Gunfire rang in the distance, along with the sounds of shouting and screaming. The Slaine boys took their places by the window, guns trained on the horizon.
Wes slid back down and tapped Shakes on the shoulder. “Drive slowly—let them inch away from us.”
The truck moved forward and the atmosphere inside was tense. Patrols still flanked them on both sides as they made their way past. Wes cursed suddenly and they all saw why.
In the distance, the fences along the perimeter narrowed on both sides toward a checkpoint; the path they were taking was leading them right to the guardhouse. “Double back, Shakes, double back,” Wes said.
“It’s a long way back,” said Nat. “Won’t it look suspicious?”
“It will, but we’ve got no choice.” He pointed the way to Shakes. “Take us back.”
Shakes turned the truck, which kicked up more snow, spinning its tires in a mush of icy, wet dirt. The sound of gunfire grew louder. They heard a scream and saw the sky turn black with smoke again—their only escape was taking them closer to the prisoners.
A hard thud shook the truck, followed by footsteps scrambling on the roof of their LTV. Through the windows Nat saw a trio of escapees headed for the cover of the nearest snowbank, all wearing the familiar gray pajamas. Then one of them fell, facedown, a bullet in his back.
“Don’t shoot!” Wes ordered his boys.
“Wasn’t us!” Zedric yelled.
“We’ve got to help them,” Nat whispered urgently, catching Wes’s eye. “Please.”
Wes snorted. “Help them? Unless you’ve got a pimp roll full of heat credits, you’re the only cargo I’m taking on.” He looked at her closely. “What do you care?”
Nat turned away, willing the tears in her eyes to stop; she had revealed too much. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. He didn’t know anything about her, and she swore to keep it that way from now on.
Do not despair. They will find their own way, the voice murmured, but Nat felt her stomach twist: Here she was, in the safety of the truck, while outside, her friends—her friends were dying. People like her, hunted and killed.
“Shakes—just plow through the fence—look, there’s a hole over there—we’ll just rip it through,” Wes ordered.
The truck barreled through the nearest fence, ripping through the metal with an ugly screech, but soon they were back on the road, and moving at a fast clip, taking them farther and farther away.
Nat didn’t look back.
13
THE BACK ROADS TURNED TO OUT TO BE more of a challenge than Wes had expected. The smooth snow-covered landscape concealed many obstacles. The ice hid tree stumps and posts, guard rails and ditches. There was no way to prepare; he only figured it out when the wheels hit them or when the hidden junk crashed against a side panel. He’d made the offer to take her back so that the boys could know he was looking out for them, but also because he wanted her to know the exact nature of the dangers they would be facing. The night had brought another blizzard and they were traveling in complete darkness again, with only the headlights of the LTV to guide their way.
He wondered about the girl next to him. It was obvious she knew about MacArthur, as well as the people living in the wastelands, which meant this wasn’t her first time at the rodeo. He guessed she’d probably tried to get out of the country before. She was a liar and a thief. Wes had pegged her correctly from the moment she had hired them and yet he couldn’t help but admire her anyway.
Nah, you just think she’s pretty, he chided himself. But, really, she’s nothing special. There are lots of pretty girls back in New Veg. Jules had been one, for sure, but his memory of Jules—of her thick, brown, almost russet-colored hair and smoke-gray eyes—had faded a little. All he could think about was Nat. The way they had smiled at each other earlier, the way she had placed her hand on his arm . . .
Which got him thinking—if she did like him or at least liked the looks of him—he might have an opening there; maybe he could use it to his advantage. That stone she wore around her neck was awfully pretty. It was all so messed up: He liked her, and he wanted her to like him, but only so he could use it against her later. Definitely messed up. But what choice did he have?
She had taken the chips without caring what happened to him. Could he do the same to her? He would have to at some point.
“Hey, come on, let me take a shift,” Nat offered. “You’re still healing from that shot.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, switching places with her. He massaged his shoulder. “Thanks, by the way,” he added, to be polite. He noted there was a distance between them again and was relieved at that.
