Last Girls

by Demetra Brodsky

  Sweat runs down my back as I can a few photos. There’s not enough time to text Whitlock everything I’m seeing, but if I call him again, he might answer. I pull up my call history and hit the green phone icon. It rings within seconds. Birdie and I gape at each other with mirrored perplexity because the echo of the ring is coming from inside one of the cabinets.

  Birdie reaches for the door handle and I swallow a lump, hoping Mr. Whitlock isn’t inside. Because if he is, I doubt he’d be unharmed. The cabinet is stocked with rubber lab aprons and hazmat suits. Boxes labeled with supplies line the bottom. The phone is still ringing, but the sound is dampened and distant, like it’s coming from an adjoining room or maybe inside one of several boxes. It stops, and I dial again, listening, searching through boxes while Birdie pats down the suits and aprons. We can’t find it anywhere.

  The timer on my phone beeps and our eyes meet fearfully. We’re out of time.

  “We have to go.”

  I push Birdie toward the exit and grab one of Dieter’s lab notebooks, shoving it inside the back of my shirt, securing it with the waistband of my cargo pants as we rush to ground level. We rip the masks off and drop them without care before bursting back outside.

  Blue is gone.

  I spin in a panic. “Where’s Blue? Connor. Did he take her? You were supposed to be watching out for her,” I say to Ansel.

  “I dragged Connor out of view. Blue is in the woods waiting for you. I was watching out for her.”

  Of course he was, because Ansel is the Ackerman anomaly.

  “And Whitlock? Does Dieter have him? Is that why he wasn’t in school?”

  “There are some things you’re better off not knowing.”

  That’s as much of a confirmation as I need. There’s only one person left I can trust outside the coalition. I don’t tell Ansel I have Whitlock’s number or that I tried to call him from inside the bunker. Whitlock can’t help us now.

  Ansel hands me a topographic map. “This will take you to a bug-out location where you can pick up some supplies if you need them.” His eyes flick to Birdie. “It’s the same place I sent Daniel to keep him safe.”

  “You knew where he was this whole time? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you don’t have a reputation for keeping your thoughts and emotions under wraps. Daniel’s safety was my top priority.”

  Birdie doesn’t argue and Ansel doesn’t say safe from who, because we all know. Snitches get stitches, or worse. They get neutralized.

  “You’ll find the map for your next location inside a buried cache near Lake Dowie. Draw the lines for the second leg of the trip on the map I gave you. It’ll show you how to get to the Gemini Caves. Pick up what you need at the first stop and move out ASAP. You have your phone, right? I’ll text you what I know as things develop.”

  A deep groan comes from the side of the bunker. Ansel hustles over there to check on Connor. I snap a quick photo of the topographic map with the burner phone and send it to Rémy with a text telling him where we’re headed. First location Lake Dowie, then on to the Gemini Caves. I send him a few photos of the lab just in case something happens to us. JIC. It’s best to have somebody beside Ansel know where we’re headed, even if Rémy is an Outsider.

  “What’s that?” Ansel’s blue eyes darken like storm clouds. “That’s not your phone.”

  “It’s a burner. I got it from Rémy.”

  “Are you trying to get him killed? What did you send him?”

  “Killed? What the hell, Ansel? He doesn’t know anything. Your father could be the cause of the Shit Hitting The Fan in a big way. Trust me, Rémy is the least of your problems. And besides, somebody other than you needs to know where we’re going. Somebody else I trust. Unless you’re willing to come with us to talk to the right people.”

  Conflict wrings his face; Ansel’s torn between knowing I’m right but needing to stay loyal and see this through. “We wouldn’t even make it into town.”

  He rips the burner out of my hand and throws it on the ground, smashing it with the heel of his combat boot.

  “What are you doing? I need that.”

  “So do I. That phone will make it seem like we got into it and you got away.” He hands me the rifle. “Hit me in the cheek. Hard enough to make it bleed.”

  “No. Are you crazy? I’m not gonna hit you.”

  “I will.” Birdie snatches the rifle and butts Ansel in the cheek hard enough to leave a gash. “I feel like you deserve that.”

