by Tom Abrahams
“It doesn’t matter,” Paagal said, running her finger along the map next to Battle’s. “They can’t access the floor from any of these points. They’ll have the high ground to provide cover fire and to occupy our people, but they’ll have to funnel their advance into these spots here. They’re the only ways down to the floor.”
Battle nodded. “So where do you want me?”
Lola nudged him with her shoulder. “You mean us. Where does she want us?”
Battle acquiesced. “Us.”
Paagal tapped a point on the map near the southern rim. “I think you’d be best utilized at the entrance here. That’s one of the funnel points. You’re good with a weapon. I’ll need you picking off combatants as they emerge from their descent.”
“Got it.”
Battle and Lola left Paagal in her tent, walking slowly back to their own shelters. Neither said anything at first until Battle broke the ice.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asked, his voice dripping with suspicion. “It seems kinda strange.”
Lola looked up at Battle as they stepped in sync. “It was pretty chaotic,” she said. “Everybody was rushing over there. Sawyer didn’t want to be late. I checked in on you and you were asleep. I started to wake you, but Baadal tugged on my arm and told me to hurry up.”
“So you left me?”
“I did try to wake you up, actually,” she said. “I said your name loudly a couple of times. You rolled over. You were wheezing a little bit. I’m sorry, I should have gotten you up.”
“You should have. I agree.” Battle believed her. Still, he was skeptical of the Dwellers. “I don’t trust them.”
“You don’t trust anyone.”
“Not true,” Battle said. “Maybe it’s not that I don’t trust them. I don’t think their motives are as pure as they’d have us believe.”
“Get over it.” Lola laughed condescendingly. “Nobody’s motives are pure in this world. Everybody’s trying to survive by hook or by crook. For such a skeptic, it’s like you still want to believe in Santa Claus.”
Lola reached over and took Battle’s hand. He allowed it, welcomed it really, and squeezed gently once their fingers were fully intertwined. A jolt of electricity sparked through his body. His chest tightened. He looked over at Lola and smiled. She smiled back and then looked away demurely, as if embarrassed by their connection.
Battle was content to walk quietly, hand in hand, back to their tents. He thought about what Lola had said about motive.
She was right, of course. There was no Santa Claus. He’d died from the Scourge.
CHAPTER 16
OCTOBER 25, 2037, 9:42 PM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
INTERSTATE 45, SOUTH OF BUFFALO, TEXAS
The headlights cut a narrow, bright path ahead along the cracked asphalt of the highway. Interstate 45, as it used to be known, was the direct north-south link between Houston and Dallas.
Ana planned to take the shortest path north before jogging west. She didn’t have time to avoid the highway in search of more desolate, less traveled paths. This was her best option.
She squinted as she drove, pretending as if she were piloting a rocket ship; the reflective white dashes separating the lanes were like stars speeding past. She imagined she were hurtling through space towards some distant planet, one without violence or disease or guilt.
Penny was awake in the seat next to her, content to suck on the pacifier. Ana knew it wouldn’t be long before the child would be hungry and she would have to stop to feed her.
Ana didn’t want to stop. She wanted to be at the canyon.
It was ice cold in the car. Without a windshield, the wake of air displaced by the car rushed through the cabin. Ana had found a blanket in the trunk that she’d wrapped around Penny, but she herself was cold. Her hands were especially uncomfortable.
She looked down at the speedometer and saw she was pushing the Lexus at forty miles per hour. Though there wasn’t much about cars she could recall, she did remember hearing once that the faster the car moved, the more fuel it consumed. She hoped that by driving fast enough to outpace anyone on horseback, she might save some fuel and arrive at the canyon without problem. It also reduced the wind swirling through the open cabin.
Driving through the darkness, she occasionally caught a gray glimpse of a building or abandoned vehicle along the side of the highway. She was thankful the journey to this point had been in the dark. Ana didn’t need the distraction of what the Scourge had wrought and what it had done to the world as she tried to free herself from what it had done to her and what she had done as a result.
