Nat didn’t have to wonder for long, as a polar bear materialized from the snow, its burly white body moving with lightning speed. She gasped in surprise—she had never seen an animal up close before.
“What is it?” Wes asked, just as the truck swerved to a stop.
Shakes muttered curses as he turned off the engine, and he and Wes hopped out to see what had happened. Nat followed, watching as Shakes kicked away a mound of snow from the left front wheel to reveal a thick fork of rebar wedged into the front tire.
“’Rouk! Zed! Dar!” Wes called. “C’mon, we need help out here.”
As the boys pulled shovels from the trunk and began working to free the trapped tire, Nat stepped away. Where was the bear?
She scanned the horizon, but saw nothing.
Behind her, she heard curses mixed with the whine of crushing metal. She looked back at the tire. The entire crew had gathered around the trapped wheel. Farouk, Daran, and Zedric were shoveling snow while Shakes worked to free the metal rod that had ground its way into the tire.
Nat took the binoculars to scan for the bear. There it was! She smiled in delight as the polar bear bounded over a mountain of snow. It paused, looked around—twitched nervously. From behind, she heard Wes warn, “Best to stay in the truck.” Nat ignored him.
“Just a moment, I’ve never seen one this close.” She walked closer to the bear.
Without warning, the mighty white animal turned and bounded forward. She stood stock-still, wide-eyed, staring at the creature until too late—she realized the bear was coming directly at her. Pushing a pile of snow ahead of it, the bear leapt forward, its mouth open, tongue out, and teeth bared. It roared. She stood transfixed, unable to move, staring death in the face.
“Nat!” Wes called, but it was too late. She heard a pop, like thunder, echo across the snow. The bear skidded toward her, it warm red nose colliding with her foot, a steady stream of red fluid pouring from its head, mottling its once pristine coat with thick clumps of blood.
Dead.
She was safe.
She turned to Wes, but saw that his gun was holstered; the rest of the crew were still working on the tire. None of them had fired the shot.
A pair of white hooded figures appeared in the far distance. They wore thick goggles—military grade, heat and low-light lenses. They were at least a quarter mile away. She saw one drop his rifle and wave his fist in the air. Was he cheering? What was going on?
She turned to Wes. “Seekers?”
“Nope, caravan hunters.” He knelt down to hide, and she did the same. “You’re lucky you didn’t get hit in the crossfire. We need to go; they’ll be coming for it.” He called out to Shakes, “Get that wheel free, now! We need to move.” The rebar had not moved from the tire.
She turned back to the hunters.
A second pop rang out in the distance. They’d shot a second bear, closer to them, nearly at their feet. The hunters ran eagerly to the fallen polar bear while a third began taking photos.
“Are they hunters or tourists?” she gaped.
“A little of both—a company runs garbage safaris here. It’s illegal, but you know how it is—some things are more illegal than others.”
He patted her shoulder. “I think you should get back in the truck now.”
The hunters finished dragging the second bear to their snow jeep. Nat went back to the LTV. She watched Shakes dig the shaft of a shovel beneath the rebar and heave. The rusted metal bent and sprang from the tire. The hunters turned toward the first fallen bear, the one that had nearly crashed into Nat. She saw those thick goggles trained on her.
She slid back into the truck, the boys followed. “Wes, they saw me—we should go.”
“What do you think we’re trying to do? Shakes, hit it!”
With the door still open, Shakes stepped on the gas as he flung himself into the driver’s seat. Wes had barely slammed his door when the LTV started moving. The big truck lurched forward, then ground to a stop.
Her head slammed into the back of the seat. Shakes swung sideways, nearly flew out of the truck, as the truck swung in a semicircle. “The tire’s still wedged.” Wes cursed. He was out of the truck before it stopped moving.
She looked for the hunters; the caravan hunters’ jeep was headed their way. What would they do? Would they report them to the seekers? Three shots rang through the air and she felt the truck lurch. Out front, Wes was firing down at the wheel. “It’s just some old wood; I’ll blast it out.” His voice was distant, barely audible through the truck’s armored exterior.