  Ansel pitches forward from the strike and presses the heel of his palm to his cheek. But then he bolts upright, perking his ears up like an animal in the woods. I pick up the faint murmur of Dieter’s gritty voice and go into flight mode, grabbing Birdie’s arm, pulling her away from the bunker.

  “I’ll do my best to keep them off your trail,” Ansel says.

  “How?”

  “The same way I got Connor to hand me his gun.” He digs inside his pocket to retrieve a small plastic bag filled halfway with white powder.

  “Are you sure? You can still come with us.”

  The downhearted way he stares at me, like there’s nothing he’d rather do, confirms every teasing thing Birdie ever said about him. “I can’t. You have to go. Now. Before it’s too late.”

  Birdie and I sprint for the woods. I carry my heart like a lead weight, knowing Ansel always meant for us to be more than friends—much more than my EOTWBFL—and now he’s putting himself on the line for me.

  We find Blue behind the cedar tree, removing Achilles’s hood and untying his jess. She pumps her arm once and lets him fly when she sees us coming. “We’ll be faster if he follows from the air.”

  “Where’s Ansel sending us?” Blue asks.

  I open the map. “Along the Lewis River up to the edge of the national forest through a place called Misty Woods that will take us to Lake Dowie, and then the Gemini Caves.”

  “What? No,” Birdie says. “We can’t. Nobody hikes near Misty Woods.”

  “Maybe that’s the point.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Daniel told me people die or get lost out there forever. Some people claim it’s an urban legend, but the land is supposedly cursed with blood and ill-fated or something.”

  “It’s where people meet their beginning and their end,” Blue says. “The dead are just waiting to be found.”

  “That doesn’t help at all,” Birdie gripes.

  That Blue-ism may or may not be true. If nothing else, our little sister consistently ups the ante on weird.

  BOL

  BUG-OUT LOCATION

  THERE’S NO WAY for us to know what’s happening, or if Rémy got the text messages and pictures I sent before Ansel smashed the burner. I check our shared phone for messages and see we’re getting low on power. Rémy hasn’t replied and soon we’ll be out of range for cell service, completely on our own. I take a chance and turn the phone off to preserve its battery life in case we hit a spot in range closer to the lake.

  We’ve been backpacking northeast for six hours to get to the first bug-out location near Lake Dowie. Based on the map’s scale, we’ve traveled sixteen miles. There were a few state-supported trails free of detritus that made it easier to hike for parts of the trip, and we hauled ass through those sections. We haven’t run into anyone. Most people know better than to hike at night in woods known for cougars and other predators. We didn’t have much choice.

  “You think they’ll find us?” Blue asks.

  “Not if Ansel can help it.”

  We cross over a tributary, holding hands because we’re too lazy to take out trekking poles. I jump to the bank ahead of my sisters and pull them over one at a time. It doesn’t take long for the trees to break open and show us the lake. Quiet and contemplative and full of its own secrets.

  “We made it,” Blue says, wriggling out of her pack.

  She let Achilles fly along the way, keeping his bell on to keep track of him if he went out of sight, but she calls him down now and puts
him inside his carrier for the night. You might not think holding a falcon weighing 2.2 pounds on your arm would be tiresome, but you’d be dead wrong. I dare anyone to keep their arm raised for five and a half hours without a falcon and see how long they last. Sixteen miles hiking through the woods and Blue didn’t complain once. She never does.

  The peaty smell of algae adds to the murkiness of the trees rotting along the lake’s perimeter. Find water. That’s the first rule. Ansel sent us straight to a site where we could wash up and get a drink. I use my flashlight to find a flat spot on the ground, free of rocks and sticks.

  “We’ll make camp here and dig up supplies in the morning.”

  “Are you kidding?” Birdie says. “I’m starving. Let’s dig it up now. There has to be MREs in there, or some hardtack, at least.”

  “Hardtack? You’re so hangry you’d dig holes at midnight to eat that sawdust?”

  “It’s better than nothing.”

