Wanderers (23 page)

Esther felt strange revealing the truth: that Aras had left because of her. She knew that, despite the distaste they often felt for him, the group had grown to depend on the guide. She wasn't sure how they would take the news.

Seeing her hesitation, Eli stopped what he was doing and Asha came close to cling to him. One by one, the others glanced around, only just realizing that the guide and his dog were not among them.

Esther took a deep breath.
Sometimes,
she decided,
you just had to lie.

“He left last night,” she said. “He said the trip wasn't worth his while . . . it was more trouble than he counted on. I tried to get him to stay, but . . .” She shrugged. “You can't reason with some people.”

Esther caught Skar's eye and held it for an instant. Her friend seemed to understand; she gave the briefest of nods. Still, Esther couldn't help but notice that Skar looked grave as she took Michal's hand. The two girls interlaced fingers, as if for comfort.

But the others took the news as badly as Esther had feared. Agitated, Joseph began talking to himself, clutching his cat close. Asha whispered to Eli, gripping his arm so tightly he had to ease her fingers. Waves of panic rippled and spread through the group.

But before the situation could disintegrate any further, someone spoke up.

“To hell with him,” Silas said in a harsh voice, “if that the way he feels.” He looked away and spat.

This seemed to inspire Eli, who gave a slow nod. “Yeah. We don't need his help anyhow.”

Esther smiled. Aras had not just taught the group how to survive; he had also instilled in them the pride they had been lacking. She folded the note he had written and tucked it in the pocket of her jeans. The faint crinkle reassured her.

“We're almost there,” she said. “Maybe two days at most. We just stay on the road when we can.”

* * *

Now the caravan was led by Esther alone. She bicycled at the head of the group, pulling the wagon, setting the pace for the others, and guiding the way.

From habit, Esther often found herself turning to speak to the guide, to read highway signs aloud or to report on the road condition. Without him, she instead had to make do with Aras's compass, studying the raised letters as she had seen him do. She was relieved when, later that day, they passed through a row of booths that blocked the road, marked by a sign with the strange word,
CANADA
; Aras had once mentioned this landmark.

Yet Esther knew that she missed the guide in more ways than one. Like his dog, he could be intimidating, even cruel. Yet alone with her, he had revealed a side of himself vulnerable and full of hurt. And this was the part of Aras she found herself thinking of again and again.

By the time she called a stop for the night, Esther realized they had covered far less ground than they had over the previous days. What bothered her more was the lack of choice of where to camp. They had moved out of the mountains into flat land; yet they hadn't passed an exit in many hours. The only structure visible for miles was a large building on the highway itself, something called a “rest station.” Aras had taught her the importance of finding small and secluded campsites, places that lay far from the main road and didn't call attention to themselves. This was far too exposed and would leave them vulnerable. Yet Esther had no choice.

While Eli and Joseph collected and boiled water from a nearby runoff, Esther and the others attempted to gather edible nuts and plants, but there were few to be found. Skar and Michal had similar bad luck, returning with only two squirrels and a juvenile rabbit—altogether, a meager dinner for eight.

Inside the rest station was no better. As Esther expected, the kitchen areas of all of the restaurants and stores had long since been gutted and ransacked. The food machines in the central room had also been emptied of their contents, their glass fronts smashed and the ground before them littered with filthy, sodden bills and coins.

But there was one payoff. Silas spied something in one of the machines, an object that was caught deep inside the mechanism, snagged on a metal coil. He was able to work one of his thin arms inside; and, after what seemed hours of fiddling, extricated the object. It was a packet of individually wrapped candies. True, they were whitened and dusty, yet they were edible. Esther divvied them up after dinner and everyone shoved them into their mouths, crunching and swallowing ravenously.

Esther did a quick calculation. Although everyone was nearly desperate with hunger, they still hadn't yet been reduced to eating their emergency rations, the dried meat and acorns that they kept in their one remaining wagon.

With any luck, they'd be in Mundreel before things got that bad.

