The Last Girl (29 page)

30

“Tell us again, Zoey, now that everyone’s awake.”

The group sits in the living room chairs and on the floor opposite the low fire Ian built before waking Eli, Tia, and Newton. Merrill leans against the wall beside the bookcases and nods to her encouragingly.

Zoey takes a deep breath, looking around at her audience. She shouldn’t be nervous, she’s fought and killed before, been in extreme peril, but the multitude of eyes watching her makes her stomach slowly flip. “Okay. There was a storm, I don’t know how long ago, that I watched from my room one night. I remember the power going out, not just the main lights, but almost everything. There were emergency lights on in the halls, but that was it. It was a complete blackout outside. It took them a couple hours to get everything back on, so all I can think is that a lightning strike must’ve knocked out the power as well as fried their backup generators.” She waits, glancing from one person to the next. When Eli frowns and shifts in his seat, she holds out her hands before her. “If we can figure out a way to create a big enough power surge during a storm, they’ll think the lightning is responsible.”

A slow realization dawns across the group. Tia purses her lips and squints at Merrill. “You think that would work?”

“Yeah,” Merrill replies. “I do.”

“What would we use for a surge?” Chelsea asks. “EMP?”

“No, an EMP has a specific signature, they’d know they were under attack right away. We want them completely oblivious to what’s happening until we’re on our way out. The ARC runs off of the power created by the dam, right? In the first attack we were going to cut the electricity, so we researched how the power system was set up. There’s a relay station beside the dam that the electricity runs through. It’s basically a control hub where they can change the power influx to the compound. If we could disrupt the supply for a split second and change the power settings to full, the subsequent surge would blow their generators no problem and it would look just like a lightning strike.”

“What do you think, Tia?” Eli says.

Tia shrugs. “It’s sound in theory. All we’d need to do for the delay is hook an inverter into the main power relay. It would destroy the inverter, but it would give us the disruption we’d need.” She smiles, and there is a gleam in her eyes. “And I happen to have such an inverter at the warehouse.”

Merrill nods. “I was hoping you’d say that. So, the emergency lights run off of batteries, but the auto-guns and the big floodlights on the walls are hooked to the main power and generators, from what Zoey’s saying. They’ll be off along with any alarm systems if we do this right.”

“So we just cruise up under the ARC in a boat? What about the snipers on the walls? They’ll have night vision for sure,” Eli says.

“They will, but that’s a risk we have to take. With the power going out, they’ll be distracted. We can use the boat you built, Tia,” Merrill says, motioning to her. “That will hold everyone.”

“We’ll have to use an electric motor, can’t have any sound,” Tia says thoughtfully.

“Right. We’ll wait for a storm to brew at night before going in. Shouldn’t have to wait long, since it’s spring and there have been a considerable number already. Now we need to decide who’s going into the ARC and who’s handling everything outside.”

“I’ll have to run the cutter to get us in,” Tia says. “So you’ll have to create the disruption, Merrill.”

“No. I’m going in. I have to,” Merrill says quickly. “There’s—”

“There’s no one else here who knows how to disrupt the power,” Tia says, cutting him off. “There will have to be at least two people, and you’re going to be one of them.”

“I could do it,” Eli says.

“Honey, no offense, but this isn’t like running a football through a gap in the line,” Tia replies.

“You really hurt me so,” Eli says, wiping away an invisible tear. “I forgot I was just a simple colored boy.”

“You’re going to have to come inside with us,” Tia says, ignoring Eli’s bait. “It’ll be dannngerouuuuus.” She draws the last word out in a singsong way and waggles her eyebrows up and down.

“Can’t resist when you do that,” Eli says smiling widely. “I was just tryin’ to help out my boy here.”

Merrill’s lips move, but no words come out. He struggles for a long moment before his shoulders drop slightly. “You’re right, Tia. As much as I hate to say it, you’re right.” He seems to consider something before glancing around the room. “So that’s settled. I’ll take Newton with me to the relay station, and we’ll kill the power. Tia will take Chelsea and Eli inside and bring the women out. Ian, you’ll be our overwatch, if you don’t mind?”

Ian nods solemnly. “I do mind. I swore off killing a long time ago, but I haven’t been able to keep my promise very well.” He frowns. “I’ll do it.”

Merrill shoots a last look around the room. “Okay. We know what we need. We head out in a couple hours to get everything. Let’s pack up what we have to take and move.”

Everyone stands and begins to shuffle out of the room, but Zoey steps in front of them. “Wait. I’m going into the ARC, too.”

“No. That’s not an option,” Merrill says. “You can guide them via wireless microphones.”

“I’m going in, or I won’t help you,” she replies, without breaking eye contact with him. He towers over her but she stands unmoving, blocking the doorway. Merrill swallows and stares at her, searching her face. The seconds stretch into a minute before he finally sighs and looks away.

