by Greg Gotti
“You say people who look like me and her live in the wilderness areas of America?”
“Most of them do. There are some wealthy ones who are granted waivers and things like that. Some others stay and submit to monthly testing. But for the most part, they live in the hills and the more remote rural areas.”
“And people don’t bother them there?”
“Not at all,” Williams said. “As long as they pay their taxes, they’re out of sight/out of mind. Uncle Sam has to get his cut as always.”
“Who?” John asked.
“Nobody… never mind. Listen; do you think you can get me to the border? They’ll probably start searching for me once they realize I’m not in the wreckage.”
“They will be for sure, and you don’t want to be captured by the Ristas. Nobody wants to be a prisoner of the Ristas.”
“Well, I don’t want to be a prisoner of anyone so…”
“I can’t get you there. I don’t know my way through this terrain well enough to evade them. We need to get across the river. I can take you the rest of the way after that.”
“How do we get across the river then?”
“She’ll have to take us,” John answered as he nodded at Maria.
Williams’s eyes widened. “You think she would? What would they do to her if they found out she’d helped us escape?”
“Bad things probably,” John answered. “That’s why we’re taking her to America with us.”
Williams’s eyes grew wide. “I can’t take you with me. You’ll make people sick. I can’t have that on my conscience. I can’t.” Williams shook his head and John’s eyes narrowed.
“We could have let you drown in the lake. You’d be dead if we hadn’t pulled you out and resuscitated you. Do we look sick to you? We can live in the areas you talked about, and nobody will think twice about it. We can’t do that here. Soona and Ristas can’t live together here in either one of your ‘zones.’ America is the one place we can live as we choose. We’ll go there, and nobody will know you brought us across. You have my word.”
Williams thought about it for a few moments. He was not happy about his lack of options, but he knew he would never make it out of there without their help. He frowned.
“Will you ask her what she thinks of all this? She may not even want to leave.”
“I would,” John said, “but I don’t speak Rista and she doesn’t speak Soona. I’ll have to try to draw it out and explain it to her.”
“Wait, how long have you been here with her?”
“About ten weeks now,” John said.
“You’ve only been here ten weeks?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“Ten whole weeks?” Williams asked sarcastically. “She isn’t going to leave for someone she’s only known for ten weeks, John.”
“I’m going to give her the choice,” John stated. He picked up a stick and started drawing in the dirt.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake… stop,” Williams said in frustration. He began speaking to Maria in her language, and her eyes lit up as she smiled.
“You know Rista?” John asked disbelievingly.
“It’s called ‘Spanish,’ John. What you and I speak is called ‘English.’ Soona and Rista are just the names of zones.”
Williams explained the situation to Maria in her own language, and her smile disappeared. John could tell she was expressing reservations about something, and he felt a feeling of unease growing within him. Williams looked at him and said something, and Maria looked at him in silence. She looked into his deep blue eyes and held his gaze for a few seconds. She turned back to Williams and asked him something, which he answered. She thought for a few moments, and then she put her arms around John and made some sort of matter-of-fact statement. Williams nodded and rolled his eyes skyward as he turned away.
“Well?” John asked.
“She’s not going anywhere… without you. She says wherever you go, she goes. So, I guess she’s going to America.”
John looked down at her and smiled. She smiled at him as he pulled her to him and held her tightly. Williams threw his hands up in the air and shook his head as he walked off.
“Ten weeks… unbelievable.”
Chapter Seven
Using Williams as a translator, the three of them spent the rest of the day planning their escape. At dusk, they began making their way down the mountain. They would move under cover of darkness until they reached the river separating them from the Soona. John knew where they’d be able to cross with minimal risk of detection. Once they were in Soona territory, John knew he’d have little trouble getting them to where Williams said the neutral strip was located.
“The Rista army knows the basic terrain of these hills,” John observed, “but Maria knows every inch of this area. Combined with our skills and training, it gives us a better-than-even chance of getting across the river.”
“Her people are at war with yours,” Williams grumbled. “How do you know you can trust her?”
“Why do you trust me?” John asked.
“I don’t.”
“Then why did you agree to make the journey together?”
“Because I have no idea where the hell I am,” snapped Williams. He said nothing for a few seconds before adding, “And because you saved my life.”
“Well, she saved mine,” John replied looking up at the rapidly fading light in the sky. It was becoming more difficult to see the way.
“You’re in love with that girl,” Williams retorted. “There is no other reason for wanting to drag a civilian through a war zone. Don’t give me any of that garbage about needing her for a guide. We could make the river by ourselves, and we both know it. She would be fine staying here with her own people.”
“She goes where we go!” John hissed. “I’ll leave you behind before I leave her, so watch your mouth!”
“I think she’s going to get us caught, but it’s not my call to make,” Williams said quietly. “I just hope she’s worth it.”
“She is… every bit of it.”
