The Darkest Path

by Jeff Hirsch

  • • •

  After Nat left, Mitchell, the Fed sergeant who oversaw the house’s security, came in to brief us on the plan.

  Their plane would be escorted into a landing at a nearby airport that evening. As soon as he had word that it was on its final approach, he would load all of us into a van and escort us to the airfield. Once we were safely away, he and his men would continue on to Philadelphia to join the forces getting ready to protect the capital.

  Alec and the others took their last day in the house as an excuse to empty the place of food. Their party raged throughout the day, sending me down into the dark of a basement room to watch the news on a small TV with Bear in my lap.

  What I heard changed from moment to moment as news teams struggled to keep up with a war that was moving almost too fast to be described. Reports of Nevada and Oregon falling were confirmed one moment, only to be retracted the next. There was talk of Path terrorists and hijacked planes and nuclear weapons, of pleas to Europe for assistance that were made and ignored. Late in the afternoon, there was breaking news that President Burke had been assassinated, but that too was disavowed within the hour.

  All that was clear was that California was now in Path control and fighting was intense as they tried to push their advantage as far as they could.

  The news cycle fell into a loop with ever more scant updates and one talking head after another. They were discussing a massive Midwestern blackout when I finally snapped the TV off for good.

  A tense silence sat above me. No music. No movement. The glowing numbers on a digital clock across the room read 8:45. Where was Mitchell?

  “Come on, Bear.”

  Bear jumped down, staying right by my feet as we climbed up into the house. It was practically trashed. There were holes in the walls and burn marks on the furniture. Bottles and cans stood in piles among thickets of trash. The few scattered lights that were on filled the house with an eerie gloom.

  Christos and Diane were passed out under a heavy blanket on the couch, their arms wrapped around each other. I tried to shake them awake, but they groaned and turned away.

  I opened the porch door and stepped out into the night. Bear was tentative, sniffing at the empty porch before pressing his body into my calf and following me down to the lake. The fairy lights glistened over the dock and the water, filling the little valley with a white glow.

  There was what sounded like a distant roll of thunder somewhere to our south and the ground shook. Bear whimpered, his head down and tail tucked between his legs as we continued on.

  Alec was lying on his back at the end of the pier, arms spread wide and his feet in the water. Out on the lake, Reese was drifting on a large inflatable armchair.

  “Cal?”

  I turned. Kate was sitting cross-legged on the grassy shore, half in and half out of the light. She reached out to Bear, but he eyed her warily and moved behind the cover of my legs.

  “Where have you been?” she asked in a sleepy drawl. “We were having fun.”

  Even in the low light, I could see that her pupils had gone wide and were fringed in a maze of red.

  “Inside,” I said. “Watching the news.”

  “Any of it good?” she asked through a strange chuckle.

  “The Path is on its way east,” I said. “We need to go. Has Sergeant Mitchell come back to—”

  “What do you think it’ll be like if they win?”

  “Kate.”

  “Christos says it’ll be weird for a while, but sooner or later everything will go back to the way it was before because of, like, market forces, which are an inherently moderating force. Do you think it’ll be like that? Like a wheel? Or do you think it will be like something else?”

  I felt a twinge of disgust and said nothing. A hard glimmer came into Kate’s eyes.

  “Where’s your friend?”

  “She left.”

  Kate nodded, then went back to staring at the water. “It wasn’t nice, you know. What she said to us.”

  “You should get ready to leave.”

  Bear and I left her there, crossing the dock to where Alec lay sleeping. Out on the water Reese’s chair spun in lazy circles. When he saw me, he raised one hand in greeting, then paddled away into the dark.

  “Alec,” I said, nudging him in the shoulder. “Alec, it’s Cal. Wake up.”

  His eyes opened slowly. In the fairy lights they were shockingly blue with wide black pupils.

  “Cal!” he said, then reached out to ruffle Bear’s fur. “Little dog!”

