Eldorado

by Jay Allan Storey

  She tiptoed into the living room and finally identified the source of the noise. Something, or someone, was scratching at the front door. She held the bat up ready to swing and crept to the entrance. On the other side of the door there was a faint whimpering behind the scratching.

  Without untying the cord securing the door she turned the handle, opened it a crack, and peered through the open slit. Standing on the stoop was a strange looking brick-shaped dog – white, with black spots. It stood with its head cocked to one side, curiously eying her.

  “My God!” she gasped. “You scared the daylights out of me!”

  Carefully, she cast around the yard to make sure no-one else was there. Satisfied that the dog was alone, she untied the cord, opened the door, and let him in. She knelt down and presented her hand for him to sniff, then petted the animal. He panted softly and nuzzled her face.

  “You must be Zonk,” she said, stroking the dog’s head affectionately. “But what are you doing here? And where’s Mr. Hampton?”

  She double-checked through the now fully opened front door, but there was no sign of Danny’s brother or anybody else. She re-attached her makeshift lock and wandered back in with Zonk in tow. Returning to the bedroom she noticed the clock. Seven o’clock – but it was light outside. It’s seven AM! She thought. I slept for seventeen hours – how is that possible? I’ve got to leave right away!

  Zonk was standing beside her. “What am I going to do with you,” she said, reaching down and petting his head. “I can’t stay here.”

  Zonk peered up at her.

  “Maybe you can come with me. Do you want to come with me?”

  He nuzzled her hand.

  She found some cereal and dried fruit in the kitchen, located a large plastic water bottle, and filled it, then threw everything into a canvas bag she also found.

  She unbound the front door, went outside and called. The dog came immediately. She did her best to re-attach the lock. It at least looked as if it were functioning properly, even if a simple twist would render it useless. In the back yard, Serena had calmed down completely. She was contentedly munching on the grass from the tiny lawn. She whinnied softly as Lacy approached and attached the canvas bag to the back of the harness. Zonk had followed her, and stood watching.

  Lacy led Serena to the front of the house, mounted her, and rode down the walk and out the front gate. She rode up the street and looked back to see if Zonk would follow. He stood by the gate. At first she thought she would have to leave him behind, but after she’d ridden about a block Zonk finally made up his mind and caught up with her. Soon he was trotting along behind the horse as Lacy rode back home.

  She retraced the route she had taken to the city what seemed so long ago now, and reaching the fringes of Surrey she was back into familiar territory. Zonk loped along beside the horse all the way. Despite his ungainly appearance and reputed preference for sleep over any other kind of activity, he seemed to have no problem keeping up. Following the secret trails that she knew intimately, Lacy negotiated the Corridor with no difficulty; in a few hours she was within sight of her shack.

  Against all logic she dared to hope that somehow Danny might have made it back there and would be waiting for her. Her heart raced with the prospect of seeing him again. Her attraction to him at the start had grown and transformed with their separation.

  An almost physical need rushed over her, to see him, to have him hold her in his arms. With each step the horse took closer to the shack her heart seemed to beat more violently, until she was certain that he would hear.

  A cloud descended around her as she rode within a few yards of her destination. Danny didn’t come out to meet her, and even before she checked she had accepted that he would not be there. She dismounted, tied Serena to a nearby tree with some feed grass nearby, and wandered dejectedly into the little shack.

  Her worst fears were confirmed. Danny was not there, and there was no sign he’d returned since their departure. She fell to her knees and burst into tears. All her trials had been in vain. Danny was gone, and now once again she was alone. Her world seemed to close in around her.

  She staggered to her feet and out of the shack, heading for the river. She stumbled up a crude trail that led to a secluded spot on the river bank – a tall grassy bluff that overlooked the swirling gray waters. High upon the bluff stood an old, gnarled oak tree, and beneath it, a simple wooden cross. A chill wind swept through her hair as she knelt down by the cross with her face in her hands.

  “Auntie Becky,” she cried, “what can I do? I think I love him, and now he’s gone! I know you’d be against it, but I can’t live alone again. Please tell me what to do!” She wept violently until her strength was gone, and finally fell asleep beside the makeshift cross.

  When she awoke, she felt something brushing against her leg, and looked up to find Zonk nudging her with his nose. She sat up and stared at the strange dog. His serene expression seemed to have a calming effect on her. She smiled in spite of herself and reached out to scratch behind his ears.

  “Well, I guess I’m not completely alone,” she said, and headed back to the shack with Zonk following. By this time it was late afternoon, and she fell back into her habit of setting up the fire. She made some stew out of vegetables from her makeshift root cellar and fed Zonk some dried meat.

  “We’ll have to decide what to do next,” she said, lying down on her bed. Zonk sat and eyed her curiously. “For now, I’m exhausted. Maybe I’ll think of something in the morning.”

  She patted the side of the bed and Zonk ambled over, climbed up, and lay beside her.

  “You can keep me company,” she said. “I’m beginning to see why Danny was so fond of you.”

