by R. W. Ridley
“Lou?”
***
We looked for Lou until morning. We had enough Myrmidon meat between us to keep the worms away. But I would have looked for her even if we’d had to climb through the trees all night.
I never took the time to dry off from my swim in the lake, so I was cold as hell, but it didn’t matter to me.
It felt like we’d walked 100 square miles looking for her. No one suggested we give up, not even Gordy. I think he knew I would have beat him within an inch of his life if he did.
We descended a hill and prepared to climb a steeper, bigger hill on the other side of a small ravine, when the presence of three people at the top of the hill caught us off guard.
“Oz Griffin?”
I recognized the voice. The leader of the Ratty-Bobs. “Yeah.”
“You the one killed all those Myrmidons?”
“Well, I helped it along.”
“And Bostic?”
“Had a hand in it, yeah.”
“Well, the Ratty-Bobs thank you. We have enough jubilee meat for a year, and we ain’t gotta go through Bostic for it. That’s a fine thing for us.”
“You want to pay me back,” I said.
There was a pause. “If the price ain’t too steep.”
“I just need your help finding someone...”
“A girl?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Yes, a girl. Her name’s Lou. Have you seen her?”
“We have. That’s why we come to find you.”
I looked at the others. We were all smiles. “Is she all right? Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“She moved on is what I mean. Says I’m to give you a message.”
Our smiles were replaced with slack-jawed expressions. “What message?”
“Go home.”
Eight
The snow drifted down softly at first. It felt almost peaceful. The cold air eventually turned damp and bitter. And then the snow fell in sheets of stinging icy flakes. We found a small plot of land surrounded by mountain peaks that shielded us from the raging three-day storm.
None of us knew where we were, and I didn’t particularly care. It had been a week since Lou left. I missed her, and hated her, and understood why she left all at once. If I were in her shoes, I would have done the same thing.
But I wasn’t in her shoes. I was in mine, and I wasn’t going to lose her. She was real. I knew it. I could see it as plain as day. I was going to find her and make her see what I saw. That she had to be real. I couldn’t feel this way about somebody who wasn’t.
I sat on a fallen tree under a natural shelter of tangled tree limbs that helped me stay relatively dry. Tyrone and Wes were in the woods behind me rounding up wood for a fire. Thankfully, Wes had a couple of lighters in his pocket. They were about the only supplies we had besides our one arrow and the crossbow. Everything else was lost in the fire. That meant we were all hungry.
Gordy sat next to me on the tree. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering up a storm. “Cold.”
“Hadn’t noticed,” I said in a dismissive tone.
He half smiled. “When do you think we’ll eat again?”
“Soon as the stores open” I said with the same dismissive tone.
“Stores?” I didn’t bother telling him I was being sarcastic. Eventually he figured it out on his own.
“Oh, stores. I get it. Ha-ha.” He rubbed his hands together and brought them to his mouth where he proceeded to blow on them. “Cold.”
“You said that,” I said with more than a bit of anger in my voice.
“All right. All right. Take it easy. I’m just saying…” He stopped mid-sentence and looked at something past me and above my head.
I turned and looked at what had him so mesmerized. A yellow piece of cloth was tied to a branch. It was some kind of marker the forestry service had placed on trees throughout the area before the world ended. I had no idea what they meant but we had seen a couple of dozen of them in the area. Wes had told us earlier who had put them there. I wasn’t sure why Gordy found that one so fascinating.
“Have you seen that before?” he asked.
“The yellow markers? Yeah. A bunch…”
“No, not the yellow markers. That yellow marker. Have you seen it before?”
I looked at it again and shrugged. “Maybe. Can’t say for sure.”
He slowly stood. “I think I have.” He drifted towards the marker never taking his eyes off of it. “I know I have.”
“Okay, so you’ve seen it before. What’s the big deal?”
He looked to his left. “There’s a boot behind that tree over there.”
“A what?”
“A boot. Not a hiking boot, but a workman’s boot.”
