The Burn (9 page)

Where? I check the topographical map. I’m well within
the Puget Sound. There’s Seattle, across the water, only five miles
away. Gaea warned me about the cities. There’s a jutting of land to
the west; that will have to be as good as any other place to dock,
and the stretch of water separates me from the city. With the way
the sub lurches, I don’t think I’ll make it much farther as the
land starts choking in on me and there’s less room to navigate.

The bottom of the sub scrapes along the rocks, and I
feel like they will pierce through the metal and scrape along the
soles of my feet as well. But the sub shudders to a stop and sighs
as the air locks around the hatch open.

The air outside hisses at me, and the rain beats a
regular rhythm on every surface of the sub. I wrap the plastic
sheeting around me best as I can and step outside. My shoes squeal
on the wet rocks.

Then I hear shouting and a sound I’ve only heard one
other time. A sound I heard when I watched the high-def footage of
the Event. Gunfire. I duck to the ground. I don’t know where the
shots come from or if they’re aimed at me. I look back to the sub.
I want to crawl in and hide until the pops around me fade. But the
sub already slips into the water, swimming for home.

I lie on the ground with my hands over my head, but
the shouts and the gunfire don’t stop. I look up, and the rain
pours in my eyes. A hundred yards down the rocky beach, four
figures waver in the rain. Three of them have long guns—rifles, I
think—pointed out toward the water. The fourth rushes a boat into
the water, jumps in, and starts the motor.

I lose some of the words against the rain and surf,
but I hear bits of the shouting.

“Don’t do it!”

“Are you crazy?”

“Cover me!”

On the water, a boat bobs farther out. Five or six
men fire back at the people on the beach. They’re too far away and
all I can hear is the noise of their yells. Beyond them, I see
faint wisps of light across the sound. Seattle. Is that where these
men came from? Something tells me to be scared, to run. But my
brain is numb and I’m paralyzed to the ground.

The small boat races out across the water. The man in
it lies low as he steers, and the other three people on the beach
aim at the larger boat.

“Stupid boy! Get out of the way! I don’t want to blow
your head off!”

The boat skips across the water, closer to the larger
boat. The rain pelts down on him, but the man inside sits up and
fires two shots at the boat. The first causes one of the men in the
large boat to slump, and the others duck down. The second blows a
hole in the boat close to the water. The men in the boat no longer
care about the people on the shore. They scramble to where the
water floods in.

The man in the small boat turns away quickly and aims
for shore. But one of the men behind him stands up, aims his gun,
and the motor explodes in smoke. The shot rocks the boat and the
man inside falls into the water. His friends on shore can’t see
this—they think he’s still in the boat. But I squint and he’s
floating in the water, held in place by the straps of his pack
snagged on the boat. He tries to slip his arms out, but the wind
whips the boat around and it bashes him on the head.

I’m racing toward the water and pulling my boots off
before I even stop to think that I might not be able to swim in the
roiling surf. The water shivers me from head to toe as soon as I
dive in. I pull arm over arm through the foamy water toward the
boat. My first act on the Burn will be to save someone from
drowning. What if this person wants to kill me afterward? What
then? Ten minutes on the Burn and that will be the end. My arms
ache with each stroke. I’m a proficient swimmer during daily
exercises, but that’s in a calm pool, not stormy waters. The shouts
from shore fade into the waves.

Finally I reach the boat and haul myself into it. I
slop into water, and I can hardly see through the rain streaming
into my eyes. The boat is a third filled with ocean water from a
gaping hole on one end. The man dangles from the boat, and his gun
strap is tangled in his hands. I don’t want to touch the gun. I
don’t want to be anywhere near it. I pull the strap from his hands,
and the gun brushes my skin. It is cold as ice and jolts me to the
shoulder. I drop it in the water.

Then I see the hook the man’s pack is caught on, and
I pull the knife from the sheath at my waist. I slice through a
strap and he is free. Now I need to get him to shore. The boat
sinks from under me, and we’re both in the water. My legs churn
feverishly, trying to keep us both afloat.