Nat drove while Wes kept an eye out for drones in the sky or any sign of a seeker team. He was glad for the distraction; it kept him from thinking about her and he was already thinking about her too much. But as they drove, Wes found he wasn’t cut out for silence either. The Slaine boys weren’t talking to him, giving him the cold shoulder to make it clear they didn’t care for the mess back at MacArthur and his decision to travel off-road. Shakes was asleep, and Farouk was resting.
“Hard to believe this was all desert once,” he said, deciding a conversation would be harmless enough.
“Desert—what’s that?” Nat joked. “I grew up in Ashes.”
He grunted. The city was one of the coldest outposts in the country.
“Ever seen pictures of what it looked like Before? Rolling dunes, cacti?” she asked. “You know what it used to be called right?”
“Phoenix,” he replied. “But the Phoenix is gone, and all that’s left is Ashes.”
“Poetic,” she said.
“Told you, there’s more to me than meets the eye.” He smiled, flirting with her again, in spite of himself.
“Can’t be much,” she said slyly.
“Want to find out?” he said playfully.
“Maybe,” she said, and his stomach flipped.
“Ever seen photos from Before? It’s like another planet,” she said, changing the subject. “Can you imagine what it’s like to be that hot?”
“Nope, I surely can’t. Can’t imagine ever being warm outside,” he said. “Supposedly deserts still exist somewhere.” Seeing the look on her face, he quickly explained lest she think him a dolt. “Not here, obviously, but in the enclosures.”
“Desert enclosures?” Her tone sarcastic.
“Yeah. Messed up, right? Fusion hogs, most like. I heard they have beaches in them, too. Man-made ones, of course,” he said. “I’ve been to the beach once. When we were stationed in ’Tonio, there was a little bit of it left when we went over to Galveston. Couldn’t swim in the water, though. Not unless you want your kids to have three legs.”
“What was Texas like?” she asked.
“Freezing,” Wes said tersely, suddenly unwilling to say any more. He didn’t know why he’d mentioned it; he never wanted to talk about what happened in Texas. “Just like everywhere else.”
“You’ve seen a lot, haven’t you?” Her voice was warm, and sitting next to her in the truck, it felt as if they were alone, as if it were just the two of them left on earth.
This was his chance, he saw, to tell her about himself, to earn her trust. Maybe he didn’t have to flirt with her. Maybe he could just trick her into being friends. Maybe then she would tell him why she was on her way to New Crete, tell him what Old Joe had handed her right before he disappeared. Tell him what he needed to know so he could figure out a way to take it from her.
“I’ve seen enough,” he said. “When my parents died, I joined the service. They sent me everywhere. You name it, I’ve patrolled it.”
“What were your parents like?” she asked as the truck crunched over the ice-covered road.
“They were all right, you know, for parents,” he said. He didn’t say any more.
“Do you miss them?” Nat asked. “I’m sorry, it’s a stupid question. Of course you miss them.”
“It’s okay. Yeah, I miss them, I try not to sinc
e it’s too hard, but there you go. I had a sister, too,” he said, almost as an afterthought.
“Younger? Older?”
After a while, he finally answered. “Younger.”
“What happened to her?”
He shrugged. Outside, the blizzard had stopped, and the air was clear again. Wes fiddled with the music player, switching through songs until he found one he liked. “I’m not sure. They took her away.” It was hard to talk about what happened to Eliza.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Nat gaze out at the endless mounds of garbage buried underneath another layer of snow. “Took her away?” she asked. “Who took her away?”
“Military family, higher-ups,” he sighed. “They said it was better for her. My parents didn’t have the license to have a second kid. So they came to collect.” The memory of that horrible day was still seared in his memory. He wasn’t ready to tell her the truth about Eliza. Not yet. He turned up the music a little and the cabin filled with the sound of jangling guitars and a thin, reedy voice singing over a harmonica.
Nat hummed along for a while then said, “Well, at least she’s with a family; it’s more than many of us get or can hope for.”
