It was barely a meal, but the calories were low-work. There were hundreds more birds here. Probably more colonies elsewhere on the island. Eat enough raw eggs, and his risk of disease and parasites probably approached 100%, but it would beat starving. He circled around the rookery and checked out the coast. More beaches below, a mix of rock and sand. Slabs of kelp-covered basalt dotted the waves. Shallow pools glimmered between stone upcrops and the beach. Probably some squirmy things to eat down there. Plenty of mussels.
Water was going to be a problem. He continued west along the cliffs and ran straight into a field of wild wheat.
He glanced around, half convinced someone was tricking him. He pulled the head off one of the plants and rolled the seeds between his fingers, shucking them. Tasted like wheat. A little earthier; barley, maybe. Someone must have farmed the place way back in the day.
He stepped on a sharp rock and inhaled with a hiss. He sat down to have a think and a look around. Coastal flies buzzed his face, their bodies antlike and gross. He had pretty good calluses from all the walking, but he needed some goddamn shoes. Why had that stupid alien-lover taken his clothes? He didn't mind the nudity. There was no one around to see him. And considering the trouble his dick had gotten into recently, the flies could have it. But if he hurt himself—slashed himself open on a piece of glass or rock or coral—that could set his work back by days. Without water, he really didn't have any of those to spare. If that pasty idiot had just left him with a pair of jeans, he could have cut them in half and tied one leg around each of his feet.
Being angry felt good, but it wasn't getting him anywhere. Well, if there were crops on the island, maybe there were some old boards or something he could strap to his feet. Or see if the trees had bark that would peel up in one piece. He stood up and glanced toward the ocean. One of the thick, tall succulents clung to the edge of the cliff.
The plant was a good three feet tall with a broad base and a whole lot of meaty leaves. It looked a little like an overgrown artichoke. More accurately, an agave. There had been plenty of agave down in Mexico. He had almost never had any use for them—there were enough abandoned towns near Chichen Itza to bike in for supplies when he was low on shoelaces or underwear—but he'd once watched a Maya use one to catch a fish.
Trying to keep his heart from beating too hard with hope, he moved to the plant and tapped his thumb against the point of its largest inner leaf. It was sharp, snagging his skin. Using the shell as a knife, he cut into the tough, fibrous plant, pulling the needle-like point free of the leaf.
A three-foot strand of natural string came with it.
Walt laughed like a child, cut the leaf and the one next to it from the plant, tried to sit down in the dirt, thought better of it, and went back for a third leaf to use as a seat. He used the shell to gouge a hole in each side of one leaf, then, using a long twig for a lead, threaded the agave-needle through it, looping the string over the top.
The result was one of the shittiest sandals of all time. Walt wiggled it on and hobbled in a circle, arching his foot to keep the makeshift strap from slipping off his foot. The plant matter squished under his weight but the skin of the leaf was fibrous and tough. He sat back down and added a second loop to the shoe, adjusting it to be taut against his heel.
The second shoe went much faster. Within an hour, he had a pair of loose and awkward but effective sandals. The sun was on the verge of diving behind the ridge to the west, and for a moment Walt regretted spending the time to put together a half-assed pair of shoes that were probably going to fall apart in less time than it had taken him to put them together. The simple fact of the matter was that every moment mattered. He had about seven days before he died of dehydration.
And practically speaking, he had a lot less time than that. It was hot on the island and there was virtually no shade. His body would get pretty worthless within four or five days. Catalina was much closer than the hazy mainland, but it was still a good twenty miles away; even if he were able to pull a makeshift raft together, the trip looked like it would take a full day—assuming he could find a current that wouldn't grab him up and usher him into the middle of the Pacific.
All told, if he didn't have a seaworthy vessel or a source of fresh water in the next two or three days, he was going to die.
It had been a long day and he was tired but he couldn't afford to waste the light. He decided to walk around the island before getting too deep in his plans. Maybe he'd find a lake. Or a canoe. Or a fully-fueled helicopter with a copy of Flying a Helicopter for Dummies in the glove box. There was no sense hurrying to patch together a third-rate raft that would break apart a mile out to sea when there might be a real boat just around the bend.
