by Wenner, Jody
"Anything?" I ask her as we reach the barrel and duck behind it.
"Nothing. Seems safe. We might as well head in and check it out." She is standing behind me, both of us facing toward the little town.
"Not until we meet back at the road," I say, turning back to look at her.
"Is it time?" She sounds impatient, like she has a date she has to meet.
"Just about," I say, checking my watch and looking around one last time. Everything is still quiet.
"K, let's go," Harlow says.
I start walking and don't look back, but assume Harlow is following behind me when someone grabs me. Before I can scream, a hand clasps over my mouth and I feel cold metal press against my neck.
Slowly, I turn my neck as much as I can to see who my captor is.
The only one behind me is Harlow.
She's also the one pointing a gun at me. I start to kick and twist and scream into her hand, but she pulls the safety off the gun.
I freeze. "One more outburst like that and I shoot, got it?" she says. I nod.
Still holding tightly to the gun, she pulls a scarf from her pack and ties it around my mouth. She grabs my arm with her newly freed up hand and leads me back to the road. I can just barely make out Regina and Frankie sitting on the edge of the road from behind my wet eyes. They stand up when we approach.
"What the hell is going on?" Frankie yells. "Zane!"
"Shut up!" Harlow hisses at her.
"You okay, Bek?" Frankie says, running toward me.
"Stop there," Harlow says, "or I'll kill her."
Frankie stops. "Why?" she asks, backing off.
Then we see Zane, jogging from the other side. Harlow twists me around so the two of us are facing him. When he figures out what he's looking at, he starts to run full speed like he is about to bulldoze us until Harlow yells, "Zane. If you don't want your little girlfriend dead, you will stop right where you are and listen."
"What's going on?" he pleads. "Why are you doing this?"
"I'm under orders, you idiot."
"Orders from who?"
"I'm a Southie, Zane. A spy. I've been targeting you. First they wanted you to lead us to Allen and now I get to kill you too."
"That doesn't make any sense. Why does the South want to kill Northerners trying to stop the war?"
"It was a trade agreement. They gave us you, we gave up ours. They want the whole lot of ya gone. They don't want peace and certainly don't want Northerners and Southerners working together. Too much control. Too much knowledge."
"If you know all of this, then why do you want to help them? You're smarter than that, Harlow."
I can feel her fingers tighten around me and the gun push just a little deeper into my neck.
Zane
"Why don't you just put the gun down and we can keep going, find something better than all of that," I say. Just keep talking, I tell myself. I look past Harlow and Bekka where my Mom is standing. Frankie has left her side and is slowly creeping toward Harlow from behind.
"I thought you just said I was smart, Zane. What kind of fool do you take me for? You don't think I know that the minute my back would turn, you'd kill me?"
"I'm not a killer," I say, but I'm focused on my gun in the holster on my belt.
"Besides, I happen to like Sacto. You wouldn't have found anything but broken dried up towns like this out here. You're chasing a dream..."
Frankie leaps on her and the three of them become a pile of commotion. Dust and arms are flying. I pull my gun and run, but before I get there, Harlow's gun fires. My mom screams. Then there is a second shot, but it's not from Harlow, it's from me. Harlow drops to the ground. Blood starts to soak through her runner's uniform from her mid-section.
The two girls back away. Standing over Harlow, I kick her gun from her hands. She is breathing heavy. Her face is tight. Her eyes lock with mine and I see her mouth open, trying to form words. I aim again, this time for her chest, and pull the trigger. The life drains from her face but her eyes stay focused on me, even after I know she's gone.
I look over at Frankie and Bekka standing in a huddle. Frankie is untying the scarf from around Bekka's mouth.
"Are you guys okay?" I ask, checking them over from head to foot.
"We're fine. She shot into the air," Frankie manages to get out.
Bekka rushes toward me and I clasp my arms around her, dropping my gun to the ground as I do.
"Is everyone okay?" My mom asks as she approaches.
"Yes. You?" I ask, pulling away from Bekka to make sure.
"Yes."
There is silence except the sound of our heavy breathing. I turn and walk away.
Chapter 39
Bekka
"Well, I think it's safe to assume if anybody was in that town, we would have gotten their attention," Frankie says to me because she knows I'm wrestling with the fact that Zane has disappeared into it.
We are all safe. I keep repeating that to myself. Everyone is safe. Except Harlow, or whatever her real name was. The thing that upsets me the most is not that I could have been killed, but the look on Zane's face after the whole thing was done.
"I'm going to go after him," I tell Frankie and Regina and run toward the town.
When I finally see him, I yell, "Hey!" He doesn't stop. I keep going until I reach him.
I grab his shoulder until he stops and turns numbly. He stares through me.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"No. I'm not. I just killed someone."
"That person back there wasn't the person you knew, Zane. She was acting. She was not a good person."
"She was still a person!"
"She was going to kill us!"
"I know. I just want to be alone right now. Go with Frankie and check out some of the buildings on the other side." He turns and keeps walking.
