Days of Future Past - Part 2: Present Tense

by John Van Stry

I sighed and shook my head, but I got rather shakily to my feet.

  "This way," he said I as started to stumble off back down the road.

  I sighed and turned to follow him. He was heading across the open field, at an angle to the road.

  "If you get me killed, I'm never speaking to you again," I mumbled and tried not to trip over anything as I shuffled along. All of the pains from running tied to that bastard's horse had come back, only they'd come back far worse than they'd been before. On top of that I was incredibly tired and starving. Speed really takes it out of you, and you always feel like crap when it's done with you. Taking it when you're worn out and in pain not only postpones the inevitable, but it makes it all that worse when it finally does catch up with you.

  And it had caught up with me.

  I started out okay, if slow.

  As it got darker, I could barely see him, but I could see enough of an outline to follow him, the stars seemed particularly bright tonight. I wondered if there would be a moon later?

  He didn't get too far in front of me, thankfully, as I was moving a lot slower than a walk. It was more of a shuffle.

  And we kept going.

  And going.

  I started to wonder just where he was leading me; I could barely keep my eyes open now, and was yawning constantly. I lost count of how many times I tripped and fell flat on my face. Picking myself up was getting harder and harder, and Coyote's encouragements were getting harder to pay attention to.

  I fell down again, I don't know if I tripped on something or if I just couldn't walk anymore. I figured I'd just lie there and sleep, until Coyote woke me up with a bite to the back of the neck.

  "What the hell?" I mumbled.

  "Get up," he growled.

  "I can't."

  "Then crawl!"

  I sighed and started to do as he said, going on for I don't know how long, when suddenly there was concrete under my hands. Then my head hit a door, and I fell over.

  "Paul!" I heard, I think it was Sarah.

  I fell asleep then.

  #

  "Dude! You stabbed him! You stabbed him! He's dying! You killed him!"

  I looked down at my hands, they were covered in blood, there was blood everywhere. The punk from the S street gang was on the ground holding the knife I'd stuck in him and squealing like a pig. Steve was going on and on and wouldn't shut up. All the other kids were either staring at their friend on the ground in an ever-growing pool of blood, or looking at me, in shock.

  I spun on Steve and slapped him across the face, hard.

  "Shut up!" I yelled at him, and grabbing his jacket I took off running, dragging him along.

  Steve stumbled a few times but took off after me.

  "You hit me!" He yelled.

  "Because you were crying like a little bitch," I yelled back at him. "You want to go to jail?"

  I was sure I could hear police sirens. They'd be there soon enough.

  "Why'd you kill him, man? Why?"

  "I didn't kill him, I stabbed him. And if you don't shut your face about this, right now, I'm gonna stab you next, understand?" I growled and kept on running. I'd never seen Steve lose it so bad before. We'd been cruising downtown, looking for trouble, with a few of our friends. We'd tangled with the S street kids before, we'd get a few hits in, they'd get some in as well. Then, when someone called the cops, we'd all run off and brag about it tomorrow in school.

  But tonight some asshole had pulled a knife. Jeff, Ty, Ken, and Cy split almost immediately. But the guy with the knife was between me and the way out. The rules of the game had changed, and the guy with the knife waved it a few times and tried to stick me with it.

  I panicked and grabbed it from him and stuck him instead.

  He went down immediately and started screaming. It was like a bad dream. And the blood. I couldn't believe all the blood.

  "Dude, that was bad assed!" Steve said, as we continued to run. I could definitely hear sirens now. Someone had called the police.

  "No one's ever gonna mess with you now! Not after the way you shanked that guy!"

  I saved my curses for later. I had to get this blood off of me, before the police caught us. Or I'd be in jail for sure.

  "Mister Young! Are you with us, Mister Young?"

  I shook myself alert, "Yes, Sir! Sorry, Sir!"

  "Right, down and give me twenty!"

