Apophis (10 page)

I stood up abruptly.  “I’m, uh, I’m gonna go find some more wood for the fire,” I announced.

My dad stared at me for a moment.  We didn’t need more wood; the fire was big enough to melt snow and he’d already cooked the rabbit meat.  We’d be packing up and leaving in a short while.  But he seemed to understand that I needed space.  “Okay,” he said, nodding slowly.  “Don’t go too far though.”

+++++

I couldn’t breathe.  I sucked in deep, gasping sobs as I crashed through the thin forest, putting distance between myself and our campsite.  If any bandits had been lurking nearby, they would most certainly have heard and found me.  But I didn’t care.  I threw myself down on a built-up snowdrift when it felt like my lungs were going to explode inside my chest.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted to howl.  I hadn’t properly mourned my mother’s death and now, combined with my grandmother’s unannounced departure, the flood gates had opened. Tears stung my eyes and burned down my sunburned cheeks.

I had bonded better with my father growing up.  We talked sports; we talked cars.  I had few things in common with my mom besides shared DNA.  She loved gardening and baking and scrapbooking.  She was always reading the latest chic-lit novel from the
New York Times
bestseller list or going to the movies with her friends to see the newest romantic comedy starring whichever celebrity
People
magazine had named Sexiest Man alive.  I didn’t have the patience for any of that.  What I wouldn’t do to be able to go back and watch
Love Actually
with my mom.

I stopped and tensed when I heard the unmistakable sound of twigs snapping beneath boots. What had moments ago been uncontrollable sobs, stilled in my throat.
Now you’ve done it, Sam.
I scolded myself. 
You’ve announced to the world where you are.

I held my breath, expecting the worst.  I was sure a bandit had found me.

“Do you need help?” Nora’s annoyingly sexy, yet concerned voice alerted me. “Your dad said you were getting wood for the fire.” I didn’t know how she’d found me, but I’d probably made footprints the size of Yeti’s in my scramble to get away.

“No, I’ve got it.” I scooped up a handful of twigs, hoping she hadn’t seen me crying.  My errand was of the futile variety and I wondered if she knew that.

“I want to help.  I feel so useless,” she said, flapping her arms like a flightless penguin.  If I wasn’t so concerned about masking my emotions, I might have actually found it endearing. “Your dad won’t let me help either.”

“He probably figures you’ll just mess something up,” I answered truthfully. My statement wasn't meant to be a reflection on her competency, but she seemed to take it like that.  She made a frustrated noise, huffing and scowling. My dad was a very independent man, but I also think he harbored some OCD tendencies.  He was unusually particular about certain things – like how you folded bath towels – and his quirks had worsened since we’d left Williston.  Things had to be just so for him to feel a sliver of stability or control.
 I guess I could understand why he felt that way.  I was craving some stability as well.

“I’m sorry about your grandma.”

I felt my lower chin start to wobble and tremble. 
No, not now.  Not in front of
her. 
Keep it together, Sam.

Nora continued staring at me and I was in awe of her boldness.  I hated confronting sickness or sadness.  Whenever people told me sad stories it made me uncomfortable. Nora, however, seemed unaffected, yet genuine.

“We should sleep in the same tent,” I blurted out.  As soon as the words tumbled out, I recoiled.  I didn’t know why I had said the words out loud.  Perhaps my grandmother’s departure had left me feeling a little vulnerable and needing to make connections.

Nora arched a pale eyebrow.  “Is that a pickup line?” Her mouth curled at the edges.  “Does that kind of fancy talk work on the kids back where you’re from?”

I could feel a blush warming my normally icy cheekbones.  “My dad gave my grandma his tent when she left, and I really don’t want to share a tent with him,” I said, ignoring her jab.  “He snores like a semi-truck downshifting.”

Nora smirked at me. “So I’d be doing you a huge favor, huh?”

“It’d help you, too,” I interjected. “Our combined body heat will keep the tent at a higher temperature if we stay together.  We could share a floor pad so you don’t have to keep blowing up your air mattress.”

“I had no idea you were a cuddler.  You don’t look like the type.”

“Can you be serious for a second?” I said, throwing my hands up in frustration. 

“Probably not.  I say inappropriate things when I’m worried or scared,” she admitted.  “It’s kind of my thing.”

“Well there’s nothing to be scared about,” I said with a confidence I didn’t know I possessed anymore.  “My dad knows his stuff.  He’ll get us where we need to go.”

She bit down on her bottom lip, but finally gave a tiny, barely perceptible nod.

