The New Wild (13 page)

It’s after
sunset now, and the sky has gone from pink to purple to navy blue with stars
flashing across it. All I want to do is find a creek and a flat bit of land to
sleep on, but Xander’s hell-bent on getting to Montana.

“I can smell it,” he insists.
“We’re almost there.”

“Yeah? What’s it smell like?” I
say, trying to be funny and thinking he’ll say
cowboy boots
, or
horse
shit
, or
booze
.

“Home,” he says gravely, and
suddenly, I know this is no time to joke. If his family is dead, he’ll be
completely devastated. We’ll know one way or the other soon enough.

The land around us has changed
dramatically in a few hours. We’ve come out of the plains and into deep,
evergreen forests filled with trees so tall they nearly edge out the sky. The
air smells like pine. I pull off a few needles from a nearby branch. I remember
Deb telling me pine needles steeped in hot water make a tea richer in vitamin C
than ten oranges.

It’s freezing cold, but we have
our blankets wrapped around us, even on Kitten, which helps. In the moonlight,
the whole forest is cast in the ethereal luminosity of the sky. Huge
phosphorescent mushrooms glow neon green in the night. We stay away from them,
even though we’re hungry. There’s no telling what they could do to us.

Barn owls sit patiently in the
tree branches, their eyes gleaming yellow. White flowers the size of plates
grow under the thick tree trunks. They pop shut eerily when we pass. In the
radiance of the moon, I can see some sugar maple trees, their trunks flowing
with rivers of sap. We stop and collect some in Xander’s spare mason jar. Later,
we’ll boil it over the fire until it’s a syrup, sweet as candy.

All around us, the bubbles are
floating again, each carrying a different bit of life. In the dark of night, I
can’t make out what they are, but we both try to pop them anyway, on the off
chance they’re growing something edible. The best may well be the
pumpkin—when I burst its little sparkling sphere, a dozen orange squashes
spring from the dirt. We grab three and roast them over the fire with the maple
sap. It’s the best “pumpkin pie” I’ve tasted in years.

As we make our way into the
forest, I start to hear buzzing. At first, it’s soft, like a lawnmower in the
distance. But the deeper we get into the trees, the louder it sounds, until
it’s roaring in our ears. It’s hard to tell where it’s coming from, but Xander
figures it out pretty quickly. The bees had all but disappeared thanks to our cellphones
and crop dusting, but they’re everywhere now, working so hard to play catch-up
that they’re pollinating at night. The air hums with their vibrating wings. I’m
allergic—if I get stung even once, I swell up like a water
balloon—so Xander swaddles me tighter in a blanket and pulls me against
his chest. His heart pounds against my back, steady and strong. When I turn to
look at him, my nose brushes his cheek and we both start to laugh. Xander’s
eyes focus on me, and for the first time, it feels like he’s staring straight
into my heart. I smile at him, and his lips turn up into a sweet, loving grin
.

I can’t wait anymore. I lean back
and push my lips against his. We kiss softly at first, then feverishly, and
it’s better than I ever imagined. Our tongues find one another easily, teasing
the other instinctively. For all the fires I’ve seen and made in the last few
months, this is hotter than them all. My skin is electrified—I wouldn’t
be surprised if I saw sparks literally flying off us, cracking in the air. I’ve
only kissed three other guys, and I didn’t like any of them a quarter as much
as I like Xander. No other kiss has ever come close.

For the
next few days, I try to play it cool, like my heart isn’t doing summersaults
every time I lock eyes with him. Like I haven’t come to realize I want him more
than I’ve ever wanted anyone. I can’t help it. He used to be such an asshole,
but part of me wonders if that was his way of dealing with insecurity or hidden
fears of not stacking up. He’s been taking such good care of me, it’s like he’s
a whole different person now. A very sexy person.

For a while, we can’t keep our
hands off one another, kissing and huddling together whenever we have the
chance. We’re not having sex any time soon—I can hardly wrap my head
around the consequences of pregnancy right now, not to mention we’re both
pretty gross from all the traveling and lack of showers—but just the
kissing and touching feels incredible and gives me something happy to focus on.