“That what you were? Orphan?”
“You had me checked out,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
He shrugged. “Standard procedure.”
“Then you should know my story.”
“Not much of it.”
“What happened to ‘no questions asked,’” she said.
“I did say that, didn’t I? No big deal, just making conversation.” He didn’t push. One day at a time, he thought.
He would be patient.
* * *
The garbage-strewn border gave way to a graveyard of ships and trucks that had been washed inland by the floodwaters over a hundred years ago. Monstrous steel hulls, skeletons of cruise ships and navy carriers loomed over the snowy terrain; dark, thick vines sprouted from the dead machines, weaving through the carcasses. Winter branches, they were called, some sort of plant that thrived in the tundra. Wes stared at them. He could have sworn the branches were iridescent, almost glittering, sparkling. But he was just seeing things, wasn’t he? When he looked again, the branches were the same dull color, reaching toward the heavens, weaving a tangled web of rusted metal, along with trailer homes and tumbled-over cars on the snow-covered desert floor. The Black Flood had carried the junk almost as far as Vegas before receding. As they moved closer to the coast, they could see the failed levees and makeshift dams that the military and a few desperate civilians had erected in an attempt to stop the rising waters.
It was their second day on the road and Shakes was back on driving duty, with Zedric acting as navigator. Wes and Nat shared the middle seat, and each clung to the opposite corner, as far away from the other as possible. In the back, the boys were awake, jostling and teasing; an annoyed Daran had pushed Farouk’s cap down low over his eyes.
“They’d lock that door once they saw you coming—” Farouk was laughing and hiccupping. “A year’s share of marital-day passes in a week! That must have been a record!”
“Daran likes the ladies,” Wes explained to Nat, as Daran looked smug and made a rude gesture with his hands.
“No doubt the ladies like him,” she said with a smirk. Daran was pretty hot, with his sharp cheekbones and glossy dark hair.
Wes laughed, although for a moment his face twisted at her words. There were two kinds of marriages these days—day passes for temporary unions—so that you could rent a room at one of the love hotels—and real ones from chapel. Day passes kept the population clean of disease. No sexual activity without a license. There was a license for everything. In his experience, it took a lot of the romance out of the equation, standing in line at the bureau, checking the little boxes, waiting for the result of the blood test before you could do so much as kiss a girl.
“So you like Daran, eh?” he asked.
“I didn’t say that,” she huffed.
“You ever filled ’em out?” he asked, looking at her sideways.
“What—forms for a marital pass?” She looked offended.
“Sure, why not? What’s the problem, no offers?” he teased.
“Exactly the opposite, my friend,” she said archly. “Too many to mention.”
“That’s what worries me.” He grinned wickedly and she tossed a wadded paper napkin at his face.
“You should be so lucky,” she huffed.
“I should,” he said, still smiling as he batted it away.
“Don’t worry, I turned them all down,” she told him.
“All of them?”
“Shut up!” She laughed. “I don’t have to answer to you.”
She wasn’t the only one being teased about it. Farouk was giving Daran a hard time in the back.
“It’s a miracle you passed the STD monitors—not with those girls from Ho Ho City!” he said, while Zedric chimed in from the front, “Yeah, bro, you’re so twisted I swear the last one was a freaking drau!” Daran pummeled Farouk and threatened his brother, and finally Wes yelled at the three of them to shut up, they were giving him a headache.
“Hold up! Hold up! What’s that?” Farouk suddenly yelled, underneath Daran’s fists.
“What’s what?” Wes asked, studying the black metal forest, looking through the tangle of vines. Then he saw it. There were shapes moving through the devastated landscape, and even the vines seemed to be moving. The figures multiplied in the distance.
“Thrillers,” he cursed. “Let’s hope we don’t come closer to any.” He took the binoculars for a closer look. The creatures were dressed in ragged clothing, stumbling and staggering with jerky, strange movements, some of them as small as children, and a few tall, wraith-like apparitions with hair the color of straw. And he wasn’t losing his mind—the vines were moving, swaying of their own volition.