I thread his arms through the other strap so his pack
is hitched up on his chest. His blond hair hangs in his face, and I
can’t see if he’s conscious. He bobs for a moment then slips
beneath the water. I dive after him, wrap my arms around his chest,
and lay his head on my shoulder and kick toward shore.

The rain pelts my upturned face, stinging my eyes. I
fasten my clenched fingers in the plaid shirt he wears and gasp as
the coming waves slither over my face and into my nose. I choke and
sputter, but still I kick. He moans up to the sky. He is alive.
That knowledge buoys me almost to floating above the water. I kick
until my lungs pound like feet stomping on my chest. I kick until I
feel the gravely brush of shore beneath my heels.

I grab him under the armpits and drag him out of the
water. I turn him on his side and thump his back, pounding the
water out of him. The water gushes out of him less and less as I
continue to hit him, until finally he coughs and retches into the
rocks, and then breathes deeply. I turn him onto his back and brush
the hair away from his face.

But is he ever beautiful. His skin is tanned golden
brown, and his chapped lips are rough along the center of the
bottom lip. His eyes are still closed, which worries me, but he is
alive. His heavy, blonde eyebrows furrow, leaving two deep vertical
lines between them.

I touch his cheeks rough with several days of
unshaven beard. Past the stubble, sun-worn face, and sea salt
crusted into his skin, I am surprised at how young he is—probably a
couple years older than me. I touch his cheeks and hands. They’re
cold. I rub his hands. He moans again and moves his legs. He
suddenly clenches my hand in his, and the touch burns my skin. His
eyes flutter open, and then I hear voices on the beach. I take one
last drink of him and he focuses on me briefly before closing his
eyes again, and then I skitter behind a large sheet of scrap metal
embedded in the rocks.

Three people make their way across the beach, two
tall and one short, probably my height. They are phantom shadows
through the drizzle of rain until they’re about two hundred feet
off, and then I can tell two are men and one is a woman. The woman
and one of the men is about the same age as the young man I saved,
and the other is older. The girl’s brown hair escapes her poncho,
running dark lines down her pale face. Her clothes are similar to
mine. At least I won’t look too out of place. Each of them carry a
rifle.

“David!” The older man cups his hands around his
mouth. The other two swivel their heads back and forth, combing the
beach and the surf. They stop when they see him lying on the
rocks.

“Dave!” The girl runs to him, flinging her gun to the
ground. I flinch as it clanks among the rocks.

“Mary, don’t throw that gun again. I’ve told you how
dangerous it is.” The older man bends down to pick up the rifle and
stands guard over them. He strokes his red and gray beard with one
hand.

She kneels by Dave and raises his head to rest on her
knees. “Jack?” she says with a tremor.

Jack kneels next to them and runs his hands over
Dave’s body, then listens to his heart and breathing. He sighs.

“He’s still alive. He’ll be fine. A little
water-logged, but fine.”

Mary closes her eyes, and two tears stream down her
cheeks, but it could have been the rain. I sigh in relief. I want
to go to him, to see for myself, but then she caresses his face. At
her touch, his eyes open again.

“Mary?”

Her face beams.

“Did you save me?” His voice is incredulous. I smile
at his doubt. He remembers me after all.

Mary ignores the question and gently places his pack
under his head. She’s embarrassed that she threw herself to
him.

“Someone saved me. I remember. I was in the boat.” He
tries to sit up, but Jack pushes him down again.

“Easy there, Dave.”

“No, someone saved me. I was in the boat and when the
raiders blew up the engine I knocked my head. Must’ve passed out.
But I remember someone dragging me to shore. She left me here.”

“She?” Mary raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, she,” he says angrily. He props himself up on
an elbow. “She was like you, but not.” He looks across the beach.
“She must be here somewhere.”

Mary rolls her eyes. “Right, Dave, right. Mystery
women jumping in the water to save strangers and then disappearing
into thin air. Maybe she was an agent, too. Or maybe you knocked
your head harder than you think.”