  In the morning she awoke to find that Zonk was gone. She panicked and ran out of the shack. To her relief he was lying in the morning sun near the front door.

  “You nearly gave me a heart attack!” she said, as she crouched down and hugged him.

  She found some more dried meat for Zonk, and sat down on her bed to eat breakfast. As she was putting away her bowl, she noticed the torn shirt Danny had been wearing when she first rescued him. She reached out, picked it up, and held it against her breast. It still smells of Danny, she thought, smiling. That was somehow comforting.

  “It smells of Danny,” she said out loud. She thought back to when she had first talked to Danny about Zonk:

  Zonk’s my dog, he had said. He’s kind of funny looking, but he’s got a great personality – and a sense of smell you wouldn’t believe.

  The Search for Danny

  Keller drove as if he knew the route in his sleep, which, Richard guessed, he probably did. After about twenty minutes they found themselves on Boundary Road, a main artery leading to the even larger artery called Kingsway, the road they’d taken earlier on their way to the College.

  This time they would be heading east – toward danger – deep into the heart of Surrey. Once they reached Kingsway, they stayed on that route for a long time, passing endless run-down apartment complexes, dilapidated homes, and boarded-up strip-malls. At one point they passed a massive complex of buildings that must once have been a mega-shopping mall. Its expansive parking lot was now crowded with shanty-like homes and tents, and wash lines spanned what once had been a spacious rooftop esplanade.

  They made good progress at first. Within the city limits, the roads were still maintained regularly and were in reasonably good condition. There was almost no traffic on the road once they left the densely populated center of town. Within twenty minutes they had traversed a distance that would have taken them hours by bike.

  Richard leaned forward with his hands on the back of the front seat. “How fast are we going?” he said to Keller.

  “Just over sixty miles an hour,” Keller called back. “Not bad for a hundred-year old car, eh?”

  “Wow – try doing that on a bicycle!”

  Richard tried to imagine what it must have been like back in the days when there were mill
ions of these vehicles on the road – when all but the poorest commuter could travel at these speeds without the slightest thought.

  “Jim,” he said, “Remember when Danny first went missing, you told me that cities like Vancouver couldn’t function anymore?”

  “Sure,” said Keller.

  “Well, what do you think is going to happen – you know – down the road?”

  Keller shrugged. “People have an incredible capacity for denial. I think they’ll keep trying to live like they’ve still got all the things their parents and grandparents had, until there’s a really catastrophic failure. That’s what it’ll take to get their attention, and that failure’s right around the corner.”

  “And then?”

  “Ways of life that can’t be supported will disappear. The thousand acre farms will be gone, the cities with millions of people will be gone, the hundred-storey skyscrapers will be gone – it’s actually happening right now, but it’s not obvious to you and me – we’re too close to see it.”

  “You’re talking about a devastating change.”

  “Yeah, but there’s no way around it. Someday people will move back to Surrey and the other outer suburbs. They’ll tear down the monster homes, plow up the lawns, strip malls and parking lots and replace them with little farms, and that’ll be the new way of life.”

  Richard said nothing. He understood how his generation was still paying for the mistakes of their forebears. But for now he just sat back, let the wind blow through his hair, and watched the countryside go by.

  He studied Keller behind the wheel – he was grinning from ear to ear. No wonder! He was living out a fantasy he probably never thought would ever be fulfilled – driving the machine he probably never dreamed he’d ever be able to take on the road.

  He shifted his gaze to Carrie, who lounged dreamily, curled up in the front seat and gazing out at the scenery. He marveled at how his life had changed in such a short time, and he marveled at how he’d come to feel about her. Self-indulgently, he dared to dream that their current troubles would somehow be resolved, and that they would all be together and live happily ever after.

  He leaned back, bent back his head and gazed up at the clouds rolling in the sky above them. It occurred to him that for the first time in years he felt alive. In spite of a mountain of troubles and an insane degree of danger – maybe even because of them – he was finally doing something real. His life in the city was flat and cartoon-like by comparison, as if it could have been lifted off of the page and carried away in the slightest breeze.

  They nervously crossed the now only marginally maintained Patullo Bridge. As they ventured farther from town, the quality of the road surface steadily deteriorated. Huge potholes became commonplace, debris was strewn generously around the street, and clumps of grass, even small trees, had pushed up through the pavement.

  The going became much slower as Keller was forced to dodge a gauntlet of obstructions. Richard was getting discouraged, thinking of how much easier it must be for Crack and his gang to navigate the obstacles on their slower but more maneuverable bikes. The deeper they got into suburbia, the worse the quality of the road. The conditions forced them to slow to a speed not much faster than they could have traveled on their bicycles.

  Finally, Richard said, “Jim, we’ve got this Mosquito, and an expert rider…” he smiled over at Carrie. “I was thinking that the two of us could ride ahead and scout for Danny while it’s still light.”

  “No problem,” said Keller. “The going’s getting pretty slow, and I’ve got to be careful not to do anything that will cripple the car.”

