After the End (13 page)
I AM ON AUTOPILOT. STANDING THERE IN FRONT of her as she told me how she drugged me and used me as her voodoo doll, I felt like I had been stabbed. But it only took one look at her self-righteous expression and I cauterized my wound with a blowtorch. Up until now, I still had a half-baked plan of talking Juneau into going to California with me. One that I had almost talked myself out of. What would Dad want with this delusional teenager?
But now my mind is made up. I don’t care why he wants her. I’m going to deliver.
I let her navigate us down every side road across lower Idaho in order to avoid the highway skirting the Snake River. She shouts out directions over the noise of the radio, which I crank up until it drowns out any other sound.
Seven hours we drive, until the blue haze of dusk settles around us and the trees look like silhouettes cut from black construction paper. A neon sign ahead announces
EL DORADO MOTEL AND BAR
. I turn the radio off. “We’re staying here,” I say, and Juneau doesn’t argue.
I pull into a parking lot empty except for two semis and a pickup truck and take a space in front of the office. A skinny man with a comb-over the color of squirt-jar mustard takes my credit card and gives me the keys for rooms 3 and 5. No way in hell am I sleeping in the same room as her.
I pace back out to the car, where Juneau’s pulled her pack out of the trunk and stands watching a couple of truckers eating dinner in the adjacent building through the bar’s plate-glass windows. “Your room,” I say, and hand her one of the keys without looking her in the face.
I pull my own suitcase out of the trunk and slam it shut, and ignore Juneau, who’s still standing there next to the car as if she doesn’t know how to find the hotel room with the big “3” on the door. I’m not about to offer my services. Letting myself into room 5, I toss my suitcase onto the flowered bedspread and pick up the telephone receiver, trying to ignore the overpowering smell of vanilla-scented room freshener. No dial tone. Of course.
I stamp out, pulling the door closed behind me, and make my way back to the office, where Mustardhead is watching a rodeo on an ancient black-and-white TV. “The phone in my room doesn’t work,” I say.
“Pay phone behind the bar,” he says, tipping his head slightly toward the far corner of the parking lot.
I find the pay phone and look at it for a second, unsure what to do. I don’t even know how much a pay phone costs. I remember something I saw in an old TV show and, picking up the receiver, press 0. “Collect call to Murray Blackwell,” I say, and give the operator Dad’s number.
“Blackwell,” comes my dad’s voice, and the operator tells him I’m on the line. Dad acts civil until she hangs up, and then comes the explosion. “Where the hell are you, Miles? I instructed you to come straight home. That was four days ago. If I wasn’t worried about getting you in worse trouble than you’re already in, I would have called the state troopers. What are you doing? Partying it up in Seattle?”
“I’m in Idaho. And I’ve got her, Dad.” I look through the glass at the truckers seated at the counter. They’re both watching me, like I’m more interesting than the music videos blaring from the TV above the bar. I turn my back to them and hunch over to get some semblance of privacy.
“You’ve got who, Miles?” my dad asks testily.
“I’ve got the girl. The Alaskan. She broke my phone. That’s why I haven’t been able to call.”
There is silence on the other end of the line, which is very atypical for my dad. He’s usually all freak-out and immediate action, so this throws me off. “I know it’s her, Dad. She’s got the star thing in her eye. Dark hair, although it’s cut short now. She’s around five foot five and says her name’s Juneau. She lived in this apocalyptic hippie cult out in the Alaskan wilderness.”
Dad clears his throat. “Has she mentioned Amrit?”
“What’s Amrit?”
“Amrit’s a drug I’m trying to acquire,” he says impatiently.
“No. See, that’s the thing. I know she matches your description, but she can’t be the one you want. If you’re looking for an industrial spy, she’s definitely not involved in something like that.”
“What makes you think that?” Dad asks, but there’s something in his voice. It’s the tone of voice he uses when he’s teaching me a lesson. His crafty voice, making me figure a problem out for myself. Like . . .
Of course she doesn’t work for a drug company, but tell me why.
My dad is waiting for an answer. I want to tell him that she’s not a spy because she’s a brainwashed cult member, but I’m not going to go into the whole Yara crap. It’ll just provoke him. I sigh. “She’s not working with a pharm company, Dad. Or involved in any espionage. She’s like wilderness survival girl just trying to find her dad. If you want someone to kill and cook a rabbit for you, or tell you what time it is by looking at the sun, she’s your girl. Otherwise . . .”
“Miles, tell me exactly where you are.” My father had put his business voice on. Succinct. To the point. No arguing.
“The El Dorado Motel, somewhere in southern Idaho not far from Utah.”