Sometimes food was more important than anything else.

Lewt was surprised he felt this way. He had never cared much about eating, as long as he had enough. If he managed to fill his belly, that was enough for him. Now he needed to eat, and bad. He needed clean water, too, lots of it.

Since his bicycle had broken down, he had had no choice but walk. Although the sun had set, the endless expanse of tarmac was still hot. It scorched Lewt's feet through his tattered sneakers and sent waves of heat pulsing upward into his body as he trudged down the middle of the highway.

He hadn't known food and water could go so quick.
Still,
he thought with some bitterness,
it hadn't had to be that way.

Quell had been a problem from the start. To be sure, his size, brutality, and low intelligence made him a valuable companion, since he posed a threat to everyone but Lewt. Yet his bulk meant he ate a lot, which Lewt found disgusting as well as unfair. It was fortunate that the snake had bitten him when it did, for it saved Lewt the trouble of killing Quell himself. True, he could have tried to save Quell by sucking out the poison; the bite had been where the giant couldn't reach it, high on his shoulder. In the end, Lewt let nature take its course. Once the screaming, vomiting, and bleeding from the mouth had stopped, the worst was over.

After that, it was just him, Tahlik, and Rafe, and that had been fine; neither needed much to stay alive. But when their supplies started to dwindle, Lewt began to hide food for himself. It was easy enough to do; and, frankly, he was surprised Tahlik didn't do the same.

Tahlik discovered the theft after sneaking up on him after dark, when he was supposed to be asleep.

“What you got there?” he said, scaring Lewt half to death.

“Nothing,” Lewt answered, his mouth full.

“You ain't got nothing—you got food!” Tahlik had yelled.

In retrospect, Lewt had stabbed him more to shut him up than anything else. It hadn't been easy, either: Although wiry, Tahlik had more strength in his skinny frame than Lewt had imagined, and the blade was dull. He ended up smashing him with a rock, as well, just to make sure. The next day, he made a point of sharpening his knife, rubbing it back and forth against a brick wall until it was as good as new.

And then there had been Rafe.

Lewt knew that the boy didn't have a clue where Mundreel lay; he couldn't read the maps they'd taken and eventually used them to start fires. But that wasn't the worst of it. Rafe couldn't even do what he'd promised: He pulled Lewt's wagon too slowly and tired too easily. What was more, he couldn't cook; his beans were inedible, and his coffee a black, soupy mess.

Lewt had been saving his ammunition; there were only had a few bullets left and he didn't want to waste them. So he waited until Rafe was asleep, then took care of the problem with a single shot.

Leaving the note had been an impulse. Lewt seriously doubted if anyone had been following them; he assumed that the people of Prin, as helpless and stupid as a herd of mice, had all perished long ago. Yet there was no harm leaving a warning just in case he was wrong. He had a flickering sense that if there were to be any repercussions, it would be because of the other boy he had killed.

Caleb. That was what Esther had called him.

He could see her face now, swimming before him in the hazy night air. She was pretty in the way he liked, dark-eyed and watchful, and feisty, too. In a moment, it was as if she was standing before him on the dark and silent highway. He reached for her, his hands closing on empty air, and he stumbled hard, nearly falling. His hunger was so bad, he was getting light-headed.

Lewt had run into other travelers since that first band and robbed them as well, waving his gun. But how many times could he get away with doing that? How long could one man survive, alone on this road? He felt panic gripping him.

Where was this place Mundreel everyone talked about, anyway? Did it even exist?

Then he smelled something.

Lewt stopped. He raised his nose and sniffed at the still winter air, like an animal. There was no doubt in his mind. Unless he'd gone crazy, someone not too far away was roasting meat.

A smile fell upon his burned and wasted face.

He was going to survive, after all.

As moonlight streamed down through the cracked skylight far overhead, Esther lay on her back, wide awake.

Wretched, she readjusted her blanket and turned on her side. But as exhausted as she was, her mind whirred with a constant chatter of thoughts and questions.

