Gone to Ground (17 page)

“I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t have a tarp. The boys do, though. They managed to grab some off a maintenance cart that was left in the hall, but they’re in the boys’ room.” A sudden thought struck Christina. “We may not have enough food yet for a third person. We may have to wait a bit longer. Damn!” Christina hated delaying their escape yet again, but she saw no other option.

“You have plenty of food here to get started, especially if your brothers have any at all,” Alysa said, thinking hard, face serious. “You don’t really need enough for the whole trip, you know. There will be houses along the way, no matter where we’re going, We’ll be able to break into them and gather more food.”

Christina realized Alysa was right. She’d become so focused on gathering food, she hadn’t considered that they would be able to raid homes along the way. She’d thought of the abandoned houses as a source of water, using outside spigots, but had never contemplated actually breaking into the buildings and raiding the pantries. The idea of breaking in and stealing someone else’s property left a queasy feeling in her stomach, but it wasn’t as if the owners had any use for the items any longer.

  The place they were heading was remote, however, according to O’Reilly, and she wasn’t really sure how many houses there would be. She’d considered waiting to tell Alysa exactly where they were going just in case she turned out to be setting them up, but maybe it would be better to get her ideas up front.

“Do you know anything about Arizona? I mean, have you ever been over there?” Christina asked, studying the other girl.

“Yeah, my grandparents, I mean my mother’s parents, live in Tuba City, on the Navajo Reservation in the four corners. I spend... I used to spend part of my summers with them every year.” Alysa’s voice started to choke up and her eyes began to glisten with tears unshed.

“You’re Navajo,” Christina exclaimed, surprised. She realized how little she actually knew about her roommate. Other than the fact that Alysa had mentioned enjoying walking in the desert, and that she’d come from a small town, Christina realized she knew almost nothing about this girl she’d just hitched her and her brother’s fates to.

“I’m half Navajo. Actually we call ourselves the Diné. My Dad is... was half Apache. He worked on a lot of farms and ranches around here and in northern Arizona. Mom and I traveled with him. Sometimes I’d get to go out with him and help on the ranches, like if we lived at a camp or something. We were living in a small town northwest of here while he was working in a feedyard when the flu hit and both my parents died. That’s when I was brought here.”

“Wow. I’ve never lived in the country before,” Christina was impressed in spite of herself. It appeared that Alysa might be more help than Christina had originally realized if they were to make their home in the middle of nowhere.

“Why did you ask about Arizona?”

“The place I told you about, the one where we’re going, it’s in a canyon in northern Arizona.”

Alysa grew more attentive, “Where at?”

“I was told it was between highways 93 and 89, and south of I-40. I got a map and have sort of pinpointed where it might be, but it might take a while to find it. We’ve got to have enough food and water to make it out there.”

Alysa considered the information Christina had given her. “That’s a lot of empty land in that part of Arizona. We lived up by Peach Springs for awhile. That’s north of that spot, but I sort of know what it’s like.” Alysa thought a while longer as Christina looked on. “We’d need to head over toward Kingman. It’s around thirty miles from here.”

Christina nodded. She’d seen Kingman on the map, but wasn’t sure how large a town it was. There was another concern as well. “You said that it was empty in that direction. Do you think we will find any houses that we can raid?”

“I’m sure there will be some. We’ll have to move carefully if there are ghosts. We don’t want any part of them. The caregivers say they’re like outlaws in the Old West and it wouldn’t be safe. But there can’t be that many so we should be able to avoid them.”

“I was thinking we could find bikes to make the trip faster, we...” Christina stopped as Alysa began shaking her head violently, her black ponytail swishing over her shoulders.

“No, not bikes. We’d have to stick to trails and roads if we were on bikes. It’s too dangerous. Once they realize we’re gone, they’ll be looking for us all over the place. There will be seekers for sure. We need to look for horses. That way we can go wherever we need to go without worrying about roads.” Alysa stopped at the appalled look on Christina’s face.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been on a horse before. How were you expecting to live out there?” Alysa appeared amused by Christina’s naivete.