Williams said nothing. The tension was as thick as the humid evening air, and they were all on edge. He felt bugs landing on his face and swatted them away. He resented being on the ground with these people. He still could hardly believe he had managed to get lost and crash into one of the zones. He knew his superiors were going to take a bite out of him for losing their brand new plane, if he even made it out of the zones. He hoped he hadn’t been exposed to the Haze, and he hoped his anti-serum had been administered in time if he had. The whole thing seemed surreal to him as he walked. He suddenly realized he was scared.
John watched Williams’s emotions play out on his face as they moved through the trees. He felt empathy for the man. He was a military man in hostile territory who simply wanted to go home. He hadn’t asked to have his machine crash into a war zone. Still, John and Maria hadn’t asked him to drop into the lake either. His arrival had taken away any chance they’d had at waiting for an opportune time to make this journey, but then, where would they have gone? John hadn’t any idea where the two of them could make a life together until Williams had arrived. Now, they at least had a destination where they could live in peace… if they could get there. The journey wasn’t going to be easy, but it was a whole lot better than waiting around for the Ristas to kill them all.
Maria led them through the thick trees as she took care to stay off the main road that wound down the mountain. The woods were very dark now, just a collection of shifty silhouettes moving in the breeze as the last remnants of daylight faded from the sky. John couldn’t see the stars, so he really had no idea what direction they were heading. He knew they had started down the mountain on its western face, but their route twisted and turned as they went along. They had worked out a plan to get across the narrow strip of valley separating them from the larger chain of mountains to the north by using the river as a guide. Its headwaters were to the north, where Williams had assured them they would not be far from
the neutral strip.
Maria led them down the mountain. The night was full of the sound of crickets. Somewhere above them, John heard something moving around in the trees. The woods would be full of nighttime predators soon, and John hoped they didn’t happen across any that were large enough to think about messing with them. They had brought Maria’s shotgun and two hunting rifles, and even though they had plenty of ammunition, any shooting would alert the Ristas to their location. John had watched the main Rista force move to the east around two months ago, but there would still be patrol units in the area. They would not last long in any kind of firefight with Rista troops, and John was sure that by daybreak, the region would be crawling with Ristas. They had hidden what Williams had called his “parachute” at the bottom of the lake; having sunk it with rocks that would keep it submerged until well after they had left the area. There was absolutely no evidence of anyone having been at the house other than Maria, but that wouldn’t stop the Ristas from searching the entire area for the missing pilot.
The three of them were dressed to move at night. Williams wore his flight suit, Maria wore dark blue jeans, a black shirt and a black jacket. John wore the black uniform he had worn the night he’d led the ill-fated attack on the radio transmitter. None of them would be visible in the darkness. The Ristas would have to practically trip over them to find them. The problem was: They only had until daybreak to make it down the mountain, cross the river and reach the woods on the far side. That meant they had to keep moving. The Ristas would definitely launch a full-scale sweep of the area at dawn. They had to know the pilot had ejected by now. For all the three of them knew, they might already be searching for him. There was no way to be sure, but the three of them had little choice but to press on. Staying on the mountain meant certain discovery.
John felt a bit guilty as he followed Maria. The whole experience was surreal. Just this morning, they had made love before setting off to do their morning chores like they did every day. Now, they were leaving her home forever because a man had fallen out of the sky and turned their world upside down. He wished he could tell her the depths of his feelings for her. He knew she was aware of his love. He could certainly feel hers, but he longed to share their feelings through words they could both understand. He had said many things to her in his native tongue; he had told her how she’d taken his pain and given him hope again. He had told her he would stay with her forever if she would have him. He had poured his heart out to her knowing she couldn’t understand him. She seemed to somehow grasp the deepness of what he said. She would cover him with her kisses, and he would hold her tightly as they just sat and looked out over the little mountain lake by the house. John was going to miss that lake, that house, their home. It wouldn’t matter though; not as long as he had Maria.
Williams followed close behind John as they made their way through the darkness. He couldn’t see a thing, and he kept stumbling over roots and rocks as he followed them. He felt his frustration rising. He belonged in the sky, not here on the ground in the middle of a war zone. He wondered if his flight group even knew where he was. He had been wildly off-course when his plane went down, and nobody had ever radioed him about it. Seeing as how his plane was designed to be invisible to virtually any radar, Williams was pretty sure he was on his own.
“Wallace,” Williams whispered.
“What?”
“What makes you so sure we won’t run into a pack of Ristas along this route?”
“I’m not; there is no way to be sure of anything in this mess. We are just playing the odds.”
“You said we won’t run into squads of Ristas this way!”
“Yeah, we won’t. It is too narrow and full of bushes and trees for an entire squad, and they most likely don’t know this way even exists. That doesn’t mean we won’t run into lone scouts.”
“Oh, that’s just great!” Williams hissed emphasizing the last word. “If even one of them sounds the alarm, they’ll be all over us in no time.”
