by Jordan Rivet
Esther wiped her hands on her trousers and rejoined her friends. While she tinkered with the engine, she had been thinking some things over. It was time to do what she should have done the moment they learned the men at Aguamilpa were dangerous.
“A town this size will have roads heading toward other cities, right?” she said.
“The one from the bridge looked pretty big,” Luke said.
“I bet it goes to a highway,” Wade added.
“Do you think we could find a way north?” Esther asked. “If we wanted to drive inland?”
David looked at Esther sharply. The others considered for a moment.
“Yes,” Sarita said. “A road north could be exactly what we’re looking for, especially if that truck runs.”
“We can finally get this party started,” Wade said.
“This truck won’t hold everyone,” Esther said. “Let’s see if we can find another vehicle or two in decent shape.”
Luke edged over and spoke to Esther in a low voice. “Don’t forget not to steal my girlfriend. I’ll come with you if you like.”
Esther nodded. She had been dreading this, but she knew what she had to do.
“I think you guys should go overland from here and head toward Kansas City,” Esther said. David opened his mouth, but she barreled on before he could say anything. “We’re bound to find at least one more working vehicle, and it looks like there’s a road heading toward the States. No guarantee we’ll find one at the lake. I can continue on in the motorboat with a small team. When I find my sister, I’ll bring her back here. That way you all can get on your way before winter sets in, and you can proceed with the original mission after all.”
“Makes sense to me,” Sarita said. “No offense, Esther, but I think we’re wasting time on the river. I’ve taken a look at that map of Isadora’s, and I don’t think there’s a northbound highway leading away from that lake.”
“Hold on a minute,” David said. “We all agreed to go after Esther’s sister. We can’t abandon her at the first sign of a road.”
“It wasn’t fair of me to ask you all to do this,” Esther said. “You got me pretty close, and you can continue as planned. This is too good an opportunity to pass up.”
David folded his arms. “What happens if that truck breaks down twenty miles up the road? We’ll end up walking all the way to Kansas after all. We need you, Esther.”
“My sister—”
“I know. I say we continue on the river,” David said. “Assuming the Lucinda makes it past the bridge, we keep moving and get your sister away from that crazy town. Then we sail right back here, leave the Lucinda, and head north in the trucks.”
“Look, Cap, time’s gonna run out,” Wade said. “Trekking through snowy mountains won’t be much fun.”
“I think we should head north,” Sarita said. “It is the mission.”
“No,” David said, a tic in his jaw.
“Can’t we vote?” Luke said.
“I’m making the decisions here,” David said.
Sarita arched an eyebrow and exchanged glances with Wade.
“Give us a second,” Esther said. She hooked her arm through David’s and pulled him away from the group. Wade and Sarita put their heads together, frowning at David. Ike drifted over to join them. He nodded at whatever was being said.
“Esther, it’s too soon,” David said, his usual composure slipping. “We can’t split up now.”
“We agreed on this,” Esther said. “It’s time.”
“No.”
“You can’t make that call without talking it over with the crew, remember?” Esther said. She knew this would happen eventually. She had no choice but to continue on. He had to let her go. “Don’t spoil your relationship with the crew now.”
“They’ll do what I say,” David said.
“Hey.” Esther reached up to cup his face in her hands. Concern furrowed his brow. “It’ll be okay. I have to do this, but it’s not fair to risk everyone.”
“I’ll come with you,” David said.
“You can’t do that.” Esther knew it was selfish, but she wanted him to stay with her so much.
She stood up on her toes and kissed him softly on the lips. That’s when the first skeleton walked out of the church.
Chapter 16—The Church
IKE SHRIEKED LIKE AN eel. Luke cursed and pointed his gun toward the skinny figures ambling out of the yawning church doors. There were three of them. They stumbled down the steps toward the group gathered around the truck.
“Pilgrims,” one moaned. “More pilgrims.”
“Who are you?” David asked. He held up a hand and approached the trio. Their malnourished bodies were barely clothed in scraps of fabric. Two of the three were women, but their bones had so little meat you could hardly tell. All three had limp hair hanging down past their exposed rib cages.
“Pilgrims,” the man said again, coming closer to them. “Your journey is at an end. You will find your final rest here.”
“We’re just passing through,” David said. “What can you tell us about this town?”
“Ixcuintla is the sacred town,” the man intoned. He had a cultured voice, with a slight accent. “You have come. Your journey is at an end.”
“We have food,” David said. “We can give you food and water and make sure you’re—”
“No food!” the man screamed, stumbling back from him. His eyes grew so wide they looked larger than his mouth.
The women wailed.
“No food no food no food!”
“Heretics!”
“Please,” David said. “We just want to help.”
“No food! Get thee from us, Satan.” The man reached out to hold hands with the women on either side of him. “Sisters, the tempter comes with food. I knew he would try to entice us in our final hours.”
“Quickly! We must bar the doors and deny the body!” one of the women said.
“Yes, yes,” the other intoned. “Deny the body. Deny the devil.”
