WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) (26 page)

    And then we drift, the cold running through me, lowering my body’s temperature until even the shudders stop and everything starts to feel somehow warm. Every few seconds my hand reaches down into the water, grabbing for my leg, making sure that it’s still there. Sharp pains jab and then stop, and I trick myself each time into thinking it’s a shark brushing against me. And then, as if nothing at all happened, we float calmly on, and the swells level out.

    Without a word, Gala disappears. Her head ducks down, sliding into the water until she’s completely gone. Maze says something but I can’t hear her because I see a slit where the fog is gone. I see clear to the rocks on the coast and the wrong color that straddles them.

    “We’re drifting back out to sea,” she says.

    “How do you know?” Maze asks.

    “It’s too deep,” she says. “I must have went ten feet down. Nothing.”

    Finally, the paralyzing sight forces me to tell them. Look, I say.

    The fog closes in again, but not before they realize it too.

    “They’re waiting for us,” Maze says.

    “It’s one or the other,” Gala says, a surprising calm and slowness in the ultimatum.

    I think about the choices—to drift out and die, clinging to the boat as long as we can, or to swim in and let them take us. To let them bring us back to the stone table. All so I can tell Maze one more time before we die, as if it meant anything at all the first time, that I love her. That somehow that’s enough. Even though it will never be returned, just to tell her it’s here. On my side. Love that means something. And then, when I’ve gotten my head screwed back on, and I start to think, like I know Maze must be doing too, about which way would be better to die, Gala says it’s gone. We watch and she’s right. The slit of open coast, dissolved into gray again, and there’s nothing.

    “We swim in,” Maze says, the cold forcing her words out in a choked squeeze.

    Gala doesn’t say anything for a moment, and neither do I, paralyzed, suddenly wanting to take our chances clinging to the boat. Part of me wants to say we can flip it again, and I kick out my feet, imagining there will be another reef to catch, and we can all hoist, turn it over just like before, get out of the water. Lie on the hull. But there’s nothing but the resistance of freezing ocean.

    Some kind of delirium spills into my head. I smile at Maze, and I wait. Wait until her eyes are off the new concealing fog, the wall that covers the red throng waiting for us, and she’s looking back at me. She finally sees me staring, my insane smile. A strange wind of happiness that even I don’t understand. But I tell her. Just exactly what I believe. What she’ll remember.

    “They’re not faster than wolves,” I say. I say it again, that if we outran the wolves, we can outrun them. She can’t help it—her face warps into a mad smile of her own, and it lasts just long enough that I push into her and kiss her. Right as she holds the smile. My lips bounce numbly off hers, and a soaring shot of adrenaline runs through me. Her smile vanishes, and I think she’s going to tell, to remind me, despite all of the world collapsing around us, that I’m just her friend. That I can’t do things like that. But it’s something else. And with her two words, every ounce of my adrenaline vanishes in an instant.

    “Your leg.”

    I feel down, wondering what it would be like to try and run on it now. If the numbness would allow me to. If I wouldn’t know anything was wrong, and I could just muscle my way through a long sprint, deep into the woods.

    “You’re right. We swim in,” Gala says.

    “He
can’t
run,” Maze tells her, her worried eyes flipping back from Gala to me and then back again.

    “Running isn’t what’ll save us,” Gala says, as if she knows that no matter how fast we run, there are just too many of them. That we’ll run and run and run right into them anyway. And then, decided at last, she says it’s the fog. That’s all we have left. We gamble on the fog staying thick, all the way up on the coast. Just as thick as it is out here.

    For the first time, I realize how dark the sky is in front of us. And that the faint glimmer of the hanging sun is all but gone behind us, what’s left of it brightening the gray mist where Garren is standing somewhere, alone on a bit of rock, his barrel of metal held in his strange death grip. And I know she’s right. There’s no other option. The coast is the only choice. Because the dark ocean night is coming, and we’re drifting out into it. And then, when I realize just how close night really is, it seems more horrible than the sharks. To cling and freeze to death in the dark. And the only thing that I can do is think of earth beneath me. That if I die, I’ll do it with hard ground beneath me.