  “Alec, you have to talk to Mitchell. We need to get—”

  “Relax,” he said, moaning as he forced himself to sit up. “All is as it should be. Have a seat.”

  “We don’t have time,” I said. “We have to get—”

  Alec slapped the side of my leg. “Mitchell is getting ready as we speak, Cal. Now come on. Sit.”

  Alec reached into the water and fished out a six-pack of cans. He tore two off and held one up to me. I looked back at the house, then took it and sat next to him. Alec cracked the can, and Bear settled down between us. There was another faraway rumble and the sky lit up in the distance.

  Reese’s voice drifted to us from across the water. “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air…”

  Alec peered into the sky and began to recite — “‘If destruction be our lot,’ he said. ‘We must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.’ Honest Abe himself said that back before his Civil War started.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Everybody thinks this is just like Lincoln’s Civil War,” Alec said. “But this isn’t two sides fighting it out for the soul of a country. This is a suicide.”

  Alec drained his can and threw it out into the water, where it spun among small eddies. He leaned forward, staring gloomily into the dark water, one hand on Bear’s side.

  “We should start getting everyone together,” I said. “Get ready to—”

  “We’re not going to New York, Cal.”

  Everything around us seemed to cease all at once. The water went still and so did the sway of the trees and the air in my lungs.

  “My dad got us clearance into Canada,” he said. “We fly west to meet him in Vancouver, then after that… I don’t know. We were thinking São Paulo, maybe. Or Shanghai.”

  “Alec, if this is because of what Nat said—”

  “I don’t blame you for that,” he said. “I asked my dad if we could fly to Toronto so you could get to New York from there, but the word is, it has to be Vancouver.” Alec turned to face me. “Look, you can still come.”

  “Alec—”

  “New York is done, Cal. This whole country is. There’s no point pretending that it’s not.”

  He waited for me to respond, and when I didn’t, Alec rolled up onto his feet and threw his arms over his head. He stood poised for a moment and then dove into the lake, barely making a splash. He sprang up to the surface again and pulled away from me on his back with easy strokes.

  “Think about it, Cal. The future is coming whether you like it or not. I promise you, in a few years, we’ll all wonder what it is we got so worked up about. No one will even remember this dump!”

  Alec began to sing as he pulled away, aiming at Reese in his revolving chair. Soon his voice and the splash of his strokes dissipated and the water re-formed its glassy surface behind him.

  I sat at the end of the pier feeling everything inside of me grow more dense by the second, like I was collapsing in on myself. Was Alec right? Would it really be so bad to leave with them? To leave all of this? I thought of Ithaca, trying to re-ignite the flame that drove me this far, but home felt so far away and so cold. This place was dying. I looked over at Bear, leaning eagerly over the side of the pier. Why should we die along with it?

  I recoiled from the thought; even the barest edge of it felt like a betrayal. I set my knuckles against the wood of the pier and pushed u
ntil the grain bit into my skin. The pain snapped me into focus. Mom and Dad were waiting. Home was waiting. I wouldn’t let the Path turn me away now.

  I scrambled for a plan. Walking out would be crazy. It was too far, and with the fighting heating up, I couldn’t imagine that we’d make it long before being picked up by one side or the other. We needed another way. Something fell into place. Philadelphia. I counted the miles between there and New York in my head and then jumped up and ran back to the house with Bear beside me.

  I guessed that Mitchell and his men were quartered somewhere to the west of the house, so I passed it by and moved into the forest. When we came out the other side, we found a black passenger van at the end of an asphalt driveway, flanked by two Humvees.

  Four soldiers were hurrying between one of the Humvees and a dock, loading it up with ammo and provisions. When I looked closer, I saw that Nat was one of them. She was dressed in scuffed combat boots and a set of fatigues that were too big. She set a wooden crate in the back of the Humvee and went for another. Bear ran to her, and I jogged over to keep up.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Go away, Cal.” Nat pushed Bear aside and bent over to pick up a crate of ammo.

  “Where are you going?”

  She hefted the box and brushed me aside. “Virginia.”