“We don’t want to hurt you,” Esther said. “He’s not the devil.”
“Lies!” the man shrieked. “The devil will tempt you with food in your final hour. Long have we struggled, seeking the idols of survival and sustenance. We have been blind for too long, but no more! We have journeyed here to seek our final solace. We will not eat until the Almighty comes to reveal the truth. We are faithful. We have suffered. In the last moments we will Know, like our brothers and sisters have Known!”
Anita had crept around behind the starved trio. Esther spotted her as she disappeared through the doors of the church.
“We won’t harm you,” David said. He tried to calm the starving man, but he was growing frantic.
“We have journeyed to the sacred city! This is the final test! We are late, but we will not fail now! Almost seventeen years of death and destruction. Of fighting, fighting, fighting. Killing each other over meat and bread! But now we know the truth. We know peace. No more fighting. No more clawing for food. We are triumphant, sisters!”
He turned and began to pull the two women with him toward the church. One hesitated, looking back at Esther and the others. David reached out a hand to her.
“We can help you.”
She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head.
“Too late,” she whispered.
They climbed back up the steps toward the church doors. Anita appeared then, skirting around them with a fleeting glance before running back down the steps. The three figures disappeared into the darkness.
“They’re everywhere,” Anita said when she joined them. “Bones, bodies.”
“What kind of hell pool is this?” Wade growled.
“Must be some sort of cult,” David said. “Did you hear what he said about the idols of survival and sustenance?”
“The bodies were different ages,” Anita said. “I mean some of them looked like they died a long time ago and some were newer.”
“Guess now we know
why they call it the City of the Dead,” Luke said. “Can we go now?”
“Wait,” Esther said. “Just because a bunch of salt-addled crazies decided to starve themselves to death doesn’t mean we can’t gather some vehicles.”
“Seems kinda sacrilegious,” Ike said.
“I guess I follow the idol of survival then,” Esther said. “We need those trucks.”
“Let’s return to the Lucinda and talk it over,” David said. “It’ll be a different conversation if she can’t get past the bridge.”
No one could argue with that. They made their way back through the city, leaving the spectral church behind them. Ike fell in with Wade and Sarita and leaned close to talk to them. Anita trailed behind them, looking thoughtful.
Esther still had the keys to the big truck in her pocket, just in case. She noted other vehicles that looked mostly whole on their way back down to the river. It might take a bit of scrounging before they found enough to carry the whole team overland. They couldn’t delay.
The three figures from the church left Esther with an uneasy feeling in her stomach. What had driven them—and apparently many others—to believe starving themselves to death was the way to get answers about why this had happened to the world? She had seen people pushed to madness and despair on the sea after the disaster, the first captain of the Catalina among them. Now they knew for certain that it had been bad enough on land for other survivors to cope in extreme ways. Esther feared for Naomi. Those poor folks in the church had been harmless, but there was no telling what she had been through or who else she had encountered. There was no telling how she herself might have changed.
David walked beside Esther as they tramped back toward the river.
“You can’t ask me to let you go,” he said before she could speak. “It’s too late for that. If you continue upriver in the motorboat, I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t leave the Lucinda,” Esther said. “You’ve worked too hard on her.”
“Then I guess the Lucinda will be going upriver too.” David picked up a small green banana lying beneath a tree growing almost in the road.
“We have to let the crew decide which risks they’re willing to take.” Esther took the fruit out of David’s hand and tossed it back into the scrub. It could be poisonous. “Didn’t you teach me that?”
David frowned and picked up another fallen fruit. He turned it over and over in his hands as they approached the dock.
“Maybe you should be leading the mission after all,” he said.
Esther nudged his arm. “I’m a mechanic, not a sailor, remember?”
They pushed their way through the last bit of scrub and arrived at the river. The Lucinda had reached the opposite side of the bridge.
“Looks like we can continue on after all, if that’s what the crew wants,” David said.
“We’ll see.” It was tempting to let David have his way, but she was afraid they wouldn’t have another opportunity to actually find a route north before it was too late in the year. Wade was right. They didn’t want to get stuck trekking through snow.
The raft was still waiting for them at the weathered dock for the short jaunt back to their ship.
“Find anything in the city?” Jackson asked.
“It’s abandoned,” Esther said. “Mostly.”
“We found a truck, though,” Wade said. He looked at Esther significantly. “A real big one.”
“We need to talk,” David said. “Gather the crew as soon as we’re back on board.”
Half an hour later the crew stared each other down across the deck. David had presented them with a simple choice: river or road. A majority vote would decide the issue.
Wade and Sarita argued in favor of leaving the river behind and taking the truck up the north road. Jackson and some of the other Galaxians agreed. They knew their chances of being able to head north diminished each day. Winter would set in before they could make it to Kansas if they didn’t move soon. Much of the crew, with the exception of Esther’s friends, seemed to agree. They shifted their feet, almost unconsciously turning toward the bridge town and the north road as the discussion continued. They were eager to set off on land toward more familiar regions. Everyone wanted to find their way home somehow.