If Aras was correct, they would be in Mundreel in a day or so. But now that they were so close, she wondered for the first time about the fantastical tales of endless food and clean water that they had recited like prayers, the stories that kept them going.

What if they weren't true? What would they do then?

Around her in the cavernous space were the still forms of Joseph and Silas. Eli and Asha slept together, as did Skar and Michal. As if he could read her thoughts, Kai now frowned in his sleep and began to thrash his arms and legs.

She wondered what babies dreamed about. Did they dream of their mothers, as she herself had done? As the boy began to whimper, she made a quick decision. She would take him for a walk before he woke anyone else up. That way, she would soothe his fears and perhaps calm her own worries, as well.

The night sky was dark and overcast; occasionally, the clouds would part, allowing moonlight to stream down, pure and white. Esther paced up and down the cracked sidewalk that surrounded the building, past the rusted metal boxes with glass fronts that still held moldering newspapers, and dandled the child against her chest. Her sneakered feet made no noise. In the still air, she could smell the smoky remnants of the fire Eli had built in the parking lot, against the black silhouettes of trees.

That was where she heard something move.

Esther froze.

With Kai heavy in her arms, Esther stayed still and willed her eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. Within moments, she could not only hear but see something moving by the campsite, something large. There had been little left from dinner; after eating, she and the others had cracked the bones open with their teeth and sucked out the marrow inside. But some kind of animal now seemed to be rummaging through their garbage, rooting in what they had thrown out.

It was most likely a bear,
Esther thought;
wild dogs traveled at dusk, and mountain lions didn't eat dead meat.
She knew enough to stay away: A mother bear with cubs could be especially deadly. Keeping her eye on the dark figure huddled over the campsite, she began walking backward one small step at a time, in order not to draw any attention to herself.

The clouds parted. In the sudden light, Esther saw what it was and her heart contracted. Then in the next second, everything was plunged once more into total darkness. Yet nothing could erase the image just seared onto her brain.

It was Lewt.

Could it really be him? She had only caught the briefest glimpse, yet it was impossible Esther could ever forget his shape, his face, his silhouette. A wave of hatred swept over her, one so powerful that she felt paralyzed, rooted to the spot. Then, with a start, she remembered the baby in her arms, as well as the others inside, asleep and defenseless. But before she could slip back in the building, the clouds parted again. This time, the moonlight fully revealed the pale circle of Lewt's face as he looked up.

He saw her. And he broke into a slow smile.

Her eyes swept the parking lot, searching for his companions, but he seemed to be alone. Even so, he appeared sure of himself as he sauntered forward. As he approached, Esther saw why: He still carried the weapon by his side, the thing Joseph called a “rifle.”

She had seen up close what the weapon could do; it could kill a person in the time it took to point it. It would be foolish, she realized, to run indoors to awaken the others; the broken doors and smashed windows would provide no protection. Even with Skar's bow and arrows, they would be helpless against such a weapon should he decide to attack.

Esther made a quick decision: She would speak to Lewt alone. If all he wanted was food and water, she could give him what few supplies they had and send him away.

“Well,” he drawled as he drew close. “Look what we got here.”

Esther smelled the stink of him even before she could get a good look. Lewt had lost weight, like the rest of them; his cheeks were sunken, and his filthy robes and jeans hung off his bony frame, cinched with a cracked belt. There were black holes in his mouth where his front teeth used to be.
Caleb's work,
she thought with grim satisfaction.

Lewt was still eating, gnawing on bone splinters that no one else had found edible. “Hope you don't mind I helped myself. Smell of cooked meat travels far and I'm famished.” He set the barrel of his rifle against the ground and leaned on it, picking what remained of his teeth with a greasy fingernail.

“What are you doing here?” Esther asked at last.

The boy smiled again. “What you think?”

Kai stirred. Esther realized she was gripping him too tightly and she forced herself to relax. “You want something to eat.”