Dead of Eve (Trilogy of Eve)

by Godwin, Pam

  Naalnish said, “I mapped what should be the safest route to Boston. And I checked the Humvee.” The corners of his mouth fell, lengthening his narrow face. “It still runs.”

  I gave him a small smile.

  “You still haven’t told us how you’re getting to Europe.”

  I’d been avoiding that question. We hadn’t seen a plane overhead since the outbreak. But Jesse assured us transatlantic exports still ran by ship from Boston. How he knew, he wouldn’t say. Assuming security wasn’t an issue, maybe I could board as a disguised passenger. Although, when I played out that scenario in my head, it ended in a violent pornography. Just a moment’s recognition and I would be a woman trapped on a ship full of men. “I’m still working on that.”

  Jesse lowered his head and pushed a hand through the thick waves of his hair. Then he rose and waded across the stream. My pulse kicked up as he neared. He pulled a notepad from his pack and handed it to Naalnish. “She can smuggle inside a container on a cargo ship.”

  He crouched before me and said to Naalnish, “The average transatlantic containership travels at twenty-five knots per hour. We can’t predict the arrival port, but the trip should be about five thousand kilometers. At that rate, she’d be five to six days in that crate.” He gestured to the notepad. “The specs are all there.”

  I stifled the urge to jump up and grab the pad. Patience.

  “These containers aren’t airtight,” Naalnish said. “With the appropriate ration of food and water, the trip would be tolerable.” He traced the paper. “But the location here…how exactly does she get in one on the upper deck near the forecastle and away from the crew quarters?”

  Jesse’s eyes burned into mine. “That’ll be up to Evie.” His face held no expression, but I understood his intent. He was Lakota by blood, but he was also every bit the killer I was. He knew I’d do what was needed to board a ship unnoticed.

  Naalnish stood and handed me the notepad. “This may be your best option, Spotted Wing.”

  A sketched blueprint detailed the compartments and containers on a cargo ship. 20x8x8 feet labeled one of the cubes. More than big enough for a stowaway.

  I held up the sketch. “How do you know about cargo ships, Jesse?”

  He leaned in, the red in his hair like cinders in the firelight. “Sleep well, Evie, for it may be your last night to do so.” He used that mocking tone that aroused me even as it pissed me off. His eyes flicked to Badger behind me and for a moment, I glimpsed pain their depths. Then he stood and walked into the forest.

  The next morning, Darwin lay at my feet, his body motionless except the swish of his tail. I pulled a leather strap from my pack and squatted before him. I trailed a finger over his name seared on the surface, memorizing the grooves.

  My throat tightened against a swallow as I tied the collar around his neck. I wanted to take him with me so badly my chest hurt. But sneaking him aboard a ship would’ve been impossible.

  I clutched the collar with both hands and pressed my cheek against his furry one. “You protect them, boy. Just like you did me.”

  The Lakota waited by the Humvee. Jesse wasn’t among them. I stepped through the line, hugging each one. There was no more pleading to join me, no nagging about dangers. Each embrace gave me encouragement. Each one harder to step away from. At the end of the line, I ran my hand over my hair, which had grown to mid-back. Three braids, one given by each man, each tied with a feather.

  Shoulders bunched, I turned away, gasping for air, fighting the need to change my mind.

  I lifted my chin and inhaled the mountain yews. The trees mottled the ridges with hues of maroon and amber and scattered their leaves to loam and wind.

  My hair, and the feathers tied there, lifted with the easterly current, pulling me with it. East, where dawn illuminated the pulsating life of the forest. All life but one. I turned back to them. “Where is he?”

  Badger shook his head.

  Akicita stepped before me and held up a turquoise rock dangling from a tan leather string.

  I reached to touch it. “Is that—”

  He nodded and waited for me to lower my head. When it settled against my chest, I stroked the smooth surface. Turquoise formed naturally in arid desert climates. Stumbling across that stone in the mountains of West Virginia was as mysterious as the man who found it.

  “Lone Eagle wanted you to have it,” Akicita said. “It can strengthen one’s capacity to love and connect with others.” He pressed his wizened lips against my forehead.

