by R. A. Hakok
We make our way up the slope and onto the highway.
*
ALL MORNING WE TRACK EAST on I-64. I keep looking around, hoping to see Hicks cresting a hill or rounding a corner behind us, but there’s no sign of him. I tell myself it’s early yet. He may have to wait for Dr. Gilbey to make more medicine. And soon Truck and the others will be back at The Greenbrier; if he can’t get out ahead of them he’ll need to pick his moment to leave so he doesn’t lead them to us.
I stop us every hour for frostbite checks. Mags keeps her eyes open now, and she doesn’t let me stand too close. When she looks up at me I try not to stare at the darkening circles there, but I can’t help it. It’s only been a few hours but already they seem worse than when we were back in The Greenbrier. I tell myself that’s just being outside, in what passes for daylight. As long as she keeps taking Gilbey’s medicine she’ll be fine.
We take our lunch an hour after we cross into Virginia. There’s no shelter on this stretch of the highway so we sit in the snow in the lee of a road sign and set our MREs to warm. I’m just grateful to have some time out of the snowshoes. Something inside my boot feels slick, like I might be bleeding again.
The fury picks a spot for itself a few feet away and slumps down into a drift. Mags asks it if it wants anything but it just looks up at her like it’s figuring out if it needs to worry about its answer and then shakes its head. She unwraps a HOOAH! and hands it over anyway. It sniffs at the candy bar but then lets it fall into its lap.
I catch her wincing as she sits back down. I ask her what happened to her ribs but she just goes quiet and says it’s something best forgotten about. We finish our MREs in silence. As soon as she’s done she gets up. She walks over to the fury and pulls it to its feet and I watch as they set off down the highway. I gather our trash, step back into my snowshoes and hobble after them.
Hicks said Truck would probably wait until morning to come after us. I pray he does. But even so I don’t know how we can hope to stay ahead of him, limping through the snow like three broken things.
Darkness is threatening to overtake us as we take the exit for Covington, the town where we stopped with the soldiers on the way out to The Greenbrier. I’ll need to go back to the church to retrieve Marv’s map, but we won’t be sleeping there. Hopefully the soldiers won’t be on the road yet, but if they are they could be here later tonight and it’s the first place Truck would check.
I spot a low brown brick building with a sign that says US Army Reserve Center right off I-64. We make for it as the last of the light leaves the sky. Mags gets a fire going and we sit on the floor under a poster of a soldier that says Does Your Future Look As Exciting As Ours? while our MREs heat. The fury picks a spot on the other side of the room. It’s still working on the HOOAH! Mags gave it for lunch. Each time I look over it raises it to its lips but by the time we’re finished with our MREs the candy bar remains largely untouched.
I roll out the sleeping bag Mags and I used to share. There’s an awkward moment while we both stare at it and then she says I should take it. She’ll sleep in her parka; it’s not that cold. It’s freezing in here; the thought that she may already not be able to feel it scares me so I announce in a voice that is supposed to be authoritative but I suspect just sounds a little hysterical that she has to have it. I tell her I need to go back out to get Marv’s map anyway. There’s a Walmart right on the other side of the highway. It looked like a big store; it’s bound to have camping supplies. I’ll pick up another while I’m gone.
My legs have stiffened since we came inside and I could really do with replacing the bandages on my feet but I stand and head for the door before she has a chance to argue.
It’s long after dark when I limp back to the center. Mags is propped up against the wall in her sleeping bag, Owen Meany open in her lap. The fury sits in the corner, where it was when I went out. She looks up at me as I step inside.
‘How’d you do?’
I tell her I did pretty well, which isn’t so far from the truth. I’ve recovered Marv’s map from the church; it’s back where it belongs in the pocket of my parka. And I’ve managed to find us a bunch of things in the Walmart that we could use.
She smiles but she looks tired.
‘Want to get some sleep while I take the first shift?’
I shake my head. We’ve agreed we’ll take it in turns to watch the fury. I’m pretty beat but there’s a few things I need to do first.