But the closer we get to Xander’s
hometown, the more distracted he is. He doesn’t care about anything but getting
there, and he’s hardly talking to me anymore. Usually, he’s at least good for a
few sarcastic comments, but these days, his face is tight with worry. I’m sure
he’s wondering if they’re alive, going over everything in his mind that could
point to the answer. I know, because I’ve been doing the same thing.

We’re about sixty miles from his
house, he guesses, when we see the remains of another body splayed out in a
blackened car.

I feel his body quaking behind me.
When I turn around, his face is all red, his brow furrowed. He’s looking really
pissed off.

“What is this, anyway? What
is
this?”
he shouts, flustered.

“What do you mean?” I say, looking
behind me into his eyes.

“This apocalypse bullshit. People killed
for no reason. What did they ever do wrong? What is Mother Nature trying to
prove?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,
Xander,” I say. We’ve talked about this topic a lot, but now that we’re getting
closer to home it’s at the top of both of our minds.

“I mean, really. What is the
deal?” he yells.

I look back at him blankly. I
don’t know the answer to that one any better than he does. The only thing that
makes even a bit of sense was what Deb said
—
that the people still alive respected Mother Nature deep in
their souls. I start to wonder if Xander’s family fit that mold. I know he
does—he takes no delight in killing dinner and feels guilty killing a
fly. But sometimes people are the opposite of their parents.

“Do you think,” I gulp, “that
they’re dead?”

“They’re not dead. They can’t be
dead.” His voice is thick but level.

“Only a handful of people survived
the Burning, Xander, and a lot of them couldn’t make it in the new wild,” I
say. I’m thinking of all those poor people we saw decomposing in Chicago. If
only they’d known how to eat, how to defend themselves.

Xander looks down and drops his
head onto my shoulder. He looks like he’s about to cry, or punch something, or
both. He covers my ears with his hands.

“I WANT THEM ALIVE!” he screams
into the snow-topped mountains, into the sky. “I WANT THEM ALL ALIVE!”

Me, too.

* * *

Fortune,
Xander’s hometown, was built deep in the Braggard National Forest the year they
discovered oil in those mountains. The closer we get to his house, the more I
think he doesn’t have a prayer. Every home we come across is massive—McMansion
after McMansion—but they’re all burnt to a crisp, with trees now shooting
out of their roofs and birds nesting on their porches.

Moving at a full gallop, we’ll be
there any minute, but Xander can’t wait a second longer. We round one final
bend, careen up a long gravel driveway and over a hill, and then we see it.
Xander’s mouth drops open, and he holds his hands over his eyes, but there’s no
going back.

The house is just like the
others—coal black, crawling with foliage. I’m scared to go near it. Scared
all three floors will come crashing down the minute we set foot on the front
stoop, but Xander barrels inside. This is the moment of truth, and part of me
would rather keep believing a lie than risk knowing what I’m terrified he’ll
find.

He’s in there a long time, much
too long. I don’t hear any crashing sounds, though, which is good, just black
crows calling. I look up into the ominous gray sky and beg for their lives. I’d
rather lose an arm than watch him go through the pain of losing his family.

Then he stumbles from the house
carrying three charred skeletons, his eyes red and blotchy, his face twisted
into an expression so anguished, I let out a sob. He falls to the ground and
pulls them all to his stomach, holding them there with both arms and rocking
back and forth. His cries have terrified Kitten, who is backing away from us.
My chest physically hurts watching him go through this, the agony of losing his
mother, his father, and his baby sister all at once. I run over and throw my
body around his. We cry together, our bodies heaving in sobs. They were
everything to him, and now his everything is gone.

* * *

Xander
tries to dig three shallow graves in his backyard, but the earth is too cold to
penetrate. He ends up swaddling them all together in our biggest blanket and
placing the bodies in a clearing of lodgepole pines under a pyramid of cut
branches. His eyes have wept all they could—now they are empty. Lifeless.
All I want is to make him feel better, but I know there’s no use. There’s
nothing that will take this pain away.

