Years After Series | Book 1 | Nine Years After

by Clary, LeRoy

  She roamed the area and her eyes finally came to rest on a barren peak to the north. Most of it was solid gray granite with little vegetation other than a few stunted spots of green. It was steep, intimidating, and I could see no reason for anyone to ever go there. It was perfect.

  From up on the side of the cliff, if we only climbed high enough to see over hill separating it from where the couple was staying in the next valley, we could watch with little danger of being seen. When they left, we’d go another direction.

  On the way, we paused long enough to roll our tent tightly, gather our sleeping bags and other belongings, and inspect the area to make sure we left few clues as to where we went.

  As seemed to be the new norm, Mayfield took the lead. I noticed she also stepped on hard rock, avoided passing close to shrubs or trees, and my eyes found few signs of her passing. Her foot turned over a small rock and the damp side was darker, but that would soon dry. I moved as carefully as her but turned the rock back to its regular position before continuing.

  Not that we expected the couple camped over the next hill to find our campsite and track us, nor did I consider them a danger. From our vantage, with our superior weapons, we ruled our little empire.

  However, we needed to learn the rules of living above ground and observation is a great way to find out. We’d already learned not to expose our skin to the sun for long periods. We wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  While we knew there was far more to learn about tracking and avoiding being tracked, we were not so careless as the first few days when we trampled everything without consideration. Instead of winning a future battle with our rifles, we wanted to avoid them, to move as quietly as a soft breeze that is hardly noticed.

  Mayfield slowed. She watched over her shoulder as we climbed a steep section. Then she paused and looked around for something. To our left was a little section of a shelf of rock with a flat surface, barely large enough for two bodies to fit side by side.

  From there, we could watch below unseen, into the next valley. Below that ledge was a flat place of soft grass where we could set up our tent out of sight.

  We didn’t believe they would come our way. There seemed to be no reason to ever climb up to our perch, so we felt relatively safe. However, we didn’t want to remain there day after day, either. We still had things to do and learn.

  My backpack was noticeably less bulky from the amount of dried food we’d eaten. Even the number of tasteless power-bars were fewer. We were going to have to begin providing food for ourselves. We had no idea how to do that—at least, I didn’t. Mayfield might.

  We set up our tent while avoiding making any sounds that might carry into the valley below. Every hour or so, one of us climbed to the small lookout spot above and watched the others through binoculars. We could discern no reason for them being there. They were not hunting or fishing, and they were not searching for plants that provided medicine. If anything, they made far too much noise and their fire burned all day long, sending smoke high into the sky.

  There were other things we observed that we could put to use.

  The purpose of the huge log the man had dragged to the firepit became obvious when they fed their fire by placing the center of the log over it. At first, that looked silly. The flames burned upward and eventually separated the log in half. At that time, they pushed the two ends further into the fire and from then on, had to add far less wood during the night as they repeated the process. Push-wood, we named it.

  It was that sort of thing we didn’t know. Push-wood. Hundreds, thousands, of small details. If we were to survive, we needed to learn, and learn fast.

  Mayfield said softly, “I’ve been thinking.”

  I was sitting on top of my sleeping bag, which was outside the tent in the open air, but not directly in the sun. My skin was still tender and strips of it were peeling off, exposing even more tender flesh below. Instead of answering directly, I turned to face her.

  She said, “There is so much for us to we need to know. Maybe we can pull off a bit of subterfuge. What if we find someone to teach us as you said? Not kidnap but exchange our work for the information. We could tell them we traveled a great distance to get here and don’t know the local customs. Think that might work?”

  The next words spilled from my mouth as if I couldn’t stop them, “Sure. We could tell them that where we come from nobody knows to stay out of the sun, so their skin doesn’t hurt for days, and while we’re at it, nobody gathers food where we live because it is all provided, so we don’t know how to do it. And we can’t make clothes, but we have new ones. And we can make up some story about how we have ammo and new weapons.”

  She was scowling. “Stop, I get it.”

  Swallowing my temper and pride, I said, “Forgive me. You’re right. The best way to learn to survive up here is to have someone teach us. Now, we need to find a way to make that work. Your idea stunk, but there should be a way.”

  She ignored me and my outburst. While she didn’t exactly smile, her face softened. “We, meaning you and me, also have to decide what we’re going to do up here on the surface of our beautiful world. For me, I am not going to spend my life guarding the entrance to the sanctuary that evicted me. I owe them nothing else. They were willing to kill me to continue their power over the other residents.”

  “For me, I believe they owe us, after the incident, we don’t talk about.” It was amazing how our minds worked so much the same. “While you were up there on the cliff watching below, I was studying the maps again. I believe I know where we are, and roughly where the other seventeen underground locations are. From what I gathered from Mitch, more than one has been broken into and everyone in it killed but I don’t know which ones have escaped detection.”

  “How many are within . . . say a walk of ten days from here?”

  “That’s hard to determine. I mean, if we could just walk straight there, I think there are three. But two are near heavily populated areas. Between here and there are farms, I guess. Maybe towns and whole cities. Even thousands of people. It will only take one to recognize where we came from and tell others to spread the word. There is a good chance we’d never reach the first shelter because of their hate for our people.”