“Okay, you go in. I wouldn’t be any better than NOA if I dictated what you could do,” Merrill says in a quiet tone.

“Merrill, I—” Chelsea begins, but he holds up a hand, silencing her.

“There’s no one in this house who has more right to decide what she wants.” Merrill runs his eyes over Zoey’s face one last time before stepping past her. The group slowly files out, leaving only Newton and Ian behind in the living room. Newton catches her gaze and he opens his mouth. For a long beat she thinks he’s going to speak, but after a few seconds his lips come together and he rushes from the room, sidling past as if he doesn’t want to touch her.

Zoey watches the group amass in the yard beyond the windows. They are in discussion again and Tia makes a harsh gesture inches from Merrill’s face.

“Don’t worry about them,” Ian says, moving to the kitchen. “They’ve been a family for years. They’ll be completely in tune before long, you’ll see.”

“What’s the world like out there?” Zoey asks, eyes still locked on the window.

“Unfortunately it’s very much the same as it used to be. Now there’s just fewer people and more killing.”

Her eyes travel up and land on a red, white, and blue flag pinned to the wall above the window. She’s seen miniature versions of it in the NOA textbook, mostly emblazoned on the sides of army vehicles or in the form of patches sewn onto soldiers’ uniforms.

“What does it mean?” she asks, pointing at the flag.

Ian gazes at the faded material. “Freedom,” he says in a tired voice. “Or at least it used to.”

“Do you think it will again?”

“You mean, do I think things will change?”

“Yes.”

The old man drops his eyes to the pitted countertop. “I’m not sure, but I hope I live to see it. The world wasn’t perfect before. It had its darkness, and there were always people willing to help spread it. The defeatist in me says it’s already over, and that it’s for the best.”

“But that’s not what you really believe.”

“No. Hope still holds sway in this old man. I’m a romantic at heart.”

Zoey moves to the opposite side of the counter. “If we succeed, where will we go?”

“You mean you and the other women?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose you’ll stay here. It’s the safest place I can think of. If you’re not opposed to it, of course,” he adds quickly.

She smiles. “I’d like that.” The wrinkles in Ian’s face deepen as he grins.

“We’d obviously have to expand. This little abode won’t do as it is,” he continues, beginning to bustle about in the kitchen. “The north wall could be knocked out and we could build that way, it’s fairly level. Yes, that would work.”

Zoey watches him clean, the plans for creating a larger household floating back to her over his shoulder. She lets herself imagine a life here with the others. What would Lily make of the trees? The thought broadens her smile. She would love them, she decides. And the rift between her and Rita, Sherell, and Penny? It would have to be mended somehow. They didn’t have the luxury of remaining enemies in the outside world.

And Terra and her unborn child. The thought of Terra being a mother, free and unhindered here to raise her son or daughter, is all the resolve Zoey needs.

Leaving Ian to his cleaning, she steps outside into the mountain air that she thinks she’ll never get tired of breathing.

31

The warehouse becomes more distinct, its borders sharpening as the distance closes between it and the approaching vehicle.

Zoey stares at its broad bulk in the afternoon sunlight. She sits on the driver’s side of the last seat in the “Suburban,” as Chelsea called it. It is a massive vehicle that’s lost nearly all of its pewter paint, the places where rust has accumulated patched with a series of steel plates riveted beside one another. The top has been cut off, leaving only the windshield to protect the passengers. The large rear compartment holds the group’s meager supplies, as well as Ian’s green bag, which he packed before leaving the little house on the mountain.

Zoey had watched him shut the door after everyone was outside, lovingly stroking Seamus’s broad head while murmuring something under his breath. The dog had watched him with complete attention, lying down on the porch as Ian had turned and walked away. Then they’d been off through the tangled web of undergrowth that lay like a haphazard carpet beneath the trees. It took them nearly two hours to reach the suggestion of a road where the Suburban was parked, concealed beneath three heavy layers of pine boughs. After they’d driven down the narrow and treacherous road, Zoey’s teeth and nerves were jangled to the point of coming loose. The foothills soon appeared thereafter, and they coasted through them, fallen branches and needles crackling beneath the tires of the machine.

There would be two stops, Merrill had told her before they left. The first would be at an intersection on the outskirts of the nearest town. There were several things they needed for the expedition, and of course they couldn’t risk Zoey or any of the other women being seen by the residents there, so they let Merrill, Eli, and Ian out at the intersection, promising they would rendezvous at the same spot in three hours’ time. They had all agreed they wanted to be far away from any type of civilization before nightfall. To Zoey’s surprise, Chelsea had pulled Merrill into a quick embrace before he’d jumped from the vehicle, and a reassuring softness in his eyes was directed at her as he walked away.

The second stop was to be at Tia’s warehouse. From what Zoey understood, the building was a storage place for the group’s more important equipment and supplies.