  “Virginia?” I said, trailing her. “I thought after they dropped off Alec and his friends, Mitchell was heading to Philadelphia.”

  “He is,” she said, slinging the crate into the back of the Humvee. “But the rest of us figured that instead of protecting a bunch of rich politicians who are in no actual danger at the moment, we’d go to Virginia, and help the people who actually are.”

  “Think we’re set,” one of the other soldiers said.

  She shut the hatch while the others took their places inside the Humvee.

  “Nat, don’t do this.”

  “California is gone,” she said, turning to confront me. “Pretty soon they’ll have the entire West Coast, and the odds are that Philadelphia won’t be far behind. So how long do you think you and your family can hide out in New York and pretend that none of this is happening?”

  The Humvee’s engine rumbled to a start.

  “Yo, Natalie, let’s go!”

  Nat moved closer and I was surprisd to feel her hand taking mine, drawing me to her.

  “You could help us,” she said. “You could help me.”

  The anger in her had drained away, replaced by something raw and trembling that reminded me of sitting on that classroom floor with her and Bear, her armor of command wiped away. I started to speak but strangled the words off at the last second. Alec hadn’t turned me aside and neither would she.

  Nat stood before me a moment more and then her boot heels turned and thudded across the asphalt. Bear went after her, barking as he ran around to the side of the vehicle. The door slammed shut and the engine revved.

  “Rup! Rup rup rup!”

  The Humvee pulled away down the dark drive. I stood there for a long time without moving. Eventually, Bear gave up the chase and returned to my feet, a small whimper in his throat.

  “They about ready down there?”

  Sergeant Mitchell had come out of the barracks and was standing by the loading dock. I nodded.

  “Well, let’s get a move on, then. Don’t worry, kid, you and your friends will be singing ‘O Canada’ before you know it.”

  “I’m not going with them,” I said, pushing my voice out harsh and quick. “I want to go to Philadelphia with you.”

  “Looking to join up, huh?” he asked with a pleased grin. “Fight the big bad Path?”

  Sergeant Mitchell waited for an answer, but the lie stuck in my throat. All I could do was nod.

  • • •

  Once the rest of Mitchell’s men got Alec and his friends in the van, we spent the next few hours creeping along back roads behind the remaining Humvee.

  I was in the middle row of seats, with Bear in my lap. Kate was to one side of me, Diane to the other. Alec and Reese were in front of us, bouncing their heads in time to whatever was coming through their oversize headphones. Christos stared out the window at the dark.

  Everyone was lit in the ugly green glow of the radio that sat between Mitchell and the private riding shotgun. Transmissions came through it in staticky bursts of code, panicked voices calling for assistance while gunfire snarled in the background. Eventually, Mitchell flipped the radio off and we were left with the rush of tires against the road.

  An hour later we merged onto a highway that was clogged with refugees heading east. Mitchell forced his way through the jammed traffic and pulled up to an exit blocked by two Fed Humvees. We came to a halt and Sergeant Mitchell and his private got out to talk to the sentries.

  Alec pulled one of the headphones off his ear and cupped his hand over the side window to look out.

  “I would not want to be one of them,” he said. Reese turned to see what he was looking at and laughed darkly.

  A rusty pickup truck had pulled off to the side of the road, just beyond the roadblock. One of its back tires was lying on the ground in shreds. A skinny man in a tattered blazer sat beside it, his head in his hands; a jack and a deflated spare lay in front of him. Standing behind him was a young woman staring at his back and clutching the hand of a small boy.

  “What’ll happen to them if they’re here when the Path comes?”

  Kate had turned away from the window and was staring back at me.

  “They’ll be given the Choice,” I said.

  “Is that really what people say it is?”

  I nodded and Kate turned back to the family at the side of the road. The man was standing now and waving his arms for help, but everyone passed by, studiously ignoring him.

  “We should help them,” she said.

  “Sure,” Alec said over his shoulder. “Maybe we can cram all of South Dakota in our plane and fly them to Canada.”

