by Teresa Grabs
Echo walked around her new home a little more, then sat down under a tree near some bushes and pulled out her journal. She detailed her path from the city to the rock oasis, then to her new home. She drew what the carrot plant looked like and described how the root looked, smelled, and tasted. She drew the strawberry plant and its sweet, delicious fruit. Maybe this will help someone else after I’m gone. While she had shelter and some food right now, she knew that everything was limited and eventually she would run out again. Or the anghenbeast would find her like they found Andrew. She sighed and pushed that thought from her mind.
Unconsciously she reached over and pulled a pink berry off the bush next to her and ate it. Then another and another. They were sweet and enticing, but before she could eat her eighth berry, her hand began shaking. She fell to the ground convulsing while Charlie ran circles around her, barking, trying to help, but was unable to do anything to help his friend. After a few minutes, her convulsions stopped, and she lay on the ground with her eyes closed. Charlie began sniffing as she vomited. He jumped back when she started convulsing again, trying to stay out of her way, yet close enough for her to know he was there. As before, Echo stopped shaking and vomited only to have the process begin again.
This process carried on into the early evening when she vomited and laid still, finally resting. Her breathing was labored, and Charlie became more anxious with each breath, but he laid by her side with his head on her chest so that she would know he was there. As the hours passed, the more Charlie became upset, and when the sky was filled with stars, he began crying and whimpering. He wanted her to wake up. To talk to him. To play in the water with him. His head rose and fell with every breath bobbing him into a restless slumber.
When the morning light filtered through the trees, Charlie woke to find Echo gone. Panicked, he jumped on his paws and started barking madly. He dashed between the trees and bushes looking for her.
“Charlie, sheesh, what are you going on about? Can’t I go to the bathroom?”
Charlie’s tail wagged faster than his body could take, and he knocked himself into the spring. Echo laughed. She kneeled at the water and took a long drink while Charlie got out, shook off, and put his front paws on her shoulder. She scratched his belly and laughed even more. It felt good to laugh. She felt very strange though. Weak. She didn’t remember what happened and there was no one around who could really tell her. She remembered sitting by the bush, looking around, thinking, and writing in her journal. She picked up her journal and looked at the dry, crusty remnants of a puddle of vomit then remembered she was eating something. Echo examined the bush and found red and green berries.
“Never touch those again!” she told herself, pointing to the bush.
Echo picked up her pencil and opened her journal while sitting on the ground near the pond. She drew the bush and described the berries in exquisite detail along with the warning, ‘NEVER EAT!’. She never wanted to go through that experience again, and from the way Charlie was behaving, she guessed he didn’t want to either. One thing was for sure though; she had survived two nights in the Austero Plains. She stood up proudly and put her journal back in her backpack, looking around. This oasis also proved its name was wrong. There was something out in the Austero Plains and, as she took a long look around her home, then out into the dry expanse that surrounded her, she wondered what else lay in wait for her to discover.
Life began anew at the oasis. Using fallen branches and undergrowth, Echo made a small shelter that served as her new home, and she found an old, large shell that became a perfect drinking bowl. She found strawberries and carrots to be a perfect combination of sweet, crunchy, and juicy, although some mornings she longed for her mother’s morning hash and a protein bar. Her clothes were worn, dirty, and ripped, but she could live with that. It was the growing knots in her hair that bothered her the most. The spring water made things worse since she didn’t have any hair or body wash. The knots were so bad even her hairbrush gave up trying and broke. She never paused too long thinking about her hygiene situation.
During the day, she wandered around the oasis, but never ventured so far that she could no longer see the trees. She didn’t want to lose her new home by becoming lost in the sandy plains that surrounded her oasis. Charlie was a faithful companion, but since he could not speak English, and she could not speak dog, she erred on the side of caution. At night she rested under the night sky and told the family photo stories of her day and imagined what Johnny was doing. She was happy he was not there with her though. The thought of Johnny being out there hot, hungry, and always tired, was something she worked every day to push from her mind.
◆◆◆
Time meant nothing, and she did not keep track of the sunrises or sunsets, but Mother Nature had a calendar of its own, and she estimated her exile had been at least three weeks. Leaves were horrible products to use during her period, and she wished she had found more of Matthew’s uniform as the fabric would have been useful. Mother Nature also told her it was early summer as late afternoon and evening storms on the horizon provided nighttime entertainment as heat lightning lit up the dark sky. On stormy nights, she laid under her makeshift home and smiled. She loved remembering how happy everyone was the night of the dance. That is how she wanted to remember them. Happy, laughing, and more than anything else, together. She wasn’t alone though, and that gave some solace to her situation.
One morning crashing thunder and Charlie’s whimpering startled her awake. Rain fell as lightning streaked overhead bouncing from cloud to cloud then down to the Earth where it struck with bone-rattling force. Howling winds charged through the oasis, ripping her makeshift home apart with one mighty blow.
“CHARLIE!” she screamed.