Now, seeing it in person, the excitement of the journey down the mountain diminishes to almost nothing.

Besides the ARC, the warehouse is the most imposing structure she’s ever seen. Its steel walls are mottled dark, stained by time and rain. The windows in the upper story are shattered mouths of glass teeth. Its length sprawls across the plain it’s built upon and rusted heaps of equipment decorate the clearing before the large, double doors set in its front.

Tia steers the vehicle up to the side of the building away from the road and shuts it off. In the quiet that rushes in with the absence of the motor’s growl, a new sound takes precedence. It is unlike anything Zoey’s ever heard before, a gentle and eerie fluting that makes the hairs stand on her arms and neck.

Tia glances at her and smiles. “Wind chimes,” she says, opening her door. “When I lived by myself out here, I got tired of the silence.”

Zoey, Newton, and Chelsea climb out and round the vehicle. Tia stands before a door cut into the side of the building. She works at the handle for a moment before the door swings inward with a creak.

“How do you know someone’s not inside?” Zoey asks as they approach the entryway.

“Tia always tucks a strand of wire on the side of the jamb so if someone got in, the wire would be on the ground,” Chelsea says.

They step into the warehouse and Zoey stops, unable to move any farther.

The building is immense. Seeing it from the outside did nothing to prepare her for the staggering openness of the interior. The ceilings hang forty feet above her head beyond a series of catwalks and ledges on a second floor that’s partially obscured by the lack of light. The floors are cracked concrete and stretch away for hundreds of yards with only the occasional interspersing support beam to break the expanse. Some of the larger rooms in the ARC gave Zoey pause at times and she knew that their daunting size and emptiness were intended to be filled by women such as herself, but the warehouse dwarfs them all in comparison.

“It’s something, isn’t it?” Tia asks.

“Yes. It’s unbelievable.” Zoey glances at the older woman. “You lived here
alone
?”

“Yep. For about ten years it was just me and the wind. Chelsea, why don’t you and Newton get the guns? I’ll have Zoey help me gather the rest.” Chelsea nods and takes Newton’s hand gently in her own, leading him away to a set of stairs that rises to the second story.

“This way, girlie,” Tia says, moving toward the opposite end of the building. There are piles of iron, all lengths and widths, stacked beneath the second-story overhang to either side. Tools, their uses unimaginable to Zoey, lie on crowded benches, and here and there a decayed sign displaying half its message pokes up through the refuse.

Tia produces a small flashlight from her pocket, shining it through the gloom that deepens the farther they walk.

“What was this place for?” Zoey says.

“They used to repair industrial combines here. Combines are huge machines that cut and process different plants. Some of them would barely fit through those front doors.”

“Is this where you worked?”

“No. I was on a crew in Seattle when everything fell apart.”

“Merrill called you something in Ian’s house? A welder?” Zoey asks as they walk.

“That’s right.”

“What is that?”

“Basically someone who can bind things together.”

“Oh. And lesbian is another name for welder?”

Tia’s raucous laughter peals out so sudden and loud that Zoey flinches. She stops beside the older woman, who has halted and is bracing her hands on her knees for support. Another gale bursts from her, and Zoey can’t help but smile.

“Eli called you that. What? What did I say?” Zoey asks.

Tia wipes at her eyes and continues to chuckle for another moment before she can answer. “Nothing, honey. But that’s the best damn laugh I’ve had in a long time. Another name for welder!” Laughter erupts from her again, and she shakes her head. “No, I suppose they didn’t bother to educate you on people like me,” she continues after the final squalls of mirth depart. Her voice grows suddenly serious. “Of course. Why would they care to explain something like that if they were only after your eggs?”

They move toward a very dark alcove cluttered with heaps of glass panes and thin squares of metal stacked opposed of each other. “I don’t understand,” Zoey says, following Tia through the maze. They arrive at a cleared area at the rear of the space. There is a long, neatly organized workbench that is completely at odds with its surroundings.

Tia hands Zoey the light. “Hold this.” She bends low and yanks a steel frame out from beneath the bench. Attached to the frame are two cylinders, one pale yellow, the other green. A long, thick hose extends from a dual connection at the top of the canisters, ending in a gun-like tool at the opposite end. Tia hoists the equipment off the floor easily, though to Zoey the steel appears thick and heavy.

“Bring that light here and hold it so I can see,” Tia says. Zoey watches as the other woman begins taking apart the connection apparatus, pausing to clean several small pieces as she works. “Were there any boys about your age at the ARC?” Tia asks after a short time.

“Yes. There were the exact same number of them as us.”

Tia stops cleaning and looks at her. “Really?”

“Yes. They were all sons of our Clerics.”

“And these were the only boys there your age?” Zoey nods. “Weird. Okay, well, your Cleric’s boy, what was his name?”