He walked along the edge of the cliff, scanning the shore for boats and glancing inland in search of ranger cabins or old homesteads. Pelicans drifted thirty feet above the waves. The beaches were rocky and slathered in seaweed, black clouds of flies feasting on the rotten vegetation. To his surprise, the sandals held up. The leaves flattened out, dampening the soles of his feet with trapped water, but the stringy, meaty plants held together in a coherent mass.
The island wandered north into a thin spit of cliffs. He made it to the tip and turned southwest along the coast. He didn't find anything more interesting than a sharp wedge of basalt that fit nicely in his hand, which he added to his bag of trinkets. As the sun fled west, pulling a blanket of black behind it, he pulled up bunches of grass and gathered them together for bedding.
The air stayed warm. Sea lions barked in the distance. Bugs whirred. It smelled like the sea and freshly-torn grass. He'd never been this pared-down before, and while it amused him to be a modern Stone Age caveman, it also lent a clarity to the night, a sense of unconscious understanding and connection so wordlessly profound that it was almost worth enduring everything that had brought him here. After a while, he nestled into the grass and slept. He woke to darkness, sore and thirsty. He was halfway through urinating before it occurred to his sludgy mind that he might want to drink it.
Well, things weren't that desperate yet. While he waited for the sun to rise, he caught moths and beetles, pulling off legs and heads and wings and chewing down the bodies as fast as he could. The moths weren't bad—they tasted fatty and almost sweet—but the beetles were crunchy, and their little bits stuck in his throat. After the fourth beetle nearly made him lose what little lunch he had, he plucked up grass and ate the tender white shoots. The grass was dewy and he emptied his plastic bag and rubbed it around, then licked the film of water on the inside. It tasted like dirt, and there wasn't enough for a proper swallow, but it got his saliva flowing again.
Dawn turned the world gray. He walked on down the shoreline. After half a mile, the cliffs bent into a straight line leading west. In a sandy bay, sea lions flopped in the first light, honking to each other, rolling in the mats of kelp. Something off-white was tangled in the brown, rubbery plants. Walt backtracked to a trail down to the beach, careful not to shred his shoes on the sharp black basalt. At the beach, he pulled a waterlogged fishing net from the kelp, tossing away the salty, tacky seaweed and gathering up the pencil-thin ropes. He grinned. Now all he had to do was find a half-decent paddle. A hammer would be nice, too. Though he supposed rocks were nature's hammers.
He kept one eye on the sea lions while he used his axe-like wedge of basalt to chip mussels from the rocks and smash them open. The insides were snotty and salty and he could only eat a few before he got thirsty. He made himself eat a handful more. He was going to need the fuel.
He walked for a mile without seeing anything more than dried-out grass, the agave-like succulents, scatters of red flowers, and gnomish, gnarled trees no taller than himself. He stopped to pull the ends from the succulents and reel out the thread attached to the base of the needle-sharp points. Using the broken shell, he carved open one of the tough leaves, exposing a clear, goopy liquid inside. He tested it with the tip of his tongue. It tasted soapy but not downright toxic. He allo
wed himself a few licks, then cut out the meat of the leaf and chewed. It wasn't bad.
There was a small bed of the things and two sported tall stalks heavy with little purple flowers. If these things were agave—and if they weren't, they were certainly from the same family—Walt knew enough about tequila to bank that their flowers weren't poisonous. Far from it. He stripped off the buds and tasted them. They were sweet, sticky with sap. He ate a good handful and cut down the rest. There were several pounds of them and his bag was suddenly quite heavy, straining the plastic handles.
He was no longer hungry and was just a little thirsty, and maybe it was a toxin-induced delirium talking, but he felt pretty good. He continued on, scratching the bug bites he'd picked up overnight on his shins and shoulders.