“And what do you mean I don’t look like a cuddler?” I demanded.

She grinned at me, almost mischievously, and walked back in the direction of our campsite, leaving me on my own to wonder about her comment.

+++++

My dad pushed us harder than before after my grandmother left.  I didn’t know if it was his way of coping – to just keep moving and put as much distance between us and sadness – or if there was a reason for his haphazard actions.  My stable, reliable rock seemed to be falling apart.

My mother had always been the voice of reason on those rare occasions when he acted recklessly.  With her gone though, I supposed that task fell to me.  I’d never been very good at communicating with my dad.  Maybe he and I were too similar, too stubborn, too convinced of always being right, to really get along.

I was keeping up fine with our hurried pace and long hours, but I could tell that Mr. West was struggling.  When I noticed the redness of his face and the ragged tug of his breath, I jogged up to my father’s side at the head of our small caravan.  “We should stop for the night soon.” 

He glanced at me, meeting my gaze without blinking, but said nothing.

“Mr. West is really starting to struggle,” I added.

He made a noncommittal sound.  It was a move I’d pulled a hundred times and now I knew why it pissed so many people off.

“It’s not smart for us to keep going, Dad,” I tried instead, speaking to his logical side.  “The moon’s not that bright tonight.  We could get lost or one of us could fall into a crevice or something.”

He stopped abruptly and I nearly stumbled over him.  “Is there something you want to say to me, Samantha?” He looked at me hard.

“No, I just…we’re just…” I stumbled over my words. “I get wanting to reach Eden as soon as possible, but it’s not helping anyone if the guy who’s supposed to help us find it doesn’t make it.”

“I suppose we’ve gone far enough tonight,” he grunted.

“We must be getting close, right?” I asked, trying to pry
some
information from him about the location of Eden.  It didn’t make sense to me why he was being so close-lipped about this secret facility.  But my father was a man of few words.  He’d always kept his emotions to himself, and since my mother’s death, he’d closed up even more. 

I’d dissected a starfish in high school biology once.  Starfish knew just how much pressure and energy to use to slowly exhaust a tight-clamped clam.  Eventually the clam would tire and the starfish would pry open its shell.  Then it kind of pushed its stomach out through its bellybutton to consume the vulnerable, tender flesh of the clam.

My dad was like that tight-lipped, frightened clam.  I just wish I were clever enough to get him to open up.  I wanted to yell at him.  Shake him out of this funk.  Remind him that he still had me.  I felt powerless, but also like I would never be enough – he’d lost both his wife and mother.

In a way, I suppose I was thankful we’d bumped into the Wests.  Not only did Eden give us something to hope for, but they were two more travel partners.  It would have been a very lonely existence only traveling with my reticent father across the country. 

+++++

I didn’t know why I felt so nervous. Okay, that was a lie. I knew exactly what it was that had put me on edge.  Nora and I were going to share a tent for the first time that night. I used to feel this same discomfort moments before I would hang out with Andrea after I’d labeled my feelings for her as more than just friendly. That same uneasy knot I’d feel in my stomach had settled into my gut as I waited for Nora to come to the tent.  Even though she annoyed the hell out of me, I couldn’t deny that she was attractive.  Her voice made me literally weak in the knees and the reward of her smile could warm even the iciest day. 

Like Nora’s pack and winter parka, the tent was top of the line. The ones my family had were nice enough – they weren't made of that cheap tent material that leaked when you touched the walls of the tent – but Nora’s was a lot nicer.  Her tent was bigger than the one I had shared with my grandmother, and it was pale pink instead of our hunter green.  Neither color was inconspicuous in the snow so I couldn’t justify being annoyed by the lack of camouflage.  It also smelled very girlie. I always smelled like campfire, which I didn’t mind, but somehow Nora managed to always smell feminine and sweet.

Before I had laid out my sleeping bag for the night, I’d detached my sleeping pad from my backpack and had unrolled it to cover much of the bottom of Nora’s tent.  It was probably a four-person tent, and the extra space was more than enough for our two bodies and our few belongings; it would be nice not being crammed like I’d been in the tent with my grandma.  Between the high-rated tent and lined cocoon sleeping bags we didn’t need to huddle together to share body heat.  I frowned looking down at my foam pad laid out on the tent floor.  If both of us wanted to share the foam pad to put that extra layer between ourselves and the frozen ground, we’d have to snuggle up.

I snapped to attention at the sound of a zipper unfastening as Nora made her way into the tent.

