by Jon Cronshaw
Abel walks over to her and places a hand on her shoulder. “You are a good person, Sis. You just need people around you.” He gestures behind him. “We should keep going.”
Sis takes Abel's hand and they walk along the highway together, not speaking.
AS THEY APPROACH THE entrance to the Grid, Sis stops and points. “Sal waiting.”
Abel squints at the blur in the distance, marching forward until her shape comes towards them, jogging.
“Thank God you're back,” Sal says, almost breathless. “I was praying for you all.”
Sal looks past Abel. “Where's Jacob?”
Abel opens his palms and shakes his head. “They took him, Sal. There was nothing we could have done.”
A breath catches in Sal’s throat. “What happened?”
“Jacob opened the shutters and it must've drawn them out. A couple of them came. They got him. I think they've taken him hostage.”
Sal tugs at her hair and glances over her shoulder towards the Grid. “For Heaven’s sake, what are we going to do?”
Abel shrugs. “All I know is they’ve got Jacob and they’re better armed than they were.”
“They've got the weapons too?”
Abel nods. “Sorry, Sal.”
“I could have shot them.” Sis says, staring off. “Abel not want me to.”
“What should we do?” Sal asks.
There's a long pause and Abel looks down at the ground. “I don't know.”
“Don't you think you should think of something?”
Abel raises his hands and goes to walk away.
“Wait,” Sal says, grabbing his shoulder. “Wait.” Her voice softens. “Please.”
“Damn it, Sal. You can't keep putting stuff like this on me.”
“I'm sorry. It's just...” She gives Abel a haunted look. “I can just see everything falling apart around us. I feel so powerless.”
“We should get a group of us to try to get Jacob back.”
“I'll come.”
Abel snorts. “And do what?”
“They sent an envoy. We could do the same. I could tell them about the farms, how to manage the animals, how to rotate the seeds in the fields.”
“For what?”
“Exchange the knowledge for Jacob. I can offer to help them keep Trinity running, without us.”
“You think they’ll want to talk?”
“I don't see why not. They don't know what Jacob’s skills are. They’ve got no reason to kill him. We can talk to their leader and try to see if we can reason with him.”
Abel shakes his head. “You sure that's what you want to do?”
“Yes.”
“What if we hit another bug swarm or a dust storm?” He offers her a grim smile and sighs. “I’m worried about you, Sal. You don't seem to be coping well with this at all.”
“If you are talking about the other night—”
“Don't,” Abel raises his hands, turning his head away. “Just leave it. It's not about that. It's everything. You cut off your locks.”
Sal reaches up and tugs at her hair. “There were too many bugs,” she says. “I didn't know what to do. I'll get used to things.”
Abel lets out a deep breath. “Okay,” he says, shrugging. “When do you want to leave?”
“Now.”
“I go find David,” Sis says, walking away.
“Damn it, Sal. We’ve just got back from there.”
Sal’s eyes narrow. “Now,” she snaps.
SAL WALKS AT ABEL’S right, skirting the highway’s edge. Sis and David walk several metres behind them, pushing each other and giggling.
“I can't believe you lived out here for so long and survived,” Sal says.
Abel takes in the bare earth, the blast craters, the foundations of long destroyed buildings. “I wouldn’t live here,” he says, frowning. “This is too open—no trees, no life. You need food, water, and somewhere to keep you warm and dry—there’s none of that here.”
“Is it better where you are?”
“You mean my garage?” Able shrugs. “I guess. There are more things growing. There’s a lot of dead trees, but a lot of them are still alive.”
“I'd like to see it.”
“See what?”
“Where you live. David was telling me you've been fixing it up over the past year. It sounds like you made yourself quite the little home.”
Abel stiffens and looks at the ground. “I don't know, Sal. It’s a hard journey. I'm not sure if you’d cope.”
Sal stops and glares at Abel. “Why would you say that?”
“Say what? Just being realistic. You nearly had a meltdown, and that was just half-a-day's walk. You're talking an extra day's travel. Finding somewhere to sleep halfway. Not wanting to be disrespectful.” Abel looks around. “All I'm saying is you’ve had it too good at Trinity. You're not used to being out here. You don't have what it takes to survive. That’s nothing against you, that’s just how it is.”
“You could teach me.”
“I've got my life to live, Sal. I need to get ready for winter.”
“Just go then,” Sal snaps. “Leave me. I thought you cared.”
Abel shakes his head as Sal looks up at him with teary eyes.
“I'm not going to leave you until you’re safe. Let's try to stay focused.”
Sal nods.
“Things like that aren’t going to help you survive. You’ve got to keep your emotions out of it.” He turns to see Sis and David ahead, Sis scanning the road with a rifle.
Sal stares at him, wordless.
“We should keep moving,” Abel says. “The longer Jacob is there, the more danger he'll be in.”
Sal raises her chin. “Jacob is smart. He will be teaching them about medicines and how to treat wounds. I just hope they are willing to talk to us.”
“Yep. Me too.” Abel stops and looks her up and down.
“You got any weapons?”
Sal shakes her head. “Nothing.”