A shack sat on the southwest corner of the island. Mist-peeled paint crackled from its walls. Inside, there was nothing but a table, a chair, and a greasy old-style lantern. He checked everywhere for the matches it used, but had no luck.
Around back, he struck it rich. A flathead shovel lay half hidden in the weeds. When he picked it up, rust flaked his palm. He jabbed it at the flank of a rock. It clanged but showed no sign of damage.
It was about noon and the sun was at its worst. He went inside the shack and propped the door open to catch a breeze. He was sweating more than he'd like, but at least he was out of the sun. He napped on the dusty floor, waking a couple hours later. He took the chair with him to the beach where Lorna had dropped him off the day before, leaving it there with everything but the shovel, then went back to the shack and broke off the legs of the table and carried it piece by piece to the eastern shore.
His skin was hot and sunburnt and his mouth was dry and his shoes had been reduced to flapping shreds. He rested a minute, then climbed back up the path to find another agave and eat its juicy meat and fashion another pair of leaf-slippers. The nourishment helped, but he no longer felt so good. He didn't have a choice, though. His prognosis looked much better than the day before, but he had a headache and his skin was baking. The water from the succulents wasn't nearly enough. He used the shell to scrape out the remainder of the leaf he'd eaten, tied a loop through its ends, and slapped it on as a hat, pulling the loop beneath his chin.
He still had a few hours of light left, so he decided to get the dangerous stuff out of the way. Some of the planks on the dock were loose enough to pull up with his bare hands. Others he chipped away at with the shovel, prying them up with a squeak of rusted nails and dragging them to the beach. He had enough experience building rafts to fling at the crashed ship that he knew about how much he'd need to keep his body out of the water. By sundown, he thought his pile of planks looked big enough to start construction.
A three-quarter moon hung above the city, a silvery lantern that gave him enough light to lash together the planks and the table, employing the soggy net and the succulent-threads for cordage. After a few hours, he had a decent-sized platform. He propped one end up with rocks and rolled underneath it to sleep.
In the morning, he went back up the path to gather more succulent leaves for the trip across. Feeling quite pleased with himself, he loaded up his bag, dragged the raft to the shore, and pushed off into the gentle waves.
The raft began to pull apart just a hundred yards from shore. The fishing net was holding up fine, but some of the succulent threads had frayed and snapped and the whole thing was threatening to split down the middle. He swore furiously, paddling back to land with the shovel, awkwardly holding the raft together with his left hand.
It took him the rest of the day to gather up enough new threads to tie the raft back together, reinforced triply from his first effort. He ate more flowers and leaves and thought about walking up for some eggs but it would be so little reward for so much work. Instead, he went back to sleep under the raft.
He got up around dusk. As the sun withdrew, the blue lump of Catalina turned black, discretely visible from the ocean and the sky. Well, what the hell. He'd be able to work harder when there wasn't any sunshine beating him down. He shoved off, battling the waves, careful not to take his eyes off the faraway island for more than a few seconds at a time. The tide seemed to be sucking him south, out to open sea; he paddled steadily, trying to convince himself he was gaining ground.
After an hour, his arms were rubbery. He paddled weakly, but even that proved too much, and he stopped to give his burning muscles a rest. But the raft was no longer drifting south. He was being borne east-southeast. If he let himself drift, he'd be swept a couple miles south of Catalina, but if the current held, he might have a chance.
He scooped out the meat of a leaf and chewed down some sticky flowers. It seemed to help. He paddled again, pacing himself, working just hard enough to make a bit of progress north. The island doubled in size. Dizziness rolled over his head. He lay down on the raft until the feeling passed, then took up the shovel and dipped it back into the sea, bubbles churning away from his strokes.
The eastern sky grew light. His lips were chapped and all he could smell or taste was salt. His hands hurt. So did his head. It was still so far away. It would be so easy to lie down and let the ocean take him wherever it wanted. Let the water be his final judge.
Anger stormed through him. There were no judges in the dirt or the water or the air. There was only himself and this big stupid world. He knew which would win in the end, but he intended to give it a hell of a fight.