  I squeezed the rock in my palm. “You’ve taught me so much.” To hunt. To heal. The web of life. “The circle.”

  “Mm.”

  It’d been Fall when I stumbled into their camp. It was Fall again. Everything was a circle. The seasons. The cycle of the moon. The wind when it swirled. Would the circle bring me back to them? The odds of that compounded the ache in my chest. I swallowed. “But I gave nothing in return.”

  He winked a farsighted brown eye. “You taught us the hunt for truth.” His hand rested on my crown, stilling my shaking head. “When you were born, your soul entered here, through the skull’s soft spot. The truth is in you, Spotted Wing. You showed us how to find it.”

  The meaning of his words caught the breeze, drifted away. “What truth?”

  “I look at you and I understand what I see. I see hope in the shape of the spirit. And when you finish this quest, her shape will transcend.”

  “Her?”

  “Go forward.” He released me, a tear escaping down his cheek, though his eyes were dry.

  Oh, Akicita. Promises I couldn’t keep piled up in my throat. I choked on them and stepped away. Then I gave the tree line a final sweep for Jesse and climbed into the Humvee. The emptiness inside me expanded as the tires crunched the gravel, sounding my good-bye.

  For two weeks, I followed Naalnish’s route to Boston. After an isolated year in the mountains, curiosity had me stopping several days in larger cities to do some scouting. I wasn’t sure if I’d see factions of dystopian governments under the control of tyrants. Or if there’d just be small clans of men working together, rebuilding and protecting each other. But I didn’t see shit. Wasn’t it human nature for people to stick together and leverage the strength in numbers thing? Perhaps the decreasing ratio of man to aphid was to blame for the lack of organization.

  I reached Boston’s harbor at dusk and hid the truck in an empty garage. Then I pulled out my cloak. Made from gray fox hides, the Lakota crafted it to fit my frame and conceal my gear. The hood draped large enough on my head to conceal my face.

  Humping enough artillery to satisfy Joel, I picked my way along crumbling sidewalks to the wharf. A welded steel wall of vessels lined the docks, moaning as they rocked against the tide. Only one ship crawled with life.

  I watched the activity from the rooftop of an abandoned bait shop. At least twenty crew members loaded crates, greased and tightened mechanical parts and guarded the ramps. These weren’t the typical guards who once patrolled our harbors. These enforcements carried machine guns and reeked of malice.

  An hour into my watch, two crew members scuffled on the ramp. They stood toe-to-toe, blades at each other’s throats, shouting. The closest guard turned toward the brawl, raised his gun and shot both of them.

  Heart racing, I climbed off the roof and crept across the pier. Smuggling inside a crate before it was loaded would be safer, right? But, as I neared the container yard, I knew it wouldn’t be easier.

  Shipping containers stacked three high and five deep in a labyrinth of aisles. A fork lift hauled away crates at random to load on the ship. How the hell would I determine which ones were going? I tugged on the doors of the crates I passed. All locked.

  The scuffing of feet crept around the corner, followed by the waft of cigarette smoke. Shit, shit, shit. I pressed my body between two crates, and held my breath.

  Still round the corner there may wait,

  A new road or a secret gate.

  J. R. R.
Tolkien

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: 20x8x8

  “It’s the fucking sea pirates, man. They’re shutting down the exports—”

  A succession of coughs rent the air and thickened the phlegm-caked voice.

  “Christ, smoke another one,” a second man said.

  The scrape of feet paused at my alcove. My lungs screamed for oxygen.

  “I think I will.” A lighter sparked. “Besides, with fucking weather blowing across the Atlantic like it’s been, this’ll be the last ship outta here till summer.”

  “What are they exporting now anyway? Last five trips were mostly grain, but there ain’t any farmers left to harvest the stuff.”

  “Grain ain’t why these ships are still running, my friend. Weapons are the passport. But if you still want passage to Europe, I’ll get you on. You’ll have to pay your way in sweat.” The man coughed. Their boots crunched on the gravel and began to fade. “Gotta warn you, though. The few passengers crazy enough to travel…” His voice ebbed into the night.