Echo grabbed her backpack and huddled under a tree. Shaking, wet, and terrified, Charlie bolted to her side. She had been in storms in Bakerton many times, and she loved to watch the lightning strike the rods atop each of the buildings and create electrifying music, but this was not Bakerton, and suddenly storms seemed more monstrous and vicious. She screamed and buried her head in Charlie’s fur with each building roll of thunder.
The ground beneath her quaked at the storm’s presence. Her mother used to tell her to count between the lightning and the thunder, and that would tell her how far away the storm was, and if it was moving closer or further away. She tried everything to keep her mind occupied with something other than the fact she was going to die at any moment. A flash of lightning blasted across the sky making it brighter than the midday sun. One. Two. Three. Thunder rattled and rolled across the sky.
“Three miles, Charlie. It’s three miles away.”
Another bolt of lightning lit up the sky behind her. One. Two.
“Two miles, Charlie. It’s coming closer,” she whimpered between heaving breaths.
Charlie had had enough of quaking under a tree in the oasis and with the next roar of thunder, squirmed out from Echo’s grasp and bolted into the plains.
“CHARLIE!”
Echo hugged the tree as the winds threatened to destroy her home. Wind ripped small plants from the rain-soaked ground. In between flashes of light and claps of thunder, she heard Charlie’s cries in the dark. A bolt of lightning struck the ground close to her home. Echo fled into the plains screaming for Charlie.
“WHERE ARE YOU?” she screamed, shielding her eyes from the bright flashes of lightning.
Between each boom and crash of thunder, she strained and listened for his bark or whimper. Her thoughts were no longer clouded by fear or longing to be home. Only one thought filled her mind. She must find her friend.
“CHARLIE!”
She continued trudging through the now muddy plains and only paused long enough to scan the area under flashes of lightning. As she crested a small hill not too far from home, she heard his faint bark.
“Charlie, I hear you!” she yelled in the direction of his bark. “Keep barking. I’m coming.”
Covered in mud and tears, na
vigating only by his barks and flashes of lightning, she eventually found Charlie who had taken refuge under an overhanging rock that provided a small, dry shelter from the storm.
“Smart boy,” she said, crouching under the rock next to Charlie, hugging him. “You’re such a good, smart boy.”
As the storm intensified overhead, their little cubby filled with water, but neither was inclined to run back into the storm. Charlie’s fur raised. Echo laughed lightly as it sprung to attention every time she tried to flatten it. It failed to be funny when her wet hair raised on its own. The air was filled with intense electricity that took her breath away. Even though the rain came down heavily, it seemed as if some unseen force sucked all the sounds out of the air before they could be heard. She couldn’t even hear her pounding heart and heavy breathing that were so prevalent just moments earlier. Every ounce of her being was on edge, waiting for the inevitable. With a bright flash and Earth-splitting crack, a bolt of lightning struck the oasis and sent flames and smoke into the sky that was visible from their cubby. The winds blew the storm on as if knowing its job was done and left only clear blue skies and a smoldering home.
Echo watched from under her rocky shelter as the smoke changed from dark black to light grey, then dissipated. There was nothing left to burn. She cried as Charlie, the ever-faithful friend, rested his head on her arm and calmly licked it. When there were no more tears left to shed, she crept from under her storm shelter and walked back to her home in silence.
“Our home,” she said, cresting the muddy hill, and seeing only a few burnt stumps.
Back at the once beautiful and plentiful oasis, she found her spring covered with thick ash and branches. There were no more strawberry plants or berry bushes. Even the carrots had burned or shriveled in their muddy homes. She had lost everything in her life again, and it was too much. Echo fell to the ground on her knees and cried. She was back at square one with no food, no water, and no shelter.
“What are we going to do Charlie?” she asked between sobs.
He cocked his head looking at her as if he had understood every word, barked in her face, then wanted to play. Nothing for him had changed. He had Echo, and that was all that mattered. She wiped her eyes and started playing with him. They used to play fetch with an invisible ball back at home in Bakerton, and she began to laugh as he chased after something that wasn’t there. His playful bark brought a smile to her face.
“At least I’m not alone,” she said, throwing her empty fist through the air, and laughing as Charlie chased after the invisible ball again.
When Charlie was tuckered out from running back and forth chasing after a ball that wasn’t there, he laid on the charred ground at her knees and panted. Echo laughed lightly as she stroked his head. She had Charlie, and that was more than Matthew had. Life, and what is most important, seemed to take on a different meaning out in the plains. She wondered if Matthew would have made it as far as she had if he would have had a companion. Taking a lesson from Charlie, Echo looked around her former home with new eyes. It wasn’t the trees, water, and strawberries that made it home. It was her and Charlie. The plants and trees had to come from somewhere. All they needed to do was to find another one. This one was gone.
Echo took a deep breath and sighed. “Well, Charlie, always move forward.”
Eleven
She stood up, dusted off her mud crusted pants as best as she could. Charlie wagged excitedly and started trotting off into the plains back toward the morning’s rocky shelter.
