‘And if, and that’s a big if, we are able to find him, we need to have a plan.’
‘Do you have one?’ I asked.
‘Not yet,’ he said, ‘but hopefully by the time we find your uncle I’ll have thought of something.’
‘Hopefully?’ I said. ‘That’s real reassuring.’
I placed my sack on the ground by my feet and stretched my shoulders. I was surprised at how heavy it was.
‘I hope you’re right,’ I said, ‘Because if you’re wrong, and Roxx is with them, then they’ll be long gone before we figure that out.’
‘I’m not certain if your uncle is alive, but if he is, I know where he’ll be.’
‘How do you know that? Were you also responsible for his imprisonment like you were my parents’ deaths?’ I intended for the words to sting. ‘Don’t think that just because they showed up, I forgot. This conversation isn’t over yet. You’re going to tell me what you did and why.’
‘And when you finally get all your questions answered, what then?’ he asked.
I hadn’t thought that far. All I knew was I was angry and he was my target for that anger.
‘I’ll think of something,’ I said, using some of his erroneous vagueness.
‘Hmm,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘Well, let’s get going then.’
He tightened his pack around his shoulders and snapped the traps around his waist. Puffs of sand bounced with every footfall he took as he descended the sand dune in the direction of the military vehicles.
We made it to the bottom of the hundred-foot slope of sand and onto the leveled surface of what used to be a natural forest, but now was just barren wasteland.
‘I thought we going to find Roxx,’ I said.
‘We are.’
‘Then why are we going in the direction of the Humvees. I thought you said they didn’t have Roxx.’
‘They don’t,’ he said, ‘but where they are heading does.’
‘And where’s that?’ I asked.
The normally heavy cloud cover parted slightly to allow some of the moon’s silver light to shine through.
‘We’re lucky,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘It’s a relatively clear night tonight. I haven’t seen the moon break through the clouds since I was a boy.’
‘I’ve never seen the moon,’ I said more to myself than to him. It looked like an odd mountain that had gotten dislodged from the earth. The more I stared the more I got the feeling it was looking back.
I jumped when Parker placed his hand on my shoulder.
‘We can use its light to guide us. Save our flashlights for when we really need them. Plus,’ he added, ‘stay unnoticed as long as possible.’
I looked down at my hands and the silver light radiating off of them. I spun my hands around in the moonlight. I know you can’t feel light, but it sure felt like I could. The moon’s glow was gentle and soothing. Way different than the customary burn of the sun.
Parker saw me flaring my fingers in the light.
He smiled.
‘Enjoy it,’ he said. ‘You never know when the next time you’ll see it will be.’
He removed the gloves around his own hands and stuffed them in one of his pockets. His bare white hands danced in the light alongside mine. I saw him close his eyes as he continued walking, his head tilted back slightly.
My own hair flew behind me as a cool breeze flowed into the valley gorge. I felt strangely peaceful.
The moon stayed with us the entire stretch of the wastelands before the clouds finally swallowed it up again. By that time, we were already on the other side of gorge and climbing.
By the time I made it to the top, my lungs were on fire. I let my pack tumble to the ground and placed my hands on both knees. With every gasping exhale, a cloud of white smoke left my lips and billowed in the cold night before dissipating into nothingness. I heard a loud clunk next to me and saw Parker had dropped his sack as well.
He knelt down and pulled out the monocular. He leveled the lens on the horizon and a few seconds later replaced it back in the pack.
He wasn’t even breathing hard.
After a few minutes, I had caught my breath and lugged the pack back onto my shoulders. My biceps strained to lift it. My shoulders cried out for rest, and my quads burned. By the time we reached wherever it was we were going, I’d be either dead or teetering on the verge of it. No wonder Parker, despite being in his late forties, looked younger. If he spent the last several years traversing the east coast like he claimed he had, it would explain his toned physique and why he had hardly even broken a sweat.
He looked over at me and asked, ‘Ready?’
‘Good to go,’ I said, but my body said something different. I turned my focus from the tightness in my legs and the ache on my back to finding Roxx. Wherever he was, I hoped he was okay. I quickened my pace, anxious to find my godfather
‘You might want to slow down,’ I heard Parker say from behind me.
‘No time to be slow, Roxx needs us.’
‘If you keep at the pace you’re going, you’ll do more harm than good when we finally get there.’
He caught up to me.
‘Take it easy, Willow,’ he encouraged. ‘I know you’re worried about Roxx, but killing yourself to get to him isn’t going to help anyone. Trust me,’ he said. ‘We will get there, but we need to pace ourselves. Roxx isn’t going anywhere. We have another fifteen miles to go.’
Fifteen miles! I instantly felt like falling face first in the sand. I slowed my pace and fell into stride behind Parker.
‘What’s fifteen miles away?’ I asked.
‘You’ll see when we get there. Best we worry about getting there first. There’s lots of treacherous land to cover.’
Parker replaced his hands with his gloves as the wind kicked up.
My identification band beeped on my wrist. The next surge of radiation was due in less than an hour. If we didn’t find cover soon, we’d be out in the open when the sun’s solar rays hit and leaked through the rift in the ozone layer. While small doses of radiation aren’t harmful and actually benefit the body through cell repair and fighting other diseases, a large dose was detrimental to life.