  After a long silence, I snuck back to the Humvee.

  For the next week, I watched the sailors ready the ship. Day and night, they shot, stabbed and mutilated trespassers—aphids and men trying to board the ship. At the end of their shifts, they flitted off to a dingy pub, the wharf’s only establishment. The youngest man always split from the ragtag gang and traversed in the opposite direction. That was when my plan hatched. I followed him.

  His stroll took us through the seaport’s barren streets, his red Pet Shop Boys T-shirt like a tail light in the gloom. The dilapidated buildings sat empty, ghosts of what was once the center of commerce. He veered off into a grotto and entered a boarded up retail shop.

  In the back, I found a window with an exposed corner. Inside was a bare one room shop with a mattress in the center. Next to the mattress, a meaty, bald man waited.

  The Pet Shop boy I’d followed accepted a firearm from Baldy, examined it and leaned it against the bed with a nod. Then his hands went to his waistband. A couple of tugs and his jeans and briefs fell to his ankles. What the—

  Baldy grabbed Pet Shop boy’s nape and shoved him to his knees on the mattress. Then he freed a revolting purple erection and mounted him.

  Something dark and loathsome tunneled its way to my womb. The something that was born in my father’s basement. I raised the carbine, but couldn’t move, my eyes glued to the spectacle. The pounding hips, the fisting of hair, both mouths wide open. I felt it in my thighs as if old bruises had resurfaced.

  Pet Shop boy moaned. His eyes rolled back in his head. Was that what survival looked like? Trading sex for weapons, food…safe passage on a boat?

  I lowered the carbine and watched the very thing I’d planned play out before me. The men collapsed on the mattress in a tangle of sweat and limbs. A few panting breaths later, Baldy collected himself and left.

  My breath rushed out in a whoosh. Could I seduce Pet Shop boy in exchange for his assistance? What if more men visited? What if I threw up during the first intimate touch?

  Turn around. Go back to the Lakota. Why wouldn’t my feet move?

  The hunger to go east chewed at me. I had to find out what my dreams meant, what my children were telling me, who the Drone was.

  For twenty minutes I stood there, fighting it, knowing the need for truth was forcing me to take impossible risks.

  Vertebra by vertebra, my backbone girded for action. I tucked my weapons under the cloak and edged to the front. Then, with the pistol aimed under the folds of fur, I tapped on the door with my free hand.

  It cracked open. A shotgun barrel and two wide eyes peered out. “Whatever you want, I don’t have anything. Please leave.” His British accent was as shaky as the gun’s barrel.

  I slid back my hood enough for him to see my face.

  He gasped, lowering the gun as he covered his mouth. Then he looked up and down the street and ushered me inside.

  That was too easy, the kind of naiveté that was fatal. The next few minutes were even easier. I stuck to the truth about crossing the Atlantic, the dangers associated with boarding the ship and my need for help.

  When I finished laying out my cards, I winked at him. “Got a name, Pet Shop boy?”

  He looked down at his shirt and grinned. “Ian.” Squared shoulders and a raised chin joined his smile. “I’d be happy to sneak you aboard. I’ll keep you safe, I swear it. Anything you need. Anything.”

  He would do that without anything in return? I didn’t think so. The more we talked, the more he smiled. His body hovered closer. His gaze grew bolder. When a yawn broke his smile, he said, “Stay the night. Share the mattress with me?” A tide of red washed over his cheeks.

  To think this shy boy was groaning under another man an hour earlier. I should’ve been repulsed, but he was surviving. Same as me.

  “I’ll stay the night.” I speared him with a look that could not be misunderstood. “To sleep.”

  When he nodded, I joined him on the mattress.

  He pulled blanket over us. “It’s been so lonely. Fate brought you to me. Can you feel this?” His hand swept from his chest to mine.

  No, but I hummed in agreement and hid my annoyance with his easily duped heart. Worse was knowing I’d break it once I exhausted his usefulness.

  He touched my cheek. I gripped a dagger hilt under my cloak, but forced myself to keep it sheathed. His finger trailed along my jaw and down my neck, searing my skin with every stroke.

