A Cold Black Wave (11 page)

They spent the next half hour finishing packing and eating breakfast, which was limited to sharing an energy bar.
 
Each bite packed hundreds of calories, plenty of protein and nutrients that would help them hike for hours.
 
Even so, they would need to ration them for as long as possible.
 
There was no telling how far they would travel before getting to a warmer climate and if they’d even find food there.

Leah caught a finger on the bottom of her snowshoe as she tried to put them on, "Ouch!"

"Need help?"

"No.
 
I'm fine."

In reality her feet were sore and her calves were burning tight. On top of that, she still had trouble figuring out how to latch the snowshoe to her boot.
 
She wasn't in the greatest shape and the hiking today would be very difficult but she refused to complain.
 
If he could carry on after recovering from gunshot wounds and a blood infection, she could suck up a little pain.
 
Or so she hoped.

Once they set off they got their blood flowing again and their pace quickened.  Josh’s body hurt all over and his torso remained tender and bruised, yet he found a way to suppress the pain and move as if he were entirely healthy.  He had gone through worse at the Academy.

During physical training, students were often forced into extreme tests of endurance interspersed with physical combat with one another.  The incentive to win these fights, even for Josh who detested them, was avoiding further punishment and temporary incarceration.  Thus he fought and won, despite having already run five miles while carrying a fifty pound pack, climbing obstacle courses and crawling through mud and live gunfire in the Academy’s training grounds.

Even after winning, however, the victor was forced to continue on with the endurance training.  He would be required to finish the rest of the run and obstacle course, many times with broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, torn ligament or busted nose.  It was better than what the loser had to endure and Josh felt little remorse for his classmates that he defeated.  The losers were subsequently thrown into isolation and subjected to sleep deprivation, food deprivation and random night-time beatings for three days.

For the majority of the students, this process was part of their duty to prepare themselves for their rendezvous with destiny.  There was no greater honor for them than to submit to the Academy, for their lot was the greatest in all of human history with no nobler a purpose than to ensure mankind’s survival.  Indeed, the body and mind were willingly sacrificed to the Academy so that they may be recreated in their image.

The land curved downward as if on a hill and they passed underneath large canopies from the towering sequoia’s which were now dominating the landscape and blocking out much of the sun.  The branches overhead were so thick hardly any snow reached the ground in those places, and Josh realized the snow in general was thinning and stopped so they could remove their snowshoes, much to Leah’s relief.

“How come these trees are so much bigger than the others?”  She asked as she absently removed her snowshoes.

Josh walked leisurely nearby, his thumbs stuck under the straps of his backpack.  “They look like redwoods.  Some of the biggest ones are over three thousand years old, maybe more.  People used to come from all over the world to visit them.”

Leah ripped off one of her shoes, “You think they’re still alive on earth, did they survive?”

“How the hell would I know?” 

“You seem to know everything, just thought I’d ask ...”

“Doesn’t matter.  Nobody left there to visit them anymore.”

Josh eventually sat down and removed his snowshoes as well, hanging them from his pack but tied close enough so that they wouldn’t bounce around as he walked.  Once he was done he helped Leah secure hers as well.

“Thanks,” she said.  Josh just glanced at her with pursed lips.  As he stood he noticed something moving in the corner of his eye and moved to a better spot to examine it further.  He could make out the faint color of white smoke drifting between breaks in the trees just over a ridge.

“What is it?”  Leah asked, standing next to him and looking at the spot he was peering at.

“Smoke, maybe, or steam.”

“Where?  I don’t see it.”

“Let’s go, and get your rifle ready,” he said, pulling his own gun around.  “Remember to squ-”

“Squeeze,” she tapped the gun lightly with her palm.  “I got it.”

They crossed a snaking creek that wasn’t more than a couple feet wide, and lined with rocks and dark green vegetation.  It took one long step for them to get over it before weaving through waist-high foliage that pulled and scraped against their bodies.  Small forest bugs chirped as they passed and winged things fluttered away from underneath leaves once they disturbed them.  Josh turned and noticed she was falling behind and whistled softly to get her attention.  She was closely examining a crawling vine that had thick yellow buds lining the edges of its stem.  When she finally looked at Josh he angrily waved
for
her to follow.

They came upon a rising hill embedded with glistening, moss-laden rocks that were surrounded with a carpet of dried pine needles.  They climbed the small ridge nearly to the top before Josh went to his stomach to crawl the rest of the way.  Leah was bumbling up to meet him, falling forward and dropping her rifle, the weight of her pack shifting from left to right as she sought purchase against the loose pine needles.

Josh flashed a satisfying grin as he watched the steam rise right in front of him.  Leah was shimmying the rest of the way up, finally crawling up next to him panting for air.    She noticed a smile on his face and asked, “What?”

“Take a look,” he said, nodding for her to crawl up further.  When she reached the top she gasped and turned to see Josh still looking at her, a big smile etched across his face.  “Come on,” he said.  “Let’s go for a swim.”

