Carry the Flame (19 page)

Where are they?
She'd lost sight of them.
Did they move?

“I'll shoot. I will.” Pleading mostly with herself. She thought about running—
You're fast—
then spotted the dark outline of one of them rising. The others stayed down. Cassie aimed and tried hard to yell, but her words were swallowed by the noise behind her. She spun around, still saw nothing, but the sound was so loud it shocked her ears. So loud the dark figure now standing had to shout, horrifying Cassie with the realization that a human—the most dangerous animal of all—was approaching.

“Don't shoot, don't shoot,” a woman kept yelling. “Listen to me. That's a motorcycle. You don't want the man on that motorcycle to catch you. He's with the Alliance. Does that mean anything to you? The Dominion?”

What man?
It was all Cassie could think. She turned back toward the screaming engine noise. She didn't see a man or motorcycle, but the sound was like a wounded, screaming animal. She pointed the gun at the woman, shouting, “Who are you?”

“We heard a shot,” the woman yelled back. “We've come to help. We're not with them.” She stepped forward. She wore a dark hooded cloak.

“No!” Cassie screamed. “Don't move.” She shifted sideways to try to look both ways at once.

“Don't shoot,” the woman repeated when Cassie pointed the gun toward her again. “He'll hear it.” She inched closer.

“Go away,” Cassie cried. She looked over to see the silhouette of a bizarre vehicle racing toward her. Not just a motorcycle: A cruel looking cage was attached to it—and she saw the heads of
two
men, one behind the other. The man in back pointed to her, and the motorcycle slowed.

The woman leaped at Cassie, pried the gun from her hand and then fired twice at the men. Her hood fell back, and the second muzzle flash lit tight curls of white hair that spilled past her shoulders, and sharp features gaunt with terror. She pulled Cassie toward the other dark figures, all of them rising, running.

Cassie stumbled in the sand. The woman caught her and yelled, “Come on. Go!”

Cassie raced past her into the darkness.

Chapter Eleven

A
bullet plunked sand inches from where Cassie staggered up the dune. She pumped her short skinny legs over the same stretch those terrifying men had swarmed down to attack the caravan and kill Maul, the desert swallowing her every step. She looked back and saw a muzzle flash blaze in the darkness. In an instant almost too quick for time, sand sprayed against her bare calves, stinging like jellyfish, the only sea life she'd ever seen. The white-haired woman hunkered behind her, firing back at a big guy by the motorcycle.

Another shot ripped into the sand. Cassie hurled herself left, lost her balance, fell.

She thrust out her hands to stand, burying her arms halfway to her elbows, then fought frantically to climb back to her feet.

She forced herself forward, hoping she was as hard to see as the woman and the others who'd crept toward her.
But they've got dark stuff on.
Cloaks. Hoods. Cassie's white-blond hair caught the starlight and flashed like a beacon. Features that had blended into the desert when Maul's killer crouched only feet away now turned her into the most visible target. She felt a second, even more powerful urge to surrender—“I'm a girl. Don't shoot!”—and claim the perversely founded immunity of her sex. But the darkly clad figures started disappearing over the top of the dune, spurring her on. She lunged forward, scrambling feverishly on her hands and feet like a bear cub.

More gunshots raised the fine hairs on Cassie's skin. She worried it was the first savage hint of a bullet's pain, but a glance over her shoulder showed her that she was slowly gaining ground. So was the woman, firing as she backed up the dune.

Cassie pawed her way higher. She was still bent over, zigzagging the way Ananda had shown her and the other girls. It had turned into a game when they played it a few days ago, all of them pretending to shoot marauders and crazy Christians, then running away.

Now Cassie was reliving hers for real, barreling right to left before clambering straight for the top—still about thirty feet away. A bullet left a spoon-sized divot so close to her hand she might have scooped the lead from the sand. “Don't hurt me,” she wept, “I'm a girl.” But her voice was faint, more desperate than defeated.

The dune steepened. She lost a half step for every one she gained. Like digging the trench all over again. But she clawed her way to the top, frustration and fear so overwhelming she threw herself over the summit, heedlessly spilling down the other side till she heard men shouting and more gunshots—in
front
of her. She jammed her knees and elbows into the soft slope to stop her tumble.

Confused, gasping for air, frightened, Cassie curled up and stared into the blackness, searching for muzzle flashes—some hint of the destruction to come—then looked back up the trammeled dune for the murderous threat chasing her. Another shot issued from beyond the crest. She hugged sand and tried to stop shaking.

A gravelly voice shouted from below, “Stop, or we'll kill you.”

Me?

