Emily joined in automatically, barely even a breath, “Swish swish swish swish.”
“Going on a lion hunt. Going on a lion hunt. Gonna catch a big one. Gonna catch a big one. I’m not scared. I’m not scared. What a beautiful day.”
“Beautiful day...”
Chapter 49
Once they’d gotten far enough away that the dog couldn’t be heard growling, they took off at a sprint, or as close to a sprint as could be done while dragging a wagon that weighed a couple hundred pounds. Thankfully, this section of road was smooth, mostly free of obstructions. The sky was kind to them, a mercy to be sure. Emily protested being left in the cage for so long, begging to be taken to the park. Always the park. He told her to calm down and made empty promises of chocolate and playtime. When dinner came around, he tossed her a meal replacement bar and kept moving, kept pulling; acting as both draft animal and slave driver. They had to flee, had to escape. Had to put as much distance as possible between them and their albino pursuer.
Today started as a five but had become a three. There was no time to log this in the book.
The sun held on for as long as it could, but eventually succumbed to orbital dynamics and tumbled over the horizon, ushering them into nightfall. For the first time since leaving he hung their food from a tree branch while they slept. A bear bag it’s often called, though he didn’t see bears being an issue here. He’d been royally stupid for not using one thus far; even raccoons could be a problem while they slept. After it was set, they settled into a mostly intact black minivan, smelling of cocoa butter and hemp tanning lotion. They laid the middle seats flat, brushed away petrified French fries, and ate a meager snack of rice cookies by flashlight lantern.
Relaxation took half the remaining bottle of Jim Beam.
“It can track us all night. It can see in the dark,” Ryan mumbled to himself, Emily playing with her animals and dolls beside him. “We have to find a way to lose its trail. There’s no water to cross, is there? Wait. The Merrimac isn’t so far away. That would be the best. But how would we do it with the wagon? Come on, Sharpe, you can figure this out. You can’t let the two of you become Kibbles ’n Bits. Think, man, think. You were a project director. An assistant professor. Your brain is your best asset.”
Though he wasn’t sure if the situation had been as dangerous as they’d treated it at the time, Lawrence and he had dealt with a similar occurrence in Yosemite several years before the event. On day three of a fifty mile hike, near the waterfall at Bunnell Point, they came upon a large brown bear. At first they kept their distance, as the trail guide had recommended, of fifty yards or more. They kept hiking, stopped for the night, and forgot to tie up their food. The following morning, Lawrence’s pack had been slashed open by claws, half their goods taken by a furry shopper, leaving a trail of plastic into the tree line. Perishables stained the fabric of the pack itself. Whenever he set his backpack aside, ants climbed onto it, attracted by the honey and chocolate he hadn’t been able to clean off in the creek.
For two days the bear followed them, clearly unaware of the fifty yard rule. Around noon on the second day, it approached Lawrence on a hillside among a copse of stilted pine trees. Ever the one to think fast, he slipped out of his backpack and tossed it before the bear without a beat. The bear went for the pack, and they backed away, hoping not to be next on the menu. Wild animals could be hard to predict. You never quite knew how their day had gone; if you’d stumbled over the invisible lines of what they perceived as territory.
They then lifted Ryan’s backpack and stood shoulder to shoulder, making themselves appear larger at a distance. They screamed at it, voices cracking and going hoarse. The bear was confused for an instant, then made a snap decision, and scurried off into the brush. The rangers were called shortly after, and Ryan and Lawrence were led onto a service road, where one of the rangers took them back to the nearest station by Jeep.
“Brown bears don’t eat people,” the ranger told them on the bumpy ride back. “But they’ll sure as shoot eat the food you packed, son. You should be more careful next time. Like any eh’ God’s creatures out here, get between them and a meal, and even if they don’t eat you, they’ll surely do enough damage you’ll almost wish they had.”
Too bad Ryan wasn’t dealing with a brown bear now. That was a lion out there.
Stalking them.