“Thrillers?” asked Farouk.
Shakes began to hum a tune. “You know, that old song . . . ‘Thriller, thriller night.’” He began shaking his head and waving his arms while he sang. The Slaine brothers watched and laughed.
“All right, knock it off,” Wes grumbled.
“The lights that glow at night—are they from them?” Farouk asked.
Wes didn’t answer for a long time. “No one knows. Maybe.”
“But what made them that way?” Farouk asked, as the team stared at the strange, frightening creatures in the distance.
After a long silence, Wes finally answered. “Military does a bunch of chemical testing out here, could be they’re victims of the fallout, but the government won’t say or confirm any of the theories. I know one thing, though, they scare the hell out of anyone unlucky enough to run into them. Word is that’s why the army sent out nanobots in the first place; the thrillers were freaking out too many men. That’s why there’re very few seekers out here.”
He explained that the official explanation for the retreat from Garbage Country was toxin-induced schizophrenia. The chemicals that remained from the toxic floods were said to have driven the men to insanity. But there was no official mention of the shambling, horrific creatures roaming in the garbage. A few years later, the army developed the bot-based defense system. Exploding bombs and robots didn’t get nightmares and didn’t scream at the sight of a thriller.
“Bad news, boss,” Shakes said, looking up from the dashboard. “Looks like we’ve got a gas leak. Bullet must have grazed the tank. We’re not going to make it to the coast with what we’ve got left in the cans.”
They had been lucky to even get this far with what they had, Wes knew. “How much we got left?”
“A few miles at most.”
Wes sighed. “All right, I wasn’t planning to, but we’ll have to make a detour to one of the tent cities for supplies. K-Town isn’t too far, we’ll go there.”
“Whoop, whoop! K-Town!” Zedric yelled, throwing up his gun and catching it.
“What’s in K-Town?” Nat asked.
14
TO GET TO K-TOWN THEY WOULD HAVE TO CUT through what was once Los Angeles. The formerly sun-drenched city had been one of the hardest hit by the Flood, the waters submerging it almost completely. The truck had to make its way through the hilly, snowy terrain above the waterline. Zedric cranked up the stereo hooked to Daran’s player, and a loud dub-reggae hybrid, the Bob Marley Death-Metal Experience, throbbed inside the truck.
The music was angry and violent, in contrast to the gentle lyrics. Could you be loved?
It was a good question, Nat thought. Could you? Could she? Her gaze landed on Wes and she looked away. For a moment she had seen the two of them filling out day-pass forms, giggling, teasing each other, anticipating a night alone together. She shook the image from her head, annoyed that her thoughts kept turning back to him. Besides, she felt nothing for him, and never could. She’d only been flirting with him because maybe if he liked her he would think twice before tossing her overboard.
As the truck sped through the tundra, Nat looked out the window, relieving her anxiety by marveling at the relentless nature of the frozen environment: snow and more snow for miles around. In one of her old books she’d read that the Eskimos had a hundred words for it. She thought it was a shame they weren’t around to see this: so many different kinds. The white virgin powder on the rooftops contrasted with the hard ice on the ground. The snow rolled over roofs and cars with no interruption, just a white expanse, a visible blankness. Once in a while, she saw footprints, animal trails maybe, although there were some too big, their patterns too deliberate, to be anything but human. She thought of the thrillers they’d left back in the snow-covered desert and shuddered. Wes was right to hope they wouldn’t run into any.
When she was still in school, she’d learned about a town in Ukraine called Chernobyl, where a nuclear reactor had exploded. The place was so radioactive that it wouldn’t be fit for humans for hundreds of years and it was still off-limits now. The whole area was declared an exclusion zone, an evacuated land where no one was allowed to live. In reality, though, the Chernobyl exclusion zone teemed with life. With the absence of humanity, wildlife flourished and the toxic landscape became a kind of animal preserve. Looking at the trails in the snow, she wondered whether Garbage Country was the same. She wondered what kind of life was flourishing here.
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