“Hey, I was raised in the city. We either drove, or rode our bikes to wherever we were going. We didn’t use a form of transportation that left piles of green poop in the middle of the road!”

“No, you used transportation that left clouds of black smoke in the sky. I may not like living here in the APZ, and think these guys are totally nuts, but some things they say do make sense. People have done a pretty good job lately at messing up the planet, and something had to give sooner or later.”

Christina shivered at the thought of spending days upon days sitting on a horse. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been on a horse before. She had. Years ago and the experience had been less than enjoyable. She’d decided that she and horses were not meant for each other and that the closest she ever wanted to get to the smelly things again was watching them in the parades. She remembered an old comedy routine where a guy had said that all he knew about horses was that one end kicked and the other end bit. She was more than willing to let her knowledge of horses end right there, but Alysa had a point.

“Okay, I’ll ride a damned horse, but you’d better find me a nice gentle one that doesn’t eat kids for lunch,” Christina grumbled, noting sourly that Alysa seemed to be gaining a great deal of amusement at her expense.

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Alysa said, nodding happily. “This is horse country. Even if they turned all the horses out when the flu hit and people were moved to the APZ, it shouldn’t be hard to find some that are willing to help us.”

Great
, Christina thought crossly to herself,
now I’m going on the run horseback.
Get out the six shooters. Jesse James here I come.

Four days later the backpacks had been moved. Alysa had a ridiculously easy time slipping them out of the Nursery and hiding them near the recycling dumpsters. All they needed now was the perfect opportunity to leave themselves, gather their belongings and work their way out of the APZ.

Christina felt the growing tension. It seemed as though there were eyes everywhere, watching her and waiting for her to make a move. She continued to meet with Nick and Ryan every afternoon during free time. However, she and Alysa were afraid that having Alysa start joining them might draw attention, so Christina acted as liaison, setting up things such as the backpack switch. Much to Christina’s disgust the boys were excited about the idea of moving on horseback.

“It’ll be so much better, Christy,” Ryan said excitedly while Nick nodded behind him.

“Yeah,” added Nick. “We’ll be like real cowboys. It will be so cool!”

“I simply
cannot
be related to you two,” Christina said in revulsion while the boys cracked up with laughter at the look on her face. “Mom and Dad must have made a mistake and picked up the wrong set of kids from the hospital.”

That afternoon following her dinner chores Christina stood again at the window of her room, looking toward the Arizona border and the building storms over the mountains that lit the sky with flashes of lightning. They seemed closer this afternoon. Maybe even close enough to hit Laughlin. She was convinced she could smell the rain and the sharp tang of the ozone. They needed to get out of there. The rains would make things so much more difficult.

Suddenly there was a knock from behind her. Christina turned and started for the doorway, but before she could reach it, the white panel was thrown open and Ms. Drew, the head caregiver, quickly strode through the opening.

“Christina, I just received a message from Captain Rickards at the Enforcer headquarters. He’s concerned that you were not truthful when you went down to his office the other day and he wants to see you tomorrow.”

Christina’s face blanched. “I... uh, I don’t understand Ms. Drew.” Her mind raced, trying to find an explanation for Rickards’ call. There was no way that he could know she’d just picked Shelby, Montana, simply because it had an “s” name. “I did my best for Captain Rickards. I don’t know what else I can tell him.”

“I don’t know, young lady, but I’m to have a caregiver escort you to his office tomorrow morning, bright and early. And, I can tell you, miss, he will not be happy, nor will I, if it turns out you’ve been misleading him.” Ms. Drew’s pinched face grew, if anything more sour looking, as though she’d bitten into a massive lemon. She glared at Christina accusingly.

