Half Lives

by Sara Grant

‘Where do you want to go?’ the taxi driver asked, turning to face us and swerving slightly. Cars honked. He honked back and screamed obscenities at them. He had greasy black hair that was combed in well-defined lines from his forehead and curled in soppy ringlets at his neck. He kept checking us out in the rear-view mirror and raising his eyebrows. I was thankful the scratched and greying screen separated us.

  ‘Las Vegas?’ I said. Would he really take us that far?

  The taxi pulled onto the shoulder and skidded to a stop. Marissa and I were slammed into the front seat. Water bottles and breath mints exploded from Marissa’s goodie bag and rolled on the floor, knocking against my flip-flops. The air was once again filled with honking.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ He shook his head.

  ‘How much?’ Marissa asked, sitting cross-legged in the seat.

  He tilted the satnav that was suctioned to his windshield and tapped the screen with an unusually long fingernail. ‘That’s nearly three hundred miles. It will take six hours and then I have to drive back.’

  ‘How much?’ Marissa persisted.

  He scribbled on a candy bar wrapper, scratching his head with the pencil point and staring out the window at the passing traffic.

  ‘Three thousand dollars,’ he said, turning to profile and glaring at us with one eye.

  I nodded. I’d pay whatever it took. All that money strapped to my waist wouldn’t save me if I couldn’t make it to the mountain.

  ‘Wait.’ He reached for his pad of receipts and pretended to scribble something. I knew too late that he’d gauged my reaction and realized his fee was too low. ‘I mean five thousand dollars.’

  ‘That’s almost seventeen dollars per mile. You’re crazy,’ Marissa said.

  I had to make this work. The traffic was growing by the minute. Each passing vehicle was packed with people and stuff bulging over the window line. I couldn’t give this guy half of my money. ‘All I’ve got is thirty-six hundred dollars.’ I don’t know why I picked that figure. I wanted to make it believable, I guess.

  ‘OK, but I want half up front. You buy all the gas.’ He shook his head. ‘And meals. You buy me food too. There and back.’

  Marissa settled back in the seat. ‘I can swing the gas and food as long as we go places that accept plastic,’ she told me.

  ‘Deal,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not moving until I see more money.’ He crossed his arms.

  Marissa turned away to give me the privacy she could sense I wanted. I noticed the taxi driver leering at me in the rear-view mirror. I lifted my backpack and held it with my knee against the partition.

  I lifted my shirt and counted out eighteen hundred dollars twice. I clutched one wad in my hand and tucked the other eighteen hundred in my bra, nine hundred dollars nestled under each breast. How’s that for a boob job?

  I let my backpack fall to the floor. ‘Here,’ I said as I shoved the wad of cash at him.

  ‘Where in Vegas? It’s a big place,’ he asked as he counted the money.

  I struggled to come up with an answer. I didn’t want to tell him about my secret hideout, not that I knew exactly where it was. I told him to use the road Mum had pointed to on the map.

  ‘I need an address and zip code,’ he said with a twang of annoyance in his voice.

  ‘I’ll tell you the exact location when we get closer.’ I snuggled back in my seat as if I made these types of transactions all the time, but it felt like this was happening to someone else.

  ‘I owe you big-time, Icie,’ Marissa said, extending her arms to give me a hug. The gesture exposed ragged circles that were a darker shade of pink under each armpit.

  ‘I’d say we’re even,’ I said, and dodged her embrace.

  ‘What are we gonna do in Vegas?’ Marissa asked, bouncing nervously on the seat. ‘I was just going to get a hotel in Phoenix and wait it out, but Vegas is closer to home.’

  ‘I’ll get you to Vegas and then we’ll go our separate ways.’ I hated that I was ditching her again, but I had to. Mum had said to tell no one.

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Whatever,’ she said after an awkwardly long pause. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’ She turned towards the window. I liked Marissa. I liked her a lot. She’d probably saved my life back there. But I’d watched enough horror movies to know that, no matter how big the cast, only one person survives to the credits and lives to fight the sequel.

  We were stranded in grid-locked traffic leaving Phoenix. I read every inch of copy in the taxi. I memorized his taxi driver ID number. I was told I couldn’t smoke in seven languages – as well as by the universal circle-slash no smoking symbol. The car’s air-conditioning couldn’t keep up with the humid night air and three nervous bodies. I felt trapped in an oven of body odour, cheap aftershave and the lingering hint of farts embedded in the cracked vinyl seat.