The truth was, he didn’t know much about lions, and that was what made him deeply afraid. Zoology wasn’t his field of study. “I wish Wikipedia was an option,” he complained. “Why couldn’t it be malware after us? Eh? I can deal with that. Some registry fixes, change of settings to the firewall, maybe a factory reset?”
He closed his eyes, flicked off the light, and snuggled up beside Emily. She was talking to herself, words thin, distant, and incomprehensible. Safe within the minivan, being gently swayed by heavy gusts of howling winds, he tumbled into an exhausted rest along with her.
He could not dream.
The van rocked once, then twice. The ancient emergency brake gave a groan, waking Ryan from the blackness. He sat up and peered out the window, seeing the barest hint of light advancing on twilight territory.
“Just the wind. That’s all. Just the wind.” He rubbed his face and blinked his dry eyes. His skin was sticky. Upon caressing his daughter’s rosy cheeks streaked with pale lines, he found she’d been crying in her sleep, hand clutching a colorful pink Pez dispenser topped with a cartoon cat that had no mouth.
It was hard to let go.
The Hello Kitty lunch box containing his wife’s remains was on the grimy floorboard beside them. He didn’t know why he was toting her with them, but couldn’t bear to leave her at the house alone. The family had to stay together no matter what. While bearing a frown so deep it ached all the way into his neck and shoulders, he opened the sliding door and returned her vessel to the designated pocket of the wagon.
The leaves of deciduous trees along the roadside rustled with clean, fresh wind, their forms black against a hint of dawn.
Something pale moved among them.
Ryan closed the door with a click and waited for daylight, holding his daughter close.
“I’m not going to make it easy on you, fucker.” Once more he pleaded to the gods of the internet for just five minutes on Wikipedia. He still had his wife’s cell phone. All he needed was a connection.
As he was fading away, something sniffed the perimeter of the van. It was hard to care in this moment what the cause was; giant beast with wicked claws and teeth as long as fingers, or a scrappy mutt with one floppy ear who decided they were more entertaining to stick by then to hang out at an abandoned Target store. His entire body fell into a deep well, waters enveloping his senses.
Tiny hands shook him by the shoulders. “Dada, get up. The sky’s awake.”
“Five more minutes,” he groggily responded, putting a pillow over his face. “Please. This is bull. I let you sleep in, don’t I?”
“No Dada. Get up. Get up. Get up!” Her dangling plastic necklace fell into his face along with her increasingly long tangle of hair. It’s funny how that just keeps growing.
“Ugh. Fine.” He swatted it away and sat up, shoulder throbbing, legs stiff. He reached for pills. “What is it?”
She smiled at him. “Park! Let’s go to park.”
“We’ll see.” He reached for their map and laid it out on his lap. “Let’s see. We should be about… here. Oh, hey, that’s interesting.” His finger came to rest on a section of green land he hadn’t considered before. It would potentially have everything they needed, and could possibly be used to lose their gargantuan feline tail. “The Tyson Research Center. Funny, it’s one of WASHU’s. Time for a homecoming.”
The folded map went back into the wagon along with the rest of their gear. He raised one of the air horns attached to the side, depressed the button, and let out a burst of deafening sound. Its cacophonous scream echoed up and down the road, startling birds and making both Emily and he flinch
at its sheer intensity.
“Fuck, that’s louder than I thought. Way louder.” A brittle grin formed on his lips. “Fucking perfect.”
Emily raised her right eyebrow while lowering her left to accompany the confused twist of her upper lip. She hadn’t liked his word use, or maybe it was its forceful accentuation, but screw it. He was tired of governing his language. Who was he doing it for anyways? Lillian? Mom? Dad? So what if an almost three-year-old said fuck or shit or damn? Who’s gonna stop her? Unless they happened to stumble upon a settlement filled with folk of moral ideas common to the world he came from, it wouldn’t make for shit if she had perfect diction and a clean mouth.
Another three blasts came from the horn, sound tapering off into the wilderness.
“Allons y.”
“Why? What’s that?”
“Never mind. Come on.”