A movement behind Ms. Drew attracted Christina’s attention. Alysa, done with her afternoon chores was standing in the doorway, looking from Ms. Drew to Christina, a frown of worry creasing her face. Christina stared hard at her, trying to telepathically send her the message to run. Apparently her telepathic skills were on the fritz that evening, however, because Alysa only appeared more confused, and stayed rooted to the spot.

Seeing Christina’s attention focused behind her, Ms. Drew turned and saw Alysa standing uneasily at the door.

“Miss Thalman, is there a reason you’re eavesdropping at the door?” Ms. Drew bestowed a sharp look on Alysa that caused her to drop her head in embarrassment. Turning back to Christina, Ms. Drew gave her an equally frigid glare. “Tomorrow morning, Miss Craigson. Don’t make us come find you.”

As though in response to Ms. Drew’s tone, the sky outside the window split apart in a brilliant flash of light, followed almost immediately by a crash of thunder that made the windows rattle and caused Christina to clap her hands over her ears, ducking her head into her chest. While Ms. Drew had been talking, the clouds over the nearby mountains had built into towering pillars that then collapsed and spread over the town, stirring up the wind. The air outside the building was filled with a choking, thick dust churned up before the rain front.

Another flash of light, and another clap of thunder; almost simultaneous. Christina, Alysa and Ms. Drew moved toward the window, drawn by the building fury outside. The view began to clear slightly as speckles of rain began to pepper the dust covered window and wash the dust from the air.

The sky had taken on a swollen purple blue color, tinged with an acid yellow. Lightning flashed and thunder grumbled steadily. Without warning the sky was rent with another sizzling burst of light that was indistinguishable from the roar of thunder that followed. The air seemed to contract, then suddenly expand around the observers, causing Christina and Alysa to throw their arms over their heads and drop to the floor.

Again the lightning blazed and thunder cracked, sounding as if the fabric of the world was being torn apart by giants with sledge hammers. The lights flickered and went out, then an alarm sounded stridently, insistently. Ms. Drew grabbed the girls’ arms and pulled them to their feet, away from the window and toward the door.

In the hallway other children were running out of their rooms and heading toward the exits.

“Hurry girls, that last bolt of lightning must have hit the roof. There must be a fire.” Ms. Drew pushed them into the chaotic hall to join the stream of hurrying children. “Go down the stairs and to the far side of the square, just as we practiced.”

Christina seized Alysa’s arm and pulled her down the hall.
Saved by the bell,
she thought, struggling to keep her footing in the crush of girls heading down the stairs. Pushing close to Alysa, counting on the growing clamor of scared voices in the stairwell to cover her words, she whispered urgently into Alysa’s ear.

“Alysa... Alysa!”

Alysa turned her head toward Christina, looking dazed by all the commotion.

“We’ve got to get out of here. I mean run. Tonight. We can’t wait.”

“You can’t mean in this storm,” Alysa hissed back, worried eyes glancing around her to see if anyone was paying attention.

“Yes, tonight,” Christina insisted. “That Enforcer captain has figured out that I told him a lie about where my friend went and he wants to see me tomorrow morning. If we wait, I might get locked into isolation again. We’ve got to go now while everything is confused.”

Alysa nodded, continuing to hurry down the stairs. “If we’re lucky, the power is out all over the APZ. If there’s a fire here, then most of the Enforcers and anyone else in charge will also be here. Maybe we can get through the barriers without being caught.”

“Right,” Christina agreed. “When we get to the square help me find the boys, then we go for the backpacks. Everyone is gathered on the square at the front of the building. We should be able to get around to the side without being caught. We’ll just have to watch for firemen and Enforcers.”

Alysa nodded again, and continued to hurry forward until the two girls made it to the lobby of the hotel. From there they hustled out the front door and through the pelting rain, across the square, past the still fountain. They joined the large group of children and caregivers in the shelter offered by a neighboring building, and looked back toward the Nursery. Nothing could be seen, though Christina wasn’t sure if it would even be possible to see a fire through the murk and rain.