  Marissa tapped on the Plexiglass. ‘How about some music?’

  ‘Everyone calls me Lobo,’ our driver responded, shifting on his wood-beaded seat cover.

  ‘OK, Lobo,’ Marissa said, ‘how about some tunes?’

  ‘No radio,’ Lobo said.

  ‘What?’ Marissa scooted up and pointed to the dashboard radio. ‘Come on, man, I mean, Lobo. Help a girl out. I’m going mental.’

  ‘No, I mean there’s only static.’ He switched on the radio and turned up the volume so we could hear the white noise. He flipped through the stations. Static. Static and more static. Marissa and I exchanged panicked expressions. All I could think about was that scene from Poltergeist where the little blonde girl stares into the flashing TV screen and says ‘They’re here,’ in a singsong voice.

  ‘Uh, that’s not good,’ Marissa whispered to me.

  We scanned the horizon, looking for fighter planes or flying saucers, but beyond the stream of traffic, the landscape was dark.

  ‘Do you know what’s going on?’ Marissa asked him. I shot her a dirty look. If I was going to get through this, I couldn’t think about what was happening out there. I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t think about Mum or Dad or Lola or anyone on the East Coast. I told myself that it was going to be OK. I didn’t want Lobo to tell me anything to the contrary.

  ‘Before the radio went funny, there was a national bulletin about solar or electrical storms or something, but I don’t believe any of it. Someone else said that an asteroid was heading for Earth. Another station reported that the military was being deployed. Officials said satellite problems. Who knows? We are too close to Hollywood. Everyone has big imaginations. Everyone panics.’ He glanced at us in the rear-view mirror. ‘Like you two. Why are you going to Vegas? Why not sit by the pool? If it is the end, I’d rather have a beer in one hand and a lady in the other.’

  I didn’t like the way he was sizing us up as if he were Dracula and we were O-negative. We didn’t look like the type of girls men wanted at the end of days – Marissa with her bald head and piercings and me with my dreadlocks. I’d rather die a virgin than be this guy’s apocalyptic sweetheart. Marissa and I pushed ourselves as far back into the seat, and as far away from Lobo, as we could.

  ‘You’re safe,’ Lobo said with a chuckle. ‘I don’t believe it’s the end of the world.’ He winked at us in the rear-view mirror and I noticed he was missing one of his front teeth – one that would be pointy if he were a vampire.

  We drove in silence. Marissa and I tried to sleep. The temperature rose with the sun. The white-hot sunlight felt like a laser on my skin. It wasn’t only the rays bouncing off the barren landscape, it was also the anxiety that was triangulating among the three of us.

  Lobo kept switching the radio on and off. ‘Just checking,’ he’d always say. Static would blare through the speakers and mimic my nerves.

  We stopped at a gas station with huge queues at every pump. The guys working the pumps didn’t look official, but they demanded, and we paid, five hundred dollars to fill our tank. Inside the shop there was a guy with a gun who was threatening anyone who tried to steal anything. Marissa and
I took turns guarding our stuff and going to the bathroom. People were acting crazy. Maybe hiding away from all this was the best option.

  ‘Did you hear what they’re saying?’ Marissa asked when we were back on the road. Her skin was pale, as if she’d applied a lighter shade of foundation. ‘A few people said that terrorists have released a virus. That can’t be happening, right? I mean, that’s nuts.’ She dug around in her handbag and pulled out a mini-pump bottle of hand gel. She squirted some in her own hands. I held up my hand and she squirted a huge glob in my palm. We both rubbed our hands together like comic henchmen. Did we really think some lethal virus was going to be stopped with hand gel? I guessed it couldn’t hurt.

  Should I tell her what I knew? I spotted Lobo checking us out in the rear-view mirror again, probably listening to every word we said. I might not mind being stuck with Marissa underground, but I wasn’t about to be buried alive with Lobo.

  I gave my new friend the gift of ignorance. ‘It’s all rumours. Everything will be fine tomorrow. Could be some computer virus. That could shut everything down, couldn’t it?’

  She accepted my feeble explanation and distributed cheese and crackers, chips and cans of Coke we’d purchased for a mere two hundred dollars.