He glares at her. Then he turns and stares at the
piece of metal I hide behind, and I swear he can see me. His eyes
bore into mine through the miniscule gap I watch them through. I
gasp and whip my hand over my mouth. There is no way he can see me
here. My chest burns.

He stares hard one second more, then looks to Mary,
and his eyes finally focus on her. “You’re probably right.”

The older man offers Dave his hand. “You up for
walking, boy?”

Dave grasps the hand and pulls himself up. “Well,
Red, I’d better be. We should get out of this rain.” His hands sink
to his knees for a moment as he gathers himself. I want to tell him
to lay down and rest, but I can’t move.

“They gone?” Red says.

Dave nods, looking at the water. “There were five on
that boat. Scouting, maybe.”

“Government headhunters?”

“No, raiders.”

“They won’t tell anyone we’re here?” Red asks,
clasping Dave’s arm and helping him lurch ahead.

“No. I shot one and the others went down with the
boat.”

Jack falls in line behind them. “We’ll have to close
up early tonight, just to be sure.”

Dave nods.

Red looks across the water where the motor boat
drifts further from shore.

“You think it’s salvageable?” Jack says.

“Nah.” Red pulls on his beard. “It was in sorry shape
to begin with and even worse now. Come on, Jack, help David along.
Let’s get back to the settlement before it gets too dark.”

Dave puts an arm around Jack’s shoulders and the four
follow the paved road between old houses. My feet twitch. Should I
follow them? I can’t call out to them. All they would hear is a
gagged moaning on the rain-slicked wind. They’ll be repulsed. But I
can’t watch them disappear forever behind the ruined houses.

I sling my pack on my back and rustle the plastic
sheeting around my head. At least I won’t get rain in my eyes. My
shoes slap the ground as I run after them, and I duck behind debris
to stay carefully out of sight.

A large paved area (I think this is what Mr. Klein
called a parking lot) leads to a street. The concrete is cracked
and some comes up in chunks. The four people pick their way along a
path they seem to know from memory, barely pausing to catch their
footing on the uneven ground. I’m much slower as I trudge along in
my heavy boots. I don’t need to worry about staying far enough
away; I need to worry about just keeping up.

Houses, mostly small simple buildings, line the
street. They feel warm to me. The brick, wood, and colors of them
have texture and depth that the plastic and metal from the colony
could never match. I try to imagine people living in them. Now they
are husks, with sad broken-window eyes dripping rain like tears
into the overgrown vegetation. New trees spring up close to the
houses, and the grass is up to my waist. In another hundred years,
this might be a forest with the houses crumbling to dust. It makes
me sad. How many people are at the settlement that all these houses
go to waste? It can’t be very large. David, Mary, Red, Jack, and a
few others might be all there are.

I slip behind a building. Dave’s head has been
half-turning the entire time, like he has an itch he needs to
scratch, to see if someone is there. If he only knew it is his
mysterious rescuer following behind. I go around the back of the
building, hoping to follow them from off the road and more
carefully out of sight. Huge vats with rusted metal arms and long,
rectangular pools sprawl before me, filled with rain water and
leaves. Some sort of water treatment plant. We have filters and
processors like this down in the colony, but much smaller. How
inefficient these big ones must be. I remind myself that these are
more than a hundred years old.

I pass a long double row of pools and reach a jumble
of trees that hide me from the road. I peer through branches. The
road ends maybe a thousand feet ahead of me, and Jack and Red’s
hunched forms waver in the distance as they help Dave turn the
corner onto another street. I ignore the voice in my head telling
me to be more discreet and I race ahead, following the marshy land
to the west of me. It curves toward the street they follow, and
there is plenty of brush to cover me.

Whatever their destination, they follow the decaying
roads. I don’t blame them. The roads cut swathes through weeds, new
trees, and other debris. I thought following them off the road
would be easier, but I change my mind as they more often fall out
of sight and I stumble over dead, fallen trees and land up to my
wrists in mud.

Weird, prickly balls from some of the plants stick to
my pants and socks and the harder I try to rip them out of the
fabric, the more of them cling to me. I yowl in frustration, and I
sound like some caged animal. I plunge through the brush.