“I doubt we will run into any loners out here in the dark,” John whispered. “They may not even be looking for you yet. Even if they are, they won’t have enough men in the area to stretch themselves that thin. They’ll move along the main roads and station troops by twos at strategic points to watch and listen for anyone. They know anyone who dropped from the air won’t know this terrain, so they’ll figure you’d have to wait for daybreak to move. My guess is they’ll start their search at first light, so we just need to make it across the river. Once we make Soona territory, I know that land better than anyone. Getting to this neutral strip won’t be a problem.”
Williams listened as John explained the situation. He knew he’d have drowned in the lake were it not for the two of them. If he’d landed somewhere else, he would have had no idea where he was and would have been easily captured. He was lucky to have bailed out in darkness where he could not be seen. He was grateful to have the two of them, but he worried that the woman would get them captured. John had made it clear abandoning her wasn’t an option, so he made his peace with it. He was frustrated, but he had no other options. He would just have to follow along and hope the woman knew what she was doing.
Maria knew the Rista military better than either of her companions could imagine. They all knew to avoid disturbing her; at least they used to. She’d barely finished concealing John in her secret cellar when the search party had come demanding to search the house and property. She had given them a tongue-lashing almost severe enough to make their ears bleed. When he had come here, John had stumbled onto the one mountain in the entire region where he could avoid being captured. Her situation was unique and caused every soldier in the area to give her mountain a wide berth. Maria knew they’d eventually come if they were searching for a missing foreigner, but she was pretty sure it would only be after they’d searched everywhere else first. None of them would want to risk the consequences of upsetting her.
She put aside her thoughts on search parties and focused on leading the men off the mountain. The remnants of the main road leading down the mountain followed a curving path to one side of the creek that ran from her lake to the gorge below. There were other creek beds that allowed for drainage during the wet season, but these were dry now that it was summer. She led them down one of these that drained into an underground aquifer near the base of the mountain. She was sad to leave her home. She had found such a simple happiness here. She had never planned to stay forever, but she found her heart aching at the thought of never being able to come back. John had made it clear it was her decision, but she known immediately she would rather go into the unknown with him than tell him goodbye. He had awoken something deep inside of her she didn’t know she possessed. She would sooner fight the combined strength of the Soona and Rista than walk away from him now.
Maria led them down into the hidden creek, now totally dry with just a bit of dirt along its rocky bottom. The bushes and smaller trees growing alongside the creek formed a canopy that completely concealed its existence. It almost looked like a manmade tunnel to John as Maria took out a flashlight and switched it on the dim setting. Maria had a surprising amount of such supplies for a woman living alone on a mountain, but John wasn’t worried about such curiosities at the moment. The natural canopy gave them cover from anyone seeing them, but it also made it quite dark beneath. The gentle reddish glow from the flashlight revealed a surprisingly clear pathway down the mountain for them. Aside from some spider webs and a few sticks, the creek bed was a relatively smooth rocky surface that allowed them to quickly and quietly descend the mountain. The biggest challenge was making sure they did not slip on the widespread moss growing in the creek bed. The three of them had drawn a map in the dirt while planning their route to make sure they all understood exactly where they needed to go and how they’d get there. John and Williams both understood they would now follow this creek the rest of the way down the mountain until they were practically at the valley floor. Williams walked at John’s side as the
y followed Maria.
“Hey man,” Williams whispered as he leaned close to John’s ear, “think we will have any trouble with your people once we hit Soona land?”
“No, I am the one who designed the river patrol positions. The main army moved out about two months ago. We should be able to move through Soona territory with relative ease. It was Rista land for so long, there won’t be any civilians there yet.
“What if they do find us? Will they know you?”
“Well, yeah… but I’m sure they think I’m dead by now. They’d want me back at field HQ to debrief them right away. It would depend on who we ran into. If it happened to be low-ranking enlisted men, that’s no problem. If we ran into any higher-ranking types, there would be questions and a lot of them.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Williams said. “The one advantage we should have is your people won’t be looking for us. That will make it easier to evade detection.”
“Make no mistake,” John said, “this is a warzone. The Soona patrols are very well-organized. I should know; I trained them myself. It will be difficult to cross the river and get through the patrol zone. Like I told you when we made our plan, once we get close to a mile past the river, we won’t see patrols in the area we want to cross. I can get us to this zone you showed me on our little map earlier. Once we get there, it’s on you to take us the rest of the way.”
“You get us to the border zone, and I will get us into America.”
“You’d better,” John said, “because there is no going back for any of us now.”
The creek bed was relatively steep, but not so much so that it could not be safely traveled on foot. Despite the little turns here and there, the creek followed a roughly straight path down the mountain. It was so overgrown with thorn bushes on both sides that John could hear the scurrying of small animals off to one side anytime they had to move a stray branch out of their way. They followed Maria as she quickly moved down the hidden pathway until she held out her hand once more. John peered over her shoulder and saw they had reached the end of the creek. He realized they were almost off the mountain now, and he felt a small surge of adrenaline. He stepped forward, and Maria grabbed onto him and showed him where the creek bed disappeared into the earth. He was careful to avoid the edge and crept quietly to where he could see beyond the thorns and bushes around them.