Wasteland (Wasteland - Trilogy) (10 page)

In truth, Esther was angriest with herself: annoyed that she was inattentive enough to get caught before she could even begin her task, much less finish it. She cursed herself and shot a quick glance at the piece of glass, lying a few feet away. However, the stranger caught her look and made it there first. He brought his heel down on it, smashing it with a dull crunch.

He had been staring at Esther the whole time with an unreadable expression. This, more than the fact that he had nearly strangled her, made her deeply uncomfortable.

“I seen you before,” he said. “Behind that building on the edge of town?”

She returned the stare; then nodded defiantly.

“What were you doing?” he asked, indicating his bicycle.

“What do you think?” Her tone was derisive.

The stranger nodded, as if in agreement. “Why?”

He didn’t sound angry or sarcastic. He asked as if he was curious about her reasons.

Esther started to reply, then stopped, confused. She had never been asked to explain herself before and now found it difficult to find the exact words.

“To stop you,” was all she could say.

The stranger was kneeling, inspecting his tires for any damage. At the sight, Esther flushed with a familiar surge of resentment. Like her sister, like most of the others in town, he was ignoring her, she assumed, because she was too childish and emotional to be worthy of his attention.

But she was wrong.

“So you heard what I said in there?” He did not look at her, but seemed as if he was addressing the bicycle.

As Esther hesitated, he glanced up. She nodded.

“And I take it you didn’t like any of it?”

Her face flushed with anger.

“The variants got enough troubles without you giving them more,” she muttered.

The rays of the setting sun hit his face, throwing its angles into deep relief and turning his eyes into live coals. In an instant, he looked older than anyone on earth, older than anyone could possibly grow to be.

“Variants,” he said.

He nearly spit the word, and Esther was unnerved by the depth of loathing that lay beneath it.

“Why do you hate them so much?” she asked. It was an honest question, more bewildered than angry. “My best friend is one and she’s a good person. How can you hate someone you don’t even know?”

The boy seemed taken aback by her question.
Had anyone ever asked him before?
Esther wondered. Then he spoke as openly as she had.

“I had a partner and baby son,” he said. “In a town a ways from here. One morning, I was out foraging for supplies. Mutants broke in. They killed my partner, Miri, cut her up so bad I couldn’t recognize her. They burned our place to the ground. And they took our son. Kai.”

Protests bubbled up in Esther’s throat. Before she could speak, he continued.

“One got left behind,” he said. “He was badly burned, and the others just ran away. I beat him but he couldn’t tell me much. I found an empty can of accelerant, the stuff that makes a fire burn faster. Able Accelerant, that was the name. The mutant said they got it around these parts, that’s all he knew. That was the last thing he said.”

The last rays of sun had turned the sky as red as blood.

“That’s why it’s no good trying to stop me,” he said. He spoke as if he had no choice. And yet, he seemed to hesitate, as if waiting for a response.

Did he want her to stop him?
Esther wondered.
To talk him out of it?
For a moment she thought she had a glimpse of who he really was beneath his hatred and anger. In his own way, maybe he was as hurt and isolated as she was.

Before she could reply, the stranger mounted his bicycle and disappeared into the night.

Watching him go, Esther felt torn. His story must be true. The ghastly murder of his partner and the abduction of his child: it would be impossible to invent such horror. His pain and grief were as searing as a fresh wound, and part of her wanted to run after him, to reach out to him somehow, and comfort him.

At the same time, she believed he must have been mistaken. Obviously someone else had destroyed his family and stolen his son; some unknown variety of human monster and not the variants. The variants had no reason to kill and destroy. They may have faced difficulties and hardships, but they were better than the others because they did not covet. They did not need anything from anyone. It couldn’t have been them.

Yet why would the stranger lie? His words had stirred confusion that she found hard to admit, even to herself. He had made her face the one question she had never asked herself, despite the mounting violence . . .

Why were the variants attacking Prin?

Esther heard a sound behind her and turned to see that the last of the townspeople were leaving the supermarket. Compared to the heavy spirits earlier in the afternoon, the mood now seemed lighthearted, even festive. Looking at the smiling, chattering faces of her neighbors, Esther felt sick. She realized with a fresh shock what impact the stranger’s words would have on life in Prin.

All mutants will be attacked on sight, and attacked hard.

Any survivors will be imprisoned.

Anyone caught socializing with mutants will also be imprisoned.

For a moment, Esther felt dizzy. Then she gathered herself and made up her mind. No matter what doubts the stranger had instilled in her, there were more pressing matters at hand. She must warn Skar, before she came to town as usual. She had to save her friend.

But how?

It was late at night. What was more, the variants lived many miles away to the north, in the mountainous region. Esther owned no bicycle and to walk there would take more than a day.

She wheeled around, desperate.

Several people were walking toward her, indistinguishable in their white robes. Yet she recognized one of the voices.

“Where are you going?” Eli called. He sounded so jovial.

She couldn’t respond. Even if she could trust him, which she couldn’t, she had no way to put into words how she felt. But it did not matter, for he was not really waiting for her reply.

“Were you at the meeting?” He was as excited as a little boy. Caleb’s words had given him hope and now, grotesquely, he wanted to share that hope with her.

In an instant, Esther realized what she must do. It would again require manipulating Eli, playing off his interest in her. She had done so before, when she had appealed to him wordlessly and he had understood, leading the rest of the Harvesting team away. She felt a twinge of guilt and also wondered, fleetingly, when she would have to repay the growing list of favors he had done for her.