“You’d better not snore,” she said curtly.

I didn’t know what had gotten her so pissy, but I didn’t push back even though I wanted to.  She could easily revoke her invitation and I’d have to sleep in my old tent with my dad.  It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, but as much as I hated to admit it, I preferred Nora’s company to my dad’s. When she wasn’t complaining she was relatively inoffensive.  It was an improvement over the grunts my dad routinely tried to pass as conversation.

I self-consciously adjusted my ski cap on my head. “If I do you can kick me out.”

“Yeah, but then who am I going to cuddle with?” she countered, effortlessly downshifting from pissy to flirty.

We both settled into our respective sleeping bags. Without my foam pad directly beneath me, I could feel the chill seeping up through the ground.  I wasn’t going to whine or complain though.  I’d suffered through worse.

“Are you even on the sleeping pad?” Nora asked.  I’d tried to put as much space as I could between our sleeping bags without being obvious, but it was clear she’d noticed.

“I’m fine. I’m warm enough without it,” I insisted. My frozen body would hate me in the morning, but it seemed like a better option than the alternative of sleeping cozied up to an attractive girl.  I knew too well the punishment of being close to something you could never have.

“Wiggle over here, Sammy,” Nora called out playfully. “There's plenty of room next to me.”

“I don’t think anyone’s called me Sammy since kindergarten.”

“Well I think it’s cute,” Nora remarked. “I’m bringing it back.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.” I’d always hated that nickname.

“This sleeping pad is actually pretty impressive,” Nora announced. She twisted in her sleeping bag so she was facing me. “I mean, it’s no inflatable mattress, but it’ll do.”

“I can’t believe you actually packed one of those,” I snorted. I rolled around a bit.  A tree root was jutting into my tailbone.  What I wouldn’t do for an inflatable mattress right now.

“It was fine when we were driving,” she defended herself. “I plugged the air compressor into the cigarette lighter in the car.  And then we slept in the back of the SUV with the seats folded down.”

“You two never considered what would happen when your car ran out of gas?”

“I don’t think either of us knew it would be so bad out here, too,” she said, her voice getting quiet and somber. “It made sense that the cities would be a mess, but I guess it was a little naive to think it would be any better out here.”

I sighed and looked at the tent ceiling. “I don’t think anyone could have imagined it would ever get this bad.”

+++++

CHAPTER SEVEN

In those days after my grandmother’s departure, life once again fell into a routine.  We’d wake up, build a fire and eat whatever my father’s traps had caught during the night, take down our campsite and travel during the daylight hours, stopping only to hydrate and consult maps.  When the sun came close to setting, we’d stop for the night.  Our fathers had the task of setting up the tents while Nora and I gathered whatever dry wood we could find in the vicinity for that night’s fire.  It became a kind of competition between the two of us – who could find the most wood, who could find the driest wood.

Despite my attempt to be nicer to Nora, I found moments when my annoyance got the best of me.  And to her credit, Nora never backed down from a good verbal fight, particularly on the coldest days, when fuses were shorter and tempers flared.  I was sure it was driving both of our dads crazy.  It probably wouldn’t have surprised either of them if we had busted out with an “Are we there yet?”

When our dads crammed around the road maps and made plans for the next day they probably entertained the thought of leaving us both behind. We were all starting to get sick of so much time together with no one else to talk to.  It was a never-ending road trip. I felt like we’d been walking forever, but we were still only in Montana.  It seemed like we were crossing the entire country, not just a single state.   Reaching Eden felt like an impossible task.

It had gotten late enough that we would soon be setting up camp for the night when we came across something I didn’t think I’d ever see again.  Running water.

“What is this place?” 

My father crouched beside me in the snow and peered into the small body of water. “It looks like a mineral spring. I can’t understand why it’s not frozen over though,” he said, thinking out loud.

Nora fell to her knees beside me and plunged her hands into the pool of water.  The protest died in my throat when she appeared to be fine.  Her gloves would be soaked through, but she’d be able to dry them over the fire we would build tonight.

“It’s warm.” Her voice was so quiet and softly reverent I almost didn’t hear it.

I pulled off my gloves and tentatively dipped my hands into the water.  It
was
warm.  I stared at the way my hands moved through the water without obstacle, relishing in the way the liquid slipped through my fingers.  I cupped my hands and experimentally brought some to my mouth.  God, it tasted good.  I drank greedily, letting some of the water spill past my lips and down my chin.  It was a luxury I had nearly forgotten.

