Infinity's Reach (5 page)

A hefty woman in a gunnysack dress sat on a stool behind a makeshift grill, burgers sizzling above hot coals. Any thought of being tired left us as we ran over to where she was grilling.

“Morning, girls,” she said brightly. “Hungry?”

“You have no idea,” I responded back. “How much?”

“Twelve each,” she said.

“Twelve?” I said. “Twelve dollars?”

She cackled. “Dollars? Where you two been hiding out? Twelve
caps
. That’s the only cash that’s good around here.”

“Caps?”

She laughed again. “Bullets, ladies.
Caps
. Some are worth more than others. Twenty-two ain’t worth much, but depends how desperate you are. Forty-fives is good, but nine mil is the best. Pretty much accepted anywheres.”

Infinity stepped up. “Well, we don’t have dollars, and we don’t have bullets—
caps
. But maybe we can barter something.”

The fat woman’s tone changed. “Bartering’s always a possibility. What do you have?”

Infinity and I began rummaging through our backpacks. Finally we pulled out a few items.

“No, no, no… those are nice. Hey, what about those?” She passed up all our pots and pans, clothes and other items to look closely at the opera glasses.

“Those aren’t for sale,” Infinity said, pulling them back.

“How about a few of these?” I offered, holding up a big bag of multivitamins.

The big woman’s eyes lit up, then she reached out and pushed my hand down.

“I wouldn’t go flashing those around if I were you,” she said. “Vitamins are almost as valuable as antibiotics. Tell you girls what,” she said, reaching in and grabbing a small handful of the pills. “That makes us square.”

Infinity and I put our items away while she brought out a spatula and flipped our burgers onto some very rough bread.

“You wouldn’t have any cheese for that, would you?” I asked.

She smiled slightly. “No, but I might be able to find a tomato for it.” She reached behind her and pulled out an overripe red beefsteak tomato and began cutting it into slices. Tomato juice went everywhere, but we didn’t complain. She wiped her hands on her dress and handed each of us a sandwich.

“Thanks.” I grabbed my burger and stuffed it into my mouth. The meat tasted sharper than I remembered, but I was so hungry I didn’t care. Infinity was a little more suspicious.

“I haven’t seen any cattle around here.”

“And you won’t,” the woman said. “What the anthrax didn’t kill, the army took for themselves.”

Infinity paused, looking at her sandwich. “So what kind of meat are we looking at?”

“Last week was cat. This week? You’re in luck. My dog treed a possum.”

I paused in mid-bite, my mouth full. “I’ve never eaten opossum before.” Then I resumed eating. “Tastes pretty good.”

We said goodbye to Harmony, a little less hungry and a little more confident in our ability to get around. The woman, Flo was her name, appeared to be the only successful business person in town. In addition to miraculously being able to find food and sell it to her neighbors as well as people like us, she was a great source of information. But as friendly as Flo was, we learned quickly that nothing—not even information—was free.

Another dip into our stash of vitamins helped us learn that Harmony was the center of civilization for this part of Tennessee. Flo advised us to stay out of Nashville, as well as any other large city. Many cities had been irradiated by nuclear weapons. Those large cities that weren’t tended to be magnets for either drawn-out battles between rival armies, local warlords or even what she called “crazies.”

We never quite understood what she meant by crazies, but the message came through loud and clear. As bad as soldiers were, as dangerous as local warlords were, crazies were to be avoided at all costs. I had visions of rejects from some hospital for the criminally insane chasing me, and it made me take Flo’s words very seriously.

Flo even took the time to pull out an old, weather-beaten map of Tennessee. She pointed to Harmony on the map, showed us what she knew of where fighting was still going on and one or two valleys that were now flooded due to collapsed or destroyed dams. Infinity had the insight to once again dip into our stash of vitamins and pay her for the map. I started wondering if Flo was getting the better part of the deal and whether vitamins would be available where we were going.

But the sun was already headed toward the west by the time we worked our way through the canyon and into the forested area beyond. The old road headed west and occasionally veered away from the river as the water twisted and turned through its bed. But Infinity always made sure we were in sight of the running water.

Finally we came to a hilltop overlooking both the road and the river. The highway was about a quarter of a mile away, higher on another ridge. But Infinity picked this place for us to camp, based on the idea that it would give us a clear view of the area around us and give Evangelist a good chance to find us.

The sun was low in the west by the time we got our backpacks off and our sleeping bags out. A cool breeze blew off the river, and I stretched my aching limbs as Infinity looked for firewood around where we were camped. She stacked the wood to the side and then looked at me expectantly.

“What?” I asked.

“Well, aren’t you going to make a fire?”

I stared at her blankly. “What are you talking about? I don’t know how to make a fire.”

“Didn’t you say you were in the Girl Scouts?”

“I was in the Girl Scouts in
Baltimore
. They didn’t take us
camping
. They took us
shopping
.”

Infinity stared at me. “You’re serious.”

I laughed, then stopped when I realized that Infinity wasn’t laughing. “What, you don’t know how to make a fire either?”

We stared at each other. Two city girls used to being taken care of, thrown into a world that was so savage that the city wasn’t a place you went anymore.

“What’s going to happen to us?” I said, my voice becoming a whimper.

Infinity sighed. “Ellie, it’s time for us to grow up. Grow up or die.”

Tears fell from my eyes, and Infinity stepped forward and put her arms around me. I could tell that she was trying to be the strong one, the brave one. And I knew that tears were a luxury that neither one of us could afford anymore. But for now, for one last time, I wanted that luxury. I wanted to be taken care of.