She heard two more pops and Wes was back in the truck. They lurched forward again. Shakes shook his head. “Still not free, boss.”
They wouldn’t be able to get away. The caravan had made its way to their first kill, and hunters were getting out of the jeeps and walking toward them.
Wes hung his head in frustration. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this,” he muttered. “Everyone out. Boys, try to look angry. Nat”—he turned to her—“don’t say a word, look annoyed.”
The caravan hunters were gathered around the bear; the tourists had pulled off their goggles and were posing alongside their fallen prey, taking more pictures. Wes walked up to the first and pushed him back hard. “What do you think you’re doing? That was her bear! We’ve been out here all day trying to get her a decent shot and you douche bags take it out right when she’s about to make her kill.” He looked back at Nat and smiled before turning back to the tourists. “I don’t get paid unless she gets a kill!”
The safari guide leapt out of the jeep, rifle in hand. Wes turned to face him. “This is the last bear in twenty clicks. What were you thinking? This one was ours! I’ve checked heat and satellite. There’s nothing else out here and you already shot one!”
She nearly laughed. Wes was so convincing, more of a con artist than she guessed. Would he pull it off? Would he convince the hunters they were just another safari out here looking for souvenirs? She watched as he poked his finger in the guide’s face. The guide was built like the truck, wide and stout, and there were several more, blank-faced, carrying nasty-looking guns, but Wes wouldn’t back down even if they were outnumbered.
“You’ve got your skin; take it, and get out of here! This one’s mine. She can hang the head on her wall and tell all her friends she popped a big white. You want this one, you’ve got to pay my fee, ’cause she sure won’t!” The guides studied Wes’s crew. The boys smiled broad grins. The tourists howled as their guides herded them back into the jeeps.
Wes turned. “You want the bear?”
She feigned a laugh, but the sight was too horrid. The creature had been truly beautiful. “You think they bought it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Who knows, I’ve run these cons so many times I’ve just quit worrying.” The boys shoveled snow over the fallen bear, a burial of sorts, then loaded back into the truck. Tire free and hunters gone, they started forward once more.
15
SHAKES HAD TO PARK THE TRUCK AGAIN to try to patch the hole in the gas tank. They weren’t far from what used to be called Korea-Town, a formerly jumbled neighborhood of barbecue restaurants and foreign embassies, but they might have to walk the rest of the way if he couldn’t coax out a few more miles. The team disbanded, and the boys wandered around snow-covered houses while Nat stayed close to the vehicle. It looked as if it would take awhile, so she took a book from her pack.
“You can read,” said Wes, noticing.
“Yes,” Nat replied with an embarrassed smile. “Mrs. A—the lady who raised me—taught me.” The book was one of the few possessions she had left, a poetry collection from the archives.
“Lucky duck,” he said.
“It passes the time,” she said, trying not to make a big deal out of it. Literacy was the lowest it had ever been. Truly, there was hardly any reason to read anymore—information was relayed through the net in videos and images, and if written communication was necessary, most people used an a
malgam of symbols and acronyms that had replaced formal language instruction in schools. Supposedly textlish—which had been compared to Egyptian hieroglyphics by bygone intellectuals and academics—had been invented by a couple of kids with their handhelds before the Big Freeze. The latest RBEs, or “Reading-Based Entertainment,” were all composed in textlish, but Nat couldn’t quite get excited by a story called XLNT <3 LULZ.
The RBEs on the top download lists were all imports from Xian anyway—dull “work” novels about how to move up in the world, capitalist tracts about jerking the corporate chain. All the books Nat preferred to read were written by people who had lived long ago. No new songs, either—the current crop of pop stars were all cover bands, rehashing music from another era. It was as if even imagination had died when the ice came.
Wes peered over her shoulder at the cover. “Who’s William Morris?”
“He was a poet.”