  “Your ideas?”

  She didn’t seem offended, but sometimes it is hard to tell. I went on as if all was well. “The sanctuaries have been there for nine years without our help. A little longer won’t hurt them.”

  “I can see that. And agree.”

  “We use the time to learn our way around up here, months, maybe more. I’m so stupid about what happens on the surface, I don’t even know what I don’t know.”

  She laughed. That was the first time since the gunfight that we promised not to talk about and tried not to think about. “That was the perfect way to say it. We don’t know what we don’t know—and we don’t know how to learn what we need to know if you want to get ridiculous.”

  “The bottom line is, we can’t figure it all out by ourselves. We need help. And that supposes we believe we somehow owe a debt to people in sanctuaries we’ve never met and don’t know exactly where they are. The people there face the same obstacles we face, and maybe more. Is it up to us to set them free?” Her tone had hardened. “I don’t even like the words coming from my mouth.”

  I gave a half shrug, ready to go along with whatever she decided. Being smarter had its disadvantages. I got to follow her lead.

  She mused while rubbing her chin as if she had a beard. In another time and place, it would have been funny. She said, “That presupposes both you and I are going to try and help the other sanctuaries. Nobody told us we had to do that, and I won’t hold you to do what I believe I have to.”

  “Meaning?” I asked, knowing the answer before she spoke.

  “I would love to follow Mitch and Adam east to live in Montana until all this is over. With a little luck, I’m certain we could find them, maybe even catch up and travel together. They already know our
story and have accepted us. It would be so easy to do that.”

  “But?”

  “I couldn’t live with myself. Honestly, I couldn’t do it.”

  “Even if you promised yourself that after you learn the ways of living in Montana, you could come back and go in search of the sanctuaries in two or three years and have a better chance of helping them?

  She was quiet for a long while, and probably thinking about my suggestion, which could easily stretch into six or ten years. Or never. She came to her decision. “I can’t do that, either. In my mind, I see us living in Deep Hole and imagine someone from one of the other sanctuaries that got out of theirs, found what the world is like up here, and wonder if that person did not come to rescue us. In that scenario, we would still believe the surface was a vast wasteland and we’d remain below for generations, or until we died out from population shrinkage. I will not put others in that situation.”

  “It may have happened already. There may be people from sanctuaries living in the next village. For all we know.”

  She closed her eyes and swayed from one side to the other as she hummed a nameless tune, lost in her internal thoughts and feelings. I’d seen her work out problems in the same manner and knew to interrupt her would only start a fight I’d lose.

  I quietly climbed to the ridge and watched the couple below. While doing that, I compared them to us. It was not that they were smarter. They had been taught how to live in the world we walked. They had snared two rabbits, skinned them, and used sticks to make a rotisserie to cook the meat. The rabbit fur hung on a branch for some reason, perhaps as a warning to other nearby rabbits.

  Those were the first rabbits we’d seen outside of a book. We didn’t know their habits, how to make a snare or trap for them, and had never killed one. Hell, I’d never seen one. I’d probably mess up cooking the things in some unknown manner, even if I managed to catch one.

  A glance behind had Mayfield up and moving around, doing mindless work like clearing the leaves from in front of the tent entrance. It was her way of thinking.

  I turned my attention back to the others. They worked as a team. Sometimes they worked apart, but more often than not, they did things together and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

  Mayfield was not in sight when I looked for her again. That was not a good idea. She should know better, even when angry with me or while problem-solving. I’d been on the ridge for a long time and had expected her to relieve me. She needed to do her share.

  We had to learn to work like the pair below, and she needed to understand that principle. I went down to the tent and peeked inside. She was not there. Nor was she in the small clearing. I searched the shadows under the trees, thinking she might be gathering firewood.

  “Over here,” a gruff voice that didn’t belong to Mayfield called softly.

  I spun around. In the shadows, standing before the trunk of a tree was a man who remained so still, he might have been part of the tree. He waited and watched from perhaps a hundred feet from me. As I peered at him and my eyes adjusted to the deep shadows, details revealed themselves.

  He was tall, thin, dressed in drab colors that blended in with the forest, and there was no sign of Mayfield near him. He wore a brown hat, and carried a rifle loosely in his right hand, the barrel pointed directly at my chest. His grip allowed his finger to rest on the trigger.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “I haven’t decided if’n I’m gonna tell you. Not yet, anyhow.” His voice was lilting, almost amused within the country accent. “I may just shoot your ass and skip the small-talk.”

  There were certainly clever things others may have said in response to the same circumstances. None of them came to mind. I managed to say, “You don’t know who you are?”

  A throaty chuckle was followed by, “I know my name, but not my profession, as of now. It might be easiest for you to think of me as a kidnapper-for-ransom, today. Or a thief who kills those who don’t do what he says.”

  “You have Mayfield.” It was not a question. My jaw clenched. My angry fingers curled into fists.