Emily climbed without assistance into the wagon’s cage. She was into this whole arrangement today, and that was good. “Go park? Park! Park! I want park! Gimmie park, Dada!”
He rested the spear over his left shoulder and tipped his head, feeling a shock of ice run down his right arm from the gentle action of pivoting. “If we can find one, it’s all yours.”
Ryan got off at the following exit and rolled up to the gates of Tyson Research Center, faded sign still visible off to their left. Through the thickening underbrush they fought their way to the green chain linked fence and forced it open, the motor holding it in place having rusted into red dust. The chain snapped in half and rattled free. Once they were on the other side he pulled the gate closed, tying it shut with a short length of rope. Maybe that would slow their pursuer
He did not sing or speak much that day, rather kept his eyes and ears open, the spear and pistol close. They wound their way up an empty road of close canopied trees, no cars or trash or skeletal remains, which gave him a distinct impression of a natural tunnel outlined by wooden claws. The forest turned dark along with the skies, no hint of shadows, only muted greys. The path became unfriendly. This was a place he didn’t wish to be after dusk, let alone now. Thunder boomed off in the distance, the wind picked up and the forest groaned.
“I hope we can make it to shelter soon. I think it’s about to rain, and hard.” His arms went through a rain jacket’s sleeves before he tossed a tarp, cut to fit with plastic windows, over the wagon. He’d prepared at the very least for rain.
“Dada? It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?”
“That.” She pointed behind them into the forest of thick trees.
He set the wagon brake, lowered the spear and tensed. “What’s gone?” He edged his way to the back of the wagon, raincoat swishing, scanning the trees one by one for something pale and deadly. An albino animal wouldn’t do well hiding in an environment of bright greens and deep browns. It would stand out as easy as a vegan at a Brazilian restaurant, and be just about as vocal. Besides, why would it need to hide? It was at the top of the food chain. An apex predator.
“Tree gone. The man.”
“Okay.” He swallowed and went back to the front of the wagon, taking one more glance over his shoulder. Kids say random things all the time. She must have just seen something interesting that faded from view.
“I want out.”
“Not right now. You’re safe in there.”
“Out!”
He reached a hand inside the cage and started a movie, keeping the volume set as low as possible. Though she didn’t want to watch Tangled again, the first movie he came across, the distraction was enough to quiet her.
Between gusts of heavy wind, he could hear forest-dwelling animals padding through the underbrush looking for protection against the coming storm.
“No stopping,” he mumbled through the pain of his right shoulder. It was in sore need of a rest.
The tunnel of foliage soon broke wide to reveal a field of grass and open, heathered skies. Clouds rushed into the east, menacing as an invading army stocked with fresh armaments. On their right, a building sided with pale wood slats drew near, sky flashing for an instant, illuminating a slanted roof with solar panels on one side. He brushed aside fallen branches to reveal a wood carved sign reading, “Washington University Living Learning Center.”
“Perfect,” he said, bumping the wagon up the front steps of the building’s deck. The doors at the top weren’t locked, though it took some effort to get them open.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Emily, not yet opening the cage. He hated keeping her in there but this was what it was for.
“Right back?”
“Right back.” It was a promise every time.
He stepped out onto the deck, gazed up at the boiling grey skies and raised the air horn once again. Cool air blew dry leaves into his face. Mist pattered on his forehead. The horn screamed, long and loud, then screamed again. And again. And again. A series of defiant, hopeful shouts into the black abyss, the eleventh hour of mankind. He waited for a reply, for any indication another set of human ears had perceived his call. What came instead was a deluge of tepid rain falling into his eyes. His gaze crashed onto his boots, eyes stinging, as the water wicked off his raincoat to form a puddle by his feet.
“Maybe you’re just being stupid,” he mumbled and took them inside. Other people or not, they would be safe enough here for the night.
The cage door swung open and Emily shot out like a spring under tension released, cutting circles around the classroom they’d found themselves in, screaming at the top of her lungs. The rain fell outside and the space darkened. Ryan went in search of lights. Since the slanted roof had been rigged with solar panels like their house, it was worth a shot.