  "Yes, Sir!" I said and dropped to do it.

  No one snickered; no one even looked my way. The councilors here were pretty rough; they'd taken one guy out back just last week and given him a beating that no one else wanted to experience after wising off to one of them.

  It was supposed to be a wilderness program for troubled teams, and the judge sent me here because they couldn't prove I'd been the one who'd stabbed that kid. No one would talk; snitches are bitches and all that kind of thing. Especially after two of his friends came to get revenge and I stuck them with their own knives too.

  So while all of my friends were enjoying their summer at home, I was packed off to juvie boot camp.

  Oddly enough, I kind of liked it. We hiked out into the wilderness everyday, we learned about survival, we learned about camping, and when they brought us back to the barracks every night and locked us in, we learned about not getting caught.

  It's not that we were bad kids; we were just cocksure idiots who liked to fight and thought the world owed us whatever we wanted.

  I sat outside my tent and looked at the stars up above. It was the last week of boot camp. Our graduation exercise was that they dropped us off separately in the middle of nowhere for a week, and we had to survive all on our own. They gave us a map and a place to hike to. Once we got there, we were done.

  After a while, I noticed that there was something sitting in the darkness, about a dozen feet away, watching me. I slowly moved my hand to grab the spear I'd made with the small knife they'd let each of us have.

  It didn't move, and once I had my hand on my spear, I didn't move either.

  So I just sat there staring at it. It was definitely an animal, dog or wolf or something.

  I sat there staring at it for hours, until eventually the sun rose, and I could see it clearly staring back at me.

  It got up then, turned around, pissed on a log, and then walked away.

  As it did so, another one stood up, a little farther away, and followed it.

  Then another.

  And another.

  I counted over a dozen of them. If I'd attacked the one watching me, the others would have all set on me, and I would have been torn to pieces.

  My eyes widened then as it hit me and I had an epiphany: If I continued to act like an ass and just go around beating up people because I could, society would rise up and destroy me. The fistfights had gone to knife fights; eventually they'd go to gunfights. There was only one of me, but there were many of them.

  There were safer places to fight than in the streets. And more to life than ending up in jail.

  #

  I opened my eyes, my head hurt and I was sore all over. There was a concrete ceiling above my head, and I was laying on something padded.

  "Paul's awake!" Heather said.

  I turned my head to look at her, and then winced as my back lit up with pain.

  "Easy there, Hon. Let me help you up, you need to drink some water."

  I gave a small nod and she bent over and put an arm behind my back and helped me up. I sucked my breath in, in pain, as she helped me sit. My back was definitely on fire.

  "Sorry," she apologized.

  I just grunted and raised my hand to the canteen and took a long drink as she helped me.

  "What happened?" I gasped when she finally took the drink away.

  "You were poisoned," Sarah said.

  I blinked, "What? Poisoned? How?" and I thought about the drugs Atsida had given me.

  "The knife cut on your back, it came from a poisoned blade. I am surprised you are not dead. How did you get it?"

  I look
ed at Sarah, who looked rather tired, and then at Heather, who also looked pretty beat.

  "Do you have any food?" I realized I was starving as I asked it.

  They both nodded.

  "Riggs wanted to let me go. He knows what's up at the butte, and is more than welcome to let me deal with it. But the chief's son was being an ass about it. I think Riggs may have found someone he dislikes more than me," I laughed weakly at that, then took the bowl of soup Sarah handed me.

  "Well, it ended up with him challenging me. After making me run about twenty miles while tied to his horse. I should have figured the little bastard would do something like that. Apparently he's a real Lucrezia."

  "What's a lucreza?" Heather asked.

  "Lucrezia Borgia was a woman who got famous for poisoning her enemies," I said and started in on the soup with the spoon Sarah handed me.

  "I'm surprised you were able to fight after he dragged you that far."

  I shrugged, "Apparently I have some friends among the tribe now. One of them gave me something to snort, tsurupe leaves or something."

