Inferno Girls

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  When we got home, Wren got in trouble for something, and she was back to being sour and hateful. She stopped laughing with me, only laughed at me.

  Why was Wren like that? Why had Mama always been so critical of her? Mama either criticized everything Wren did or she ignored her completely. Either too close or too far away, that had been Mama when it came to Wren. The distasteful chore of raising Wren was left to Sharlotte, who did the best she could, but she’d been a child herself. The memories confused and saddened me.

  My eyes kept going to Wren as if looking at her long enough would allow me to figure her out. Her mouth was closed, but I could see her tongue working behind her lips, probing the gaps in her teeth, reminders of her fight with Renee Vixx, the very first super soldier we’d encountered.

  Wren caught me glancing at her too many times and yelled over the wind, “I know you hid the Jack Daniels behind the seat up front. I know you hid it from me ’cause you don’t think I can quit. Well, if I wanna drink, you won’t be able to stop me.”

  Her shouts woke up Pilate. I knew he was sleeping ’cause he hadn’t been coughing. Pilate’s lungs worried me, Sharlotte worried me, and Wren, of course, she’d been born a walking anxiety complex. Micaiah, yeah, worry there. And Rachel? She’d been shooting at us the day before. If her brain somehow rejected the chemicals, she might take up where she left off.

  “Wren, it’s going to get harder on you.” Pilate had to shout over the engine. “No booze and no gunfights, at least that’s our hope, so what are you going to do all summer long to deal with your head?”

  Wren’s lip curled up in a smile. “Keep your asses alive, that’s what. Figure it will be a full-time job. Prolly Outlaw Warlords on this side of the Rockies. Or Mormons. Or both. And if the ARK skanks come after us? Lucky me. And if this kutia snaps”—she tilted her head at Rachel—“I’ll get another chance at her.”

  “You did fight well on the train,” Rachel said agreeably, but then she became confused. “But why are you so hostile now? We are not fighting, the ride is pleasant, yet you seem like you’re in a foul mood. Why?”

  Pilate and I couldn’t help ourselves. We leaned forward to hear her answer.

  Wren’s brow furrowed; her frown turned canyon-deep. “I ain’t hostile. And I ain’t in a foul mood. And you just shut your jackering trap.” She lowered her hat to hide her face.

  Rachel’s thorough confusion made me and Pilate chuckle, though we should’ve taken it as a warning.

  Pilate closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but now his cough kept him up.

  I sat there, worrying over everyone, letting my mind wander. What was in Glenwood Springs, and could we make it through?

  At the beginning of the cattle drive, we’d only wanted to get halfway ’cause if you can make it halfway, you can go the distance. I started thinking of Glenwood Springs the same way. If we could just make it through Glenwood Springs, we could get all the way to Burlington.

  The landscape flashed by in a yellow blur as the sun sank lower in the sky. So far, the diesel engine was working, but I couldn’t help but wonder: how far would the truck take us?

  In the end, it wasn’t far enough.

  (ii)

  We curved around a mountain and found greenery as the sun splashed red on the western sky. Not five minutes later, the asphalt ended on the outskirts of a town, which was bad, not only ’cause the pitted, pot-holed gravel road would slow us down, but ’cause of the eyes that spotted us.

  If we’d been on horses, or if we’d been in an old minivan with an AIS attachment, it wouldn’t have been such a problem. Even a fully-loaded Cargador would’ve drawn less attention. But no, we were in a truck, powered by an internal combustion engine, and that made us stick out. Sure, some folks in the Juniper used corn oil or canola to run in diesel cars, but it was far from normal.

  A farmer in mud-speckled overalls stood at her fence line on the outskirts of the town ... Delta, I believe it was. The farmer’s daughters clustered around her, and all the pale faces watched us pass with dumbfounded expressions.

  They’d remember us. And when the ARK passed through? They’d find answers to their questions.

  Pilate frowned like I was frowning. Then he collapsed into a cough and swallowed several times until he could catch his breath.

  “Pilate. Your cough—”

  He cut me off. “I’ll be okay. I’ve had all my shots. When you’re a stray like me, keeping updated on your vaccinations is important.”

