“Ross, old pal, where you going?” Zephyr called, but the old man ignored him. “Now, don’t be that way — come back here! We can’t have a proper reunion party without our guest of honor!”
Aurora spoke with her shotgun. It blasted into the air and Ross heard that loud and clear. He stopped, seemed to reconsider, and then finally turned to face them. He wore a smile on his face, but it was disingenuous. He was terrified, and Zephyr knew it. Moreover, he was cooked. Figuratively and literally. Half of his face was a mesh of burned tissue and jagged edges of white bone protruded from his cheek and eyebrow. His upper chest was a rubbery, melted goo of skin that bled into visible collarbones. And his right leg seemed to hang from its socket; it was obviously broken and torn beyond repair. Ross stood on his left. He looked like a zombie about to play hopscotch.
Even with modern medicine and technology, he was unlikely to survive this brand of injury. Without the aid of either, he was a dead man, and this was plain to see. Only Ross seemed oblivious to this truth.
“Well, I guess everybody gets lucky now and then,” the old man rasped. “Go ahead and gloat, boy. Ya got one on me.”
“This isn’t a game, you psycho. We are real people and there are real lives at stake. And you just lost yours.”
“You don’t have the guts, you little turd.”
“Ross, it’s already done.”
“Bullshit.”
Zephyr stepped closer to him and Ross tried to pedal backward, staggered and nearly fell.
“You’ve always been arrogant, so maybe that’s playing its part here. Or possibly you’re just in shock,” Zephyr said. “But sooner than later — and really soon because there isn’t much of a later in your future — you’re going to realize that you’re already dead. Agony, and then it’s curtains.”
Now the boy was close enough to smell his burnt flesh. “And when that epiphany finally dawns on you, I want you to think of me, and my girlfriend, and my family. I want you to think about how we beat you, and took everything from you.”
Zephyr locked eyes with him. “And then, old man, you can die.”
Epilogue
Six months had passed since Ross, and now Trey was leaving.
“You don’t have to go,” Zephyr told him one morning as they hung their clothes out to dry on a line by the campsite. The Colorado weather had warmed enough for them to go swimming in the lake, but the water was still brisk.
“I know I don’t have to, dude. It’s just time. You have Aurora and Jordan, but I’m kind of like this weird third wheel an—”
“You’re not a third wheel. Your part of the family, as much as any of us,” Zephyr said.
Trey held up a hand. “OK, a not-third-wheel who masturbates alone while you and your crazy supermodel girlfriend retreat into your tent every night. That’s cool, too, right?”
Zephyr smiled. “So you’re gonna go look for a girlfriend? That’s the big plan?”
Aurora and Jordan had spent the morning in the garden and now they came clutching red peppers and tomatoes in both hands.
“Yeah. Plus, I have family in New York, or had — whatever. I feel like a road trip again.”
“Did you see what Jordan grew?” Aurora asked, as she and the little girl came camp-side.
Zephyr and Trey made a dramatic show of how impressed they were with this latest crop.
Fresh veggies were a big deal now. He was impressed that the girls had taken up gardening and more impressed by every new vegetable or fruit they produced. If only his regular hunting excursions were as productive. He tried not to beat himself up too much about it, but it was frustrating that he hadn’t killed a single deer yet. They lived primarily on the goods they looted and the fish he caught.
Aurora stood before them. “So what’s going on, boys?”
“Trey’s taking off,” Zephyr said. “He’s going to New York.”
“Oh.” She didn’t look surprised.
“Wait, did you know about this?”
She twirled her hair and pivoted on one foot. “OK, don’t get all pissed off, but yes. We’ve talked about it. I told Trey I wouldn’t say anything until he was ready, though.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Don’t go getting your panties in a bunch,” Trey said. “I wasn’t sure I was going to do it, so there was no point in bringing it up. But now I am.”
Aurora sighed. “And you’re going to let Zephyr in on the real reason, Trey.”
“I did. I told him because I want to check out the East Coast.”
“Nuh-uh,” she said. “Fess up.”
Zephyr turned to face him. “What’s she talking about?”
His friend rolled his eyes. “Damn it, Aurora. I told you—”
“He deserves to know.”
“You deserve to know my ass,” he said.
She stared at him, her hands on her hips. “That doesn’t even make sense, genius.”
“It sort of does, if you think about it.” The older man raked his fingers through what was left of his hair. “Fine. You win, as always.”
“Good. Start talking.”
“OK, hold on,” he said and jogged back to his tent. When he returned next, he held the portable AM/FM radio that seldom left his side these days.
“This,” he said, “is why I’m going.”
Zephyr raised an eyebrow. “An old radio?”
“Yeah. When you were out on your revenge quest back in California, when we were tracking you, I found this little bugger in an old drug store. At night, I’d turn it on, put on my headphones, and listen to anything I could find. There wasn’t a lot, but I’d usually find at least one or two songs playing.”
“One night, though,” he continued. “I heard a broadcast. National. Out of New York.”
“They’re saying they found something out there,” Aurora said.
“Hey, that was my big reveal. I was working up to that, damn it. Anyway, yes, they found something. Some kind of big white wall with weird writing all over it. Whatever the hell it is, it’s not manmade.”
“How do you know it’s not a bunch of bullshit?” Zephyr asked.
Trey considered the question. “I don’t. But it’s worth checking out.”
“And even if it’s there, then what?”
“No idea.”
Later that night, after they laid Jordan to bed in her tent, he and Aurora moved back into theirs and made quiet love. When they were finished, she asked, “Do you think we’ll ever know what happened?”
He thought about it for a long while and then said, “I don’t know that it matters. Maybe we’ll find out, maybe not, but it’s not going to change anything.”
“I’m happy you found me,” she said as she snuggled into him.
“Me too.”
Tomorrow, they would need to decide whether they were going to join Trey on this new adventure. Of course, his friend was opposed to them coming. He insisted it might be dangerous. And there was the camp and the garden to think about. The fish in the smoker. All of their supplies. But those were all considerations for the daylight. For now, he just wanted to soak in the darkness, to enjoy the moment, the warmth, and to drift.
He dreamed of great skyscrapers covered in stretching vines, and cracked, grassy highways peppered in deer and wolves. He dreamed of tattered men and women huddled over bonfires in underground railways. He dreamed of an enormous white, pulsating wall with words he couldn’t read, words that seemed to transform anew as he studied them.
And when the man’s eyes fluttered open in the morning, dim sunlight bleeding through the tent, he rolled over to touch her and smiled, because he wasn’t alone.
THE END
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