‘Wake me in a couple of hours, okay?’
I nod. Within seconds she’s curled up inside the sleeping bag, fast asleep.
The fire’s burned down, so I set to work coaxing it back to life. From across the room the fury watches me. The branches hiss and steam as I feed them to the flames but eventually they catch.
I lay the sleeping bag I found down close to the spot Mags has chosen and dig into my pack for the first aid kit. I take off my boots and socks. Blood’s soaked through the bandages so I remove them and clean the cuts with water from my canteen, then smear them with some Neosporin I found in the Walmart and tape fresh dressings in place. When I’m done I toss the bloodied bandages in the fire, climb into the sleeping bag and lean back against the wall. My eyelids feel heavy but I need to stay awake. I take Marv’s map from the pocket of my parka and spread it across my lap.
Hicks said to stay on the interstate but we’ve been on the road since before dawn and I reckon we’ve barely covered fifteen miles. In a few short hours Truck and the other soldiers will set off from The Greenbrier, assuming they’re not on the road already. If they hike sunup to sundown they should be able to cover thirty miles in a day, even dragging Boots with them. At that rate they’ll be on us before we even reach I-81. I take the flashlight from the pocket of my parka and wind the stubby handle. The dynamo whirs and the bulb glows, finally casting a faint pool of yellow light across the familiar folds and creases. I turn the map over to find Covington and for a moment I forget where I’m pointing the beam. It slides across the wall and for a second is reflected back by a pair of silvered eyes. The fury turns its head away and buries its face in its hands.
My heart jumps and a cold flush of fear snaps me upright. Somehow outside, in the daytime, it’s just a kid, no bigger than we were when Kane brought us to Eden. But now, here in the darkness, it’s something much more than that. Or less.
I extinguish the beam and refold the map. As I’m returning it to the pocket of my parka my fingers brush the cold metal Hicks handed me earlier. I take Marv’s pistol out. The sweet smell of the gun oil drifts up as I remove it from the Ziploc bag. The magazine slides out easily when I press the switch. I feel along the top for the bullet and lever it out with my fingertips. Nothing pops up to take its place. Just one then. I push the round back in with my thumb and slide the clip back up into the handle. The fury looks at me as it clicks into place, and for a moment the light from the fire catches its eyes. It holds my gaze for a moment, like it knows what that sound means.
I slip the gun inside my sleeping bag and settle back against the wall to wait.
*
IT IS DARK NOW, and that is good. It was a little scary to leave the only place he can ever remember but he is glad to be out of the cage. He heard what the doctor said. He knows the mean soldier would soon have come to take him into the other room. He really didn’t want to go there.
He doesn’t like the outside though.
It’s not the cold. That doesn’t bother him. He’s aware of it, of course, but in a way that is distant, unimportant, like how the clothes he wears now feel different to the ones he had in the cage.
It’s not the snow either, even though it is difficult. He knows the girl and the boy are going slowly because of him and they need to go quickly now, so the mean soldier doesn’t catch them. But the snow is deep and his legs are short and sometimes even with the sticks the boy cut for him he struggles to stay upright. He thinks he is getting better though. If he stays in the boy’s footsteps like the girl showed him he
can do it. Tomorrow he will try and go faster.
But the light! He did not think it was possible for anything to be that bright. It is like the very sky is on fire. Even with what the boy has done to his goggles he cannot bear to look up at it. So he keeps his head down and focuses on planting his poles, lifting his snowshoes, making sure he places them in the tracks ahead of him. The light will not let him be, though. Even reflected off the gray flakes it burns his eyes so badly that more than once he has prayed for the cage and the darkness of the room underneath the bunker.
And there is something else now too, something that frightens him even more than the thought of going out into the hateful brightness again. He felt it earlier, stirring inside him, when the boy was tending to the cuts on his feet. It receded a little when he finished and the bandages went on the fire. But traces of it still linger and they are maddening, just like when the girl cut her hand, and before, when the mean soldier fell in front of his cage. He knows what that feeling is now. He has not had it for so very long; so long that at first he did not even recognize it. But now he does.