  When we finally passed the road sign that said we were only thirty miles from Las Vegas, I began to think I might make it after all. The billboards changed from food and fuel to boobs and gambling. The closer we got to Vegas, the more I got the distinct impression that we were headed in the wrong direction. Everyone appeared to be going the other way. Marissa was pretending to sleep. I could tell she wasn’t sleeping because earlier her snore had sounded like a hog riding a Harley.

  I slipped the map Mum had given me from my messenger bag and uncrumpled it as quietly as I could. I turned the map to orient myself. I realized that my mountain wasn’t far from here. I noted the name written near the dot closest to the mountain. I tucked the map back in my bag and watched the road signs for my dot.

  As soon as I spotted the exit with the name from the map, I yelled, ‘Stop the car!’ Lobo ignored me in his highway-induced coma. ‘Stop the damn car!’ I yelled louder. ‘Stop the car. Stop the car. Stop the car.’ I kicked the back of his seat until he pulled over.

  Marissa and Lobo stared at me as if I had morphed into an alien. ‘I’m getting out here,’ I said. I dug the money out from my bra. ‘Here.’ I gave nine hundred dollars to Lobo and the other sweaty wad of nine hundred to Marissa. ‘Take her wherever she wants to go.’ I opened the taxi door. I slung my messenger bag over my body and shouldered my backpack.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Lobo asked, stuffing my money in his pants pockets. ‘I don’t care but this is the middle of nowhere. You’re not safe alone out here.’

  Marissa grabbed a fistful of my T-shirt. ‘Icie, don’t leave me!’

  ‘Marissa, I can’t help you,’ I said and prised her fingers from my shirt. How could I help her when I couldn’t help myself? God, it hurt to leave her. But I had to. I zigzagged up the roadside, trying to regain the use of my legs and simultaneously balance the weight in my pack. A car zoomed by, sending a turbo blast through my dreadlocks and a grit-filled shower over my body. I could see mountains up ahead. One of them was my mountain.

  ‘Icie, wait.’ Marissa raced to me saddled with her goodie bag on one shoulder and her handbag on the other. ‘Please get back in the car. You will die out here.’

  We heard the sound of a slamming door followed swiftly by a gunning motor and tyres screaming against asphalt. The bastard was leaving.

  ‘My luggage!’ Marissa shrieked and bolted after the taxi as it veered off the highway onto the exit road. The girl could run, but there was no way she was catching Lobo.

  Marissa let out a God-awful scream that rattled my nerves like windowpanes in a thunderstorm. That kind of scream was felt as well as heard. We’d been stripped of our home and our security and now she’d lost most of her worldly possessions. How much could one Cheer Captain take?

  She stood, her chest heaving, but she didn’t cry. I was impressed. She jogged back to me. ‘You know what they say?’ she said, and slapped on a Cheer 101 sort of smile. ‘Destiny is a choice, not an option.’

  What? That made absolutely no sense. But I sort of understood what she was trying to say. Maybe in a weird way she was right. Maybe Marissa and I were destined to be together.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Believing is seeing.’

  – Just Saying 46

  FINCH

  Since seeing the Terrorists’ lights, Finch has increased his Mountain patrols. He’s been up since sunrise winding his way up and down the Mountain. His mind is foggy with lack of sleep and his body twitchy with his hyper-vigilance. He’s waited all his life to confront his enemy. He must be ready. Today he must make sure the Mountain is safe for Atti’s Walk of Enlightenment at sundown. The incline of the Mountain matches Finch’s uneven legs. Beckett says the Great I AM created Finch perfectly for his life’s work. Others patrol but he can feel the Mountain in his bones. He knows every pebble and pine needle. He knows someone or something has been on his Mountain. It’s just a feeling. A glimpse out of the corner of his eye. A shadow. A sound.

  Finch’s job is to protect the Mountain, and he is failing. With every step, Finch hears the Great I AM chastising him, Failure. Failure. Failure! He walks faster and faster to blur the taunts his feet unearth from the ground below.

  Here. Here. Here, the Mountain birds squawk as he circles to the Other Side of the Mountain. He looks where they call but the intruder has vanished before he can hobble there.

  ‘How?’ Finch asks himself as the Man-Made Mountains come into view. ‘How can you hide on my Mountain? My Mountain.’ He mumbles until the words bleed into each other. ‘Mymountain.’