  “Stupid name for a girl. How much will your people pay for her return?”

  “Pay?”

  “Give me a few new guns like hers. Say ten. And ammo. Lots of ammo.” He paused for a moment and cocked his head as if calculating. “I’m thinking a dozen rifles and a thousand rounds to go with the pistols since she’s so pretty. What do you have to say about that?”

  It was my turn to laugh. “They kicked us out from down there. They won’t pay a single used bullet for either of us.”

  The barrel of his gun drifted away from me.

  My rifle had been in camp. Probably still was unless he took it, which was likely. My pistol was on my hip. I considered shooting him. All I had to do was lift the Velcro flap that kept in secure, pull it free and swing it around my body to train on him before pulling the trigger and hoping to strike him. I would have to do that in the amount of time it took him to move his barrel two inches in my direction and pull his trigger. Not a good bet.

  Their weapons were supposed to be of poor quality. Looking at the end of the rifle I knew it only had to work once.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said. “You were down in one of those underground tanks that locked out everyone else, right? You were living like kings while the rest of us scrounged for rotten apples to eat. Even now, you won’t share and that has got my anger churnin’.”

  He didn’t sound very intelligent. His demeanor was like one of an overbearing mechanic that used to work on the life support systems in Deep Hole. When he wanted some inanimate object that he was working on to be a certain way, he expected it to bend to his wishes, no matter how unreasonable. More than once, we’d listened to him talking to pipes, or electrical connections. Not fixing them, just talking and threatening them—as if they were alive.

  Leaks were told to stop dripping. Electrical connections to mend themselves or he would get angry with them and they would be sorry. It had been all very funny for years until the morning he’d killed himself. Nobody knew exactly why. Some said he had threatened a water pump to either work or he’d kill it. Both were found dead, right beside each other, the pump and man.

  Our captor had the same sort of wild look about him.

  “We’re just trying to survive, like you,” I told him evenly.

  “You asked who I am but haven’t said who you are.”

  “Danner,” I answered quickly. “And my friend is, Mayfield.”

  “Those are your names, but who are you? Where do you come from?”

  He already knew most of the answers. Lying might set him off and he’d kill one or both of us. I spoke softly to calm him, “You’re right. We used to live in a sanctuary underground. They got mad at us. We don’t know why. I guess that because they sent us up here to die. Yes, they gave us a few guns and things, but they locked the door and we can never go back. We’re just like you.”

  “Where is this door?”

  “No idea,” I said as firmly as possible, then relented and continued when his eyes squinted and the barrel of his rifled moved back in my direction. “I don’t even know where we are now. We’ve been wandering around up here for seven or eight days. I can’t even tell you the direction of the door, but believe me, if I could, I would. I’d even help you find it and help you break it down.”

  “After that rain, all your tracks are washed out. Stumbled on you by accident.” He sounded disappointed.

  “Accident?” The word slipped out as my mind wondered what sort of an accident would allow him to stumble over us. “You were not following us?”

  “Yup, accidental as hell. I was watching that pair of strangers in the next valley. Just like you were. Decided to get high up and watch from here and what’d I find? You two doin’ the same damn thing.”

  “Why were you watching them?”

  He rolled his eyes in disgust. “Just told you I take stuff from ot
hers.”

  A thief. My opinion of him went down as if that mattered. I had never liked thieves. However, it gave me a few ideas. His greed could be exploited. The other was that he had no regard for Mayfield and me. He would kill us at the slightest provocation.

  We could do no less to him.

  I said, “Listen, why don’t we split what we have with you. Maybe you can help us to learn to live up here in return. That sounds like a good trade?”

  He laughed gruffly. “You listen to me,” he thumped his chest with his fist, “I already got all the crap you used to have. Why should I share it with you?”

  I felt the weight of my pistol on my hip. Could he be that stupid to leave me with a weapon in plain sight?

  As if tempting me to make a move, he turned the rifle to point down the hill. “Let’s go see your girlfriend and let her do some talking. She’d better give me the same story as you.”

  He was ready to kill. He had our belongings. My pistol meant nothing, secured as it was in the holster, the wide Velcro tab preventing it from falling out. He was daring me. Testing me. I kept my hand well away from the gun and the ripping noise the flap would make if I tried to unfasten it.

  When we entered the clearing, Mayfield stood there, waiting. She turned her body so I could see her hands tied behind. Her wrists were bound with what looked like rusty wire. Tall and thin, she stood relaxed, only her smoldering eyes revealing anger.

  The eyes had cried, and a red swelling on her forehead hadn’t been there a while ago. She didn’t speak. Not out loud. But her body language told me plenty.

  Mayfield half-turned and shifted positions. Her left hip was facing us. Her knees were bent, one foot shuffled ahead of the other. The upper part of her body was twisted around at her waist like a coiled spring. Her weight shifted to her rear foot.

  I knew the position well. Sarge had taught us to fight for years, almost daily. She was my regular opponent. She stood ready to launch a roundhouse kick that would terminate in her heel striking the side of our captor’s face. If completed, bones would break. Not hers.