"K." There's nothing else I can say. I trot back to Frankie and we enter the town together.
"Is he alright?" she asks.
"I don’t think so."
"He will be."
"I hope so."
"Let's get in and find whatever we can and get back on the road."
"Okay."
"I've got Harlow's gun, so stick close...just in case."
"Right. Frankie?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you're here."
"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."
Before we enter the first building, Frankie reaches for my hand.
After rifling through four places, we head back to the street. Regina is dozing with her head resting on her pack and one of her shirts draped over her face to protect it from the sun. We sit down and inspect our finds; a few cans of food, some matches and an old, rusty pocket knife.
Regina wakes and sits up. I give her some water. We don't have much left. I look around, hoping Zane comes back soon. Frankie gets up, takes a deep breath and heads toward the body, now engulfed in black flies.
"What's she doing?" Regina asks.
"No clue."
We watch as she plugs her nose and removes the pack from around Harlow's waist and returns with it. She sits down on the ground next to me and dumps the contents of the pack into the dirt in front of us.
"Some tools, a map, a notebook, and water."
I look at her.
"What? She won't be needing it anymore, but we will."
I nod.
Finally, I see Zane walking toward us.
"Find anything?" I ask him.
"A little." He sets a few boxes of food items down. "You?"
I point to the pile in front of us. He nods.
"Time to go," he says.
A few days pass in a hot, thirst-ridden haze. My feet don't even feel like they belong to me anymore, they are so numb. We've seen a few towns that were more or less copies of the first one. No people and no apparent water source. Our own supply is now gone. I'm weak and tired, but I refuse to give up. I just keep thinking about LeRoy. I have to believe he wasn't crazy and that we are g
oing to find some kind of civilization out here.
One afternoon, as we stop to rest, I slide down to the ground. I'm well beyond worried about Zane. He has barely spoken since the incident with Harlow. But then, none of us have. I lie on my side and focus on the weird spiky plant next to me. It has some red things growing from the shoots. They are pretty, almost like the fake flowers that were planted in the City Center, but they have sharp needles protruding from them. I close my eyes and I hear LeRoy's voice inside my head. He is saying, "Eat the plants with thistle, they will wet your whistle."
My eyes shoot open. I sit up and look at the plant again. "Guys!"
"Hmm?" Frankie half moans in her exhaustion.
"Plants with thistles! Frankie, where's that knife?"
She digs through her pack and hands it to me. "What are you doing?"
"LeRoy wrote about these plants." I slice one open, avoiding the needles. It oozes with a liquid. "This will keep us hydrated! Here, try it."
I peel away the dark green outer shell and we both pop it into our mouths.
"It's good!" Frankie says.
I peel more and pass it to Zane and Regina.
"Amazing, Bekka! Good job," Gina says.
Zane puts his in his mouth and quietly chews.
Later that night, we build a fire so we can heat some of the canned food we have. Frankie uses the tools from Harlow's pack to open a can. She sniffs it, then sets it in the coals. We wait. The air feels a little cool, like it could rain.
"We should leave our water bottles set out tonight in case it rains," I say.
I can see Frankie and Regina nod through the shadow of the flames. Zane doesn’t budge. He looks like he’s in some kind of trance.
After the food, I feel a little spark of energy come back to me. I say, "Zane, can I talk to you, please? In private."
I take his hand and half drag him away and we sit on the side of the road, in the dark.
"You need to snap out of this...thing, whatever it is," I demand.
"I can't," he says.
"I didn't finally come around to the realization that I've loved you my whole life, just to have you shut down on me."
"It's just a lot, you know?"
"I do know, but listen, we are together and we have a chance. We need to try, okay? Promise me we'll try?"
"I'm not giving up," he says and I hear just a little bit of the Zane I know in his voice.
"Good."
Zane
Sleep is difficult even though I've never been more tired or wanted it as much, just to block out the ugliness in my head. But when I close my eyes, I still see Harlow's empty eyes staring up at me. I told Bekka I would try to move on from this and I'm sure I will, someday. Today is not that day. So much has happened and even though I have my loved ones with me, things still feel bleak. I don't have as much confidence as Bekka does about what we are going to find out here. So far, it's just been pain and suffering. No different than in Sacto.
As I stare up at the sky, I can see the stars get devoured by clouds. Rain would be good. The juice from the plants has helped, but refilling our water bottles is important if we want to keep going in this heat. I decide to give up on sleep and sit up.
My mom stirs from where she was curled up and comes over to sit down next to me. "I think rain is on the way," she says softly, obviously not wanting to wake the girls.
"Seems like it. You should be resting."
"I can't sleep."
I nod. A silent understanding spreads out between me and my mother. I tuck my head
between my bent knees and take a deep breath.
My mom finally says, "Zane, no matter what happens, I'm glad we left."
"Even if we find nothing and dry up out here like the rest of the world?"
"Yes."
"Why?" I turn to look at her but only see a small dark mass now that the clouds have
covered the remaining light overhead.