  Sarah's eyes got wide, "You snorted the leaves of a tsurupe plant?"

  "It was more of a powder actually," I said and shrugged.

  "I'm surprised that didn't kill you!" Sarah said, shocking me with her very uncharacteristic and much heavier accented speech.

  "Uh-oh, when the accent comes back, you're in trouble," Heather whispered with a grin.

  I paused in my spooning and looked at Sarah, "Why's that?"

  "Epinephrine. It is like adrenaline! It can give you a heart attack. I know that the Indians use it. However they mix it with water, to dilute it!"

  I chuckled and nodded, "Yeah, they seemed pretty shocked when I snorted it," I took another spoon full. "Honestly though, it didn't really seem any different than some of the crap I took when I was a stupid teenager.

  "What was I poisoned with?"

  "Some sort of neurotoxin."

  "Where the hell do the Indians get neurotoxins?" I asked surprised.

  Sarah shrugged, "Snake venom, spider venom. Some plants. You would be surprised. You are lucky he didn't cut you any deeper, or you might have died." She paused a moment in thought. "In fact, the tsurupe you snorted may be the only reason you survived, it counters the effect of many toxins. Another reason the Indians carry it."

  "How did you find us, anyway?" Heather asked as I went back to spooning in the soup.

  "Coyote led me here."

  "Well, he saved your life. You've been out for two whole days."

  "Where is here?"

  "About a mile north of where the road comes out of the hills. We decided to follow the army from a bit further back to make it easier to find you, when you got free of them."

  I nodded and looked around a little as I finished my soup.

  "Any idea what this place is?"

  "Just a small concrete building," Sarah said and took the empty bowl. "Now, lie back down and sleep. The poison has run its course; you should start feeling better tomorrow."

  I nodded and turned myself to lie down on my stomach. I didn't feel like aggravating the wound on my back.

  "I'll change the dressing," Heather offered. "You should get some sleep too, Sarah."

  Sarah nodded and walking around to the other side of me, she laid down on the bedroll besides me and was out like a light almost instantly.

  "What happened that she's so tired?" I asked Heather softly, trying not to wince as she peeled off the dressing.

  "Healing magic isn't easy for her, as it's not her discipline. So casting healing spells takes a lot out of her.

  "I needed that much healing?" I asked, surprised.

  "Your hands and your knees were torn up pretty bad from crawling," Heather said. "Also your arms and legs were pretty cut up, and you'd been bit by a lot of insects."

  I nodded.

  "Did you kill the chief's son?"

  I shook my head, "No, I did something worse to him."

  "What's worse than that?"

  "I made a fool out of him in front of the other warriors."

  Heather laughed, "You sure know how to endear yourself to people, Hon."

  "What can I say? It's a gift."

  - 5 -

  A day later and I was fit to travel. I was still a bit weak, but I could ride a horse, and that was good enough, though we had to go extra slow whenever we stopped to walk them while we traveled. Both Sarah and Heather were a little upset with me; they'd just gotten me and then almost lost me within the same week.

  I still hadn't told them what I had in my backpack, and I was afraid what they'd do when I did. I did spend some time reading the arming and detonating instructions that had come with it. It really was a complicated piece of equipment; for all that it was small. It had a barometric setting, an impact setting, a timer, a dead man's switch, even a radio detonator with a separate small transceiver.

  I knew as much about atomic bombs as anybody else in my generation, which is to say what I saw in the movies.

  In other words, not much at all.

  It was nice out when we got started, a little cool, and thankfully deserted except for some of the smaller wildlife. Riggs and his army had moved on the day after my fight with Tse, so they were now long gone.

  We struck out on a northwest course, and it took us to route one thirty-eight by noon. We stuck to the roads after that, not because it was quicker, but because it was just easier. Things were pretty desolate around here. I know this had all been a desert back in my day, the Mojave was somewhere to the north of us, so there wasn't much around here from before the big slam, or whatever you want to call it. And even though the weather patterns had changed a fair bit since then, it was still fairly dry, being in the direct rain shadow of the mountains to the west of us.