  “But it’s bad.”

  He nodded. “And I feel like hell. I’m hoping if we can just find some hole and rest, really rest, I’ll get better. I’m pretty sure I’m running a fever.”

  I reached out and touched his forehead. Even with the sun gone everything was still hot, so I couldn’t tell if he was feverish. He didn’t look good—dark circles raccooned his eyes.

  He sighed and then took my hand. The cab of the truck acted as a windbreak, so talking was far easier. We both slipped down, our heads close, almost like we were in a confessional.

  Well, good, we both had a lot to confess.

  He started. “Cavvy, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said you weren’t fit to lead us. Though you have to admit, Wren and I have more experience ducking authorities. Anyway, I shouldn’t have said that. And I’m sorry I didn’t trust you about Rachel. And I’m sorry you had to kill the Regio back in Wendover. How are you holding up?”

  The memory remained sharp. Her pleading—Please, don’t kill me—at the same time my finger had tightened on the trigger. But then I glanced at Rachel.

  “A little better, Pilate,” I said.

  “I’m glad. You didn’t have a choice,” Pilate said. “I don’t make the rules, I don’t decide these things, and I certainly don’t understand how I’ve become such a bloodthirsty warrior, but I have. We kill them before they kill us.”

  “But if we all stopped fighting, if we all turned the other cheek, there would be no more war.”

  Pilate sighed. “Yeah, and you know what would happen? Some trigger-happy outlaw or some psychotic back-alley assjack would pick up a gun and become king of the world.”

  “Better to surrender the whole world than surrender our own souls.” I paraphrased scripture, not that it would do any good.

  “You keep your soul, Cavvy. From here on out, Wren and I can do the killing. We’ve done it enough to have callouses on our hearts. Maybe we lost our souls in the process. Sad, but I didn’t create the world, I’m just passing through, and if it’s a choice between my people and some skank, I’ll shoot the kutia every time. Either God will forgive me or She won’t.”

  Him using the female pronoun to describe God didn’t bother me a bit. It was all just the Divine.

  “So you believe in God?” I asked with a smile.

  “Only when I’m in the Juniper.” He chuckled at his own joke until the coughing took him.

  I touched his face again. Fever. Definitely.

  “How are you and Micaiah?” he asked. “Things between you and him took a turn for the worse, I think.”

  It was my turn to confess. I didn’t want to talk about Micaiah, not at all, but that’s the whole point of confession, to talk your way to the other side of what has got you stuck. “We broke up. But, Pilate, he’s not like he was before. He’s colder. He’s going light on his serum so we can fix Rachel.”

  Pilate squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry.”

  I wanted to shrug it all away, but it hurt. With only a handful of boys left in the world, Micaiah had been my one and only chance of having a family. That was gone now. Even if we delivered the cure and women started having baby boys, I was sixteen; I’d be an old lady once the dating pool got deep enough for me to take a swim in.

  Better to be alone than to betray myself being with someone who couldn’t be honest with me. But I’d be lying if I told you I was over him that quick. No, a little part of me hoped he’d come back to me, on his knees, pleading for forgiveness. Mostly I regretted ever falling for him
in the first place.

  Yet, his face, his heart, had been so lovely for so long.

  “I would imagine it’s like dating a boy who’s mentally ill,” Pilate said. “When he’s on his meds, it’s roses and puppies, and when he’s off them, he’s a train wreck.”

  My already sunken heart dipped further into my belly. “Not sure I can show him the compassion he needs.”

  “Compassion. It comes from the Latin, to feel with someone. Maybe you just need to feel it with him, ride it with him. I don’t know. I’ve been with my fair share of mentally ill women, but then I’m a selfish jackerdan, and I can disconnect when I need to. Can you?”

  And that was the heart of the matter. I couldn’t. When I loved someone, I needed them to be right in the middle of the emotions with me.

  Pilate saw the answer in my face. “Just be careful,” he said.

  “Story of my life,” I said, “trying to be careful walking through a rattlesnake pit. Easier to just not chance anything at all, ever.”

  “That’s what death is, Cavvy. No chance for anything to change ever again. Life is a risk. All of life. But we can be smart about it.”