  “I’ve got a feeling we’ll need the Black Cherry before this is all over,” said Richard. “Just keep following the Sky-train track and we’ll come back and find you. We’ll head for the place I found before. We won’t be long.”

  Keller stopped and Richard and Carrie hauled the Mosquito from the trunk. They took off on the bike, Carrie riding and Richard seated behind her. They headed southeast, and were there in less than half an hour. Richard expected to have difficulty recognizing the spot, but he knew it right away.

  They explored the area quickly, keeping an eye out both for more wild dogs and Rippers. There was no sign that anyone had been there since his first visit. The fear surfaced in Richard’s mind that this might not be where Danny and his captor were headed after all.

  Disappointed, they retraced their route back toward Keller. Rejoining him, they replaced the bike in the trunk and continued on, driving in the shadow of the Sky-train track. It would be dark soon; they had to find a place to spend the night.

  Twenty minutes later they spotted a hill studded with several crumbling concrete structures. Dodging stones and potholes they made their way to the top and soon found a building that was perfect. One wall had partially collapsed, leaving enough room for the car to pass, and the structure was large enough that it would be completely concealed. They cleared away some of the debris left over from the collapsed wall, and drove the car inside.

  That night they put the top up and slept in the Black Cherry, Keller on the front seat and Richard and Carrie crowded into the back. In the middle of the night, they heard the sound of animals padding around the car. Richard was certain he heard a low growl and he shuddered, remembering the incident with the wild dogs. Eventually the sounds moved away. He desperately fought for sleep, but sleep refused to come. He kept thinking of Danny – out there – beaten, tortured – maybe even dead – after they’d come so close.

  A Close Encounter

  Shortly after one of their breaks, Swallow suddenly pulled back on Danny’s ‘leash’ and yelled, “Stop!”

  Danny glanced back at his captor, who was listening for something. He listened himself, and soon heard the sound that had caught Swallow’s attention. It was unmistakable – a Mosquito – and it was getting closer.

  “Crack,” said Danny, half to himself.

  “Shut up!” screamed Swallow, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down double time.

  Danny studied Swallow's face. The poor little man was completely petrified. The life and colour seemed to drain out of his body on hearing that sound; he became extremely nervous and agitated.

  “Get moving!” he yelled, and kicked at Danny’s back, losing his balance and almost falling over in the process. The sound of the motorbike got closer. Each time Danny stole a glance back Swallow’s face looked more and more terrified. Danny could only hear one bike. Its whine was coming from the north, though he couldn’t see it through the trees. The sound grew constantly louder, as if it was heading straight for them. Swallow pulled on the rope and ordered him to stop.

  “This way!” he yelled, hauling Danny with the rope into a dense clump of brush on one side of the trail. The scream of the bike grew ever louder. Finally, the machine burst into view on the trail not twenty yards away. Danny couldn’t believe his eyes. The rider was an unknown woman, but it was the passenger that caught his attention. Sitting on the back, scanning the surrounding woods intently, was his older brother.

  “Richard!” he yelled. But his brother couldn’t hear him over the noise of the bike.

  “Shut up!” screamed Swallow, and slapped Danny hard across the face. Swallow kicked him in the back and knocked him to the ground, then held him there with his boot. He bent down, his face inches from Danny’s and said, “Make another sound and you will be dead.”

  The whine of the bike grew fainter and fainter, finally climbing the ridge behind them.

  They’re looking for me, Danny thought, and glimmer of hope welled up in him.

  They’d better find me soon, he thought. We’re almost there. He won’t need me for much longer.

  A Meeting

  The next morning Keller resumed his slow drive toward the Wild Rose area. The Black Cherry was now within a few miles of their goal. Richard and Carrie took off once again to scout ahead. Again they found nothing, and Richard’s fear that he’d guessed wrong intensified. Since there was nothing th
ere Richard suggested that they double back and search for Danny.

  “Where are we going?” Carrie yelled over her shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” he yelled back.

  “Great.”

  “My plan – such as it is – is to find some high ground, try to ride more or less parallel with the Sky-train tracks, and hope we can spot something.”

  “How about up there?” Carrie pointed to a ridge about half a mile away. It was largely clear of trees and brush, and high enough to afford a good view.

  “Looks perfect,” said Richard.

  “I hope this crate can get us both up there,” said Carrie, revving the engine and accelerating toward the ridge.

  With a lot of lugging and some help from both Richard and Carrie’s feet, the bike made it up the hillside and onto the top of the ridge. They had a commanding view of the surrounding countryside, but there wasn’t much to see below.

  The area was heavily wooded – unless Danny and his captor happened to pass through one of the few clearings at the exact moment they were watching, they would be unlikely to spot them. They searched for about twenty minutes and saw nothing. Richard was about to suggest that they catch up with Keller when Carrie suddenly turned back to him,

  “Look,” she shouted over the whine of the engine, and pointed toward a clump of trees on the south side. Richard followed her arm and saw the branches of several trees below shaking, as if something large were passing through them. The bush was too dense to see the source, but whatever it was seemed to be deliberately moving in an eastward direction.