Who was yelling? Not a cloaked one. She could just now make out their silhouettes as they threw themselves to the sand at the bottom of the dune. Cringing on the slope, she felt like a target pinned to a wall.

A hammer cocked on a revolver—she'd never forget that sound—breaching a short-lived silence. More gunfire exploded. Six or seven muzzle flashes in rapid, almost uncountable succession lit the fearsome faces of the rabble who'd attacked the caravan. They were shooting from less than a hundred feet away.

Sand kicked up near Cassie. Her heart quailed. She couldn't go forward. She couldn't go back. Stunned, unmoving, she watched two of the cloaked men chewed up by another burst of firepower. One screamed, drawing more shots that stilled him.

A strong hand seized Cassie's arm and dragged her to her feet. She filled her churning lungs to scream but it was the woman, pulling Cassie to her side to shield her from the shooting below.

“Hold this.” The woman shoved the hem of her cloak into Cassie's hand, “and
stay with me.
”

They raced down the dune, angling away from the firefight.

“Cover us,” she ordered her cohorts in a muted voice, but it might have set off shots that erupted volcanically. Bullets buzzed so close to Cassie they could have been wasps hazing her head. She squeezed the hem, still protected by the woman's body, but found it hard to keep up with her long legs.

They fled to the desert floor a couple hundred feet from the gun battle. The sand was firmer there and they moved faster. Bullets no longer buzzed so loudly. Cassie wanted to know who the woman was. Where did she come from? Where was she taking her? And most of all, what did she want from her? Because she knew that somebody always wanted something from a girl—and it was never good.

Still, the woman was protecting her, so for now she would stick by her side. To be lost in the black emptiness of the desert—or captured by those killers—frightened her far worse. Judge people by what they do, her mom always said. The hem in Cassie's hand felt more like a lifeline than even the stars that beckoned her so sweetly minutes ago.

But she still struggled to keep up, looking back every few steps to make sure they were okay. The darkness, thickened by distance, turned the gun battle into a series of echoing shots and tiny flashes of light.

“Stop staring,” the woman urged. “It's only slowing you down. Faster!”

They started up another dune. Even though climbing over it would put them out of sight of the raiders, the slope rose so sharply Cassie wanted to give up, or at least rest. Her pace did slow. She didn't have a choice: Sand sucked at her feet, and once again they seemed to sink deeper with every effort.

“Take big breaths.” The woman knelt beside Cassie. Only then did the child notice she'd stopped moving.

“I'm sorry.” Cassie's breath heaved so hard she thought of powerful storms over the Gulf, lightning clawing jagged lines in the gray air, as if behind those dark dead clouds lived a brighter, happier world—if only those crooked fiery fingers could scrape the filth from the sky so the earth could start over again.
A second chance. That's all we need.

“You sound wheezy,” the woman said. “Do you have asthma?”

“What's that?”

“Probably not, then. Your folks would have mentioned it. I'm sorry I have to push you so hard. It's not much farther. This is the worst part.” She smiled at Cassie for the first time. Her cheeks were full and dimpled, and her skin looked white in the starlight, not darkened and sapped by the sun. “Trust me.”

Cassie did trust her. Then she remembered her mom. Not advice from her, or stories about the stars, but her mom's smile. It made her want her mom more than ever, and though she tried not to cry, her cheeks dampened.

“What's your name?” the woman asked.

Cassie told her. “What's yours?”

“Sam.”

“Like the boy's?”

“That's right.” Sam gently stroked Cassie's fine hair. “Cassie can be a boy's name, too.”

“I know. I like that.” Cassie also liked sharing the distinction with her. It made her feel safer somehow.

The motorcycle men must have caught up to the cloaked band at the bottom of the dune because Sam's friends were caught in a crossfire. Gunmen on both sides unloaded for a full sixty seconds. It sounded like forever to Cassie. There was no return fire when the shooting stopped, only shouts.

Sam buried her face in her hands and started shaking. Her white curls fell forward, covering her grief. Cassie put her arm around the woman's shoulder, like her mom had hugged her. Sam quickly wiped her eyes.

“We better go,” she said stiffly.

“I'm sorry.” Cassie looked down. “I'm getting lots of people killed tonight.”

“No you're not. Those men out there are the ones doing the killing.” Sam's face tightened when she looked toward them. “Not you. Don't ever think that. We've got to go. Can you run now?”

“Sure,” Cassie said. “How far?”

“Not much.”

The woman helped Cassie up, and they hurried to the top of the dune, where they spotted a small fire several hundreds yards away. Nothing else. It made Cassie worry about ghosts again, and Maul lying in the desert all by himself with no one to bury him. She couldn't stop herself from thinking of beasts that would eat him.

At least he's dead.