We set up camp that night next to
the makeshift burial site, looking up at the clearest skies I’ve ever seen. The
stars are bright, but the Northern Lights drift over them in an ever-changing
rainbow of hazy color, first blue, then emerald green, then deep royal purple.
I sit by the fire, hugging my knees to my chest. Xander lies on his back,
staring into space. I can see his suffering. I can hear it in every sigh that
leaves his body. I lie next to him all night long, watching his chest rise and
fall, brushing the flies away from his face. Nothing will ever be the same.

I wake up
wrapped in Xander’s warm arms, my heartbeat ticking in time with his. The
Montana air is ice-cold, especially when I have to pull away from him to pack
up camp. Today is really frigid, and the whole sky swirls with clouds that look
like they’re about to dump snow on us at any second. The air smells clear and
clean, like after a fresh snowfall. We can see our breath in the air and Kitten’s,
too, seeping from her nostrils in long, spiraling billows that dissipate in the
wind.

Xander’s eyes are filled with
sadness over the loss of his family. He said he found them all right where he
thought they would be
—
his dad on the charred recliner, his mom in front of the
microwave, his sister in her twin bed right next to her tiny, melted cellphone.
I don’t know where I would find my mom. The kitchen, I guess. She’s always
cooking something up. I can’t bear to think about it.

Before we leave he asks for some
time alone with them. Even from in front of his house, I can hear his sobs. I
feel like I’ve lost him. But when he finally comes out, his eyes look clearer,
like he’s reached a kind of peace. His lips turn up into a sad sort of
half-smile, and I know somehow he’ll pull through.

We climb aboard Kitten and start
to ride west, bracing ourselves against the wind. I lean back and kiss Xander
every few minutes. It feels so good to be able to do that whenever I feel like
it.

We’re not a mile from his house
when something comes barreling out of the undergrowth and scares Kitten so much
she rears back on two legs.

“Holy crap! What the hell is
that?” I shout.

A tiny, hazel-brown something is
rolling around on the ground in front of us. Xander hops down with the axe,
prepared to defend me, God love him. But when he gets closer to it, he starts
cooing.

“Jackie, it’s a puppy! A real-live
puppy
!” He picks it up in his arms and holds it against his heart. “A
bloodhound.” He looks back at me with eyes that beg, like if he doesn’t carry
it with him on horseback he’s gonna go ahead and die of sadness.

“Can I keep him?” he says, softly.
I can tell he’s scared I’m gonna say no.

The answer is, undoubtedly,
of
course
. I’m not about to let that puppy starve to death alone. Besides,
he’s fun, and we need a little fun in our lives, especially Xander, especially
now. Before he gets near us, Xander takes off a piece of my sweater and wraps
it around the dog’s neck, so he has my scent. When Kitten smells him, she stops
whinnying, thank God. I did not want to see her horn start spinning. After
everything else, I don’t think we could handle adorable puppy bloodshed.

Xander decides to call him Droops,
for the saggy skin that hangs in ripples over his tiny frame. He has big feet,
big ears, and a tiny tail, and his beige coat is a few shades darker than
Kitten’s. Xander puts him right against his chest and swaddles him with his
coat. Droops licks his neck and face all over, and for the first time in weeks,
Xander laughs out loud. He leans in to kiss me, and I press my back to his
chest, practically squashing the dog. I don’t care—nuzzling him is worth
it.

The farther we get up into the
Bitterroot Mountains toward Oregon, the colder it gets. My hands are chapped
red, my teeth chattering. In front of me, Kitten’s mane is crusted with frost.
Xander holds me and Droops as tightly as he possibly can, but it’s no use. We’re
numb.

We’re somewhere up in Lolo Pass,
Xander says, when the snow comes softly down and dusts every inch of us. At
first, it falls like powdered sugar tossed gingerly over the crest of a great
cake, but after a while, the flakes start swarming in such a flurry, it’s like
we’re trapped beneath the glass of a bone-chilling snow-globe. I’m immediately
taken back to the last day a huge blizzard hit Portland.

I was eight, maybe nine, and Mom
and I woke up early to listen to the radio to hear if school was cancelled. We
whooped and hollered when they said my school had a snow day. When her work at
the law firm was announced closed, too, she picked me up and twirled me around
the kitchen. She was so excited to spend all day alone with me. We sledded down
Suicide Hill, heated cocoa over the fire when the electricity went out, and
curled up together in her big downy bed to read until we fell asleep.

