Inferno Girls

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  On the edge of town, a farmer’s field, gone to fallow, gave us tall grasses to hide in until we came to a vast stretch of cracked concrete—two hundred meters of open space to get to the cottonwoods along the Green River on the other side. The only possible shelter was an old Prius sitting on blocks in the middle of the vacant lot.

  Sharlotte saw the cracks and crannies. “Cavvy, my wheelchair won’t make it over that terrain. I don’t want to stay behind, believe me, but I don’t see another way.”

  “Someone’ll have to carry you.”

  Pilate was choking down coughs and looked wan. Couldn’t be him.

  I touched Rachel’s arm. “Can you carry Sharlotte?”

  “Our big sister?” Rachel nodded. “It would be my duty and my pleasure.”

  “I prefer oldest sister, not big sister. I have slimmed down some, so I shouldn’t be too heavy.” Shar said it as a joke.

  I was glad for the quip. It meant Sharlotte was getting herself unstuck.

  The tanks and most of the ARK forces were behind us, doing house-to-house searches in the intense light of the zeppelin. Ahead, the first airship we’d seen floated back toward us. Its searchlight struck the river, making the water glow green like flowing emeralds.

  This was our chance. The Regios hadn’t found the canoes yet, and we’d left the thrift store in the same shape we’d found it.

  Wren’s color was up, and she was nearly laughing with excitement. “Okay, let’s go. Can you run, old man?”

  Pilate glanced around. “Are you talking to me? Oh yeah, not a lot of men left. Must be me. Let’s go in for the touchdown.”

  “Go, team, fight,” Sharlotte said.

  Micaiah gripped my hand and kissed my cheek. “For luck.”

  And I kissed him back. “For luck.” Like in that one Star Wars video.

  Rachel bent over to carry Sharlotte piggyback. Dang, but our Rachel was strong, preternaturally so.

  We took off with drumming boot steps across the chipped cement.

  My breath rushed through my lungs, and the raw fury of my adrenaline pushed me to go faster.

  Wren, of course, ran the fastest of all, followed by Rachel with Sharlotte clinging to her, then Micaiah and me, running hand in hand, with Pilate barreling along behind us, his poor lungs ratcheting. But I knew, despite the horror, the risk, the sheer insanity of that dash, like always, Pilate would be lucky. He’d make it.

  Of course.

  Then I heard him fall. He tripped and rolled, coughing until I heard him retch.

  “Cavvy, you can’t stop. Come on.” Wren hissed from the cottonwoods. She’d made it, and she was waving us in, panic on her face. ARK soldiers, somewhere, coming closer. The zeppelin zoomed over the river heading toward the parking lot.

  I jammed to a stop, only I didn’t stop for long. Micaiah had me by the arm, and he went to pull me away, but I fought him. I wouldn’t leave Pilate.

  Micaiah didn’t pause.

  Rachel was strong, but then so was Micaiah. He whirled me around like I was made of hay and threw me across his shoulder. My diaphragm pressed down onto his collarbone. I couldn’t breathe, let alone struggle, as he ran those last thirty meters to the tree line.

  Once in the foliage, I struggled away from Micaiah. Didn’t like him throwing me around like that, but he saved my life. And maybe Pilate’s as well.

  An Acevedo turned into the vacant lot, with ARK soldiers on top, looking every which way. At the same time, the zeppelin left the river, and the magnesium searchlight hit the parking lot, lighting up the place like it was high noon. Not a single shadow to hide in.

  But Pilate. Where was Pilate?

  From our angle, we could see him in the Prius, hunkered down in the passenger seat. The searchlight found the Prius and stopped there.

  Stopped. Like my heart. Like all our breaths.

  Next to me, Wren gripped Tina Machinegun. I knew, if the ARK’s Regios spied Pilate, if they started for him, she would let out a war cry and charge those soldier girls and that tank by herself.

  I could hear Pilate, coughing, trying not to, but coughing still.

  Please, God, please. Don’t take our Pilate away from us.

  The tank rumbled by the Prius.

  And who sat manning the machine guns on top of the tank? Praetor Gianna Edger. Like Rachel, she had survived the stampede. And like before, she was leading the troops to find us. Seeing her alive and well, shook me. When would we ever see the last of her?