Abel nods. “Here.” He reaches into his jacket and pulls out the switchblade, tossing it to her. “It’s not much, but if anything happens...”
Sal catches the handle and flicks the knife open. She stares at the blade for several seconds, turning it in her hand, and smiles. “Thank you,” she says. “God willing, I won’t have to use it.”
THEY TURN LEFT ONTO the trail towards Trinity, stepping over filled-in trenches as the settlement comes into view.
Abel raises a hand, gesturing for them to stop. “Sis, what can you see?”
Sis takes up a rifle, sweeping her gaze along the fence. “Two people watching gate.” She stops abruptly, the rifle barrel dipping as she glances up at Abel, her bottom lip quivering.
“What is it?”
“Cross.” She turns away, covering her face.
“Let me see.” Abel takes the rifle from Sis and looks through the sight, following the fence until he meets the towering crucifix. He follows the wooden beam from the bottom, and stops when he sees Jacob hanging limp from the cross beam, nails driven into his wrists and ankles. “Geez.” Abel turns to Sal. “Jacob’s gone.”
Sal shakes her head and grabs the rifle out of his hands. “How do you do this?”
“Look through the eye bit,” Abel mutters, gesturing.
Sal points the rifle towards the cross and lingers over it for several seconds. “How could they do this?” She hands the rifle back to Sis.
Sis gasps. “He just moved. He still alive.”
Sal snatches the rifle from her, fumbling as she raises the sight to her eye, staring through the lens. “We can't get him, can we? It's too dangerous, isn't it?”
“I think we can see what they do,” Abel says. “We can't get him. I’m so sorry.”
Sal nods. “Right,” she says, taking in a sharp breath.
“We should go.” Abel looks up at the sky. “I think we’ve got about an hour of sunlight left. We can push through and get back to the Grid, but it will mean travelling
at night. We can look for somewhere to camp. What do you—” He starts as a loud crack comes from the rifle.
Sal turns to him slowly, her finger trembling over the trigger. “He is with God now,” she says.
21. The Fight
Abel walks at David’s side as a cold wind whistles through the branches of dead pines. They push west, making their way uphill towards the grey sun. Sal walks briskly ahead, her chin raised. Behind them, Sis stands in frozen sentry, scanning the highway with her rifle.
“You think she’s okay?” David asks, running a hand along the central barrier, allowing the layer of brownish-grey dust to gather in a pile.
After a long pause, Abel shakes his head. “I don’t know, kid.”
“You can’t leave it like this. She shot Jacob.”
“It’s not that simple, kid.” Abel picks up the pace, his hands curling into fists. He looks back when David stops. “What?”
“I’m worried about her.” He prises a length of vine away from the central barrier, testing its springiness. “You should be too.”
Jaw tensing, Abel looks back over his shoulder towards Sal. “I am worried, kid.”
“Then go speak to her.”
“Now?”
David nods.
Abel sighs and jogs forward, his foot catching on a discarded hubcap. After fifty metres, he catches up to Sal.
She ignores him.
“Sal?”
She keeps walking.
Abel runs in front of her. “Sal, please.”
Coming to a halt, Sal looks at Abel as if noticing him for the first time. “Abel?” she manages, her voice a dry whisper.
“You okay?”
She rolls her shoulder back when he goes to place a hand on her arm. “Don’t.”
“Talk to me, Sal. What happened back there?”
Sal dips her head. Swallowing, she looks up at Abel, the whites of her eyes red from tears. “I...” She shudders and pushes her head against Abel’s chest.
He places an arm around her and lets her sob, forcing a smile as David and Sis watch from a distance.
“It’s okay,” Abel whispers. “You can get through this.”
“They killed Jacob,” she says, lifting her head. “They crucified him.”
“Right.” Abel bites his bottom lip, looking away.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says, stepping back.
“You did what you had to, I guess.”
Sal shakes her head. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry.” Abel removes his cap and brushes a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to think.” He meets Sal’s gaze, pulse thundering in his skull.
She lets out a shuddering breath. “I don’t know either. I just knew in that moment...” Her words turn into a sharp exhalation.
Abel reaches into his pack and takes out his water bottle. “Here,” he says. “Have a drink.”
Sal wipes her eyes and forces a half-smile. She unscrews the bottle’s top and sniffs inside before taking a sip. “Thank you.”
Placing his cap back on his head, Abel takes the bottle and brings it up to his lips. “I’m here for you.” He takes a drink and looks over towards David and Sis. “Let’s keep moving. Wouldn’t want one of those raiders to catch up with us.”
“No one come,” says Sis.
“Good. We just need to keep focused on getting Sal back to the Grid.”
“What’s Sal going to do now Jacob’s dead?” David asks.
“Damn it, kid. Just give her—”
“It’s fine, honestly,” Sal says. “Your friend’s right. Jacob built up a lot of trust with the people at the Grid. I don’t think they’re going to tolerate us for too long without him there.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe it’s real.”
Abel sighs. “It is real, Sal. You need to focus. You’ve got a community of people who trust you and look up to you. I won’t tell anyone what happened back there, but you’re supposed to be a leader. You need to lead your people.”
“Like in Exodus,” Sal says.