Today, all the fun and excitement of
a snow day is gone. I’m fucking freezing and I feel like my fingers are going
to fall off and maybe take my nose with them. Every breath I suck into my lungs
feels like a dagger of ice being pumped inside my chest. To make matters worse,
we haven’t come across anything to eat in a day and a half. No bubbles carrying
nut trees, no ground squirrels, no
nothing
. We’re starving. Deb said
humans can fast for up to a few weeks, but we’re using up so much energy moving
west I doubt we’ll last longer than a couple days.

Every once in a while, we stop to
try to get a fire going and warm up for a while, but it’s almost impossible
with all the snow. Xander uses his body as a shield against the wind, but even
getting sparks from the flint is hard. The twigs are too damp. Nights are
better, because that’s when Kitten’s horn glows with a light so bright and
fierce that heat emanates from it in waves. It sounds crazy, but part of me
wishes it were night all the time, so we’d always be warm.

We cross through snow banks six
feet deep, past towering redwoods trimmed with icicles. Red-eyed vultures
circle above us, waiting for their next meal. We’re camping along a frozen lake
in what I’m guessing is Idaho, and I truly start to believe we’re going to die.
We’re both so weak from hunger we can’t even talk anymore, and so goddamned
cold I don’t think either of us can feel a thing. I think my whole body has
frostbite, from forehead to toe. They say hell is a hot place, full of fire and
brimstone, but I think hell is a day without even the hope of warmth and your
stomach is so empty it’s scraping itself from within.

It’s broad daylight, but all three
of us—including Droops—are piled on top of one another in the tent,
squeezing each other as hard as we can to unite any remaining body heat, when
we hear Kitten start to growl and see a bright, red light shining through the
canvas roof.

Xander sticks his head out the
door. “Holy fucking shit,” he mutters.

“Is it us? Is she coming after
us?” I ask, my breath shallow. “I always thought this might happen.”

Xander comes back inside the tent,
his eyes wide. “No,” he says gravely. “We gotta grizzly on our hands.”

“A grizzly
…
bear
?” I ask, my voice tight with fear.

“Yeah, but I don’t think you’ll
have to worry. It’s not gonna be around much longer.”

We crane our necks out of the tent
to see what’s happening. There is a grizzly down by the edge of the lake, maybe
a few city blocks from us. When he stands up, he’s almost as big as Kitten. He
doesn’t see us and is lumbering down to the lake for a drink. He pushes his paw
against the ice until it snaps, then laps up the water that gushes forth.
Kitten is not going to let him imbibe for long. Her horn is neon-bright, cherry
red and spinning faster and faster in its socket. From the ground, looking up
at her, we can see that her eyes are red, too, glowing as bright as her horn.
She waits for the bear to get a good long chug, then charges, once again
piercing her horn through the bear’s skull in a matter of seconds. His blood is
shooting out in all directions, splattering over the snow and ice.

“Holy hell,” Xander says.

“Seriously,” I whisper, not
wanting Kitten to hear.

She digs in ravenously, like
before. When she’s hollowed out the carcass, she takes one long look toward our
tent and shakes the blood off her coat, then stands there, pawing the ground
and quaking. Kitten lifts her nostrils to the air, smells it for a few minutes
in each direction, and bolts, quick as lightning, over a nearby hill, her blond
hair flapping with each gallop. We listen to her hooves pound the ground for a
little while, but soon enough, we can’t hear anything but our own heavy
breathing.

“No!” I shout after Kitten,
starting to cry at the thought of walking the rest of the way home through the
snow. Ordinarily I wouldn’t care—she always comes back—but we’re
freezing. People die in weather like this.

Xander takes me into his arms,
shushing me. “It’s okay,” he soothes, wiping my tears. Then, with a glint in
his eye, he adds, “How do you feel about roast bear for dinner?”

We race out of the tent and scrape
what we can from the carcass. It seems to take forever to get a fire going, but
we do, using the bears hollowed out rib cage to block the wind. I devour the
meat so quickly I think I might throw it up. My stomach was so empty for so
long that the onslaught of fat makes me nauseous. My will to live keeps it
down.