“Read me something,” he said. Nat didn’t think he was the poetry type, but she flipped through the pages and cleared her throat before deciding on a passage.
“It’s a story—about a dragon—and a hero,” she told him.
“What happens in it?” he asked.
“The usual.” She shrugged. “The hero slays the dragon.”
Wes smiled and left to help Shakes with the engine. All around the white snow, Nat swore she could see small white flowers popping up everywhere. It had to be some kind of illusion. Flowers couldn’t grow in the snow and the garbage. She walked closer to a snowbank, sure that the illusion would disperse, but it didn’t. She reached down to pick a few flowers.
“Look,” she said to Wes, who was standing nearby. She handed him one.
“How is that possible?” he said, marveling at the delicate bloom in his hand.
She shook her head and once again, they shared a quick, shy smile.
The sound of thunder booming across the valley caused them to drop the flowers they held and forget about it for the time being. In a flash, they were crouched behind the truck.
“What is it?” Nat asked. Had the patrols finally caught up to them somehow? She’d heard too many bombs in her lifetime and could immediately recognize the sound of an exploding shell when she heard one. “Think the seekers found us?”
“Let’s hope not,” he said as a second explosion rocked the truck. “Shakes would have picked up their signal on our scanner.”
They were parked on top of a winding road—MULHOLLAND DRIVE, an ancient street sign read. The houses were still intact here, except they were buried to the roofline in snow. At least they were away from the black vines now, and the air was fresher up here and a new coat of pristine white powder covered the ground.
A third thunderous blast rocked the hillside, loud as a cannon.
“Wait a minute,” said Wes. “That sounds like one of ours—”
“What are you doing?” Nat asked as Wes crept along the side of the truck, muttering Zedric’s name as another blast echoed across the hilltop.
She ducked as a shower of snow rained down from the trees.
“Put it down! What do you think you’re doing?” Wes yelled, walking out from behind the truck.
She stood from her place and saw where Wes was headed. Zedric was perched on top of an old black Bentley. Its tires were flat and all the windows were missing. Someone had pulled out the seats and the engine was gone. Zedric laughed as he tried to steady himself on the hood of the car that was slowly collapsing under his weight.
“Watch this!” Zedric yelled, as he aimed his RPG at a pair of thin steel-and-wood beams that supported a big house across the hill. The long glass façade must have been beautiful once, but its windows were all smashed now and its roofline as wavy as a noodle. The neighboring houses were similarly perched out over the hill on tiny thin posts.
A loud smack interrupted her thoughts.
Wes had knocked the rifle from Zedric’s hand, which hit the boy’s nose as the gun fell to the snow. “What the hell!” Wes demanded.
Zedric glared at him. “I was just having a little fun!”
For a moment, Nat thought he was going to hit Wes, but the smaller boy seemed to think better of it.
There was a pop—another explosion—but different this time, and all of them turned around to see the long white house slide down the hillside and crash into the trash pile below.
“You shot out the supports, didn’t you?” asked Wes.
“It was fun,” Zedric repeated, reaching for his gun as he wiped a trickle of blood from his nose.
“Thanks a lot. You just let the seeker team out there know exactly where we are. Where’s your brother? We need to get out of here before they come.”
Zedric shrugged, but they all knew where to look.
“Once a scavenger, always a scavenger,” Wes muttered and Nat understood the temptation had been too great for Daran. Zedric’s hyena laugh echoed through the canyon as a second house disappeared down the cliff side.
“I’m assuming you weren’t dumb enough to shoot at the house your brother’s in?” Wes demanded.
Zedric glared at Wes as blood streamed out of his nose. “What’s your problem, man?” he whined. “Ain’t hurting no one.”
“Just get him already.”
“Daran!” Zedric called.
“Daran!” Shakes took up the call and Farouk did, too. Nat did the same.
After a few minutes Daran lumbered out of the house, his arms filled with a collection of junk: toasters, an electric fan, what looked like part of a blender. He ran, breathless, back to the truck.