I stretched my neck trying to see the boot he was talking about. “I don’t see a boot.”
He ran to the tree. “It’s buried under some leaves.” Kneeling down, he brushed away the snow and leaves. Before I could stand, he held up a boot. “See!”
“How did you know that was there?” I said approaching him.
“I know. I know. I know.” He said muttering to himself more than answering my question. “I’ve seen this before.”
“But how…”
He held up his hand and told me to shut up. His eyes darted back and forth as he scanned his memory. Suddenly he raced through the tree line and disappeared behind some thick brush.
“Hey,” I said following him, “stop.”
I heard him crashing through the forest, and I saw branches snapping back into position, but it wasn’t until I cleared a small hill that I saw him.
“It’s here,” he said excitedly.
“What’s here?” I said stomping towards him.
He pointed to a tent.
My mouth dropped open. “How did you know…”
“I’ve seen it, in one of Stevie’s comic books.”
I took a step forward.
“It was a long time ago, but I remember it. That yellow marker triggered something in my brain.”
“Who does it belong to?”
He hesitated before answering. “A dead guy. He’s on the other side of the tent. Been dead for awhile. Went crazy. Starved himself to death even though…” Gordy snapped his fingers and raced towards the tent.
“Even though what?” I asked chasing after him.
Gordy ducked inside the tent and quickly came back out holding a heavy backpack. “Even though he had food!” He frantically opened the pack and pulled out a clear plastic bag full of nuts and dried berries. “Food!”
“Holy crap!”
He tossed me the bag and then pulled out a lasagna MRE. “Food!”
I opened the bag of trail mix and quickly shoved a handful in my mouth. “Food,” I said rolling my eyes back in my head and chewing like anyone starving half to death would.
Gordy dumped the contents of the pack on the ground and formed a pile of some of the most wonderfully preserved food we had ever seen.
“Don’t suppose you remember anything about water?”
He ducked back into the tent and dragged out a huge cooler. “Water, Gatorade, coffee, it’s all here! Clothes, too. What do you know? I remember this place. I actually remember it from one of Stevie’s stupid comic books…” He stopped suddenly as his mind clearly popped off a new memory. “I remember,” he said in a whisper.
“You remember what?”
He didn’t answer right away. He began to pace and looked down at his hand as if he was holding the comic book. “I saw it a long time ago. Took it out of Stevie’s backpack outside of school. Gave him crap about it.”
“You remember something you’re not telling me.”
“Because I don’t know if I’m remembering it right.”
“What is it?”
“There was this girl.” He stopped.
“What girl?”
“I can’t be remembering it right.”
&n
bsp; “Gordy, just spit it out already.”
“This girl. She kind of looked like Lou. I mean as much as a drawing in a comic book can look like someone. She had a different name. I can’t remember it, but…” He snapped his fingers. “Bristol. I remember it because it’s the same name as the NASCAR race.”
“Emily Bristol?” I asked.
“That’s it,” he said excitedly. “That’s her name.”
The world around me suddenly got very small. The wind, the cold, the hunger disappeared from my mind in an instant. I was totally focused on Gordy. “That’s Lou.”
“It is?”
“That’s her real name.”
Gordy looked down at his imaginary comic book and then scratched his head. “I think I know where she is, or where she’s going anyway.”
I almost couldn’t bring myself to ask because I was afraid of the answer. I was convinced nothing good came out of Stevie’s comic books. I didn’t expect Gordy’s answer would change my mind about that. “Where?” I finally asked.
“Buffalo, New York.”
I thought about his answer. “Of course,” I said with a smile.
“What?”
“That’s where it all started. Dr. Bashir and his Hyper Mental Imaging. She’s gone to find him.”
Gordy’s facial expression soured. “She finds him all right.”
I waited for him to elaborate, but he never did. “And?”
“And she shouldn’t have.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means…” He couldn’t look me in the eyes. “Real or not…”
“Gordy!”
“She’s going to die.”
The End