  The tank took Edger to Main Street, where it turned left, past the old truck stop, gas station, and liquor store and headed across the bridge. The zeppelin traveled onward, west, to where we’d come from.

  Hundreds of soldiers streamed past on the main street, nearing where Wren and I had loaded up the canoes, south of the bridge. We had to get to the boats before the soldiers did or lose everything.

  Once the soldiers left the parking lot, Wren broke from the cottonwoods, sped over to Pilate, seized him, and they stumbled back. Then we all hurried to the banks and threw ourselves into the muddy water.

  The cold current, strong with spring melt, whipped us down through swift waters. It wasn’t completely dark yet, so it’d be a race—would we make it under the bridge before the ARK troops saw us?

  Could we get to the canoes? Or would we be machine-gunned in the water like rats in a bathtub?

  We glided down, down, in the current, and we couldn’t hear anything, could barely see the silhouettes of the hotels on the east side of the river.

  We were taken under the bridge just before the first soldiers stepped forward. We swam to the shore, hiding in the shadows of the towering cottonwoods. In seconds, we had the canoes in the water, both loaded down with gear, bikes, and the collapsible bike trailer.

  Sharlotte, Micaiah, and I leapt into one canoe, while Pilate, Rachel, and Wren eased into the other. We had to crawl across tangles of bike frames, bike tires, handlebars, yellow plastic bins of food, and backpacks loaded with clothes.

  A third zeppelin fired up their searchlight on the bridge we’d just passed under. Instead of moving south, it turned north.

  We didn’t pause. Pushing our boats into the water, we caught the current and drifted quickly south. We oared closer to the bank to stay under the trees until we reached the southern edge of town, where the greenery stopped and the desert dirt took over.

  Above the town, a total of six zeppelins flooded the town with sizzling, blinding searchlights.

  We all watched in silence. A battalion of troops, a dozen tanks, half-a-dozen airships, all combing the countryside for us.

  And yet we’d evaded them, hadn’t taken a single casualty, and even snuck away with our wounded in a wheelchair.

  We’d gotten lucky, but such luck rarely stays around long.

  (iii)

  Downriver from the town of Green River, the night hid both the desert and us. The moon wouldn’t rise for many hours, so we had a blanket of night to hide under. We tied our canoes together so we could talk as we floated. Stars painted the river in a glitter-glow.

  “So, Rachel, last time we saw you, you sucker punched me ’cause you were scared,” Wren said. “I swore if I ever saw you again, I’d put you down. Would’ve, if you hadn’t run up to warn us about the troops. You have a change of heart or what?”

  “My heart hasn’t changed,” Rachel said.

  Fear hooked me, and I tried to rise, but the canoe shuddered under me.

  Wren put a hand on a Colt Terminator. Pilate coughed as he tried to get to his gun.

  “My heart continues to act as a vital part of my circulatory systems,” Rachel said. “In a more metaphysical sense, my heart has changed. I must be kind, which is one third of my new imperatives. I can’t be kind if I’m violent.”

  Rachel fell quiet. Water swished around our boats. A night bird tittered from somewhere on the bank.

  “How are you handling your fear?” Pilate asked.

  “I’m learning to let go of it,” Rachel said. “Insid
e me, there’s a quiet place the fear can’t touch. If I live in that quiet place, I’m at peace. My time alone, distracting the Cuius Regios, proved to be very therapeutic.”

  “I guess so,” Pilate said. “You might have to counsel me.”

  “I’d like that.” A shiny smile lit up Rachel’s face. It kind of came off as flirting, which would be a surprise. Rachel and Pilate together? Couldn’t quite see it.

  “How are you doing, Sharlotte?” Pilate asked.

  Took a long time for her to answer. Then she said, “A voice in the silence. Maybe someday I’ll be more, but for now, that’ll do.”

  I let out a sigh, a little relieved, a little scared.

  “You’ll make it, Sharlotte,” Pilate said. “But you, Cavvy, it’s you I’m worried about.” He collapsed into coughing.

  “How so?”