“Shakes—we good to go?” Wes asked.
“Ready when you are.”
Wes barked his orders. “Everyone in the truck! Now!”
“What’s the rush?” Farouk asked, as they watched Daran hustle toward them, wading through the snow.
“These houses are packed with pop-cans, every single one of them. It’s common knowledge. Daran should have known better, he does know better,” Wes said, frustrated. “C’MON!” he yelled.
“He’s stuck,” Nat said, as they watched Daran flail in the deep snow. But as she moved to help, Wes pulled her back.
There was another explosion. This one wasn’t from the big gun or the sound of a house skiing down the hillside. The two of them were blown backward to the ground as the air filled with a mix of white powder and black smoke.
“Pop-can,” Wes said, kicking away a rusted can that Nat had accidentally stepped on. “An old one; that’s why it didn’t immediately explode when you hit it.”
Nat just stared at him, too shaken up to speak.
“You can thank me later,” he said. “DARAN, COME ON, MAN! Zedric—go help your brother.”
Zedric stood his ground, staring at Wes, his eyes wide with fear.
“We’re not going to leave you boys—you hear me? Go get your dimwit brother out of that trench! Now!”
Zedric didn’t move.
“Pop-cans have a proximity detonation feature,” he explained to Nat. “When one of those things go off, it sends a signal to the rest. This whole valley could collapse. All this so Daran can buy a hit of oxy in K-Town.”
On cue, another explosion atomized the house behind them. Wes cursed—the explosion had sent Daran flying, and he was wedged facedown in the black snow. “Mask!” Wes yelled, and Shakes threw him a gas mask. “If you hear another pop, hit the gas—I’ll meet you in K-Town!” He put on the mask and waded through the snow and smoke toward the fallen soldier.
“C’mon,” Zedric said, pushing Nat into the LTV. “Every pop-can within a mile is going to explode in a few minutes!”
But Nat held her ground. “We can’t go without them. Shakes, we can’t leave him here!” she said wildly.
“Don’t worry, haven’t lost him yet,” Shakes promised.
A third explosion triggered a fourth. Nat knew they would have to go soon—otherwise they would all end up dead.
But after a few minutes Wes finally emerged from the smoke,
Daran slung over his shoulder. She caught her breath and raced out of the truck to help him drag the unconscious kid through the snow. Shakes jumped out of the cabin and opened the back door. They slid Daran into the cargo area, then sped off down the hillside, the valley echoing with bombs.
16
THE CANYON WALLS COLLAPSED BEHIND them, and as the snow fell, crushing the blanket of flowers, the petals released their seeds, filling the air with a glittering cloud of specks. Even as they were making their escape, Wes thought it was one of the prettiest sights he had ever seen.
“Nanos!” Farouk yelled.
“No! They’re not nanos!” Wes said. “They’re something else.”
“Seeds—they’re seeds!” Nat said excitedly. “Look!” The team watched as the seeds were swept high by the wind and spread over the snowy landscape, twinkling and swirling, a cloud of life, instead of death.
Wes caught her eye and he knew she was thinking the same thing. So this was how the flowers came to cover the area. Somehow, some way, something was growing in the wastelands. Was the earth healing? Was there such a thing as hope for the future? A way beyond this frozen hellhole?
For now, the hillside had liquefied under the stress of the many explosions and was cascading down into a waterfall of wet snow and debris. Wes shook his head. It was all such a waste, and frightening how easily everything had been destroyed—as if the houses were made of straw—all it took was one puff and they were gone. It was a miracle they had survived this long.
When they were halfway down what was left of the 101, Daran woke up, annoyed at having dropped his loot. He had little left to show for his pains: a gold watch and a silver spoon stuffed into his pants pockets. Metal had some value in K-Town but not much. He would have been better off if he’d held on to the kerosene lantern he’d found in the garage. He was still complaining as they hit the streets of the phantom, snow-covered city, mumbling under his breath and cursing his trigger-happy little brother for his prank.
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