The candy bar the girl gave him sits untouched in his lap. He picks it up and sniffs at it, then puts it back down again. There is nothing there that holds his interest. He knows what he wants now, but he doesn’t dare admit it, even to himself, because that might make it real.
He looks across the room. The fire has died down again and it is dark, but he can see perfectly well. The boy is sleeping. He tried not to for a long time. He watched his head fall forward onto his chest, saw it jerk upright as he caught himself, and then moments later slump forward again.
He likes the boy. He sees how he looks at the girl. He knows the boy doesn’t want him here but still he made him poles so he could manage the snow, and he tried to fix his goggles so the light wouldn’t hurt his eyes so badly. He heard what the soldier with one eye said, when the girl refused to leave him in his cage, and later, when he pulled the boy back into the tunnel and gave him the thing that smells of oil and metal. He wishes the boy wasn’t frightened of him.
But maybe it is good that he is.
*
I WAKE WITH A START and the feeling that I’ve just cried out in my sleep. The dream’s already fading, but I remember a tunnel, and a shrill voice I haven’t heard in a long time, urging me to run faster. I blink sleep from my eyes, worried I might still be there. But I’m not. I’m sitting upright, my back to the wall, the frigid air pressing against my sweat-soaked thermals. I must have drifted off while I was supposed to be watching the fury. I quickly look over but it’s where it was earlier, huddled in the corner on the far side of the room. Next to me Mags is curled up in her sleeping bag.
The fire’s dead and black on the ground and it’s cold. It’s still sometime before dawn but I know I won’t sleep again so I get up and head outside for more firewood. Mags is awake when I get back. I set a couple of MREs to heat and then get to work on a fire. She asks the fury if it wants anything but it just holds up the HOOAH! it’s been working on since yesterday and says it’s fine.
When we’re done with breakfast I hand her one of the little plastic vials Hicks gave me. She takes it, unscrews the cap and finishes it with a grimace, then holds her hand out for another. I hesitate. I know the path she means to commit us to; I’ve known it since she demanded the second container from Hicks on the way out of the bunker yesterday. But what if he can’t get us more medicine? There’s only three of the vials left. With the pace we’re setting that’s not even enough to get her to Eden, and that’s as much as I care about. I glance over to the other side of the fire. The fury’s got its knees hugged to its chest but I can see it watching to see what I’ll do. I don’t intend it harm but Hicks said it’s only a day or two from turning, which means anything we’re giving it now is just a waste. I guess that’s not the way Mags sees it though. She reaches out to touch my arm, but then thinks better of it and pulls back.
‘Gabe?’
I look back at her.
‘Listen, you either give me another container or the next one I get I’m just going to give to him anyway. But it’s not going to come to that, is it?’
In the end I relent and she takes the medicine and hands it to the fury. I pack up our gear while she gets it ready. The Walmart had a big outdoors section and I picked up a pair of hiking poles to replace the branches I cut for it. I also found ski goggles with a darker lens and a kid’s jacket with a hood like a snorkel. The goggles are for an adult, so they’re a little big but Mags adjusts the strap and they seem to stay on. I’ve taped the lens like before, so only a small slit remains through which light can enter. Mags hands it the jacket and it tries it on. It fits okay and she gets to work taping its gloves. It can’t grasp the zipper pull with its mittens on so she has to help it. Its face disappears inside the hood as she slides it all the way up.
Dawn’s just starting to creep into the sky as we set off. The fury hangs back inside the shadow of the doorway and Mags has to coax it out. It still doesn’t want to look directly at the light but it manages to hold its head at a more hopeful angle than anything it could muster yesterday.