  “I know it’s my plan and all, but do you think we can make it back to Burlington? If Sharlotte dies, I’ll die. I know it.” I’d been thinking so much about Glenwood Springs I hadn’t wanted to bring it up. But I was more worried about my sister right then.

  Pilate shrugged, then smirked, then smiled. “As long as we’re in the Juniper, I believe in God, and He will heal Sharlotte and protect us with His ever-loving right hand.”

  “You don’t believe that,” I said.

  “Not a bit. I’ve seen firsthand what that jackerdan can do with His evil left. That’s why I have my guns and Wren along. You be the pacifist on this little trip. That will keep us both honest and remind me that I’m still a priest.”

  “Suspended priest.” I grinned and added, “Peter.”

  “Pilate, if you please. I knew Peter Pilgram back in the day. He’s retired, now, to a monastery in New Hampshire to write a book on the theology of atheism. Or is it the atheism of theology? Probably doesn’t matter. Unless it does. Anyway, I’ve never received an official letter from Rome, so as far as I’m concerned, I am an active clergyman and in good standing.”

  Of course he’d never gotten a letter. He never stayed anywhere long enough to collect it, and from what I’d seen, he stayed away from other priests. He said all those creepy Christians made him nervous.

  I pushed myself over and put my head on his chest. The storm of coughing had moved off, thank God.

  Like always, Pilate holding me felt good, and I knew why—touch has a powerful effect on our neurochemicals. Also, Pilate was my biological father, though I’d only just found out. If I’d have listened to my bones, I would’ve guessed it as a toddler the first time I crawled into his lap.

  (iii)

  The sun set, and the stars rained down their twinkle.

  Micaiah had to slow way down ’cause the moon hadn’t risen yet, and it was awfully dark. Creeping along frustrated me, but there was nothing we could do to help it. We skirted a town, Salina maybe, and drove through fields and by farmhouses until we found an old highway with a sign and everything. Where I came from all the signs had been salvaged for scrap.

  In the middle of what had been Utah, not only was there asphalt, but a metal sign proclaimed we were on I-70, eastbound. Still, time had done her work. What had been four lanes of blacktop had narrowed down to a pitted two.

  Another mountain range rose in the distance—it wasn’t the Rockies, no, far from it. The truck rattled up inclines, and every hiccup and grind set me on edge. I thought for sure we’d stall trying to get over the pass, but we didn’t.

  The truck rattled down the last slope, a tick in the engine turned into a whine turned into clanking. The dark path of the highway cut through a pale desert; the pines were gone, and the ground turned to sandstone. The bare rock and sand couldn’t hold in the heat, and I felt the change in temperature. I grew even colder when I realized my pants were wet.

  “Hey, Pilate, do we have a leak somewhere?” I asked.

  He patted his own thighs, frowning.

  “Yeah, Princess, we do.” Wren held up the twenty-liter jug, which had contained most of our water. “The plastic cracked, too goddamn old.”

  The words had just left her mouth when the clattering truck let out a howl. Noxious smoke poured out from underneath the hood. I pounded on the back window. “Micaiah, turn off the engine before she blows!”

  BOOM! Too late.

  We rolled to a stop. A seemingly endless rock desert stretched before us.

  “Look! There!” Rachel hollered and pointed behind us.

  A light sparkled in the dark clouds above the mountains, lighting the bloated body of a Johnny-class zeppelin.

  The spark ignited into the circle of a spotlight sweeping down the freeway. More sparks rained down, bright as lightning, searching I-70.

  The ARK soldiers, in one of the Johnny Boy blimps, were about five minutes from shining their searchlight on us.

  Chapter Eight

  She was pretty as a prom dress

  When she wasn’t holding a razor to my throat

  — Cletus James Boothe

  (i)

  WE WERE OUT OF THE truck in a heartbeat. I ran to the trailer. We didn’t have a moon, but the blasted landscape reflected every bit of light from the star-filled sky. I fumbled with the safety chains and finally unhooked them. We’d have to hide the truck and trailer ’cause derelict vehicles might not raise suspicion, but our fully-loaded rig would stick out in the middle of the road.

