.
“Kell?”
“Okay, I’m coming. Just a sec.”
With the help of my trusty new screwdriver, I got the keys out of the ignition, then climbed out to an expectant East.
“That’s it? A fucking plastic bottle and rusty screwdriver?”
“And keys,” I said, jingling them in her face. “Which might just open the back.”
The rear end was the least damaged part of the vehicle. It took several tries and a fair amount of cursing, but in the end, we got the door open. A hodgepodge of boxes of different sizes and colors filled the interior. Envelopes too. The air inside was stale, but dry. By some miracle, no water had seeped in over the years. I had no hope of finding anything edible in the packages, but thought it was worth opening a few just to get an idea of what the truck was carrying.
“What is all this?” East asked.
“I don’t know. I guess the driver was taking all these boxes somewhere. Here, let’s try the big ones first. Help me get ’em out on the ground.”
The last thing I wanted was to be caught inside a small dark space if two-or four-legged predators were nearby.
Some of the boxes were too heavy to easily move. I let those be, as the chances were slim we could make use of anything so unwieldy. As I slashed at a box with my knife, East ripped open a few of the smaller pouches that lay scattered about. As far as I could tell, all she was finding was paper. I wasn’t having any better luck, but I was starting to see a pattern.
“East, see the names on the label? Check out the one at the top left.”