I had another look at Marv’s map over breakfast. Route 220 out of Covington stays parallel to I-81 for most of its length. We can follow it almost as far as we need to go north and then rejoin the interstate for the last couple of days and it doesn’t look like we’ll have added much to our journey. I discuss it with Mags as we head down to the highway and she reckons we should take it. I stick a patch of duct tape to the exit sign so Hicks knows which way we’ve gone.
We follow I-64 east for a third of a mile or so. The road crosses a wide river the map says is the Jackson and then a little further on we come to an embankment that drops down onto railway lines. According to the map they’ll take us north out of town as quickly as 220 and I figure if Truck’s looking for places we might have gotten off he’ll check the roads before anything else. The wind’s picked up overnight and in a few hours any tracks we lay down this morning should be gone but I reckon we should do something to cover our trail, just in case.
I hang back while Mags takes the fury on ahead. I watch as they make their way down the slope. It seems to be doing better with the snowshoes this morning. I don’t know if it’s the poles I got it or the darker goggles, but it’s managing to stand almost upright now; it only fell once on our way out here. Just as I’m thinking this however it snags an edge and goes head over heels down the embankment. Mags catches up to it and digs it out and they set off again.
I unsnap my snowshoes. The cuts on my feet are troubling me less this morning but it’s still a relief to step out of them. When I get to the bottom I shuck off my backpack and drag it behind me to smooth out our tracks until we get to the first bend.
The railway line follows the river for a ways and then it continues north while the dark, brooding waters wind out west. About a mile from the interstate we come to a set of signals; the hooded lights hanging from the rusting gantry arm stare down at us as we pass underneath. After that the track opens up. Endless rows of rusting tank cars sit silent in their sidings, hauled to their final resting place by huge locomotives. They tower over us from under a blanket of gray snow as we walk between them.
We leave the tracks at a railroad crossing. The barriers are down and an arrow points to a sign that says another train is coming but we don’t wait for it. The Jackson’s gray waters curve back around to greet us as we rejoin 220 and leave Covington behind. The road hugs the eastern edge of the valley, rising and falling as it winds its way north into the Appalachians. I keep looking over my shoulder, hoping for Hicks’ lean, rangy form to appear around a bend behind us. But that morning there’s nothing.
Sometime around noon we come to a pickup that’s slid off the road. There’s been no other shelter for miles so I break the window and we climb inside to eat our lunch. There’s a narrow bench seat in the back and Mags holds the door open to let the fury in. It looks up for a long while but I guess it�
�s not feeling sociable because it turns around and slips into the back under the tarp. We eat quickly and set off again as soon as we’re done.
The wind drops and the same gray clouds that were scudding across the mountain tops this morning now just hang there like they’ve no place better to be. We come to a narrow bridge; a gray ribbon of ash-choked water flows sluggishly south underneath us as we cross. If we’re where we’re supposed to be on the map this should be the Jackson again, but this river seems much smaller than the one that accompanied us out of Covington. I spend some time looking for a sign but there’s none.
The road runs true for the next few miles and then it veers west through a break in the ridge at a place called Gulley Run. I can’t see any mention of it on Marv’s map, and that’s not the direction I think we should be headed. I spend some time looking for mile markers to make sure we’re still following the right path but the snow’s drifted deep and I can’t find any.
I look back over my shoulder. Behind us the valley’s straight enough to see for miles but there’s nothing. Hicks should have caught us by now; I’m beginning to think he missed the tape I left on the exit sign. He told us to stay on the interstate as long as we could, but I reckon he meant I-81, and we never made it that far. I wonder if he would even have been looking for directions that soon.
We continue on, following the road as it snakes into another valley. This one’s smaller than the last, with steep sides and a narrow floor. It stretches out for miles in front of us, barren, silent and lifeless, without even a barn or a stand of trees to break the emptiness. I begin to worry I’ve made a mistake, bringing us this way. With the pace we’re setting we can’t hope to outrun the soldiers, and there’s no shelter here; nowhere to hide; no way out but on or back. If Truck manages to pick up our trail at Covington and they follow us in there we’ll be trapped.