  Pilate spat into the ink of the river. “You, my darling daughter, about got us both killed back at the parking lot when I tripped. Like I said before, you need to understand that sometimes you have to leave people behind to save them. And to save yourself. If Micaiah hadn’t scooped you up, we’d have both been caught. That old Prius could only hide one genius, not two.”

  I let out an exasperated gasp. “You all are so willing to sacrifice yourselves for the group. Rachel runs off to start fires, Sharlotte wants to be left behind, and Wren just loves the idea of going out in a rain of bullets. Well, I say all that is crapperjack. Pilate, you’re trying to teach me a lesson I don’t wanna learn. I won’t leave people behind, never. And notice, I’ve never left y’all to be a hero.”

  Pilate didn’t make a joke, didn’t cough. Instead, his voice reached out to me, firm and steady. “You will have to. Before this is all over, you will have to go forward, alone if need be. Not sure how I know that, but I do. Promise me you will.”

  “No,” I shot back.

  He put a hand on his heart and raised his head to the sky, “Hey, Jesus, how come you gave all these Weller girls such contrary spirits?” Then to me, “You, my wretched child, are as much of a pain in my ass as God is.”

  I nodded. “Took you long enough to figure that out.”

  “And I thought you were the nice one,” he added.

  “That’s me now,” Sharlotte cut in. “What did Wren say back at the Scheutz ranch? The good, the bad, and the ugly?”

  “I’m the ugly one now.” Wren motioned to her ruined teeth. “Sharlotte, I like it when you’re the good one. So that means Cavvy is gonna have to take over as the bad one.”

  It was all said as a joke, but it wasn’t. Not a bit.

  I would, in time, take a turn at sinning. At some point, I do believe, we all are bound to stumble. Some will fall. Some will stay down. Others will rise.

  We floated the ten kilometers down to a hidden little trickle of a stream we almost missed in the moonrise. The inlet into the Green River would undoubtedly be gone in another month, once summer fried the ground from horizon to horizon.

  The moon rose. Wren ran recon and came back excited. “Found the perfect place for us. Couldn’t be better.”

  We dragged the canoes out of the water, took out some bikes and gear, and then portaged the canoes up to an oasis of water and beauty. A waterfall tumbled in a silver gush over the lip of a canyon and into a pool overflowing with grasses and plant life. The waterfall had eaten away the rock above, creating a natural shelter, away from the elements, sunshine, and the spying eyes of the ARK.

  We’d have to be careful, couldn’t have fires, and we’d have to continue to live like owls, shying away from daylight. But if we were smart, the desert would hide us.

  I hugged Rachel for a long time, then Sharlotte, then Wren. My sisters. Pilate and Micaiah, I embraced them too.

  While Pilate held me, he whispered into my ear. “Sharlotte came back, Rachel came back, Wren came back. We all will come back together. Live in faith, not fear.”

  “I’ll try, Pilate,” I said.

  (iv)

  Three months passed like a single short, cool summer night. The waterfall never did dry out, and we were treated to thunderstorms almost every afternoon. For a desert, it sure did rain a lot. Huge drops came falling out of black skies, battling the wind with lightning and thunderclaps that left my ears ringing.

  Wren and Rachel took scouting trips into Green River. Rachel had been right—the ARK left behind a dozen soldiers. My sisters would come back with more food and stories of almost getting caught, but not really. Both were too smart and sneaky.

  Micaiah and I would go for long hikes across the slickrock, and we watched sunsets and sunrises paint the desert every kind of color. We kissed, did more, but never went all the way, ’cause I couldn’t quite let myself. I was young and feeling it; the kissing and caresses were fire enough.

  Three months. Gone.

  Wren had adventures in Moab, of course, ’cause she could hardly keep still, but in the end, it was a quiet time of healing. My ankle, my shoulder, the gash over my eyes, all healed. Rachel removed the stitches Petal had put in and did the same for Sharlotte’s stump.

  We were both left scarred, Sharlotte far more than me. The Juniper marked those who lived on her soil—the pretty grew rough, and the soft grew hard. But on the other hand, the weak grew strong.

  Pilate’s cough came and went and came back again for an encore.

  Rachel seemed to relax into her emotions. Both her and Pilate grew closer from their counseling.