Then Anita spoke, describing what she had seen inside the church in vivid detail. She was quite poetic in her descriptions of the decimated corpses, all skin and rib cages. She made the prospect of returning to Ixcuintla distinctly less appealing. The crew shifted again, now leaning subtly away from the portside rail, edging closer to the center of the ship.
Esther couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She wanted the crew to go north. She wanted them to carry on their original mission and not risk coming within reach of the Big Man at Aguamilpa. At the same time she was unable to voice the argument that would send David and her friends away from her.
“Would anyone else like to speak before we vote?” David asked. Then with barely a pause he turned to Esther’s father. “Simon? How about you?”
A hush fell over the crowd as they watched Simon limp to the center of the deck. Esther already knew what he would say. Instead of watching him, she studied the faces of the crew. She knew her father wouldn’t ask them to continue risking themselves on account of his family when there was an opportunity for them to travel overland safely. There was too strong a chance the people at Aguamilpa would be hostile if what Emilio had told them was true. Simon was a good man. He had always been less selfish than Esther. He had always been willing to make hard choices.
“I can’t ask you to help me find my daughter,” Simon said. “You’ve already gotten us so close, and I think if some members of the crew would like to continue on land they should be allowed to. Thank you for your help so far. I . . . I had given up on my daughter and my wife long ago. Now the impossible has happened, and I may be able to help one of them after all. This simple chance is already an incredible gift. I can’t ask any more of you.”
No one spoke after he finished. Jackson shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. Sarita looked uncertain, her eyes a bit misty. Others in the crew seemed to want to step closer, to put their hands on Simon’s shoulders and offer him their help and support.
David nodded, a shadow of triumph crossing his face before he controlled his features. Oh, he knew what he was doing.
“I like Simon’s suggestion that some people continue on the road while the rest sail onward,” he said. Simon raised an eyebrow at this interpretation of his words, but he didn’t dispute it. “Shall we vote? Let’s say a line stretches from the corner of the pilothouse to the tip of the prow. If you want to continue on land, step to the side nearest Ixcuintla. If you want to help Simon find his daughter, step to the other side. Take as much time as you need.”
David stepped directly to starboard, the side furthest from the bridge town, and waited.
A few people moved immediately. Zoe, Luke, Cody, Anita, Cally. Esther’s friends knew their mission wasn’t over yet. But some moved to the other side too. Jackson and Wade both took up positions on the port side, nearer the bridge town. It occurred to Esther that one of them would probably be able to fix the truck if needed later on down the road.
Sarita took longer to decide, but she joined her fellow Galaxians on the port side. Raymond followed her, along with a handful of others.
Ike Newton glanced fleetingly at Simon and then gritted his teeth and joined the road team. Perhaps Ike saw this as his chance to break away on his own. He looked at Simon apprehensively, but Simon just nodded and gave him a small smile.
“Would anyone like to change their minds before we count?” David asked.
No one moved.
He opened his mouth to announce the official decision. Then Dax stepped forward and crossed the line, declaring his intention to join the road team. Cally let out a little gasp. That was a surprise. Dax looked miserable about it. He shifted uncomfortably, tugging at the spikes in his hair. Raymond patted him on the back.
Eight crew members had voted to turn onto the north road and head inland. The remaining twenty-one—plus Isadora—would continue on to the lake.
“It looks like the majority has spoken,” David said. “The Lucinda will sail upriver as planned. Those of you who voted for the road, do you plan to split here and continue to Kansas City on your own?”
The group put their heads together for a moment.
“Yes,” Jackson said. “No hard feelings, mate, but I think it’s time.”
“I agree,” David said. “We’ll outfit you with supplies and fuel to get you started.”
“Let’s get to it,” Wade said.
Esther felt conflicted as they prepared packs for the group that would take the road. She had wanted more of the crew to join them, but David had used Simon’s popularity to keep the majority with the Lucinda. She was sure many of them would have voted to go the other way if it weren’t for him. Guilt twisted within her. She was letting David abandon his dream of traveling to Kansas City to keep him with her. She was allowing the team to get further off course in service of her own private rescue mission. She couldn’t keep doing this, putting others at risk for her own ends. If the Lake People truly were hostile and hurt any of the crew, she could never forgive herself.
Esther enlisted Anita to help prepare the portable water filters they’d send with the land crew. They made sure the charcoal filters still worked and packed them up again in a hard plastic suitcase they had found floating on the sea long ago.
“Can I ask you a question?” Esther asked her friend as they completed the task. Even though she had known Anita for the same length of time as Zoe, she still didn’t feel like she really understood her. It was always hard to tell what was going on in her head.
Anita nodded, her brown hair swinging against her delicate chin.
“Why did you decide to come on this mission even though Toni changed her mind?”
Anita looked up and studied the sleek iron shape of the Lucinda. She was quiet for so long Esther worried she wouldn’t answer. Anita’s sister, Eva, had died on this ship, Esther remembered. She, too, must have mixed feelings about the voyage—and about the potential costs.