They descended the steep side of the dune. Despite her fears, Cassie liked the sand spilling from around her legs until they reached the firmer desert. Then they ran, her strength returning.

When they neared the fire, she noticed a blank gap in the heavens where the stars had been, their light blocked by a towering structure. It was taller than anything she'd ever seen, except mountains, and had the shape of a huge building. She'd heard of buildings once so tall their tips could disappear into thick clouds.
The Empire State Building.
People would look through the railings on top and get dizzy. That's what her mom said. Some even fainted. Maybe that's what this was, a big building. The possibility excited her. Maybe they were in a city, or what was left of one. Those buildings supposedly survived, sometimes with sand burying the first few floors. But she'd heard they were as empty as the crab shells she and Jenny had found at the Gulf. Their mom had looked at one of the shells and said it was like a little coffin. She was always saying stuff like that. Except the shell had crumbled in Cassie's hand, and there was nothing inside. She wondered if buildings had become big coffins. Was this one?

A man rushed toward them with a torch. Cassie reared back, but didn't let go of Sam's hand. The woman leaned close to her. “It's okay. He's with us.”

Us? Who's us?
She wasn't ready for a new “us.” There had been “us” at her camp, “us” at the Army of God with the other captive girls, and “us” on the caravan. What was this new “us?”

“Did they see her?” the man asked.

“Maybe,” was all Sam said.

They hurried closer to the edifice. Cassie looked for an entrance like the ones she'd heard about in cities, with doors that spun around like merry-go-rounds. She'd never seen a merry-go-round, either, but they sounded like so much fun she hoped the desert hadn't buried the bottom of this building.

She was terribly disappointed to discover that the tall building was actually stacks of crappy old cars lined up in rows that seemed to go on forever. It was hard to imagine any of them moving on roads, but it was hard to imagine roads, too. She spotted the glow of small fires rising high into the darkness as they rushed along. The hidden flames reddened the faces of the people staring at them. Their eyes looked evil.

Minutes later the man darted down a row and led Sam and her to the rear of an old truck trailer. It was at the bottom of a tall stack of cars, its doors flush with the vehicles lined up next to it. She wouldn't have noticed the trailer if the man hadn't lifted a large metal lever to open it. The doors creaked loudly. As soon as she and Sam stepped inside, he closed them. The trailer was sweltering, and dark as a dead furnace. She heard the lever wedged back into place.

“We're locked in,” she whispered to Sam.

“We don't want to get out. Not right now.”

“Where are—”

A torch flared on the ground directly in front of them, interrupting Cassie's panicky question and adding to the heat. The flame came to life in such an odd place that she clung to Sam's leg, as a much younger child might have. After such intense darkness, she had to turn her face away, too. She saw four old jacks supporting the roof against the weight of the cars above it. Otherwise, the trailer was as empty as the crab shells. Another keen disappointment. Against all reason, she hoped to find herself in a building with marble and brass and burnished wood, the beautiful surfaces of a world her mother had described so longingly. With the most dreadful conviction, she knew she would never see that wonderful creation. Instead, the trailer made her feel empty, as if everything inside everything else would soon be eaten by all the other emptiness.

The torch rose from a wooden hatch set into the sand. The trailer had no floor but desert. A man's head appeared in the open hatch. His hair had been cut carefully. She had never seen such a thing. He held out the torch, staring at her.

“Her?” the man said. “That's who was shooting out there?”

“Earlier, yes,” Sam said. She tugged gently on Cassie's shirt. “Let's go,” leading her to the hatch.

“I'm Yurgen,” the man said, climbing out. His beard was cropped as closely as his hair, and he wore glasses. Cassie had never seen anyone with clear lenses. “And you're?”

“Cassie,” she said, frightened. She wanted to bury her face in Sam's cloak.

“Okay, Cassie girl, take a good look down. This is the ladder. It's all rope and branch. You won't have any light going down. I've got to put the torch out for the climb. You see that?” He reached down, shifting the ladder from side to side. She peered at it, and saw the rope disappear into darkness. “It sways. There's no wall to steady it, so watch your step. And we're missing a rung. You know what that is?”

Cassie shook her head. Sam explained: “It means you'll step down and there won't be anything for your foot. But if you keep reaching down, you'll find the next rung. We'll warn you.”

The man stared at Cassie's legs. It made her uncomfortable. All her life she'd been taught the warning signs of male interest.

“She'll be able to reach it okay,” he said to Sam. “But maybe you should go first, just in case. You can help guide her.”

Cassie worried about him less now, and more about the missing rung. He might have sensed this because he said, “Really, you'll be fine. The minute you didn't get all scared when you looked down, I knew you'd be all right.”