Heat begins to grow in Zoey’s face and she’s secretly thankful for the relative darkness. “Lee.”

“And is Lee a good-looking boy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit, you don’t. Is he good-looking, or did he give you the creeps?”

Zoey laughs. “He . . . he’s, yeah . . .”

“Okay, okay, I get the idea. So, the way you feel about Lee, that’s pretty well defined, right? You know you like him, and you think about him when he’s not around. It’s the same for me, but with women.”

Zoey blinks, thinking Tia is making a joke. The older woman stops cleaning and glances at her. “You’re serious?”

“Yes. I grew up being attracted to girls, just like you did with boys. I know that might sound strange to you, but lots and lots of people were that way before the Dearth. Men fell in love with men, women with women, it was fairly common.” Tia begins putting the apparatus back together, slowly, deliberately. “But it wasn’t always welcomed. Lots of people like me were ostracized, beaten, even killed. Nowadays it’s twice as bad.”

Zoey frowns, trying to absorb the idea of two women falling in love. For a second it seems odd to her, very foreign. But then she thinks of the absolute darkness of the box, the phantom bugs, the thing with the red eyes.

“It’s not any different than being a woman now,” Zoey says finally. Tia twists the last bolt tight but doesn’t look up from the tanks. “They kept me controlled just because I was born a girl.” Zoey shifts in place, glancing down at the cluttered floor. “No one should tell you you’re wrong for who you are. I don’t think you’re strange at all.”

Tia remains motionless for a time, still not looking at her before standing and hauling the tanks up onto her shoulder. “Let’s head back,” she says quietly.

They move back through the length of the warehouse, and Zoey spots Chelsea and Newton at the far end carrying a satchel between them down from the second floor. Outside the day is a filmy gray, the sky scudded with thickening clouds. Zoey watches Chelsea and Tia open the satchel on the ground.

It is full of guns.

There are several pistols like the one she used in the ARC, rifles of different lengths, and a long, padded case lying at the bottom that barely fits in the bag. Ammunition jingles in a second bag that Newton sets down in the dirt.

“Enough to kill everyone in the ARC three times over,” Tia says. “Hope we don’t need a quarter of it.”

“We’ll need it,” Zoey says, looking down at the weapons. When she glances up, both Tia and Chelsea are watching her. “You’ve never been there, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen,” she says.

Tia nods, still looking at her. “Chelsea, you want to help me load the boat in the trailer on the other side?” Chelsea gives Zoey and Newton one last look before following Tia out of sight around the corner of the building.

Zoey glances at Newton, studying the boy again. His eyes are locked on the distant lines of the mountains, his mouth open a little.

“They’re really big, aren’t they?” Zoey asks. Newton closes his mouth and shoots her a look before shifting his eyes back to the blue-black smudges farther away on the horizon. “I never imagined that the world was this big,” she says, absently wondering if Newton is registering anything she’s saying. “I always knew there was more out there, but these last few days have been almost too much to understand.” Newton blinks in rapid succession. He’s listening. “Merrill said that you don’t have your parents anymore. I don’t either. I never knew them.” Newton’s hand lifts from his side, and he gently presses it against his ear. “I’m sorry, Newton, I didn’t mean to upset you, I was just trying . . .”

But he is gone before she can finish the sentence. She sees the black streak of his hair disappearing around a pile of scrap iron, and then she is alone. “. . . to talk,” she says under her breath.

Within the next hour they gather the last remaining items they need. Tia shows Zoey the inverter that will interrupt the power flow to the ARC. It is an unremarkable steel box containing a mass of electrical components and a shining coil of gold wire so thin it looks like hair. After all the other supplies are packed within the Suburban, Tia backs it up to a two-wheeled trailer, which holds a cupped length of aluminum nearly twenty feet long.

“The sides fold out here and here,” Tia tells her, pointing to several hinged flanges that are bent over the main body of the boat. “You flip them out when you launch it and then it can hold more people.”

“It won’t sink if we’re all riding in it?” Zoey asks, running her hands over the smooth aluminum hide.

“Not a chance, girlie. I modified it myself. This thing would float in a hurricane.”

Zoey moves up beside the Suburban to where Chelsea stands, sweeping the heaps of junk with her eyes.

“Are you looking for Newton?” Zoey asks.

“Yes. Have you seen him?”

“Earlier when you went to get the boat ready. He went that way.” She points in the direction of the road.

“Damn it. He does this sometimes, just wanders off. Once about a year ago we stayed out all night looking for him. He was hiding behind a chair in our house. He must’ve crawled behind it and fallen asleep there. We were worried sick.”

“I think it might be my fault he ran away,” Zoey says.

Chelsea looks at her, eyebrows drawing together. “Why would you say that?”

“I tried talking to him. I told him I didn’t know my parents.” She shrugs. “I guess I didn’t know what to say, but it upset him.”