  The round glare of the light continued its relentless tracking toward us. They were burning a magnesium ribbon and focusing the light through something like a Fresnel lens. Instant Juniper searchlight.

  We’d met the soldiers inside the zeppelin before, at the Scheutz farm, and though we’d defeated their Vixx leaders, we couldn’t fight all those troops packed inside.

  Our only choice was to hide. Alongside the chipped asphalt, sharp pinnacles and squat mounds towered over us. The landscape wept; it was a sea of cracked earth and crumbled stone—wrinkled, wasted, carved into deep crevices by time, wind, and what little water there was.

  A ravine bit through the earth about five meters from us. The bottom was lost to darkness. We could hide there.

  First we had to deal with the truck.

  I heaved and dropped the trailer hitch onto the asphalt.

  Micaiah and Pilate hauled Sharlotte out of the truck and dragged her to the side. She shrieked, and my heart caught in my chest. She was awake now, squawking; her timing couldn’t be worse.

  I risked raising my voice. “I’ll quiet Sharlotte! We need to push the truck into the ravine, and get the bikes off the trailer, and dump them to the side. And we need it all done yesterday. Careful of the water. Careful of the bikes.”

  I snatched a bike off the trailer and peddled it over to Sharlotte. I let it fall. Micaiah, Pilate, Rachel, and Wren pushed the truck toward the deep crack in the stone.

  Sharlotte latched onto my arm. The fire on her skin burned me. If she died, it would be my fault, and yet, if she continued to yell and fight, she’d kill us all.

  “Cavvy! You cut off my jackering leg, you jacking kutia! You shoulda let me die!” In the muffled light of the hidden moon, shadows darkened Sharlotte’s eyes into black pits.

  Every word was an ice pick in my chest.

  I grabbed her face. Sweat immediately drenched my hands, and her smell, a dark, unhealthy stink, hurt me as much as her words.

  “Sharlotte, you have to be quiet. And you have to ...”

  Her hand went to Wren’s Betty knife, sheathed in my belt. I caught her wrist before she could stab herself, but she fought me. Our arms shook as we battled. She was stronger, but I wouldn’t let her kill herself. I’d rather be the one to die.

  The zeppelin’s light grew nearer every second. An errant b
reeze brought the magnesium stink, and I thought I could hear the sizzle of their julie-rigged searchlight.

  I swung my elbow around and struck Sharlotte’s face. It stunned her enough for me to wrestle the knife away and toss it into the sand. Swinging around, I grabbed her armpits and hauled her away from the road.

  She twisted, kicked her leg, kicked her stump, and yowled at the pain.

  The metallic scream of the falling truck striking stone sent a mad clash of destruction echoing into the night, followed by a cloud of dust and the smell of a diesel engine destroyed. If the wind didn’t settle the debris, and quick, the ARK would send soldiers to investigate.

  The searchlight flickered its way down I-70, drawing closer.

  The others had dealt with the truck, but they still needed time to hide the trailer. No time to remove the bikes. Micaiah and Wren grabbed the hitch while Rachel and Pilate pushed from the back, and they ran the trailer down the highway toward the ravine. A bike tumbled off to lie on the pavement.

  Sharlotte and I couldn’t get to the ravine in time. My ankle dizzied me with new pain as I dragged my flailing sister across slickrock toward a hoodoo, a slab of stone standing like a frozen saguaro. We could hide behind the tall rock tower.

  The cracking crash of the trailer smashing into the ravine made me flinch. Less dust rose from the trailer’s fall; it must’ve landed on the truck. The others hurriedly took refuge in the ravine.

  I swept Sharlotte around to the far side of the hoodoo. She punched me in the face, and blood gushed from my nose. Wasn’t the first time one of my sisters socked me, but you know what? It was the last.

  One small comfort I guess.

  I caught the next punch and brought her fist down to her chest and heaved her onto my lap. Then I grabbed Sharlotte’s soaking hair and whispered fiercely in her ear, “The ARK is above us, and if you yell or move, they’ll find us. You might want to kill yourself, but do you want to kill us all?”