It wasn’t as though Ana had lived a life of leisure before the pneumonia killed her mother, her grandfather, her sister, and the man to whom she was engaged. Every last one of them was a drunk or an addict who couldn’t find their way past the eighth step.
None of them had ever made amends. Even on their respective deathbeds, as the consumption took their breath and their lives, they refused to take responsibility for their actions or their interaction.
The Lexus cut through the dark and Ana was focused on that eighth step. She tried to recall all of the people she had wronged. She couldn’t get past the four people she’d killed that day: her child’s father, a resistance recruiter, and two foul people who she did not like but whom she’d rather not have murdered.
Ana leaned forward in her seat and rubbed her palms on the leather steering wheel, trying to generate some friction and heat for her hands. She looked up above the horizon, the wind whipping through her hair and drying her eyes as she peered into the dark, searching for a star or the moon. She couldn’t find either.
“Mamamama,” Penny babbled. “Mamamama.”
Anna pulled her hand from the wheel, popped the pacifier back into Penny’s eager mouth, and placed her hand gently on Penny’s leg. She squeezed it and rubbed it with her thumb.
“Mama is right here, baby,” she said.
Ana looked over at Penny and reassured her daughter they would stop soon to eat. She wondered, as she soaked in the beauty of her child, what the fractured world might hold for her. Ana couldn’t imagine it would be good. Her smile melted and she looked back at the road.
It was already too late.
Directly in front of the car, dead center in the pale yellow fan of the headlights, was a large coyote. Its eyes reflected the light as it stood frozen in the center of the highway. It had a dead animal in its mouth.
Ana pressed firmly on the brake. The tires screeched in protest against the highway. Her right arm snapped outward to protect Penny, who was already sliding forward in her seat, her little body straining against her seat belt. Ana tried swerving to the right to miss the animal. She failed. She hit it as if she were aiming for it.
The impact brought with it a sickening crunch as the front of the Lexus pulverized the scavenger. Its mangy carcass was tossed onto the hood of the car, and for a split second Ana was sure it was headed directly through the open windshield. Instead, the limp rag doll bounced over the windshield, hit the roof, and slid off the trunk.
Penny was crying as the car came to a shuddering stop. Ana immediately noticed wisps of smoke coming from underneath the hood of the car. A rush of adrenaline flooded her body and she began trembling. Her pulse quickened and her chest felt heavy. She tried taking a deep breath and found herself unable to inhale.
She unbuckled Penny and pulled the baby to her chest. Ana rocked, whispering into her daughter’s ear and calming her. Once Penny was quiet, all Ana could hear was the low hum of the engine. The smoke from under the hood had dissipated, but there was a large dent in the hood from the coyote.
She held Penny with one arm and used the other to open her door. She climbed out of the Lexus and walked around to the front of the car.
The signature Lexus emblem was missing and the front grille was a mess, barely resembling the mean, sleek black grate that had decorated the front of the sedan. It was decorated with pieces of the a
nimal, tufts of grayish hair stuck in clumps in the plastic.
The hood was concave at the point of impact. The car looked like it belonged in a junkyard. Ana held Penny and shielded the child’s eyes as she moved into the headlights. Looking at them, they were brighter than they’d seemed to be as she drove. The engine still humming softly, she walked around the passenger side of the car and to the rear. She wanted to see the animal.
Ana stepped deliberately toward the coyote. It was only twenty-five yards or so behind the car. As she got closer, she could hear its high-pitched whimper. Somehow it had survived the collision, if only for a few minutes.
She circled the animal at some distance, afraid to get too close. Its eyes were open, its body mangled. Its torso, or what was left of it, rose and fell with difficulty. The dead rabbit it had been carrying was lying beside its mouth.