‘We need to find shelter soon,’ Parker said.
‘Over here!’ I said. I ran towards an upturned bus in the sand. Half of it was buried beneath the ground, while the other half jutted out of the earth towards the sky.
‘Would this work?’ I asked.
Parker looped around the bus until he made a full circle.
‘Let me check to make sure it’s safe,’ he said.
Fortunately, the tail end of the bus was buried, which left the front end exposed to the elements. This was good for us since the hinged door was on our side. I might have been able to squeeze through one of the small windows lining the school bus, but Parker was a bit thicker.
I watched him climb along the outside and through the bus door. He lowered himself down the leather chairs and disappeared when he reached eye level with me. I knocked one of the windows out with the end of my rifle. The shattered glass puddled on the seat.
I pressed my head through the opening to try and see Parker. The hole was dark, but I could hear him shuffling from seat to seat as he descended.
‘Anything?’ I yelled down into the back of the bus.
His hand suddenly grabbed the leather lining of the seat by my face. I jerked back and smacked my head on the windowsill.
I let out a groan and was rubbing the back of my head when Parker climbed back up and peeked his own face through the window where I just was.
‘Looks good,’ he said. ‘Come on down.’
I checked my fingers. Good, no blood.
‘Be careful coming down,’ he urged. ‘The bus is a bit unstable, but I think if we don’t move too much we should be fine.’
‘Here,’ I said.
I pushed my pack through the window at Parker’s face. Climbing into an unstable, half-buried bus
definitely was not something you did every day. I gave Parker my pack more out of relief, than necessity. The reduced weight on my shoulders and legs immediately made me feel better. I shook my legs and flexed my arms to ease the built up tension.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘Just dandy,’ I said, and walked over to the side of the bus and climbed up. I used the stairs as leverage to pull my body up. The bus rocked, and the metal bearings squeaked as my added weight applied strain on the outer lining of the bus. I stood at the entrance, balancing myself, waiting to see if the bus would hold. When it didn’t move, I made my way gingerly down to where Parker was waiting, taking one seat at a time.
As I climbed down into what I hoped wouldn’t turn out to be my final resting place, I noticed the insides of the bus were charred black and many of the windows were blown out.
Parker held out his hand to support me in case I fell as I made it to the bottom.
‘The walls are all burned,’ I said. ‘Some of the seats are completely melted, and parts of the metal lining on the ceiling are warped.’
Parker helped me down into our new dungeon of safety.
‘Looks like this might have been victim to a suicide bomber,’ he said.
‘Suicide?’ I asked. ‘I thought all of those instances were back during the war.’
‘This bus very well might be that old,’ he said. ‘The framing of the bus looks stable, but best we limited our movements just to be safe. Who knows how stable the rest of the bus in the ground is. Or, how much of it there is, for that matter.’
I had assumed we were at the very back of the bus, but we weren’t. As my boots hit the ground, they sank into dark sand. The surface was no more than five rows up. Not much of a shelter, I thought. I knelt down and dug some of the sand away. Sure enough, there was another seat buried.
‘Must have been a big bomb to bury this thing,’ I said.
There had to be at least thirty feet of bus from where we were sitting to the front of the bus sticking out of the ground, which meant this had to have been one of those extended carloads. I dug around the seat several more feet and found the rubber connection between the two halves.
I looked up at Parker.
‘Looks like you were right. The other half of this bus is buried, but this,’ I pointed to the connecting piece, ‘is the only thing holding us steady.’
Parker lowered himself down into the sand and leaned his head against the wall.
‘Try to get some sleep,’ he said. ‘We’ll continue once the solar burst is over.’
He closed his eyes and was snoring within minutes.
I sat there watching him sleep, my own thoughts running wild in my mind. I wasn’t angry any more. My initial response had been one of shock and anger, but enough time had passed for logic to catch up. Now all I felt was pity for the man. I could see it in his eyes every time I caught him watching me. He had his own demons to fight. He may have killed my parents, but his loyalty to me had my attention.
My eyes felt heavy and my body ached from the strain of walking five miles with a thirty-pound pack on my back, and a ten-pound rifle strapped to my shoulder. My body finally gave in to exhaustion and I slept.
≈ Chapter 30 ≈
Sleep is a gracious gift often disturbed too soon.
When my eyes opened, Parker was still asleep. I looked at the blue numbers along my watch. They flashed 3:23. The flare had passed, but the night had not relinquished its hold on the world quite yet.
I repositioned myself and closed my eyes again, but then I felt the bus move. I thought it was just the weight adjusting to the push of the wind, but then my ears twitched.
My eyes flung open. There it was again. The sound of tapping, or clawing; I wasn’t sure which. I peered over at Parker still fast asleep, thought to wake him, then decided not to bother. I eased myself to my feet and climbed up the inside of the bus as quietly as I could. I made it two seats when I heard one of the front wheels squeak. I felt a chill run down my spine and creep up my throat.