  Not really. Hardtack is a thick, flavorless cracker made from flour, water, and salt. Baked. That’s it. And like its name implies, it’s hard as a freaking tack. I’m hungry, too. Don’t get me wrong. We ate granola bars for dinner hours ago, but they don’t sustain you on a big hike for long.

  “No way am I digging holes and boiling water at midnight, Birdie. I’m just gonna drink my fill with my LifeStraw at the edge of the lake, take my Bivy out, and get some sleep.”

  “Me, too,” Blue says. “I’m hungry, but I’d rather gulp down water and sleep for a few hours.”

  “Fine,” Birdie gripes. She ransacks her own bag like messing up her gear is going to irk me. But I’m not the one who has to redistribute her pack’s weight in the morning.

  I pull out an anodized aluminum mug that can be used for food or coffee. It fits over the bottom of my widemouthed water bottle to save space, but I have to take everything apart and dump out a handful of small supplies tucked inside to get to my LifeStraw, which is the thing I need most. Every inch of an INCH gets used.

  Camping near water is a smart way to get distance from predators. Plus, it makes meal prep and cleaning up easier. I put my headlamp on, and Blue and I trek to the edge of the lake. The smell of salmon rises off the water like a powerful cologne. Two varieties make their home here: kokanee and chinook. We don’t have proper bait to catch one for breakfast, and I’m not about to look for maggots or fish eggs. There’s an excellent chance a dead animal is decomposing in these woods, full of squirming white fly larvae, but chances are also high that animal didn’t die of natural causes. Fish eggs are usually carried by sportsmen, not survivalists trying to make a quick escape. If there was a can of roe in my bag, I’d eat it. Maybe with some hardtack to keep it real, but the denial prepper nature prevails with my exhaustion.

  Blue clings to the back of my all-weather jacket while I fill my water bottle, keeping me from slipping into the lake. I take an extra minute to splash some water on my grimy face before she pulls me back. We take turns like that, using the LifeStraw to slurp up filtered water, collecting some for Birdie. The syringe-style filter is a game changer and worth stockpiling since nobody wants to get sick from the ever-present bacteria in lakes. Streams are a little safer because they’re moving and being naturally filtered. Even then, we don’t drink from them without some kind of filtration or purifying tablets.

  Blue puts her Bivy next to mine when we get back to Birdie, then places Achy’s carrier above her head. I think she likes knowing I’m right beside her. To be honest, I take some comfort in that, too. That’s what happens when you share a room with your sisters your entire life. Birdie drinks the water we brought her then sets up her Bivy ten feet away. I stomp over and pull it right up against mine on the opposite side.

  “Four or five hours,” I tell her, “then we’ll get up and dig into the cache, okay? This is a survival situation. You can do this, yeah?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  She doesn’t look happy, but Birdie usually listens to reason when it matters. It’s not like I expect a merit badge for successfully managing the first leg of the trip, but I did nail all three big Rs. Responsible, Reactive, and Ready, getting us here in one piece using only a topo map and a compass. I can sleep soundly on that. I hope she can, too.

  Our INCH bags weigh in at around forty pounds each, so we don’t carry tents. We have tarps, and our Bivy sacks are one-person mini tents that zip all the way around once you’re inside them. And since we don’t have any food animals might smell, I’m all for hunkering down in the open. We slide into our Bivys and zip up. It takes twenty minutes for my body heat to fill the space and make it cozy, but I still can’t sleep. I’m as comfortable as a person can be on the ground, but all I can think about is the potential horrors inside the notebook I took from Dieter’s lab. Birdie is already snoring. For someone who was so hungry she didn’t want to sleep, she dropped like a fly. I would love to write a letter to Bucky, but I’m spent. My bones and muscles achy and weak. I’m about to close my eyes when the unzipping sound of Blue’s Bivy catches my attention.

  “Bucky wants us to come home,” she says.

  It’s not the weirdest thing she’s ever said.

  “We are,” I whisper. “We will.”

  “I know.” She turns on her side and zips herself back into her cocoon.

  Safe from harm for now.

  LTFS

  LONG-TERM FOOD STORAGE

  BLUE IS SHAKING me awake. My Bivy sack is unzipped, exposing my head and shoulders to the crisp morning air. I was dreaming about Bucky. He was walking through the woods with us yesterday, saying everything would be fine. But the end is drawing near, I told him. He looked me dead in the eye and said, Yes. Finally.