The coyote’s whimper drew Penny’s attention, and Ana spun to keep the child’s eyes from the dying beast and walked back toward the car. Short of putting a bullet in the animal, there was nothing she could do to ease its suffering. It was merely another living being cut down while trying to survive in a post-Scourge world, a scavenger looking for scraps where it could find them.
Ana reached the Lexus, opened the rear driver’s side door, and leaned into the backseat. She placed Penny upright on the passenger’s side, thinking it would be warmer, and likely safer, if her child were in the backseat of the car.
The child was buckled in and Ana was closing the door when she heard a rustling noise and the sound of soft voices spoken above a whisper. She shut the door with her backside and saw a man and a woman standing on the edge of the road.
The man had a long gun perched on his shoulder. The woman was aiming hers at Ana. She whispered something into his ear, keeping her gun leveled. The man snickered. Ana couldn’t hear them above the purr of the car.
It was dark enough that Ana couldn’t make out their features or their clothing, but she could see enough to know they wore desperation. The man’s jaw moved up and down as if he was chewing on something.
Ana inched along the side of the car. She kept her eyes on the couple and started to open the front door.
“Ah, ah, ah,” said the woman. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Ana left her hand on the door handle. “What do you want?”
“We want your car,” said the woman, “and whatever you got inside.”
“You can’t have it,” Ana said defiantly. “You’d leave me stranded here.”
The woman stepped forward. “We’re not asking your permission,” she snarled. “We’re telling you that we’re taking your car.”
“And whatever you got inside,” added the man.
When the woman got closer and stood on the edge of the glow from the car’s headlights, Ana could see she was missing an eye. There was no patch. There was a scarred hole where the eye used to be. Her lips were worm thin and most of her front teeth were missing.
She was wearing a soiled, ribbed white tank top and baggy cargo shorts. Her legs were a canvas of wounds and bruises. Her feet were bare.
“The car’s not going anywhere,” Ana said. “It got damaged when I hit the coyote. I don’t think it’ll drive.”
The woman cackled, sending a chill along the back of Ana’s neck. “You think we’re stupid? You just said us taking your car would leave you stranded. Now you’re saying you’re already stranded.”
Ana struggled to say something that might dissuade the carjackers. She came up with nothing.
“You’re gonna need to step away from that car,” said the man. He kept his position on the edge of the road, but he’d lowered the long gun and was aiming it at Ana from his waist.
“Step away,” said the woman. She stepped closer. Ana could see the grit under the woman’s long fingernails. They were as black as the land beyond the highway.
Ana took a deep breath and raised her hands. “Fine,” she said. “Let me get my baby out of the backseat.”
“You got a baby?” the woman asked. “A real live baby?”
Ana hesitated. “Yes.”
“She got a baby,” the woman called back to the man out of the corner of her mouth without taking her eye from Ana.
“I heard that,” said the man. “A real live baby.”
“We had a baby,” said the woman. “A little girl.”
The woman’s shoulders curled forward and she lowered her aim. Her gaze drifted for a moment.
“She caught the Scourge,” said the man. “Died fast.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ana. “I—”
“You’re not sorry,” snapped the woman. Her shoulders squared and the aim returned to Ana’s head. “You got no reason to be sorry. You don’t know us.”
“I’m only—”
“Shut up and get the baby,” the woman said, moving the barrel as she talked. “I wanna see the baby.”
“Is it a girl?” the man asked.
Ana nodded.
“Get the girl,” said the woman. She took another step forward. “I wanna see her.”
“What’s her name?” asked the man, stopping Ana as she reached for the rear door handle.
Ana pulled on the door handle and cracked open the door, triggering the interior light. “Penny.”
“Oh,” cooed the woman. She craned her neck to see inside the car. “I think I see her. I think I see that beautiful girl.”
“We may have to take the girl too,” said the man. “The car and the girl. I think that’s how it’s gonna have to be.”
“We did say everything inside the car,” said the woman, the joy evaporating from her face as she looked back at Ana. “Hurry up.”