  Sharlotte found her poetry again.

  Rachel and I talked about the anomalous societal condition in Glenwood Springs, and we thought about leaving early to avoid I-70, but we didn’t have enough information to make an informed decision.

  And after what we’d already been through, could Glenwood Springs be any worse? Besides, the ARK still scouted the area. Moving would be dangerous.

  Then, like that, we knew our time was over.

  One day, Wren came back on her bike and said that every soldier had left Green River. We didn’t know if they’d given up the hunt or if they’d been called to another town, but we took it as a sign.

  At the end of August, we packed up and left. I gave the waterfall oasis one last look, one last wave, and walked away.

  We crossed the river and luckily, found an old bike trail across the desert. Pilate said it was called the Kokopelli Trail and had been especially popular with German tourists, but he was always saying stuff. And Rachel always listened, her eyes glued to his face.

  Like animals, we rested in the dark of night and in the heat of the day. Dawn and dusk were our active times, pedaling across the dirt, up slickrock ridges and down single-track trails.

  Even Sharlotte. I’d made a housing for her peg leg and attached a cleat to the bottom which snapped into the clip-on pedal. She’d gotten used to her leg, standing, walking, doing chores. Slowly, slowly, her body got used to the new leg. With her dress over it, you wouldn’t even know.

  Pilate’s cough was another story.

  Wren pulled the trailer loaded with food, water, guns, and ammunition.

  Cliffs, crags, every type of valley got in our way. Boulders powdery with dust edged by ratty sagebrush forced us to carry our bikes and trailers up and around them. Afternoon storms cooled us and gave us water for our thirsty tongues.

  One such storm boiled the blue-gray sky into a cloudy maelstrom and forced us to find shelter under a series of arches running along the path.

  Rachel and I hunkered down under one overhang while the rest of our people found another. The rain and hail pelted the ground making the sand jump. A tangle of juniper bush grew in the cracks near our arch. I crushed one of the gray berries in my fingers then sniffed them. Such a smell brought back memories of Mama and my childhood. Dob Howerter once said that juniper smelled like money; if anyone would know that, he would. He’d struck it rich while us Wellers owed him a bunch of money. Well, we’d pay him back and save the ranch. Yes, we would.

  Utah’s greasewood lay far behind us. We wouldn’t see any
again.

  Rachel caught me smelling my fingers. She grabbed my hand and brought it close to her nose. It was rather intimate, but so unexpected I didn’t pull away.

  She looked into my eyes and smiled. Like I’d promised, she’d started experiencing the good emotions that make the damn things worth it.

  “It smells good,” she said. “The bathrooms in the ARK clinic where I was formed had a similar odor.”

  Where I was formed ... She truly was so very different than me.

  She squeezed my hand and let go. Such a simple gesture, a simple squeeze, made me realize how far she’d come. A red-winged blackbird flitted away from where we’d been hiding in the sage and soared down to another dry spot behind some rocks.

  Rachel grew somber. “And there were juniper bushes where we trained. I think back to those times, when I was being conditioned for warfare, and part of me realizes how limited I was. In more figurative terms, I was blind. Now I see.”

  “Like the song. ‘Amazing Grace.’” I remembered singing it with Wren in Green River.

  She thought for a minute. “I am unfamiliar with songs. My training did not include music, for obvious reasons. Will you sing it?”

  I blushed. Took in a deep breath. And sang the first two stanzas.

  Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

  That saved a wretch like me.

  I once was lost, but now I’m found,

  Was blind, but now, I see.

  ’Twas Grace that taught

  my heart to fear.

  And Grace, my fears relieved.

  How precious did that Grace appear,

  the hour I first believed.

  Rachel’s face clouded so much I stopped.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Grace gave us fear. Grace can relieve the fear. It’s a paradox.”

  “Remember that quiet you talked about?” I touched my chest. “Maybe it’s good we get to feel. And maybe it’s also good there are parts of our hearts that are quiet. I don’t know.”

  “The fear can be so loud in me,” Rachel whispered. “All these long months running, I keep thinking of the anomalous societal condition in Glenwood Springs. What’s there? What’s disrupting the regional traffic? And will we survive it?”