  But what does that mean?

  I slither out of the worm-like cocoon and quickly layer up. Birdie is on her knees digging up soft dirt with the mini shovel from her INCH. She’cursing under her breath, just under the threshold of flipping out.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong?” she seethes. “There’s nothing here. Ansel sent us to a spot with no supplies. No long-term food storage. Nothing.”

  “Maybe another hiker found it and thought it was left by a Trail Angel. Are you sure you’re digging in the right spot?”

  Birdie points sharply to a tree blazed with BB for Burrow Boys, only the first letter is flipped to resemble a butterfly, making it less obvious. It’s a symbol I’ve seen on the stocks of rifles, ammo bags, tents. Caches are usually buried forty-five paces from a blaze. I’m eyeballing the distance, but it seems like the right spot.

  “Did the ground look dug up and put back together?”

  Birdie gives me a dirty look. Blue shakes her head, actually giving me an answer. I’m moved to take the shovel from Birdie and dig myself when her next stab hits pay dirt. She digs faster and unearths a cylindrical, speckle-gray plastic container with an X-marked screw top. The commercial tub is made for holding and preserving fifty-pound bags of dog food, but it’s sturdy enough to keep in-ground for extended periods of time. For a second, I’m impressed with the ingenuity. I’ve seen caches made from PVC pipe, food storage buckets, and military-grade metal, but that’s not the point. The point is the cache is here, as promised.

  “You should give Ansel more credit,” I say.

  Birdie ignores me. Ever the one to think and do what she wants.

  She unscrews the lid and sighs with relief. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Blue kiss Achilles’s head before releasing him to hunt. The map is on top of a couple of MREs, also as promised. Underneath those we find three pull-tab cans of baked beans, a heavy-duty trash bag that can be used for shelter from the rain in a pinch, a hand-crank flashlight, a small folding knife, cordage, a cheap compass, a mini first aid kit, and matches in a waterproof container. We already have everything except the food, so that’s all we should take, and only as much as we need to get us to the next location.

  “Let’s eat the beans and leave the rest. We know how to hunt and fish, we don’t need to take
the MREs. Plus, the beans can be eaten out of the cans fast without having to make a fire.”

  “Let’s take one,” Birdie says.

  I don’t argue such a small point. If having dehydrated egg scramble on hand makes Birdie feel better, I’ll allow it. I pull it out and hand it over. Habit makes me look for the stockpile list so I can cross off what we took, despite knowing we aren’t going back to The Nest.

  I find a small field notebook at the bottom of the tub. Everything inside is listed. And I mean everything. Nothing has been crossed off, which means one of two things. Either Daniel never used this cache to stop and eat, opting to go straight to the second location, or he never made it here at all. I dig a pen out of my INCH and copy the lines from this map onto the one Ansel gave us. I return everything we don’t need, screw the lid on, and lower it back into the hole, keeping my observations about the ground and LTFS to myself until we know for sure.

  “Are you gonna eat?” Birdie is already halfway through her can of syrupy beans.

  “In a minute.” I bury the cache and stomp the dirt down with my boots. There’s no denying the ground was disturbed this time. It will take weeks for it to tamp down and blend into the surrounding ground. Not days. Weeks.

  I scarf down the sticky beans to catch up to my sisters. They’re actually not bad cold, or maybe we’re just too hungry to care. We pack the empty cans into our bags, following the leave-no-trace rule, and head out for the Gemini Caves.

  Each of us carries something different in our INCH for hunting and making camp. I have a bow and folding saw, Blue has a slingshot and Achilles, and Birdie brought a bow and a machete. She’s leading the way. Ten miles into the hike, we start ascending through an overgrown thicket. Birdie has to use her machete to bushwhack our way uphill. We have to stop periodically for her to hack away at brush or branches, which slows us down. After the third or fourth time, I can’t help but pay attention to the water calling my name from inside my pack. “Hey! Let’s stop for a few minutes. I need a drink.”