Their new home was further away from the oasis than she first thought. Approaching with a clear mind and bright, sunny skies this time revealed their shelter was connected to a massive rock formation for jutted from the ground as if something was trying to escape the Earth’s depths.
“Wow!”
She looked at the rock formation that was at least ten times her height with disbelief. She had never seen anything that large that wasn’t manmade. Charlie had already jumped on the rocks and happily leaped from rock to rock. He climbed higher and higher. His happy barking made her happy, and he looked like he was having so much fun that she couldn’t help but want to follow him to the top.
“Let’s see what’s up there.”
The first few levels of rocks were easy to climb, but Echo found going higher more difficult than Charlie did. He would run from higher up, back down to where she was, showing her the most accessible way up. He wanted her to join him at the top. It took some time, and she was tired, sweaty, and thirsty when she joined Charlie at the top, but the view was spectacular and well worth the effort. The afternoon sun was starting its journey toward the horizon.
When Echo was younger, her father took her to visit his office on the eightieth floor of his office building, but the view was nothing like this. She felt like she could see the whole world from up there. She shielded her eyes from the sun and tried to see the city from there, but all she saw in every direction was the Austero Plains. A few trees dotted the landscape along the southern horizon, and she hoped one of them would be an oasis like their former home.
“Where there is life, there is water,” she said, watching Charlie sniff the rocks back and forth as if he was tracking something or someone.
Charlie ran out of view barking and wagging his tail. Echo ran after him the best she could. Slowly and carefully she stepped from rock to rock down the other side until she caught up to Charlie who was pawing at a pile of small, loose rocks. One look at the pile and Echo knew why he was so excited. Charlie loved bones. At home, her mother would bring a bone home each week for Charlie, and he would pass the time happily gnawing on it.
“Feels like home already, huh?”
No amount of pulling and tugging on Charlie’s shoulders would distract him from his mission of finding a new bone, so she gave up and watched instead. The poor soul was already dead and nothing but bones like Matthew. After a few minutes, Echo jumped down onto the pile of rocks and helped Charlie get to his buried treasure. He found a long, intact bone and retreated to a shady spot to enjoy his reward. As he gnawed on the joint, Echo searched the bones and rocky grave for anything that might be useful. From the look of the crushed bones and loose rocks, Echo assumed they fell while climbing.
“We better be more careful from now on Charlie,” she said. “I guess we can’t call a doctor if we get hurt, huh?”
Searching the area around his unexpected grave, Echo found a bag with M7326 burned onto a patch. He came from the re-education center. She didn’t know much about the re-education center apart from rumors and her teacher’s telling the students that it was where you went when you could not, or chose not to, follow Bakerton’s rules and regulations. Her thoughts briefly turned to Andrew, but she pushed him from her mind. Inside the bag was a small dented metal cup, a hammer, and a collection of random small rocks. The sun glinted off the skeleton’s bracelet.
“Michael Howard,” she read, tilting the bracelet in the sun to examine it.
This bracelet was different. Not only did it have the person’s name engraved on it, but it also was not electronic like hers. Examining the bag more closely made her wonder just how long he had been out there. The bag’s material felt unfamiliar to her, and it had an Earthy, but sweet smell, with a hint of rock. Bakerton must have been exiling people into the plains for decades, even longer. While that thought was frightening, she had only found two people, and they were both skeletons, which meant that maybe, just maybe, she would find survivors. Her stomach growled and reminded her that finding shelter was the least of her worries. Without food and water, she would die and join Michael and Matthew as a skeleton for others to find.
“They should have named it better, Charlie,” she said, looking out toward the trees on the horizon. “There are a lot of things out here. We just have to find them.”
Charlie barked in agreement. It was still early afternoon, but she knew she had to make it to the trees and back to the rocks by dark. She looked for a safe, effortless way down
. Two steps down and something glinted on the western horizon attracting her attention. Echo shielded her eyes and squinted, trying to get a better look, but the heat’s distortion and distance made it difficult to tell what she saw.
“Tomorrow, Charlie. We’ll head that way tomorrow. First, water and food though, come on.”
She climbed down, slowly and carefully. Charlie was less cautious and waited for her at the bottom. This side of the rock formation must have been Michael’s home because she found a small cave with signs of his life in it. She looked between the tree patch and the cave, giddy with anticipation of exploring both by the end of the day.
“Food and water first,” she told Charlie. “Then we’ll stay here tonight.”
◆◆◆
They walked to what looked like might have been the nearest tree patch, but it still took her longer to get there than she expected. This oasis was just like her old one. She and Charlie took a long-welcomed drink, and she picked as many carrots and strawberries as she could find. These strawberries were still green, but some were riper than others. Echo searched for some that she and Charlie could eat that night and left the others to ripen. With her bag full, they took another long drink. She filled her new cup with water, and together they headed back to their new home.
When they arrived, the sun was just above the horizon and casting long shadows. Echo wished she had a light, or fire, or anything that gave off light. Everything out here seemed so new, large, and terrifying.
“What is that!” Echo gasped, seeing a faint glow emanating from inside Michael’s cave.