Before they knew it they were stripping down to their underwear and jumping into the warm water.  Their cold, aching, dirty bodies splashed down into a pool of radiance that, when it touched the skin made it crawl with joy.  They found themselves within a blackrock alcove which surrounde
d a natural spring with a
waterworn face, and a small waterfall cascaded past smoothed rocks.

The soothing water pulled all of the tension and stress from their bodies, letting it dissolve and fall into the deep abyss where the water had sprung from.  Large sheets of steam blew and wafted high into the air and Leah happily splashed water at Josh through the fog.  Josh held a mischievous smile as he slapped a huge fan of water at her face as she laughed and shook the water away.

“This is amazing!” She cried, pulling her dripping hair back and scanning the cliffs above.  The sun managed to be perfectly situated just above the gnarled tree limbs that hovered over the spring, allowing rays of heavenly glow to pierce and illuminate the violet hued water.

Josh did a backstroke and lazily cruised around the perimeter of the spring until he made a full circle.  An unnerving sense of vulnerability came over him but he pushed it aside.  Being in the spring right now defied everything the academy had taught him.  They had no way to defend themselves if someone attacked now, but he didn’t care.  He would let himself soak up this joy which he had never known.

Josh dove under and let the ancient water surround him.  As he surfaced his eyes rested immediately on a rotted wooden staircase leading around the side of the cliff.  Its shape had warped and splintered from years of disuse, and a rusted handrail followed it up steeply.

He sloshed out of the water and grabbed his clothes, drying off and dressing himself as the cold bit at his skin.

“Now what is it?”  Leah asked from the far side of the spring.  “You can’t enjoy yourself can you?”

He ignored her as he proceeded towards the steps with his gun at the ready.  “There’s something over here,” he said, barely audible to Leah.

“What?”

He put a finger to his lips and waved her away, “Shhh.  Stay there.”

He then proceeded up the wood and rock staircase.  The stairs were built into the rock and followed its natural path, spiraling slightly and at a sharp gradient.  It had long since been used by anyone or taken care of, as the wood was overgrown with foliage and each step splintered off rotted pieces.  Josh wasn’t sure what he’d find, but this was the first architecture he’d seen since the outpost.

Near the top of his climb, the stairs ended abruptly, with a flat rock face in front that he had to lift himself over to continue.  When his eyes rose above the threshold he noticed the remnants of a tattered cloth hanging between two trees not twenty feet away.  Josh placed his rifle at the edge to free his hands and pull himself up.  He immediately retrieved his rifle and crouched against a rock to scan his surroundings.  Seeing nothing, he continued towards the debris with his rifle at the ready.

When he stood over it, he prodded at the bones with the barrel.  Human adults.  The two bodies were clung together in an embrace and had been dead for a very long time.  The comings and goings of the seasons had nearly enveloped them with dirt and humus, the bones cracked and brittle.  A small object protruded from the ground and Josh leaned down to pull it up.

An aluminum can.  Underneath the dirt he brushed off, Josh found half-faded colorful characters written in an exaggerated style.  It reminded him of the old soda cans that were sold on earth, except he didn’t recognize this particular brand and there was no language on it he could understand.

“Josh!”  Leah called from below, her worried voice carrying up to him.  “What are you doing?”

He took the can with him as he left, and saw Leah get out of the spring just as he arrived.  When Leah realized she was almost entirely naked in front of him she leapt to her clothes and covered herself, “You coulda said something!”

“Oh, uh...” Josh spun around.  “I, I uh, I found something.  Up there.”

“Yeah, okay.  Just wait a minute,” she added tersely as she dried and dressed.  As she zipped up her parka she said, “So what is it?  You can turn around now.”

He peeked over his shoulder first just to make sure.  The whole can thing felt stupid now as he walked towards her, “This.”

She held it curiously, “A soda can?  So I’m right, this is earth!”  She pushed it back at him as she dried her hair, convinced with her assessment.

“No,” he said, sliding next to her so she could see.  “Look at it.  The wording, look, I don’t even know what language that is.  I’ve never seen anything like it and I can tell you that nothing like these existed on earth.”

Concerned now, she took a second look.  “It could be a new language.  Maybe there were survivors and they developed a new language.  We were gone a long time Josh, and how can anyone say for a fact that nobody survived?”

He responded sternly, “There is no new language.  This isn’t earth Leah, and even if it were some new language there would be similarities to old ones.  I’d be able to tell if this was some derivative of another language but there’s nothing like that here.”

“The machine,” she remembered.  “It had a different language on it too.  Different from this.”

“I saw something else ...”

“Okay, what?”

“When I climbed up I found bones.  Human bones.”

Her eyes lit up
, “How can you still say this isn’t earth?  Human bones?  What are the odds that we found not only a planet just like earth, but one with humans?  You mock me about my faith yet you choose to believe in impossible odds, go figure!”

“The most impossible odds are still more possible than the existence of God, so I’ll take my chances.  Look, it doesn’t change our situation.  Come on,” he said grimly.  He cinched his pack tight and walked past Leah, “Let’s go.  We need to find a way out of this forest.  Out of this goddamn cold.”