He found the main breaker, flipped it on, and the overhead lights began to glow. Apparently, there was enough sunlight even in this rain for a low power operation. Worst case, he still had a charge on the wagon. LED rope lights did wonder to light the night when there was little or no ambient luminescence.
“Chase, Dada, chase!” She tugged his wet rain coat.
He slid out of it, hung it over the back of a beige plastic chair and shook his head. “I’m too tired to chase. And be careful, the floor’s wet.”
She made a roaring lion sound and got down on all fours. “Chase! Chase! Rawr!”
“No more Lion King for this kid,” he told himself, looking into her eyes. “How about dinner?”
Her head jerked up. “No dinner.”
“Seriously? No eat eat?”
“No. No. No eat eat. Play! Play!”
“Can we at least just sit and color?”
She shook her head and shouted something incoherent, making him start at the volume, before finally replying, “No color.”
“Okay.” He peered around the room, trying to find something to entertain her. She started climbing a chair and then onto a table. “No, Emme. We don’t climb on furniture. No climbing in here. Get down.” Her feet touched the floor again.
“I climb.”
The classroom flashed white as lightning forked across the sky. The trailing boom was so deep it rattled the rain streaked glass along with several empty coffee mugs left on tables.
“I see you climb, but I don’t want you busting your ass, okay? You get hurt and that’s it. There’s nothing I can do about it other than a little first aid.” He tipped one of the mugs over to see if fresh coffee was inside. Just a black stain at the bottom.
“Rawr!” The lion cub returned. “I rawr, Dada! I rawr. Rawr!”
He rolled his eyes and got on all fours, feeling a bit foolish, given their situation. This felt too much like insult to injury. “Rawr,” a half-hearted noise came from his throat.
“More rawr, Dada. More rawr!”
“Rawr!” His volume was a little louder, though its intensity was about the same. His heart just wasn’t in it. He was exhausted, right arm stiff, muscles turned to stone.
“You try, Dada. More rawr!”
His dry eyes blinked and he opened his mouth. But
before he could summon the will to let out a mighty roar, a bellow of dominance from the deepest reaches of his guts, he saw something large and white slip through the trees outside. Lightning flashed again and it was gone.
It, the albino lion, had followed them through the gate.
“Super,” he hissed. “How am I going to stop that thing?”
Emily put her “paws” on his thigh and roared again. “Rawr! Rawr!” It became more of a growl this time, making Ryan’s throat ache vicariously. She fell over on her side and rolled on the dirty floor. Ryan rubbed her belly and got up, checking to be sure the doors were secure. So long as they were latched, things would be okay. There were rooms in this building, too. They could hole up until later.
He went through their supplies, checking to see how long they could stay here. Maybe they could outlast the albino lion and allow his arm to get in better shape. Three gallons of water. Two MREs, a pound of rice, ten rice cookies, a jar of pickles, two meal replacement bars, and seven cans of SPAM. As he surveyed their goods, Emily took a walk around the room, looking for something else to get into.
“I did a really bad job packing. I have got to stop eating so much. It’s just, I’m just so hungry. All the freaking time, I’m hungry. And protein. I need protein. Meat. Red meat.” He went through their first aid bag and fished out an Adderall. “This might help with that.” The pill rolled around in his fingers. “And the exhaustion. I could go back to college days for minute.” A thin coat of amphetamine salts sloughed off the pill and onto his tongue. “That’s right. Sweet to the taste.” The wet side of the pill was dusted off on his shirt and put back into the prescription bottle. “But later.”
Emily returned, holding what looked to be a twenty-one-year-old’s clutch. “It’s purse!”
“Sure is. Let me take a look.” He flipped the latch and went through its contents. “Oh, look what we have here. Coco Chanel, lipstick, a couple of tampons, a phone number—wonder if she called—nail clippers, and oooh. You’ll like this.” Her eyes went wide. “Nail polish. Want me to paint your nails?”
The Two That Remained Page 30