By mid-morning, the breakers pushed him toward the southern shore of Catalina. Twenty yards from land, a riptide caught his raft, pulling him away faster than he could paddle. He rolled over the edge. The water felt cold and good against his skin but he was so weak he could barely keep his head above water. The tide dragged him further and further from the black rocks and icy panic gripped his spine.
He stopped fighting it and swam parallel instead. The riptide let him go. He thrashed his noodly arms. His foot struck a rock and a jolt of pain shot up his leg. He laughed and stood and hobbled his way up to the beach.
He'd lost his bag as he swam and he was hungry and thirsty but he was too tired to do anything more than crawl up the rocks to the grass and flop under a bush to sleep. He was out for a long, long time. It was night when he woke. He was shoeless again, completely naked, in fact, and he stepped carefully up into the hills. When he finally reached the reservoir he'd passed weeks ago with Lorna, he drank cool water until he threw up, then rinsed out his mouth and tried again.
It was incredible how much strength he'd lost in just a couple days. He was sore and weak and sunburnt and salt-chapped and he took his time recovering, weaving shoes from leaves, skulking around to steal the islanders' vegetables, and sleeping in the treed-over valleys between hills. All that raw food had thrown a riot in his digestive tract, too. He was surprised the smell alone didn't give him away.
After three days of living wild in the hills, he felt good enough to sneak into Avalon from the northwest and, under cover of night, break into the Scaveteria for clothes and real shoes and a water bottle and fishing line and scissors and a few other things to make life less paleolithically low-rent. There were no guns, but there were plenty of knives. He took three.
He was prepared to bide his time for as long as it took, but it was just a couple more days before the ships sailed in from the mainland. Four of them docked at the piers. Walt hung around on the hill just long enough to ensure most if not all of the troops had returned, then retreated and jogged off into the valleys.
He wasn't so sure about his next step. But he knew Karslaw well enough to believe the man would keep the source of his new power close at hand.
Lorna lay on her side in bed, hands tucked beneath her head and pressed together as if she were praying. She smelled like her skin, sweat that hadn't yet gone entirely sour, and the feral richness of a jungle bloom. It was funny. When a person was asleep, you could almost forgive them for anything.
Walt put his biggest knife to her neck. Her eyes snapped open.
"Talk
first," he said. "Then you can scream."
33
The metal piece in Mauser's hand drew the gaze as strongly as a dead body. It was an intrusion from another world and you had to keep one eye on it or it might do something bad. The whorled metal looked unscratchable, permanent, wise.
"Where did you get that?"
Mauser smiled. "Lifted it off him after I saw him trying to signal his friends."
"Do you know how to use it?"
"Oh sure, it's just your run-of-the-mill alien tricorder." He closed his palm. "I've fooled around enough to turn it on. Maybe. Look, I can make it show little blue lights. Lights are always a sign of progress."
She gave it a moment's thought, but there was nothing to decide. "Do it."
"First things first. I am so tired you could use my eyelids for doorstoppers, and considering the pale little guy's general surliness during our first meeting—and the aliens—and the fact I stole this from him—I'd say there's a nonzero chance they respond to our call for aid by shooting us. If I'm going to die, I want a good sleep first."
He went outside to pee. While he was gone, she had another drink from the bottle, but it made her head feel swimmy. She went to her room and slept straight through to the afternoon.
They had fled the battle of the Dunemarket with nothing more than their emergency packs, and before they tried the device, they detoured to the bunker to stock up on food and water. Mauser stumbled beside her, eyes hooded. He swallowed a lot and spoke little.
The bunker was untouched. They replenished their water and filled new packs with silver packages of freeze dried meat and fruit. After, Raina led the way west to the beaches a few miles north of Carl's home.
By then, Mauser looked slightly less exhausted and nauseated. He got out the round piece of metal and tapped a couple small buttons on its side. Blue light winked from the eye in its middle.
The Breakers Series: Books 1-3 Page 102