My head whipped up when I heard the distinct sound of branches snapping.  Someone was lurking in the woods.

My dad’s voice filled my head.  A single word. “Run!”

I immediately scrambled to my feet and took off in the direction where my father had gone.  I took only a moment to look behind me.  Nora and Mr. West were close behind, and following them were several darkly dressed figures. 
Bandits. 
I didn’t take the time to count the bodies, but I could tell they easily outnumbered us.

I picked up my knees to trudge more quickly through the uneven terrain and high snow banks, but it had gotten dark and I was moving too haphazardly.  I knew something was wrong the moment my right boot made contact with the ground.  Something shifted beneath my step.
 My body went one way and my ankle went the other.  I couldn’t hear the popping sound over the heavy crunch of boots tearing through old snow and the loud noises of being chased, but I could certainly feel it.  I shrieked in pain, but also in surprise as my leg gave out on my unsure footing and I fell hard to the ground.  My knees hit against something that stuck out of the snow-covered ground.  It felt like a tree root, but it might as well have been made out of concrete.

My dad heard my cry and spun around to come back for me.  But before he could reach me, a head swooped under my armpit and a sturdy arm wrapped tight around my torso.

“Get up, Sammy,” Nora gritted through clenched teeth as she helped me to my feet.

My dad appeared satisfied that I was being helped and he turned back around to focus on evading the group pursuing us.

“Don’t call me Sammy,” I said through gritted teeth.

I couldn’t put weight on my ankle.  Every step was excruciating.  I couldn’t have been quiet if I’d wanted to.  Every time my right foot touched the ground, I let out a tortured sob.  I began to panic. What if I’d done something serious to injure my foot?  There were no walk-in clinics, no emergency rooms for broken bones and torn tendons. What if I couldn’t walk as before? What if my dad had to leave me behind to survive?

“Just a little faster,” Nora coaxed in my ear.  The weight of her arm held fast around my waist, but it felt like an anchor.

“I-I don’t think I can,” came my shaky reply.
 I thought I had a high tolerance for pain, but I felt like I might pass out or at least throw up.

“Forget about using your right foot.  Use me like a crutch,” she urged.

I nodded and swallowed down another wave of nausea that had been brought on by the pain.

“Put down the gun!” an unfamiliar voice called out. 

Nora and I both froze.  Instead of continuing to run away, Nora’s father had produced a handgun.  The people chasing us stopped as well and formed a half circle around our group. Mr. West kept waving the gun around, changing his aim on a new masked figure every few seconds. 

“We mean you no harm,” one of the men called out to us.

“Then why the hell do you have guns aimed at us?" Mr. West yelled back.

The man said something to the other members of his group, but we were too far away to hear his muddled instructions.  Regardless, the others lowered their weapons at his command.  Only when the other group holstered their rifles did Mr. West lower his firearm as well.  He didn’t put it away though; his right hand was still wrapped around the pistol grip, but it hung loosely at his side.

The man who seemed to be in charge of the darkly dressed group surveyed us. “You look like you could use some assistance.”  His gaze seemed to linger on Nora and me.  Her arm was still tight around my waist.  In our panic to get away, I hadn’t had time to feel uncomfortable by her closeness, but now that we’d stopped, I was acutely aware of every tense squeeze around my torso.

“We're fine,” my father crisply informed the strangers.  He pulled himself up to his full, impressive height and threw his shoulders back.  I knew he was trying to look intimidating and strong, but they clearly outnumbered us and were armed. “We’re just passing through. We’ll be on our way in the morning or tonight yet if that’s what you’d like.”

“I can’t let you leave.” My stomach dropped at the masked man’s words. “It wouldn’t feel right sending you on your way with part of your group injured.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.  Maybe we’d be okay.

“She hurt her leg and she’s in too much pain to go anywhere,” Nora informed everyone, speaking on my behalf apparently, and sounding brattier than usual.

She trailed off when one of the men approached us.  He promptly stooped and picked me up.
 He literally swept me off my feet and an embarrassingly girlie squeak slipped out of my mouth.

“Is this okay?” he asked me.

Nora looked unimpressed. “Yeah, I guess that works, too,” she answered for me again.

We marched away from the woods and the mineral stream until we came upon a small, deserted town less than a mile away.
 Well, I didn’t march. I was carried like some damsel in distress.  I felt ridiculous and embarrassed.  I didn’t know what to do with my head. I didn’t want to rest it against this stranger’s shoulder, but my neck was getting stiff from holding myself so rigid and erect.