Abel gives her a confused look.
“It’s God stuff,” she says, smiling. “It’s all happened before.”
“Right.” Abel nods then tilts his head. “Is that a good thing?”
Sal shrugs and starts to walk. “I’ll have to make it a good thing.”
“DAMN IT,” ABEL SAYS, coming to an abrupt halt at the Grid, the ancient cars spread out before him.
Sal turns to him. “What is it?”
“It looks like we’ve got a fight.”
“A fight?”
“Come on.” Abel marches forward, weaving through the cars and trucks, skipping over a bent exhaust pipe, coated in rust and lying across the path.
Raised voices echo around them as a group of men and women pull two men apart as they beat each other in the dirt.
“What in God’s name is going on?” Sal asks, placing a hand on her hip.
Half the people stop and look at her, their eyes drifting towards Sis who stands with a drawn rifle. The two men on the ground stagger to their feet and brush themselves down, clumps of dirt cascading from their clothes, their faces bruised and bloody. The food shed lies on its side, door torn off, empty food tins spilling across the ground.
“Well?” Sal asks, glowering.
“They're hoarding,” a woman says. “They’re keeping the food to themselves.”
“There’s not enough to go round,” a man snaps, wiping blood from his mouth. He shoots the woman a glare with his bright green eyes. “We were here first. You had your place.”
Sal raises her hands in a placating gesture. “Will some of you please right that,” she says, pointing to the food hut. “I understand things are difficult. But we really need to work together.”
“Where's Jacob?” a woman asks, her face lined with deep-set wrinkles, her eyes and hair the colour of dead pines.
Sal shakes her head, her gaze dropping. “I—”
“They killed him,” Abel says with a flat voice as the faces turn to him. “They crucified him, hung him from that cross like a piece of meat.” He gestures over his shoulder. “There was nothing we could have done.”
“Did you speak to them?” the woman asks. “When can we go back?”
Abel shakes his head. “It’s not going to happen. We turned around when we saw Jacob. They're not people we can reason with.”
“We can't live like this,” the woman says, a pleading tone edging her voice. “We’re going to starve.”
“That’s if we haven’t killed each other first,” the green-eyed man says.
“I can see things are getting a bit tense around here.” Abel looks around and swallows. “Jacob is gone. You will need to look to Sal. She led Trinity. And she—”
“She led Trinity here,” the man growls. “And we’re going to suffer, because of her.” He points a grubby finger towards Sal.
Sal steps forward. “I led my people here because I didn't want them to die. We will get Trinity back.”
“How are we going to do that?” the woman asks.
“There are more of us,” Sal says, raising her voice. “We can take Trinity back. We just need to be organised.”
Abel shakes his head. “Sal, they’ve got weapons—rifles, shotguns, pistols.”
“Big fence too,” Sis says. “Make it hard.”
Sal moves over to a nearby car and scrambles onto its front, climbing up onto its sagging roof. She looks around at the faces gazing up at her. “It is clear that we cannot stay at the Grid. And it seems to me we have two choices. We can go our separate ways and try to find a new life, scraping for survival on the wastes.” She takes in a breath through her nose and raises her chin, sweeping her gaze. “Or we can stay together and take back what is ours.”
An explosion of cheers comes from the residents.
“Can't we start somewhere new?” the grey-haired woman asks, when the noise subsides.
Ab
el shakes his head and moves over to the car. He scrambles onto the roof, standing next to Sal. “I can assure you, that won’t work. There’s a few hundred of you here. Without somewhere organised, a community already established that can sustain itself... you’re always going to be on the move. You’re going to suck the resources out of everywhere you visit—”
“That's for sure,” the man with the green eyes says, swelling closing his right eye.
“You need to work together,” Abel continues. “Jacob was doing some good work here. I remember what this place was like. I used to sleep in a car over there.” He points towards the Grid’s north end. “This place was hell. But Jacob helped change it. Jacob was also part of Trinity. If you help Sal’s people get Trinity back, you’ll get the Grid back.”
“Or we could just kick you all out now,” the man says.
Abel shrugs. “As is your right. But it’s hard out here. Once they get Trinity back, you’ll have somewhere much closer to trade with than the caravans.”
“And what about us? You’re just going to up and leave us?”
“We’ll make sure things are better here than when we first arrived. How does that sound?” Abel offers the man a smile.
The man sneers. “We’ll see when Alf gets back. He’ll know what to do.”
“That’s fine.” He turns to Sal. “What do you say?”
Sal rubs the back of her hair and looks around the faces. “I think we can do that.”
22. The Wizard
Abel pokes at the fire with a stick as Sis and David sit at his side. “It’s been a pretty crazy few days, huh?”
“Yeah,” David says. “I feel really bad for Jacob.”
Sis gets up and leans down to grab her rifles.
“You okay?” Abel asks, glancing up.
“Don’t want to talk about dying. Going to find car to sleep in.”
“Wait,” David says, jumping to his feet. “We don’t have to.” He turns to Abel. “Tell her a story. You’re good at stories. Tell her about the wizard.”
Sis hesitates and then sits back down. “Not had story for long time.”