  We found a nice abandoned building to make camp in that night, and my physical condition was much improved by this point, after the fresh air of riding and walking all day and a couple of good meals.

  Which of course meant both Sarah and Heather tried to kill me in bed after dinner. Apparently there were things other than my cheerful smile and sunny disposition that they had missed.

  And I didn't mind it a bit.

  Two days later we started up into the mountains to pick up what had been interstate five. I was surprised at the condition of the roadway; you could have still driven down it with a car.

  "Why do you call it 'the grapevine'?"

  I shrugged at Heather as we rode, "No idea, that's just what everyone called it. We're going to pick it up at the northern end, so we won't have to ride along all of it. Just until it comes out into the central valley."

  "How far did it run? The map we have only shows California."

  "From here I guess it was probably six hundred miles to the state border, then maybe another five hundred to Canada?"

  Heather shook her head, "It would take weeks to go that far now."

  "Yeah, but there were a lot of people who never traveled any of it. Most folks never went more than a couple of hours away from home."

  "But that was what? Two hundred miles?" Heather laughed, "Two hours now is like ten miles, and only if you're a fast walker or have a good horse."

  "But you have a motorcycle, and folks have those flying cars!"

  "But they won't work once you get too far from the power station," she pointed out. "Then it's horseback or foot."

  I nodded, "I keep forgetting that. Maybe we can bring back airplanes after we get rid of all the dragons?"

  Heather laughed, "Keep dreaming. There are a lot of dragons, and they're a lot tougher than we are."

  I looked over at Sarah, who was looking a bit concerned.

  "What's wrong, Sarah?"

  "According to our map, this is the only large road north for some distance around here. I am a bit worried that we are liable to run into others going through the pass."

  "True, but we haven't seen any civilization around here at all. Just ruins and wild animals. Even the m
onsters that Riggs was fighting didn't come from around here."

  "Still, I would like to try something, once we get near the main road."

  "Oh?"

  Sarah nodded, "I have a spell that will make us harder to see from a distance. It is expensive to cast, but I think it would be worth doing."

  "You can make us invisible?" I asked, surprised.

  Heather laughed as Sarah shook her head.

  "No, something like that would take more power than I have. We are too big, there are too many of us, and we are moving."

  "But if we were smaller?"

  "It would be easier to obscure us, but you can not make a thing invisible. You can only make it harder to see."

  I had an idea, "What about making us look like elk?"

  "What's an elk?" Heather asked.

  "Yes, what is an elk, dear?"

  I looked at the two of them, "You've never seen an elk?"

  "Obviously," Sarah said and Heather just shook her head.

  "You've seen deer, right?"

  The both nodded.

  "Well, elk look a lot like that, only they're as big as a horse, maybe a little bigger, and they have really large antlers."

  Sarah nodded, "That would work, except for one minor detail."

  "And what's that?" I asked.

  "No one knows what elk look like!" Heather laughed.

  I sighed and Sarah nodded, smiling.

  "Well, at least I didn't mention moose."

  "And moose are?"

  "Bigger than elk, nastier, but their antlers are different. But they're way north of here."

  We settled down after that, not talking much and keeping more of an eye out for trouble as we started up the incline and got closer to the freeway. Once we got within sight of it, Sarah had us all stop, and she spent a good ten or twenty minutes casting a spell of some kind from her saddle.

  "Do not dismount," She warned us after she had finished, "or the spell will be broken."

  "On all of us?" I asked.

  "Yes. The same will happen if any one of us strays too far from the others. It was easier to cast one spell, rather than to cast three separate ones."

  Heather and I both nodded, and watched as Sarah took a drink from her canteen, then pulled out some trail rations and started to eat.