No one spoke, which fed into my feeling of foreboding.  No one asked who we were, where had come from, or where we were headed to.  And no one in our group asked the men who they were or where they were taking us.  I wanted to speak up, but I took my cue from my father and remained silent despite the questions milling through my brain.

The little town was dark, just like every other city across the country.  Store-front windows were intact and the buildings were graffiti free. I wondered how this place had not been looted by bandits or even its own townspeople.  We turned into the parking lot of the town’s public high school.  “Welcome! Home of the Savage Heat” was written in magnetic letters on the front kiosk.  Its irony was lost on no one.

I thought we were going inside the high school, but we walked right past the main building and marched in the direction of the sports fields behind the school.  We finally stopped when we reached a metal shack near the track.
 It looked like it might have been a concession stand before the Frost.  The man who seemed to be in charge pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked the blue metal door. He went inside and we followed.

With no windows, it was pitch black inside the concession building.  It smelled like popcorn and dirt.
 Our group kept moving and I lost my sense of place.  Where were we walking to?  How big was this building? I might have been imagining it, but it felt like we were traveling at a decline and walking into the earth.

We stopped again.  I heard the jangle of keys coming from the front of the group, followed by the sound of a heavy metal door swinging open.  When the door opened there was a light glowing on the other side.  I tried to get a better sense of where we were with the addition of this new light, but there still were no windows and the walls looked like they were constructed of thick metal painted with the same kind of glossy, anti-rust paint you see on giant boats.

We walked into what I could only imagine was an underground bunker.  More and more questions flooded my head. How big was this place? How was it lit up like a Christmas tree when everything else was dark?  How long had it been here?  Was this what Eden was like?

We were now in a wide hallway when the massive vault-like door was closed behind us, basically locking us in.  I felt claustrophobic.  I squirmed, trying to break free of the masked man’s hold on me, but his grip only tightened.  Some of the group took off their ski masks and walked away, unconcerned about the fate of us, the newcomers.

“Stay right here,” the man in charge instructed.  “I’m going to call our doctor so she can take a look at your injuries.” A few moments later, his voice echoed over an unseen PA system. “Paging Doctor Allyse. Doctor Allyse to the sick-bay.”  The man still carrying me started to walk down the hallway.

“You can put me down whenever,” I said, uselessly swinging my legs.

“Nope.  Taking you to see the doctor,” he replied determinedly.

“I’m really okay,” I insisted. “I just tweaked my ankle a little.”  I twisted my head so I could see behind us.  My ankle did actually throb, but I didn’t want to get separated from my group. 

“Where are you taking her?” Nora called after us.

The man stopped and turned on his heels to address her. “I'm taking her to the infirmary,” he said. “She needs that ankle looked at.”

“I’ll come with,” Nora chirped.

The masked man tried to reason with her, but he underestimated her stubbornness. “That’s really not –.”

“I’m coming with,” Nora insisted. “We’re all coming with.” Her tone indicated she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

The “hospital” wasn’t much to look at.  It was really nothing more than an average-sized room, much like a bedroom, populated with a few cots and shelves and cabinets.  I saw no fancy medical equipment or anything that looked vaguely hospital-like.

An attractive woman, probably in her late-twenties or early-thirties, rushed into the room.
 It was clear we’d woken her up.  Her shiny brunette hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and wild strands stubbornly stuck out.  She wore teal scrubs which very well could have been pajamas, or her work uniform, or both.

“Ryan?” The woman stopped when she saw our rag-tag group crowded in the modest room. “Is that you under there?”

The man still wearing his ski-cap chuckled.  With his hands full of me, I suppose he couldn’t really take it off.  “Damn, you’re good, Doc.”

The woman, the doctor apparently, trained her gaze on me next.  “And who is this?” I saw her eyes move past me and land on my father, Mr. West, and Nora, who had been trailing closely behind. “And why are you the knight in shining ski-cap?”

“We found these folks over by the springs,” the man named Ryan said.  “They were pretty banged up, so we brought them down here.”

The woman’s face scrunched up.  “That’s never happened before.”

Ryan shrugged. “I know.  But Paul gave the order.”

“Must be nice to be on the council,” she snorted.  She cleared her throat loudly. “So what seems to be the problem?” she said, snapping into a more professional tone.

“My ankle,” I said weakly, still embarrassed that I’d been carried for what felt like a lifetime by this masked man.  “I twisted it.”  I tried to flex my foot to show her which one, but it ached too much.