    Maze quietly watches me. It’s a look I’ve never seen in her before. At first I think that it’s because I kissed her, but now I know it’s something else. She’s judging me, whether I can do it. And she’s decided I can’t. The feeling of jumping off a cliff rises into me. The sadness of her eyes. The nausea of death just before it happens. And with the smoldering helplessness she sends at me, just by her gaze locking to mine, showing me how scared she is, something she’s never supposed to show, I smile and kick off, right into the water. It’s only when I’ve gone ten strokes toward the shore that I raise my head high enough to drink in the air and holler for them to come on. Come on, I say. I say it again, as softly as I can, so the red men won’t hear me. And then, without even knowing if they’re swimming after me, I drive my head back under the water, right into a swell, and kick with all the fury and beauty that she’s never given me.

Chapter 16

I hear the splashes behind me after I’m sure I’m heading in the right direction. Waves start to ride with me, pushing me in faster, toward the rocks. I start to wonder when I’ll smack into them, how the next jagged underwater knife will feel, and how it will rip the loose muscle of my leg  out for good, shark food, and a ruined sacrifice for the Nefandus. But there’s nothing, only the breathing and the pulsing of my arms and legs and the splashing behind me. And then, just when I feel the first brush of rock, not so quick that it cuts, and I get my feet on a bit of it to hold myself up, I hear the blast. It echoes through the fog twice, bouncing somehow all the way up the coast and off the high cliff and back at us. Shotgun.

    “There’s ground here,” I warn Gala and Maze as they reach me. And fishing with my foot, I find no rocks but smooth and solid stones. And then, just like that, I swim a bit farther and stand up, my head and shoulders rising out of the sea like some kind of monster. Before they get to me and I can ask if they heard it too, that somewhere out there Garren is alive, maybe fighting for his life, something comes over me. The feeling that I am a monster of the fog. Coming for the Nefandus. And a sure premonition, completely insane, fills me: I will come through the fog. Kill them all. Each and every one of them.

    “Don’t shout to him,” Maze says, and I know she’s aware too—that Garren is alive somewhere, and that Gala’s crazy instincts might rip her away from us, the three of us who have a shot to make it, because she’ll ruin everything by calling for him. Bringing them to us.

Gala doesn’t say a word though. Her head whips around. In silence she tries to discover where he could be. And then I follow her, scanning the fog ahead, seeing the first peaks of rocks on solid ground, and the pebbled beach lanes that run between them, rising up, higher and in spurts, until the fog blanks everything out again. I wait for a form to appear, for a hundred forms, dark before they come into their clear red, but there’s nothing. Just the still beach and the rocks and the slow retreat and return of the waves belting the gravel.  

We walk up into the fog, constantly scanning the blank gray for signs of movement. In the distance, the sounds of footfalls fade in and out. Every few steps, Gala stops. I watch her pause to look back, into the ocean, toward wherever the shotgun might have come from. I want to ask her what she thinks happened to him—why he froze like that. But I can’t risk making any noise. None of us can. And there’s not even a whisper as we climb and weave through the rocks, scurrying quietly through mist until we reach the first sign of trees. It’s when we’ve gone in, right past the first trunks of pine, that Maze pulls me back to her, points off to our right, and ducks down. Gala mimics me, and then we’re all huddled together, squatting in plain view except for the cover of fog and a few trees. There, in the distance, standing still, as if at a post, is a Red Horn. A flashback haunts me—the vision of the one I first saw in the scrap yard. Alone, waiting. I remember how we’d killed it. Almost killed it. And how this one is alone, and we can do it again. But then, I remember—we’ve lost our knives. Lost everything. 