Someone was out there. I reached behind my back and touched my fingers on the hilt of the pistol stuffed in my belt loop. Relief washed over me as the gun rekindled my courage to keep on moving. I took more care in my ascent, knowing something was outside the bus. I made it to ground level and peaked through the slit of the window I had broken. Pieces of glass lay on the sand and all along the seat. I positioned my boots so as not to step on it.
I didn’t do it on purpose, but when I suddenly felt wheezy, I took a few deep breaths to calm my nerves. Apparently, holding your breath while your heart is racing at five times the speed is never a good thing. I saw movement to the right and watched as a large shadow disappeared around the front of the bus. I maneuvered and shifted my foot to the other side of the bus, with one leg on the seat on the left, and the other on the right. I was balancing between bus seats. And if any of them decided to dislodge from their bolts, I was in trouble.
I had my left hand pressed firmly against the roof of the bus, while my right gripped the hilt of the pistol on my back. When I heard a growl, I ripped it from my buckle and held it in my fingers by my side, just in case.
I could hear it scratching and brushing up against the outside of the bus. I crept closer to the right side of the bus and tried to see the source of the noise through the dark. I heard something at the front of the bus. My eyes shot up at the driver’s seat. Whatever it was was trying to get in.
My neck was throbbing. My body felt like someone had set a fire within my ribcage and was letting me burn from the inside out. The cold hand of sweat slivered its way from my neck down the groove of my spine. I wiped my brow with my right forearm and almost lost grip of the pistol in the process.
I grabbed hold of the back of the nearest seat cushion when the front of the bus shook violently. It, whatever it was, had made it on the bus. I nearly went tumbling backwards on top of Parker, but I managed to regain my balance. I squinted through the dark to try and make out what had just joined us on the half-buried bus, but it was too dark. I might as well have had my eyes closed, what use they were right now. I felt eyes on me and knew it was watching me.
‘Who’s there?’ I whispered. How dumb could you be? If it didn’t know you were there before, it most certainly did now. Good job, Willow. Way to use your brain. But it was too late now. The damage was done.
The seats at the front of the bus squeaked and strained against the weight of whatever had come onboard as it made its way towards me. The sound of leather tearing reverberated down and into my ears. I could barely hear the huffing of its hot breath through the pounding of my heart.
‘Who’s there?’ I yelled, trying to bolster my courage.
The bus exploded with noise as the thing descended towards me with haste. Bolts were ripped from their paneling, and seats obliterated, while I stood frozen in the dark, blind to the doom approaching me. My heart fluttered as I raised my right hand and leveled the pistol in front of me. Since I couldn’t see anything, I had to rely on my hearing. It was nearly upon me. My lungs depleted themselves of any oxygen reserves, and my heart literally stopped for two seconds. My finger pressed against the trigger and sent off a round into the dark. I heard it ricochet off the metal. I missed!
It was chaos.
Parker suddenly appeared next to me and flared his flashlight into the darkness, and right into the two yellow eyes glaring down at us. My ears rang with the sound of three quick bursts of rifle fire, followed by a groan as they made contact with their target, but that didn’t stop it; it only made it angrier. Those yellow eyes were merely feet from me when Parker had shined his light and sent the bullets into the creature’s shoulders. It thrashed violently, and tried to tear its way towards us like a tsunami rushing inland, ripping everything in its path.
‘Get back!’ he shouted, and pushed me behind him.
I felt weightless for a moment as my body fell, then I made contact with the hard sand and the side of the bus. The thing char
ged at Parker, but he held his ground, waving his arms wide, aiming the flashlight into the thing’s three eyes, letting off several more rounds from his pistol directly into them. The creature whined as more bullets penetrated its grey, hairy body before it turned and clawed its way back up the bus and out. The bus shook as it left and ran off.
Parker kept his flashlight aimed at the front of the bus for several minutes, unmoving, until he was certain the beast was long gone. He climbed back down, and holstered his pistol. He jabbed the butt of the flashlight into the sand. Its light bounced and reflected off the roof of the bus and lit up the small section where I had landed.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
My body was still coursing with adrenaline so I couldn’t feel anything at the moment. But judging by the numbness along the ridge of my hip, I’d have some pain shortly.
‘What was that thing?’ I asked.
Parker wasn’t looking at me; he had his eyes focused on the top of the bus.
‘A wolf,’ he said.
‘A wolf?’ I repeated in disbelief. ‘What is a wolf doing out here? Since when are wolves even in New Jersey?’ I asked.
Parker turned his attention on me, and smiled.
‘I guess since now,’ he said.
≈ Chapter 31 ≈
Guardians come in all shapes and sizes.
Parker kept watch the last few hours of nightfall while I tried to get some rest. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much and spent most of the night tossing and turning, only to wake up clenching the pistol in my hand, fully expecting those golden eyes to be glaring at me.
Fortunately, it was only the rust on the side of the bus that glared at me when I opened my eyes for the final time before giving up on sleep.
I climbed up the seats to where Parker was keeping guard and flopped my arms over the seat behind him.
‘Can’t sleep?’ he asked.
I shook my head.
‘Bad dreams?’ he said.
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