  I rubbed my wrists. No ropes. I controlled what was happening. “How long is the voyage?”

  “Six days. I can stow you undetected. If I lock the crate like all the others, no one will know.”

  Six days. What would keep him from second-guessing our arrangement during that time away from me? Would a tease be enough to keep the boy tight-lipped? When his finger tugged at the clasp under my neck and his eyes begged mine, I knew I would make him a promise I wouldn’t keep.

  He bent over me with blue eyes sparkling and scrawny legs twisting in the blankets. “You’re so lovely. I want you. Please.”

  With a hand on his chest, I put distance between us. “I’m nervous about the journey, Ian. We need to plan it out. Then, when we arrive safely, you’ll have me.” I held his gaze, despite the burning need to look away.

  “Eh, o-okay.” He shut his eyes, opened them. “We’ll have such a blissful life together in England. We’ll live in my childhood home. You’ll see.”

  I needed his allegiance until I reached my destination. So I nodded.

  He wrapped his arms around me and dragged stiff lips over mine. I lay still, mouth closed, and tried to ignore the heavy breaths pushing over my face. Eventually, he read my resistance and settled on his side, folding himself around me.

  For the next four nights, we plotted my ingress onto the ship, and each night I deflected his advances with the same promise. He adopted restraint with large hopeful eyes and flushed cheeks and my guilt over it grew like an ugly thing in my gut. So, in the dead of night, I held him the way his mother might have and wished I had more to offer than an empty pledge.

  Ian and I slipped through the wharf and crouched behind a forklift next to the ramp. He scanned the jetty and the ship then turned to me, eyes flashing under the moonlight. “You know where to go?”

  I nodded. “Where’s the guard?”

  He pointed above board, port side. The guard stumbled under the illumination of a red light, and glanced around him before tipping back a flask in his shaking hand. The vacant ship and the guard’s insobriety were just as Ian predicted.

  “Ready?” Ian’s voice hitched. Whether it was excitement or nervousness, I wasn’t sure.

  When I nodded again, he gripped my nape and kissed me. In that flickering moment, I imagined he was Jesse and there was nothing else around us. I returned the kiss with equal passion. My tongue matched his and the heat from it filled my chest and traveled lower. When the vee at my thighs began to pulse, I pulled away. Ian reached for me again, his brea
thing heavy.

  I stepped back. “Six days.”

  “Six days.” He walked up the ramp to the ship and approached the guard, waving a flask and a pack of cards.

  The guard turned his back on my hiding place. I ran on tiptoes up the ramp. Hugging the bulkhead, I stole through the main passageway. The port side ladder rattled under my boots, a knife’s throw from where Ian shared his flask with the guard.

  I froze. Don’t look at them. Keep moving. Quiet, quiet. I steadied my breathing and climbed.

  The swish of the tide and the groan of steel muted my footsteps along the upper deck. Crate after crate, the doors were sealed and locked. All but the one Ian had unlocked. The white cube on the end fit the description. Closer. Closer. The label came into focus. Canpotex, #526. Relief rushed through me as I closed the distance and squeezed inside.

  Carbine in my lap, I leaned my head against the cold metal wall and waited. Sometime later, Ian slid the lock on the container into place. No turning back. The rest was up to him.

  For six days, I avoided deep sleep and the night terrors it could bring. Exhaustion took its toll. I grew restless, trapped in a metal crate with my own waste. In a couple days, my depleted supply of MREs would introduce a new level of torment.

  A stampede of pounding feet and irate shouting passed under my hiding place and dwindled toward the anchor-windlass room. The crew members were brawling again.

  The frost soaked through my hair. My eyes ached from the abiding strain to see amid the black. I leaned against the container’s wall, clicked on the Maglite and unfolded Joel’s letter. The flimsy paper was damp. Crumpled from numerous spreading. Creased with clammy hands. I reread his counsels for the hundredth time to remind myself why I left my beloved companions to cross the Atlantic.

  I ground my teeth. Why the hell didn’t Jesse say good-bye? Was his soul as lost and battered as mine? Even so, it wasn’t an excuse to behave like an ass. Screw him.