Anxiousness starts to well up on Gala’s face, like she knows we have to form a plan without talking. Every part of me wants to ask, wants to discuss what to do. But I won’t break the silence, and no one else does. Finally, it’s Maze. She motions for us to follow her deeper into the woods, away from the Red Horn. Walking in a sort of squat, my knees and my leg protesting horribly, we maneuver through the thickening grove of pines. I glance down, the stabbing pain a reminder, and I see the blood soaked shirt wrapping my leg. It’s as if the numbness of the freezing ocean is wearing off, and with the return of heat and life is the return of nerve fire to every fiber of my leg. Each stab reminds me of the gash under the shirt, and I can barely resist the urge to rip away the cloth, see just how badly I’m really cut up. When I see Maze twist half around, a look of panic seizing her, and then watch her double her speed, I glance back to see what’s happened: The Red Horn has started walking, slowly, unknowingly, but just in our direction. Like we’ve accidentally picked the same route he planned to travel. And then, in just another moment, Maze points, and there they are—clear red forms in the fog. Too many to believe. But none of them see us. Everyone freezes. I crouch, all throbbing forgotten, pressing hard into Gala’s chest and Maze’s back. We wait, pinched between the Red Horn—its giant red body slowly lumbering through the cloud-soaked pines toward us, footsteps loud and crunching—and the great pack of devils.

            Finally, Maze breaks silence. It’s barely audible, but she knows what I’m too afraid to act upon: It’s only a moment before he’ll walk into us.

            “Lie flat, here,” she says, pointing to a low shelf of rock that cuts between two fallen trunks, one high and gnarled, its rotting core sagging down to the forest floor, and the other straight, balanced across the rock.

            Gala nods, and they go. For some reason, I can’t move to follow them. Like I have to keep my promise to myself—to kill them all. But then, once it’s almost too late, I panic and move after them. My leg doesn’t cooperate enough and I trip over the first log. The noise is loud, and when I fall, I crash into two spreading branches, thin and dry enough that they pop loudly and crack in half as I roll on my side next to where Maze and Gala lie. And then, without any motion at all, I paralyze every muscle in my body. Face up and back flat against the earth, Maze and Gala somewhere near me. I hear their anxious breaths. There’s nothing to do but wait. But then, it becomes clear. The footsteps stop. Heavy and steady, they suddenly vanish, and there’s some talking. It’s the strange Nefandus speak, hushed, worried sounding. And then, unmistakable, the beast beats his feet again. Each step is louder enough than the last that I know—he  knows just where to look to find us.

I twist my head around enough to see Maze’s face. She’s sideways, looking behind, surveying the path, and I know she’s deciding if we should make a run for it. Down to the ocean again, back into the waves. A soft chant hits the trees, rising and falling, and then more words I don’t understand.

    “Run,” Maze whispers. She gets up almost too slowly, and just when I roll around to follow, angry that she forgot I can’t run and we have to stay and fight it together, I know it’s no use. The face, so different from the last Red Horn, even with the same hulking body, stares down at me. The eyes, perfect white against the black, are the only thing besides the fog that I can see. I hear running, and then, when the footsteps sound too far away, they start to come back, get louder again. As if Maze is coming back for me. And Gala. The bang happens just as the giant hands reach down and his body leans forward, a slow grab for stunned prey—instantly the Red Horn freezes, checking the direction of the blast. Another shotgun round. Too close. And I know he survived somehow. Made it to land.

    Maze grabs my arm and pulls me up, and then, with one last look at the stunned Red Horn, I hear the frantic calls and shouts of the Nefandus pack, somewhere out there in the fog. Crazy screams and yelping. The shotgun fires off again, and this time, I’m sure that it’s somewhere nearby, somewhere right along the coast where we are. Before there’s any time to make a clear decision, Maze is pulling me, right through the trees, down toward where the surf is cashing on rocks, like we’re going to dive right back into the ocean. But then we get out on a flat stretch of beach, all small rocks and pebbles, there’s nothing but gray in every direction. Gala stops next to us, and I can’t help but fall against her. She grabs me and holds me up, and then we wait and watch the mist. When the gun bangs off again, we all see the flash—a hit of white within the gray, a pinpoint of where Garren must be inside the shroud. Dark shapes string suddenly into view, a pack of bodies moving, and then the streaking silhouette of darkness recedes back into the fog, somewhere higher up along the tree line. Gala just pushes me off of her, into Maze. Maze grabs me so that I don’t fall over, and we watch her leave us. A mad sprint right back into the gray until she vanishes.

Maze and I don’t say a word. Behind us the water kicks, reminding us there’s nowhere else to turn. And when I twist to confirm that the vast ocean is still there, like it could have been replaced with some new route of escape, I see that there’s no sign left at all of the sun. Just the dark first lines of waves that collapse and roll away.