"Because... at least dying out here is on our own terms. They didn't win. We get to be in
control of what happens to us." There is more quiet. "I know you're in pain because of what you had to do back there, but…"
"I never wanted to do that."
"I know, son, but Harlow didn't get a chance to make her own choices. She was still letting them control her. You did what had to be done."
I take in what she's saying. "I wish I didn't have to do that though," I say finally, still not really finding the right words to sort out the chaos happening inside my head.
"If you hadn't, there was no way we could have gone on safely. You did what you needed to do to protect us. Remember, she killed your father."
This fact hits me hard. "I'm so sorry about Dad."
"Me too."
"I just wanted you two to reunite, to get a chance to get to know each other again, like I did."
"Maybe it's better this way. Maybe it wouldn't have worked. I hadn't seen him in such a long time. Maybe we were just too old and different at this point. This way I can dream it turned out however I want."
"I don't know how you can be so positive all the time."
"Again, it's because I choose it. I have that control, nobody else. A defense, perhaps, but
it got me through each day. You have a choice too, you know? You can let that stuff back there go. Remember when we were talking back at the base, a lifetime ago now, and I told you that life is going to throw you curveballs?"
"Sure."
"We've been thrown one, but all we can do is keep going. Move forward. That's the only way to survive. We have to let all of that other stuff go and push ahead."
"I guess," I say.
I guess I must have fallen asleep at some point, because early in the morning I wake to a rumble of thunder and then rain begins to fall. It actually pours wet, cool, thirst-quenching rain. The girls laugh and cry as they watch the empty water bottles fill. We cup our hands and slurp up every last drop we can get. It feels really good to cleanse away the dirt and sweat from my body. I wish everything else could run off me like the raindrops.
Chapter 40
Bekka
The rain has given me new drive to find whatever is at the end of this long road. Once it begins to slow to a trickle, we pack up and start moving again. Frankie is walking with Regina in front of us. I can hear them reminiscing about Zander again, like old friends. Zane and I walk behind them.
I say, "What do you think we'll find at the end of this?"
He shrugs. "I can't help but wonder if what Harlow said is true. Maybe there's nothing but dried up hopes and dreams."
I take his hand. "I think that's what she wanted to believe. That's not what I believe."
"What do you think then?"
"I don't know what we'll find, but I’ll tell you what I want to find."
"Okay," he says.
"I want to find a place where people are happy and free. You never know, maybe we'll finally find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow." I nudge him, trying to get a smile, but I know not to wish that hard. "What do you want to find? I mean, if you could find anything in the world at the end of Highway 61, what would it be?"
"I'm not sure. I'm not like you. I've never held out hope for anything. I never think there's a possibility for good things."
"Try. For me. Just this once. Close your eyes and tell me what you see."
I don’t expect him to say anything, but after a bit he says, "Okay. I see you and me together."
"You have that already. See? Right here." I pull his hand and hold it up in between us as we walk to show him. He just nods but I still see the hurt and pain on his face; I still see all of the doubt. Regina told me to give him time. I know she's right, but we've waited so long already.
After a few hours, we notice the air seems to change a bit. There's a new, unfamiliar smell. It's sort of pungent, yet holds a dampness that is different than that of the rain from earlier.
"Do you smell that?" I ask him, taking in another nostril full.
>
"Yeah. What is it?"
"I'm not sure."
We start to see some strange white birds flying overhead. Then we begin hearing some noises, faint at first, but it's funny how quiet it had been on the open road, compared to the city, and one doesn't forget what the sounds of civilization are like. I start to feel light as air. We're walking toward something, I'm sure of it. I start to pick up my pace, even though my body feels weak. Soon several dark outlines start coming into focus.
And then I see something I've waited a lifetime for--trees. Real ones. Growing up right alongside of the road. I stop and touch one. I wrap my arms around it. It's thin and tall and smells like nothing I've ever smelled before.
"It's amazing," I say to the others, standing beside me.
"I think those are houses," Frankie says, looking way off to the side of the road.
"We're close now," Regina says. "Let's keep going."
As we near the end of the road, it starts to break up and the brown sand that had been covering our path starts to turn to white and that's when we see it. It's not a pot of gold. It's bigger and better than any coins. A blue vastness spilling out like we've reached the end of the world. It's just like the dream I had.
"He was right," I say almost under my breath.
"Whoa!" Zane exclaims.
We start running toward it, all four of us. Once we are close, we collapse into this soft, white substance. None of us knows what to do, so we just stare out. Water as far as the eye can see. I want to cry I'm so excited. We made it. We're going to be okay. I turn to Zane to tell him so, but I see his face and he's no longer smiling. His shoulders are tight and his face is tense. He is looking at something approaching. There are people making their way toward us, coming from the cluster of houses not too far away. I'd failed to notice them because all I could see was the water. Now I saw them. Two men and a woman. We all stand again.
"Hi," the taller of the two men calls as they approach.
I step forward. Zane grabs my forearm, but I don't stop. "A man named LeRoy sent us. Do you know him? Is he here?" I blurt out before Zane pulls me back behind him.