Ana turned her back on the couple and reached into the car. She whispered to Penny, “Mama will be right back,” and she grabbed the automatic rifle. She slapped the safety lever down and spun around with her finger on the trigger.
She shoved the rifle to her shoulder as she depressed the trigger, holding it in place, spraying its contents at the couple. Ana didn’t expect the recoil and was knocked back into the car. She kept firing, the fully automatic shots sounding like keys on an electric typewriter as they zipped through the air.
The first volley arced into the air. As Ana fell backward from the recoil, the weapon aimed upward. The first several bullets from the seventy-five-round barrel magazine were close to true and hit the woman twice in the gut. She dropped her long gun and grabbed her midsection, crying out in pain and cursing Ana.
The man reacted quickly. He fired off a pair of shots aimed at Ana’s head. She fell back into the side of the car from the recoil, the twin rounds missing her head by inches and slugging the Lexus.
Ana regained her balance and pushed her right hand against the wooden club stock to tighten the rifle against her shoulder and applied steady pressure to the trigger. This time she unleashed a sustained volley of rounds. The first dozen drilled the woman to the road face-first. Her body twitched on the highway as if she were trying to break-dance.
Convinced the woman was no longer a threat, Ana swung the weapon to her left and found the man as he approached. A sting in her left arm near her shoulder altered the first couple of shots, but the trail of gunfire found its mark and cut a swath across the man’s chest. His arms flung outward and his long gun rattled to the ground. His body shuddered and convulsed before he stumbled forward and slid onto the asphalt.
Ana held the trigger for a moment longer, the stock thumping against her right shoulder as she struggled to hold the heavy weapon in place. As the last of the shots echoed into the expanse on either side of the highway, Penny’s whimper became audible. The child wasn’t inconsolable, but Ana could tell she was upset. How couldn’t she be? The sound of screaming and gunfire would bring virtually anyone to tears. Ana took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to slow her racing pulse. She stretched her mouth wide, trying to ease the thick ringing in her ears.
It wasn’t until after she’d lowered her weapon that she realized she�
�d been shot. She was bleeding. When the adrenaline of the moment left her body, the wound began to throb.
Ana winced and carried the weapon with her right arm, walking over to the would-be carjackers. She checked the woman first. She was dead on her side, her neck turned awkwardly. The bottoms of her feet were black. The rest of her was coated in grime and blood.
The man was flat on his stomach. Ana couldn’t see his face. Blood leached onto the highway from underneath his body. She turned back to the car, reset the safety, and gently laid it where she’d retrieved it.
She consoled Penny for a moment and then turned back to grab the other weapons from the couple, who wouldn’t need them any longer. The woman’s weapon was a shotgun of some kind. It had two barrels. Ana took the weapon back to the car and then searched the woman’s grisly remains for any ammunition. The pain of the bullet wound was spreading down her arm. Her hand felt stiff.
She found a handful of red and brass colored shells in one of the wide pockets in the woman’s cargo shorts. Rather than try to carry them, she used her right hand to remove the woman’s shorts. She struggled to yank them over the hips, but once she’d managed that, the task was easy. Ana balled up the shorts and tossed them into the foot well of the driver’s side rear seat next to her rifle and the woman’s shotgun.
She trudged back to the man’s rifle. It was smaller than hers and lighter. She flipped its safety and carried it back to the car to place it with the others. Unlike the woman, the man had an ammo pouch on his hip.
It was looped into his belt, a thin braided leather, and she couldn’t pull hard enough with one hand to remove it.
Ana cursed and sat down on the road next to the man’s body, careful to avoid the pool of his blood. She used her heels to flip him over onto his back so she could unlatch the belt buckle and free the ammo bag. He turned over like a drunk man, his tongue hanging from his mouth and his eyes wide open.
He stared toward the sky. It was a blank, distant stare Ana thought looked peaceful. As if the man had seen the stars or the moon for which she’d been searching and was imagining a better life far from the planet on which he was stuck.