“Good. You stay right there. My men are still in Seattle. They can be there before sunrise. Make sure you keep her there. Don’t let her get away.”
“Go ahead and send your guys, Dad. But she’s not going to get away. It’s not like I’m holding her hostage or anything. She can’t even drive. I swear she’ll be here in the morning.”
“Okay, just hold on, Miles. I’m going to get my men on the other line. Don’t hang up.”
It’s started to get chilly, and I wish I had worn my jacket. I look up at the moon, just beginning to emerge above the tree line. Juneau could probably look at that and not only tell me what time it is, but what the weather will be like tomorrow. The magic stuff is a load of shit, but it’s likely that she could survive if she was stranded on the moon. She’s brave, determined, and . . . fierce. I’d give anything to have even half her know-how. Why’d she have to go and ruin it all with the Yara crap? I feel a twinge of guilt twist in my gut but remind myself that last night she not only fed me some homemade drugs but diverted my attention from what she was doing by kissing me, and I push the feeling aside.
I hear a rapping on the glass, and I swing around to see one of the truckers standing inches away from me on the other side of the window. He does a charades thing where he acts like he’s driving a car, manipulating an invisible steering wheel with his hands.
I shrug at him and think,
Stupid drunk redneck,
and then notice that he’s pointing toward the parking lot. His buddy behind him is cracking up, pointing in the same direction.
I look toward where they’re gesturing and see my car backing up slowly, as the brakes pump on, off, on, off. The automatic overhead light is still on inside the car, and I see Juneau’s face illuminated as she pops the headlights on and throws the gear into drive. For a split second our eyes meet, and her stricken expression tells me she must have overheard the entire phone conversation. She witnessed my betrayal.
With motor revving, wheels spinning, and gravel spraying, she swerves wildly out of the parking lot onto the two-lane road and screeches off in a dust cloud of fury.
I AM NUMB WITH SHOCK. MILES BETRAYED ME. I shouldn’t be surprised. Frankie said he needed me. But I never imagined it was to hand me over to his father, who is for some reason searching for me. What’s that even mean, “working with a farm company”? That must be why Miles asked if I worked for anyone.
I want to run over every conversation we’ve had in my memory. Pick them all apart. But I need to concentrate on driving. I’ve watched how Miles handles the car for the last four days, and, although backing up was a bit jerky, I’m going forward just fine. I test the pull of the steering wheel to see how much movement it takes to turn the wheels and then press the right-hand pedal down to the ground. I need to get as far away from here as fast as I can because now I am running from not just one pursuer but two. Miles’s father’s “guys” are apparently on their way, and Whit is still out there. And if Miles calls the police to report me stealing his car, there will be even more people for me to escape from.
For a brief moment, I consider stopping and hiding somewhere close to the motel. It would be like hunting deer. As long as you’re motionless and downwind, the animal won’t see you even if you’re standing right in front of them. That might work for Miles’s father’s men, but if I stay still, Whit will find me easily enough.
Miles knows we were headed to Salt Lake City. He knows I’ll follow the prophecy. So I just need to get there before him.
I am hungry and tired and boiling with anger, but there’s a thrill working its way through me as I realize that I am behind the wheel of a car, moving faster than I ever did on the sledge with the huskies. I imagine the car around me disappearing, and me seated in the air shooting forward at—I check the speed—eighty miles an hour.
I let go of the wheel with one hand and ease it over toward the door. I touch the window control and immediately feel the rush of cold wind through my hair. Mountain-pure, cold wind whipping my face, blowing away that kicked-in-the-stomach feeling I had when I walked up behind Miles and heard what he was saying on the phone.
Which must have been how he felt when he discovered how you used him.
The thought comes unwelcome, but I ignore it. Let it flow with the wind. I don’t know what I believe anymore. What’s right and what’s wrong. For me, there are no more rules. I will do anything I need to rescue my clan, no matter who it hurts.
I drive down the two-lane road over the border of Idaho into Utah. Though I’m tempted by every sign that points to junctions with the highway, I am determined to stay on the small roads. Miles-as-oracle told me that Whit knew where the clan was. And that he was on my tail. And that our paths would cross again at some point. I want to get as close to my clan as possible before that happens.
I follow the dual yellow beam of my headlights, which from time to time reflect from eyes of animals along the side of the road. My thoughts flash back to Miles, and I feel a sharp sting of regret remembering the look on his face when he realized what I had done. I push that thought away, but another takes its place. The empty look on his face when he told me about his mother’s mental illness and abandonment.
I don’t understand how mankind can watch their loved ones get sick, when following the Yara ensures health and longevity. I remember asking my father how men could willfully destroy the earth and destroy themselves. How something as precious as life could be treated with such disdain.