  “Alec—”

  Before Kate could finish, Mitchell was climbing back into the van. Up ahead, the sentries drew aside and our Humvee pulled through the roadblock. Mitchell put the van in gear to follow. Kate pitched forward, about to say something, but as the Humvee started to move, she swallowed it and collapsed into her seat.

  Behind us, the man by the pickup had given up trying to flag anyone down. He sat in a heap, the useless tools in front of him, watching us as we slowly rolled away. I pulled Bear closer to me and looked away too.

  We went through the checkpoint, and the two Humvees re-formed the roadblock, like a gate slamming shut behind us. Mitchell switched the radio back on, filling the van with static and disjointed communications. Up ahead, the Humvee bristled with rifle barrels poking out of every window, scanning the trees. The turret gunner stayed low but kept his weapon moving, sweeping back and forth. The private in our van leaned out his window, his face lit by the glow of his rifle’s night-vision scope.

  The war sounds were nearly constant, distant still, but seeming to come from everywhere at once, like hearts beating out in the darkness. The air felt warmer too and dense, weighing down on us. Even Alec and Reese noticed. They pulled the headphones off their ears and sat up straighter, watching out the side windows as bursts of yellow and orange lit the sky above the tree line.

  I wondered where Nat was right then. Had she and her friends gotten stuck in this fight? Or had they managed to push through, eager to throw themselves into an even fiercer one ahead? I could still feel the heat of her hand on mine and hear her voice, hushed, asking me to come with her. Why did that sound make me feel so small?

  I shut my eyes and counted out the miles from Philadelphia to New York. Once we reached the capital, all I had to do was slip away from Mitchell and all of this would be over before I knew it. I tried to fill my head with green forests and the crash of waterfalls, but the memories were slippery, gone as soon as they came.

  Diane said something and as I opened my eyes and turned to her, a b
last of yellow light erupted on the road ahead. The sound of the explosion followed a half second later, tearing through the inside of the van like a tidal wave. I bent over my lap, clapping my hands onto my ears. The world outside spun wildly and then there was the squeal of brakes, and the next thing I knew, the side doors were flying open. The world outside the van was lit in flickering yellow and orange.

  “Everybody out,” the private ordered. “Move move move!”

  He pulled Diane out first, followed by me and Kate. I reached for Bear but the private shoved me away and went back for Reese and Alec. Mitchell was at the rear of the van, his rifle locked into his shoulder, firing into the tree line. Christos crashed into me and I stumbled farther into the road, where I saw the Humvee lying on its side, consumed within a wall of flames.

  “Across the road!” Mitchell yelled over the gunfire. “Run!”

  Diane and Christos blew past me, but I turned back for Bear. I made it to the corner of the van just as Alec and Reese were jumping out the door. Reese hit the asphalt and dodged away, but as the private reached up for Alec, a volley of gunfire exploded from the tree line. The private crumpled to the ground and when Alec tried to jump past him, there was another roar. He took the full force of a blast in his chest and was pitched back into the van.

  Someone screamed behind me but I couldn’t move. Alec was half in and half out of the van, his legs hanging out of the door, still. The private was on the ground in front of him, his chest torn, surrounded in blood.

  “Run! Get across the street!”

  Mitchell pushed Kate into my arms. We tangled together as she tried to get past me and reach Alec. It was like time started up again. I shoved her away and kept her in front of me as we ran. We made it halfway across the road when I saw Bear. He was between the van and the Humvee, claws dug into the asphalt, barking at the gunfire that was pinging off the roadway. I handed Kate off to Reese and sprinted across the street. Terrified, Bear sank his teeth into my arm when I grabbed him but I held him tight and raced into the trees.

  I found the others at the bottom of a hill. Reese was holding himself up with one hand braced against a nearby tree while with the other he mopped at blood pouring from a gash on the side of his face. Christos was on the ground, his face ghost white, his body limp. Kate was deeper in the woods, wailing, her fingers sunk into the flesh of Diane’s arms.