  The sun bleaches his vision. Finch stumbles and falls. He’s rolling down the Mountainside, bumping over rocks and flattening shrubs. He tumbles nearly to the base of the Mountain. His body wedges under a rocky ledge. He opens his eyes and finds the sun to determine which way is up. He presses his ear to the Mountain and listens carefully for the beat of the Heart. He wishes he could hear it. Beckett says it’s there. It’s what makes their Mountain special. He always seems so sure.

  But on days like today, when the sky is so bright it almost hurts to open his eyes and the heat makes it hard to breathe, Finch doubts that there’s a Great I AM watching over him. How can his faith be so weak? He begs for the Great I AM’s forgiveness.

  When Finch’s mum disappeared and left him to take care of Atti. When another Cheerleader dies slowly and painfully. When a baby is born and they wait to see what will be missing or damaged, Beckett sees a gift where Finch sees a challenge. Finch desperately wants to believe, because without the Mountain what is he?

  Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Finch tries to find the peace that comes with giving himself to the Great I AM and the Mountain, but the words echo in his head and leave him hollow.

  In this stillness, Finch hears the careful steps of someone with a secret. Maybe it’s a Terrorist at long last. Every day Finch asks the Great I AM to bring forth his enemy. He longs to do battle. How can he call himself brave if he is never truly tested? How does he know he is right if there is no wrong?

  The footfalls are light and pause every few steps. Terrorists slither, not tiptoe. They are hunters and destroyers. Finch believes the Terrorists and the Great I AM are linked. Terrorists destroyed everything and the Great I AM rose from the ashes. They seed fear so the Great I AM can comfort. Without Terrorists, would there be a Great I AM?

  Someone is coming. Someone who doesn’t want to be seen.

  Finch tucks himself further under the rock. The footsteps are louder and closer. Finch’s body pulses with the energy of this dance with the enemy. His body coils, ready to strike.

  The moment he sees the dirty feet, his body flushes with disappointment. It’s not a Terrorist. Those feet know the Mountain as well as Finch’s do.

  F
inch begins to crawl out of his hiding place when he hears Beckett whisper something. At first he thinks it’s an abbreviation of ‘Great I AM’. When he listens more carefully he realizes Beckett is calling, ‘Greta. Greta. Greta.’ Finch slips back under the stone and hides. What is Beckett doing?

  Beckett continues down the Mountain and Finch follows. Soon the landscape clears, making it difficult to follow unseen. Finch finds a cluster of boulders and ducks behind them. Beckett is heading to the alcove where they used to play as rockstars. It was their secret hiding spot.

  As Beckett nears the alcove, Finch sees him wave to someone who appears to materialize out of the dust and haze. Finch sees a flash of blonde hair and pale white skin. Was that Harper? Why would Beckett and Harper meet in secret? Unless . . .

  Finch is overwhelmed with anger. Why does Beckett get everything? Harper isn’t like the other girls in Forreal. She’s the only one with strength of mind and spirit to match Finch’s. But Harper doesn’t see him, not really. It has always been Beckett. He and Beckett spotted Harper at the same time on the Mountain. Finch ran to get the Cheerleaders. When either Beckett or Harper recounts the story, they always leave him out. He’s tired of being overlooked and unappreciated.

  Finch peeks around the boulder for a better look. He sees the blonde again but it’s not Harper. This girl is wearing loose clothes that obscure her shape. Harper ties rags around her body that cling to her muscles. But if it’s not Harper, then who is it? Harper is the only Cheerleader with hair and skin like that.

  Another Survivor? She looks harmless, but not everything deadly looks dangerous.

  Beckett and the girl slip into the alcove. This isn’t their first meeting, Finch realizes. Neither of them was surprised to see the other. They must have planned to meet. How long has Beckett been secretly meeting with a girl that lives Out There among the Terrorists?

  Finch wants another glimpse of the girl. He could confront them, but he needs more facts. He will wait and watch. Heat and fatigue muddle his mind, until exhaustion overcomes him and he succumbs to sleep. Finch’s dreams and reality mix. He creates a story that connects the lights in the Man-Made Mountains with this girl and the Terrorists. When he opens his eyes, he’s unsure what’s real and what’s imagined. He hates himself for his momentary lack of vigilance.