“The answer was right there in front of them,” my father said. “But they chose to be blind. They chose temporary ease over long-term stability.” And now that I am out in the very world he was talking about, seeing the effects of not being one with nature, I understand what he meant.
I used all my free time in Seattle reading about current events, catching up with what happened to the world since the 1983 EB left off. The world is as my parents had described its condition leading up to the war. That part was true. Whole species of animals becoming extinct. Natural disasters becoming commonplace. Diseases running rampant . . . diseases that could be avoided in a healthy setting, following the Yara, treating nature as it should be treated and receiving the reward. Why, when offered practical immortality, would man turn his back on it?
Then it hits me. Miles acted so weird when I insisted that my father hadn’t aged that I didn’t press the point. He treated his mother’s illness as normal. He thinks of disease and death as unavoidable. Reading and Conjuring seem like magic tricks to him. They don’t know. . . .
From the way my parents and Whit described the world, it sounded like a choice mankind had made—when presented with the Yara, they rejected it. But what if they had never known about it at all?
In that case, our “escape” from the nonexistent World War III was like abandoning ship when things were at their most dire. But why would the elders do that? Why couldn’t they live among “nonbelievers” and try to change things for the better with their knowledge?
Why not work from inside the machine to change it instead of running away and waiting for end times to destroy it so they could rebuild it pure and new? It just doesn’t make sense. I know deep down that my father and the elders are good people, even if they lied to us. So why would they sit by on the sidelines and watch the earth destroy itself? It almost seems like they hold a secret they don’t want anyone to know.
The gas-pump light on the dashboard flashes red. The dial underneath it is on the
E
. “
E
for empty,” I remember Miles quipping as he pulled over to get gas. I wonder how far I can drive before the car stops working.
The only buildings in sight are barns set way off the road. I drive for another fifteen minutes, keeping my eye on the gas needle, and begin to worry that I won’t make it to a gas station in time and will be stranded in the middle of the Utah wilderness. I have no doubt that I could survive until I made it to a town. But if I strike out on foot, I will be a sitting duck for my pursuers—especially Whit, who could find me in mere hours.
I see yet another sign for the main highway, and this time I follow it. My heart is in my throat as I turn onto the entrance ramp. I’ve been so worried about running across Whit that when I don’t see the big green vehicle from my Reading of Poe the moment I pull onto the highway, I feel a surge of relief. And I feel even better when I see a sign indicating that there is a gas station ahead.
In five minutes I’m pulling off into a Shell station lit up from the inside, and the only person there is the girl behind the cash register. I have watched Miles fill the car with gas enough times to figure it out myself, and in no time I am standing at the counter, handing the cashier a hundred-dollar bill. I left the sunglasses Miles bought me in the car, so I stare downward to hide my eyes, but the girl behind the register doesn’t even look at me.
I’m feeling so jittery that when a car turns into the station, I’m ready to make a dash for the bathrooms. But when I see that it’s a small red car and a woman in a cowboy hat steps out, I breathe easy and walk back to Miles’s car.
I don’t want to stay here, out in the open, any longer than I need to, but I’ve been driving for two hours and was already starving when Miles and I arrived at the motel. One minute is all I need to dig through the trunk and pull out a couple of apples, a bag of walnuts, and a bottle of water. I toss them into the passenger side and go back to close the trunk when I hear a familiar squawk. I look up to see a black shape hurtling down into the fluorescent-lit station toward me.
Poe lands on the ground and ruffles his feathers once before squawking again. There’s only one reason that Poe would search me out, and that is if Whit directed him to. Panicking, I pick up the bird and close my eyes. I feel nothing. No connection.
It is only then that I see the tiny flashing light coming from Poe. I lift him above my head to get a better look and see a metal ring clamped around his leg with something electronic attached to it. It must be a device used to locate the bird. Whit sent Poe to find me and will follow this machine’s signals straight to me.
I try to crush the metallic tag between my fingers. No use. I remember the way I broke Miles’s phone—the fire that I Conjured to melt the insides—and try to repeat it. Nothing happens. My heart seizes with despair. I am no longer connected to the Yara. I feel naked. Powerless.
The sound of screeching tires comes from the highway. I turn to see an army-green Jeep with three passengers swerve across the highway from the left lane in order to catch the exit to the gas station.
I take a split second to assess my strength against theirs. I have no doubt Whit’s companions are armed. It’s three against one, and I have only a crossbow and a knife. The odds are against me.
I drop Poe, scoop up my pack from where I had set it on the ground next to the car, and leaping over the gas station’s cement barrier, run at full speed into the pitch-black night.