She would worry about all that later.

“Can I borrow your bicycle?” she asked. “Please?”

Esther leaned over the handlebars, riding swiftly.

On the outskirts of Prin, she passed mountains of rubble that had once been restaurants, a shopping center, a block of offices. Behind her, the floodlights of the Source emitted a soft glow that lingered for what seemed like miles. But soon it was dark, and then darker still. Esther had only the moon and stars to light her way.

She rode along what had once been another highway, steering around abandoned cars and trucks, sodden piles of leaves and old clothing, crumpled road signs that dangled overhead from bent steel poles. Several times, she was forced to dismount and walk her bicycle around gaping crevices where the road had sheared away. Occasionally, she heard the mysterious cries of unseen animals and noticed flittering shapes that darted through the inky air. Once, a hulking form lumbered across the road ahead of her. But they did not slow her down.

Esther’s mind was whirling.

She had to warn Skar. She would need to warn all of the variants of the stranger’s arrival and the harsh new laws now in effect. For their safety, they all needed to steer clear of Prin.

But would they believe her? They might accuse her of being a spy, or being deliberately sent with false rumors.

After several hours, Esther paused by the side of the road to get her bearings. To one side, visible through the trees, glittered the shoreline of what used to be a vast lake. A good portion of it had dried up, exposing the parched land underneath, the skeletons of fish and birds it had digested, the occasional fiberglass cooler or hamper, destroyed. The rest of the lake was covered with a black, oozing substance as thick as a tarp and as shiny as glass. In the distance she saw a cluster of foothills surrounding a single tall peak. This was her destination.

It was nearly dawn.

Esther had been traveling for hours now and each downward stroke of the pedal was agony; her entire body trembled with exhaustion. Yet she was encouraged by the fact that although the hardest terrain was ahead, she was nearly there.

Esther glided up the exit ramp off the highway to a lesser road, and then another after that. She had only been this way once before, and that was several years ago. As a result, she made a few wrong turns.

Eventually, however, she found what she was looking for. Esther turned off the paved surface and onto a rough dirt trail that cut through the densely forested mountainside. It was steep and rocky; after several minutes, she was forced to dismount and proceed on foot, pushing the bicycle by its handlebars. She reached a withered tree with a white mark upon it. There she turned. The trail wound a bit more until it ended at a clearing, carved out of a plateau.

This was where the variants lived.

Esther had not planned to arrive at dawn, but she realized it was a fortunate coincidence. Early day was hunting time for the tribe, and the camp seemed deserted. If Skar was around, they would be able to talk in private.

From her hiding place, she softly gave their secret whistle and waited. Within moments, someone emerged from one of the many shacks grouped across the clearing. It was Skar, who glanced around, clearly puzzled. Then she noticed Esther.

Surprised yet delighted to see her, Skar ran to her friend and gave her a hug. She smiled, her parted lips revealing her little teeth.

“Esther!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe it’s you! Why are you here?”

But in her haste to warn her friend and tell her all she knew, Esther had paid scant attention to her surroundings. Now, she was aware that something had changed. She stopped talking and stood still, gazing around.

When she was here before, it had only been a brief visit. At the time, she was met with suspicion by the few variants Skar introduced her to, and so she didn’t stay long. Yet she remembered what it looked like. There were makeshift shacks made of animal skins, salvaged planks, and saplings. In the center of the clearing were smoking vestiges of stick fires. Bones and other uneaten bits of animals had been strewn about, no longer recognizable.

But now, while the shacks were still there, there were no fires. Instead, Esther noticed what had taken their place.

There were large cardboard crates piled by each tent, each with crisp black lettering that Esther had trouble reading. As she looked around, her unbelieving eyes picked up other details, items that did not belong here and therefore made no sense: a clothesline pinned with dozens of shirts, pants, and dresses in bright colors and sturdy fabric. New shoes—sneakers, boots, sandals—lined up outside each door. Shiny kettles and cooking pots of all sizes. And under a canopy made from a rubberized tarp was a giant pyramid of food: oversize packages of dried beans, sacks of flour, plastic gallon jugs of water.

“What?” said Skar, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

Esther couldn’t speak. Instead, she pointed to the food, the clothing, the crates.

“What—what is all this?” she said.

“This?” Skar turned and looked. Then she said, innocently, “It’s food! You know, and other stuff!”

Esther looked closely at her friend now. At the base of Skar’s ears and hanging around her tattooed throat and wrists were new and shiny pieces of jewelry, colorful stones and bright metals. She had never seen Skar—or any variant—adorn herself like this.

“And where did you get
this
?” she said, flicking at the bangles.

Skar touched her ears and throat, growing self-conscious and her smile less confident. “Well . . . from the Source. Like the rest of it.” She gestured at the boxes as if in confused apology.

Esther nodded, very slowly.

Her mind was whirling. What did this connection, this alliance mean? The variants did not, of course, Harvest gasoline, nor was there much left to collect even if they did. So what had the variants exchanged with Levi for this massive payment of goods? What had he wanted from them? What had they done to earn it?

The sun was higher in the morning sky; the heat began to beat down. Esther had forgotten to wear her sunglasses and was forced to hold up a hand, to protect her sight. Soon, she had to shut her eyes.

All she could see was Caleb’s face.

A
LTHOUGH IT WAS MORNING, THE SUN BURNED WHITE HOT IN THE DIRTY
yellow sky. Yet inside the Source, it was perpetual twilight, dark and cool.