We dug through our backpacks and found some dried fruit and nuts. Then we sat at the edge of our camp, looking out over the water as the sun dipped down and eventually fell into the river and all became dark. Since there was no TV or radio, we sat there a long time, just looking at the countryside.

“Finn?” I finally said.

“Yes.”

“Two things. First, I found something in the pocket of my pants. Evangelist must have put it there.” I held up a small metal container and rattled it. Infinity took it from me and unscrewed the end of it. She dropped the contents in her hand. In it were five wooden matches.

Even in the darkness, I could tell she was smiling.

“There are only five, so we need to save these for emergencies,” she said. I nodded.

“What was the other thing?” she asked.

“I remember some things. I remember what happened after the helicopter fell.”

We both stretched out on our sleeping bags and looked up at the thousands of stars above our heads, and I began to tell Infinity what I remembered.
  
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6. get a horse!

ELLIE: BALTIMORE: DAY ZERO

When the cute guy in a suit and shades pulled Infinity out of class, I was immediately curious as to what gives. Course, our fearsome foursome—and maybe Devin—were the only ones who really knew who Infinity’s Daddy was. Devin used to make a big joke about it with us, said she didn’t really have to worry about grades and stuff because Daddy would just fix everything if she messed up.

I knew that Finn’s Daddy had nicknamed Devin Obstinate, and I knew why. Every time he asked Infinity to do something, or expected her to do something, Devin was giving her reasons to do the opposite. To be honest, Finn’s Daddy was pretty cool about it, and in the end would let Finn make up her own mind about stuff. But I know that it confused her. She loved her father, but she really liked Devin too.

Devin was in hog heaven. St. Eloise Academy is—
was
—a girl’s school. Devin was the kid of Dr. Wiseman, and “officially” was being homeschooled, since his daddy didn’t believe in public school, and Devin had been kicked out of the school he’d attended in Massachusetts. “Unofficially” he was just as much a student as anyone else at St. Eloise, except he never attended classes. That made him the only boy on campus, and the target of most of the girls there. And out of 200 girls, he chose Infinity.

Maybe that’s what made her give him special treatment. He was cute, especially since there weren’t many other options around. But I thought he was annoying too. He was clever, and he knew it, and he loved to turn students against the teachers, the administrators, or pretty much any adult. He got Ms. Valentine, our PE teacher, fired by posting photos on Facebook of her walking around naked in her own house. I have no clue how he got those photos, but administration decided that she wasn’t a good influence on the girls, even though it was obvious that she thought she was alone.

Another time, he got almost every girl in school to sign a letter to the Board of Regents asking that male teachers no longer be allowed in the girl’s locker room. That was a joke, and every girl there knew that no man had ever set foot in our PE locker room. But it still caused a lot of commotion in administration, and several girls were called in to determine who had started the letter. No one ever told. Devin may have been a pain sometimes, but he still provided entertainment on a campus that needed it badly.

As always, I watched Infinity when these things happened. When Ms. Valentine got fired, I thought I saw her flinch, as if she was sorry for what had happened and really questioned whether she should be with Devin. But she didn’t do anything, and when Devin continued to do prank after prank, I think her conscience made less and less of an impact on her. Finn had always been strong willed—that’s what I admired about her, and why her Daddy didn’t fight her about her choices. But I gradually saw that will being surrendered to the boy Finn’s father called Obstinate.

The day the helicopter fell, I ran out of class in Miller Hall when the bell rang, just as everyone else did. More than anything, I wanted to see where Evangelist was taking Finn. I got outside just in time to see the bright blue helicopter, the flash in the sky above it all, the panic among the students and the 20 tons of metal come crashing to earth.

It was crazy. I saw Finn and Evangelist run back to Miller Hall, and I ran with them. When the explosion came, I grabbed Finn by the arm and we ran for the tennis courts on the opposite side of campus. Girls were running in all directions, screaming. Fire and wreckage was falling all around us. The air was filled with smoke and explosions.

We ran as fast as we could until we were away from everyone else. The tennis courts were locked and so we stood against the chain-link fence, catching our breath. Then we saw Kimmy and Marcie, and waved them over. Finally, we saw Devin and his father. Dr. Wiseman would know what to do, we agreed.

We ran over to Devin and Dr. Wiseman, who was talking to Mr. Armstrong, our headmaster. They both had very serious stress lines written across their faces. Mr. Armstrong kept pulling out his cell phone and trying to make it work.

“It won’t work, I tell you,” Dr. Wiseman said. “They used a missile with an electromagnetic pulse. Anything that uses modern electronics—phones, television, radio, even our cars—will be useless.” To emphasize his point, he reached over and took Mr. Armstrong’s iPhone and threw it across the lawn.

Mr. Armstrong stared after his phone, and almost went to retrieve it, then caught himself.

“Well, who is behind this?”

Dr. Wiseman shrugged. “The country has plenty of enemies, but if you had been following the news, you’d know that the most likely candidate is the Asian Coalition. And they have enough money to throw around that they probably hired others as well.”

“Well, we have to do something. We have a responsibility to all of these girls—and their parents. Let’s get the buses over here and transport them somewhere safe.”

Dr. Wiseman shook his head. “You’re not hearing me, Gordon. Those buses won’t work. Your car won’t work. And even if they did, where would you go? Where is safe?”

Mr. Armstrong stared at Dr. Wiseman blankly. “But—but—what do we do?”

Dr. Wiseman stared at Mr. Armstrong for a long moment, deep in thought.

“If this really is war, which I think it is, Baltimore is probably not a safe place. For that matter, neither is the entire Eastern Seaboard. You could send the girls home, but how would they get there? The first thing we need to do is gather everyone together and try to contact the authorities for some direction.”